EarthJustice is challenging the legality of the draft release of California’s climate change program, AB 32. They say it fails to follow all of the statutory requirements. Specifically:
This letter focuses on three primary deficiencies in the Draft Scoping Plan: first, the Draft Scoping Plan uses the 2020 greenhouse gas emission limit as a ceiling on the amount of greenhouse gas emission reductions required, when in reality the emissions limit is the minimum amount of reductions to be achieved by 2020; second, the Draft Scoping Plan ignores that AB 32 requires “maximum technologically feasible” emission reductions; and third, it proposes to link to the Western Climate Initiative’s cap and trade system, a system that in its current form is inconsistent with AB 32.
For more on the first two arguments, see Ken Johnson here and here. As to the third, farther down it says that WCI’s intention to allow unlimited banking banking of permits violates the statutory requirement for “maximum technologically feasible” reductions in AB 32.
Inside baseball, but incredibly important: California’s been pushing the envelope on standards for years; it would be a shame if they scaled back their ambitions in this, the most important climate bill in the country short of the still-mythical federal system.
