Proposition 23: Opponents surge ahead in fundraising

California green technology companies and wealthy environmentalists are pouring money into a campaign to defeat Proposition 23, a November ballot initiative that would suspend the state's global warming law.

So far, opponents of  Prop 23 have raised $16.3 million, nearly twice as much as supporters of the initiative, which was launched by two Texas oil companies with refineries in California.

However, No on Prop 23 spokesman Steve Maviglio said, "We are girding for what the oil companies traditionally have done on California ballot measures, when they've dumped millions of dollars into the campaign in the final stretch."

Bill Day, a spokesman for Valero Energy Corp., which has contributed $4 million of the total $8.9 million raised for the Yes on 23 campaign, said, "Valero has not made any decisions at this point about additional financial support to the Prop 23 campaign." He added that Valero is "just one of many supporters of Proposition 23."

The ballot measure is backed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and the California Manufacturers and Technology Assn., an industry trade group. However, Valero is by far the largest contributor--giving more than three times as much as the next biggest funder, San Antonio-based Tesoro Inc. The third biggest contributor is Flint Hills Resources, a subsidiary of the Kansas-based Koch Industries, a private energy conglomerate that has been active in battling climate change legislation nationally and promoting "tea party" organizing.

California's 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, also known a AB 32, would slash the state's emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020. And it would encourage the use of solar, wind and other fossil fuel substitutes.

Scientists say that greenhouse gases, which mainly come from burning fossil fuels in cars, trucks and industrial plants, are disrupting the climate. In California, the effects have begun to be felt with melting snowpacks and rising sea levels.

Prop 23 would suspend the law until the state's unemployment rate drops to 5.5% for at least a year. The jobless rate is now over 12% and has rarely dipped to 5.5% for as long as a year, so the ballot measure would effectively suspend the global warming law indefinitely. Polls show the voters closely divided over the measure.

Despite an urgent appeal last month by Charles Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Assn., the only significant contribution to the ballot initiative in the last month was $500,000 from Ohio-based Marathon Petroleum Co. The initiative, Drevna said in an e-mail to his 416 members, could “mean the difference between life and death for our industry in this century.... For all practical purposes, AB32 would have the effect of outlawing petroleum-based fuels in California in the second half of this century.”

The largest contributor to the No on Prop 23 campaign is Thomas Steyer, founder of the San Francisco hedge fund Farallon Capital Management, who co-chairs the campaign with George Shultz, former secretary of State under President Reagan. Steyer has donated $5 million, while Venture Capitalist John Doerr, a backer of clean-tech industries, and his wife have contributed $2 million.

Other major donors to the No campaign include Robert J. Fisher, founder of the Gap, and a long-time supporter of environmental causes,  Wendy Schmidt, wife of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and the Green Tech Action Fund, a Silicon Valley group.

Anita Mangels, a spokeswoman for Yes on 23, charged that "The hedge fund manager and venture capitalist trying to kill the California Jobs Initiative stand to get richer than they already are when the state's global warming law goes into effect. The state will subsidize their green tech investments, penalize their competition and create a guaranteed market for their products."

However, Steyer, a long-time environmentalist who previously funded an energy institute at Stanford University, said very little of his hedge fund is invested in clean tech. No on Prop 23 donors "come from eight different industries," he said. "Their common thread is for jobs to grow here. Some are primarily concerned with the environment. All have the state's best interests at heart."

California has attracted $9 billion in green tech investment, far more than any other state, primarily due to AB 32, according to energy experts. Seven of the country's 10 largest clean-energy technology companies are California-based.

--Margot Roosevelt

RELATED

Prop 23 campaigns go head-to-head in TV spots

Proposition 23 poll shows a dead heat among voters

Prop 23: Oil giants are divided

Photo: Signs protesting Proposition 23 at a Valero station in Mountain View, Calif. Credit: Jack Owicki/ www.StopTexasOil.org

Comments

[antikool]

Who Says Air is Free? Not UNLESS Prop 23 passes.
Who says Air is Free? Not UNLESS Prop. 23 passes. Now you will be taxed on the Air you Breathe and who benefits from your money?
Wall Street
Follow the Money Trail ...
government-created carbon trading market as their next major profit center.

[Gregorreis]

Instead of suspending AB 32 when unemployment is high, we should suspend the hiring of nonresidents! Residence could be defined as 1 year in California or 1 year out of the last ten... details would need to be worked out, but we should target what would actually help reduce unemployment! Prop 23 is just a distraction funded by big oil.

[save the deserts!]

this wouldn't even have to be a fight if CA were willing to do clean energy properly, as it's already being done all over the world.

the model for the energy grid should be "the internet" - dynamic, decentralized, democratic and multi-directional. it should not be "dead end street" - centralized, remote, expensive, vulnerable, unreliable and monopolistic.

WE could easily produce - this year - 50% of the state's power right in our built environment, using affordable, reliable, CLEAN PV if we had the right system - PACE loans and feed in tariffs.

Instead, the dinosaurs want to kill wilderness for Big Oil and Big Coal and the greenwashers want to kill wilderness for Big Solar and Big Wind. Notice that at the center of both failed models is Big Energy. What Big Energy is REALLY fighting is the democratization of our energy production - Big Solar and Big Wind don't scare them because THEY OWN THEM. WE are the threat.

George Schultz and James Woolsey - two of Reagan's closest advisors - are pushing for the system that will make our energy supply secure from hackers, terrorists, supply and pricing manipulations and weather - decentralized clean power production SUPPORTED BY FEED IN TARIFFS, which means WE get paid for producing the clean power right where it is needed.

Sure, we will still need gas for nighttime, and absolutely, we need massive (jobs-creating) efficiency upgrades to shave peak loads, and make sense of ANY energy future. Local solar also creates twice as many jobs as Big Solar and 3 times as many jobs as Big Wind, and the feed in tariffs are paid to US, so the money stays in our communities (not offshored to Big Energy), plus the efficiency upgrades and PV panels HUGELY improve property values.

So, we can knock out a large percentage of our poisonous fossil fuel usage, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, reduce our energy bills, stimulate our local economies and improve our property values, ALL without taxpayer subsidies or hundreds of square miles of slaughtered ecosystem.. We could FINALLY get the Big Energy monkey off our backs, and stop their interference in our democracy.

This is an all-partisan, non-partisan economic, democracy, and environmental WIN for all of us, we just have to demand our PACE loans and feed in tariffs. AB23 and AB32 are beside the point - both are Big Energy boondoggles the way they are being managed now.

[Seaneen]

Recent revelations of fraud and cooking of facts behind AQMD figures used to ban diesel trucks in Southern Coast Air Basin should cause all Californians to question whether the scientists behind AB 32 have their facts straight.

In that case the state admits the numbers used to ban diesel trucks at the port of Los Angeles were exaggerated by three times their actual impact. The result were loss of jobs and forcing independent truckers to join the unions hired by companies with the resources to buy clean diesel trucks now.

There is no one who appreciates the strides made to clean our air that myself. I vividly recall hot San Fernando Valley summer days in the early 1960s when the air was so thick with smog that you could taste it. That was then and this is now. Our air is rarely that dirty today.

AB 23 however, was passed by the legislature during a time when the state legislature and our misguided governor had the votes to shove it to Californians. Then the economy was good and we could all afford $4.50 per gallon gas.

Today, if that issue came before the California legislature and the governor was up for reelection, do you think they would vote to pass it? Hell no, not if they wanted their jobs. Vote yes on Prop 23.

[Kash S.]

Why venture capitalists spent twice more than oil companies to oppose prop. 23? They want to back the global warming law so that they can cheat us with the solar, wind and other clean technologies which was manufactured in China, India or somewhere else and sale us in US. Good luck with solar, wind and other clean technologies vehicle who can afford it.

[Kash S.]

AB 32 is a big scam from venture capitalists and so called environmentalists.

It will be too late when our kids and grand kids wander across to find a job in India, China and Brasil.

No to AB 32 and yes on Proposition 23.

[Wayne Lusvardi]

As a 20-year government utility employee and public union member allow me to correct some misconceptions. It doesn't seem to be understood that the so-called Big Oil companies are fighting for their jobs just like you would if you were them. Here is why.

First, green power will not reduce air pollution in Cal's urban areas because the coal energy plants that will be affected are in Utah, Arizona, Idaho, etc. So all that AB 32 and green power will do is hypothetically reduce air pollution in other western states, not California. The solution to pollution is dilution. Putting fossil fuel power plants in California's coast air basins traps pollutants and leads to smog. But putting them in the desert or out in the plains leads to much less air pollution (in reality coal and gas power plants will still have to run full time to back up wind and solar power because the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. so there is not even any real improvement in air pollution anywhere).

Second, AB 32 Green Power won't necessarily create jobs in California. Wind power is the big push in California. For wind power to work the entire western U.S. needs to be gridded up with expensive new transmission lines. So if wind is not blowing in, say, the desert north of Los Angeles, but is blowing in Oregon, then that is where L.A. will get its green power at that moment in time (via the Pacific Intertie). So that means that the green jobs for California's power may be in West Texas or Oregon. And vice versa, when the wind is blowing in California but not in, say, Utah, then California will provide power and get the jobs. This is why the Fed. Energy Reg. Commission FERC has recently mandated that green power be stored in batteries or salt caverns along green transmission line routes. If green power can be store then California will retain the green jobs, taxes, and revenues within their state.

But green power storage is 8 times more costly than the average price of base load power. California has not seen prices like that since the 2001 Energy Crisis. So the only way that wind power can compete in price is in the spot and peak time markets where energy prices are typically higher (during hot days and cold snaps).

If Green Power for peak time markets gets to trump conventional sources of power, then the oil and gas companies and CITIES and utility districts that operate peaker plants will be thrown out of business without just compensation for their losses. So the oil and gas industry is only trying to protect their jobs and also educate the public that Green Power will be much more costly and actually will not reduce air pollution in California.

[Michael Burns]

Wayne—you are misinformed. Sugar cane will grow very well in many areas of the U.S. And yes, we do have the necessary water. Everyone needs to see this:

http://www.e2.org/ext/doc/AB32BiofuelsV5.pdf

[Wayne]

We may have the space to grow sugar-cane, but we do not have the water...

The enforcement of AB 32 will cause an economic disaster for California that will keep other states from passing such legislation, and probably do more harm for the cause than it will help the environment.

Points to ponder on AB 32 / Prop 23:

° AB 32 is not a pollution law, it is a global warming law, but it won’t have any effect on global warming.

° Prop 23, in spite of fear-mongering by opponents, does not repeal any clean-air laws. It does not increase local pollution.

° CARB over-estimated diesel emmisions by 340%. What else have they over-estimated?

° Key CARB personnel caught lying about credentials and then failing to reveal this after it is discovered internally before AB 32 passed, until after AB 32 passed. What else are they lying about and with-holding?

° Sacramento State University reports estimated cost of $3734 per year per family due strictly to AB 32.

° CARB has admitted that California alone cannot have an impact on reducing global warming and CO2 emissions.

° US EPA acknowledges that US action alone will not impact the world CO2 levels;

° US EPA (11 July 2010) said that bills in Congress will not reduce the total use of gas and oil of 20 million gallons per day for decades.

° LAO (CA Legislative Analyst Office) stated: CA economy at large will be adversely affected by implementation of climate-related policies that are not in place elsewhere. (Letter to Dan Logue, 13 May 2010)

° Even CARB’s own economic experts have recognized the fact that jobs will be lost because of AB 32. In fact, they recommend establishing a “Worker Transition Program” to provide assistance to people who lose their jobs because of AB 32 regulations.

° AB 32 does nothing for local pollution, nor does Proposition 23 do anything to increase local pollution.

When the loudest objections to any candidacy or initiative are focused on vilifying its financial backers, this often indicates that its opponents’ arguments on its merits are weak.

Vote yes on Prop 23 and suspend AB32.

[Colorado Bob]

There've been a number of studies calculating just how little the average American knows about the science of climate change, and here's another which lays out the ignorance pretty clearly: Yale University found that if we were getting letter grades, just 8% would get an A or B, 40% would receive a C or D, and 52% would flunk.

Perhaps those poor scores are balanced somewhat by the fact that only about 11-14% of Americans classify themselves as being "very well informed" about climate change, with about half saying they are "fairly well informed", and three-quarters wanting to know more.

Americans Have Important Knowledge Gaps About Global Warming
Furthermore, Americans' Knowledge of Climate Change, "also found important gaps in knowledge and common misconceptions about climate change and the earth system. These misconceptions lead some people to doubt that global warming is happening or that human activities are a major contributor, to misunderstand the causes and therefore the solutions, and to be unaware of the risks."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/on-climate-change-knowledge-test-half-americans-flunk.php

[Michael Burns]

Who is Peter? His statements indicate he is on the same side as the oil industry. Peter, tell us who you are and who you work for.

[peter]

Industrial wind and on-grid solar were hyped and feted back as far back as the 70's, when US was faced with the middle eastern oil embargo. The technology was well- known then but , as it is true today, wind & solar simply cannot get around the basic physical laws of energy. They are only now being dragged up and kicked around again because of the looming peal oil crisis. But new recovery methods and new oilfield discoveries such as Brazil offshore ....keep extending the peak oil time line, and the shale gas hydrofracture revolution will provide an abundant source of cheap natural gas supplies to power electric generation for next 100 years. Plus Natural gas burns 50% less co2 and pollutants than oil and coal. We should therefore be putting up more nat gas plants as well as non-co2 emitting nuclear power plants, and phase out dirty coal plants. Stop this nonsense with covering 100's of sq miles of CA deserts and kansas prairies with unsightly windtowers, and 1000's of acres of land-hogging solar panels all over the Mohave.

[peter]

“A Sacramento State University Study and other studies say there’s likely to be a cost of $50,000 per small business and up to $4,000 per family in increased costs related to housing, transportation, energy and food,” said Eric Eisenhammer, spokesman for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Eisenhammer also criticized AB 32’s cap-and-trade program.

“It is a carbon tax,” Eisenhammer said. “It raises taxes on every productive business in California and ultimately will drive jobs away from California, which is already one of the most over-regulated states in the union.”

http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-03-25/politics-city-county-government/jobs-taxes-at-heart-of-global-warming-law-debate

[peter]

BOONDOGGLE CA GREEN ENERGY PROJECT #1. I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE ALL THE NEGATIVES OF THIS MASSIVE, WASTEFUL ,SCAM-RIDDEN ,OVER-HYPED GREEN ENERGY PROJECT.
AB32 and other extremist environ policies wil result in massive green energy boondoogle projects heavly subsidized by Fed stimulus $ and providing few CA jobs. This project wil only provide 90 permanent 'green' jobs which wil likely go to Nevada residents.

http://pnp.uschamber.com/2009/07/ivanpah-solar-power-project-bright-source-energy-san-bernardino-county.html#more http://t.co/h5UsgeS

LAT wrote on the massive efforts to re-locate the endangered Mohave desert tortoise from the 6 sq miles of surface which this monster solar project will occupy. Bright Source is rushing to break ground on this project and get it moving quick, to get the FED pork green energy stimulus funds earmarked for this project before 2010 ends, which is the cutoff date to get green stimulus earmark $.

The project is located 5 miles from CA/NEV border and 50 miles from las Vegas, but 200-250 miles from So Cal/LA metro region. Therefore the 90 permanent workers and likely most of the 500-1000 temp construction workers slated for this plant will come from las Vegas metro region, or will relocate/stay in LV. So this project will largely have economic/jobs benefits for Nevada.

It is possible that even the power output may be routed to LV, as putting up 200-300 miles of new power transmission lines from Ivanpah to LA will cost additional billions, and involve additional lengthy environmental delays, reviews, land use issues, reviews, relocating another 1000 desert tortoises.

Project No Project: Ivanpah Solar Power Project, Bright Source Energy, San Bernardino County

[peter]

"Scientists say that greenhouse gases, which mainly come from burning fossil fuels in cars, trucks and industrial plants, are disrupting the climate. In California, the effects have begun to be felt with melting snowpacks and rising sea levels. "

That is 100% total BS. if Ab 32 advocates cannot come up with reasoned factual arguments to support ab32 and instead resort to demonizing prop 23 supporters as tools of 'evil' texas oil companies, big oil, ect., then they are using marxist/communist tactics of attacking capitalism & corporations in general.

The arguments that GHG are leading to global climate disruption/ climate change is one of the biggest scientific fallacies in the history of science & easily disputed .

Exerpts from resignation letter of prominent UCI Prosessor ,

"..the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/reasonmclucus/reasonmclucus/15835660/professor-emiritus-hal-lewis-resigns-from-american-physical-society/

[DrClue]

I always get a chuckle when a bunch of oil companies fork over
millions of dollars to manipulate the ballot box, telling us that
it's "in our best interests" and claim to be but our kindly uncle
or something.

The worst part is that some folks buy into that.

Sooner or later we are going to have to work our way off the oil tit, and
the longer we wait the harder it will be to do and the more people that
will have to die in wars over dead dinosaur juice.

[Eli]

Frederick: You've got to be kidding. Yes, human beings haven't been proven to be the culprits to global warming, but get real. It doesn't change the fact that there are health issues associated with the pollution. California is disgusting - don't you think clean air would be a good thing? Where one industry fails, another thrives. So the oil companies will lose an opportunity to ensure more money in their pockets - so what? Texas oil companies have no business in California politics. I really hope Californians realize that. A cleaner alternative for humans, not for the planet (that's just a plus). Think Frederick...damn.

[Michael Burns]

The voters need to be aware of what is happening in Brazil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

Here’s a key sentence from the above article: “There are no longer any light vehicles in Brazil running on pure gasoline.”

I’m posting this because I hope the people of California take a good look at what is humanly possible, considering that the oil companies are trying to defeat the state’s climate change legislation. I expect that just prior to the November elections, the oil companies will embark on a giant disinformation campaign targeting California voters. The best PR firms in the business will prostitute themselves on behalf of the oil industry.

The last thing the oil companies want is for America to follow Brazil’s lead. For example, there are huge tracts of land in California capable of growing sugar cane. If Brazil can do it, we can certainly do it, too.

[Frederick Farias]

Proposition 23 should go farther. Global warming is a HOAX. The California global warming law is there just to hinder and destroy industry. It kills the profitability of industry and technology. We people in California cannot ignore the truth of Climategate.