This is a war I expect will only get more heated over the next few years: the fossil-fuel industry (last century’s dominant power) and the Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur set (this century’s).
The first major battle has broken out in California:
Still smarting from California’s recent enactment of emissions caps, the oil industry is confronting another assault in the Golden State — this one bankrolled in part by Silicon Valley tycoons pushing to fund conservation and alternative-energy initiatives with a tax on oil output.
Two of the nation’s most influential constituencies are locked in an increasingly nasty battle over a ballot initiative that could squeeze an estimated $4 billion over the next decade from oil producers in California through a tax that would be as high as 6% a barrel.
I know who I’m rooting for.
