Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

Since the early 70’s, environmentalist have been going after oil companies.  Today, the people of California just got racked over the coals by the Global Warming environmental movement due to Assembly Bill 32.

The California Air Recourses Board (CARB), starting Jan. 1 is now taxing the fuel you use in your car illegally. AB32 states that any “de minimis” source of CO2 emissions are exempt from Cap & Trade policies.  CARB rules state mobile emission sources along with cars and trucks are exempt from Cap & Trade.  The reason is because cars and trucks fall under “de minimis” sources of emissions. 

Oil and fuel producing companies do not emit, nor are a source of CO2 emissions.  Yet the oil companies and fuel transportation companies are being forced to comply with Cap & Trade policies. These Cap & Trade costs are being passed on to you.  If you read the text of AB32, you will find only seven gasses are listed as Green House Gasses (GHG).  CO2 equivalent can only be calculated against the other six GHG.  CARB has calculated the amount CO2 that would be produced when petroleum is burned.  Don’t you find it ironic that CARB states in their rules that cars and trucks are exempt from Cap & Trade, but then force Cap & Trade on the fuel that runs cars and trucks?  Logic dictates; that if cars and trucks are exempt from Cap and Trade, then the fuel which supplies them must be exempt.  If the fuel going into cars and trucks is required to comply with Cap and Trade, then cars and trucks are not exempt. 

AB32, as well as many other past and present environmental laws, are required to consider: The technical feasibility for compliance, the auto industry and affiliated industries, the expansion or contraction of business, poverty, and most importantly, drive a reduction in GHGs.  The regulators are not considering these requirements.  This law and the environmentalist driving environmental law change have failed.  Jobs have left for overseas.  Yet the pollution, from the countries that now have American jobs, is coming back to America. 

Environmentalists have long complained that corporate greed caused these jobs to move to countries with more lax regulations.   Pollution around the planet is much greater due to these countries.  If the regulators have honestly considered those requirements, the rules would have been much different, and there would be less pollution on the planet.  All the air quality laws that I have found for California’s global warming initiatives clearly cover CO2 emissions at the source, natural gas, electric energy companies.  But oil production is not listed as an industry to be covered under Cap & Trade.  Nor is the oil industry or petroleum listed as an emission source for CO2.  This lack of holding the oil industry or petroleum to Cap & Trade is deliberate.  Other past and present environmental laws also do not mention the oil industry, or petroleum as a CO2 emission source. AB32 does mention that CARB should work with the oil industry to monitor CO2 emissions. But this is a far cry from giving CARB statutory authority to write Cap & Trade policies regulating the oil industry.  The Cap & Trade policies are creating a false economy that will have far reaching consequences on your quality of life.  What benefit will come from this program?  Will the Cap & Trade really stop the rise of CO2 into the atmosphere or will people just get use to the higher prices paid for energy? 

It is time to stop attacking energy companies and start working with industries to foster growth while limiting pollution.  It is time to start using quantitative science, based on physics, instead of junk science to develop public policy that will not work.  The economic gap between minimum wage jobs and living wage jobs becomes wider as midlevel jobs leave this country due to the false belief that CO2 causes global warming.  We are seeing the strife in the streets today are because economic opportunities are lost due to harsh environmental regulations.



Scott McComas

Manteca