Posted on November 22, 2010 by Jose R. Allen
One of the most striking campaign ads to hit the air waves during the run-up to the recent mid-term elections was the “Dead Aim” ad aired by Joe Manchin, the Senator-elect from West Virginia. The ad featured Manchin walking through an open field with a rifle cradled in his arms. He stops, deliberately loads a single cartridge into the firing chamber of the rifle, takes aim at a distant target and fires. The camera then zooms in on the target of Manchin’s single, clean shot: a fictitious Senate bill titled, “Cap and Trade.” The ad ends with Manchin staring directly into the camera and promising that, “I will take dead aim at the Cap and Trade bill because it is bad for West Virginia.”
In California voters were far more hospitable to climate change regulation in general and a cap-and-trade program in particular. Just days before California voters went to the polls to defeat a ballot initiative aimed at delaying implementation of California’s landmark global warming law (AB 32), the California Air Resources Board (ARB) released for public comment proposed regulations to implement a state-wide cap-and-trade program. The cap-and-trade program would place an overall cap on the amount of GHG that can be emitted by all sources covered by the program. The ARB would then issue allowances equal to the cap to regulated sources. The cap would be gradually reduced between 2013 and 2020 to achieve the GHG gas emissions reduction target established by AB 32. Sources subject to the cap-and-trade program would have to reduce their GHG emissions to achieve their allocated emissions limits or use offset credits to satisfy a portion of their compliance obligations.
What was used for target practice in a Senate campaign in West Virginia is used in California as the key part of the strategy to reduce GHG emissions. Only time will tell whether it will be open season on cap-and-trade programs or whether such programs are the wave of the future.
Tags: Air