Budget Deficit Could Make Gov. Brown's 2011 Climate To-Do List Daunting | ReutersFor California, indisputably the nation’s leader on climate policies, 2011 is likely to be a year in which the state comfortably widens its lead. From auto emissions standards to the construction of solar and wind farms, California is expected to take major steps forward.
The first step will be decidedly backward, however. Soon after he is inaugurated today, Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to solve the state’s unprecedented $25 billion budget deficit by making deep, across-the-board spending cuts that include vital climate-related programs such as subsidies for mass transit.
Still, the state’s climate policy backers are hopeful.
“Jerry Brown has been visionary and consistent on this issue, especially renewables, since the 1970s, so we have high hopes,” said Sen. Fran Pavley, a Santa Monica Democrat who spearheaded the state’s strict auto emissions rules.
She noted that the chair of the powerful Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols, held the same post during Brown’s previous time as governor, from 1978 to 1983, so California will enjoy in 2011 an unusual level of political continuity for climate and energy policies.
Beyond the immediate budget bloodbath, the agenda for Brown and state legislators will be chock full. While much public attention will be focused on the continued roll-out of detailed regulations for the state’s cap- and-trade system, announced Dec. 16, the coming months will bring a host of decisions on other climate-related policies with equal or larger impact.
In separate interviews with SolveClimate News, legislators, regulators and environmental advocates alike said that two key issues top their To-Do lists for the new year: improvements in the Renewables Portfolio Standard and the so-called Pavley Standard.
Giving the RPS the Force of Law
The Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS specifies the share of total energy supply that utilities must provide from renewable energy sources. Originally created by the Legislature in 2002 with a mandate of 20 percent, California’s RPS was further accelerated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed an executive order that mandated an RPS of 33 percent by 2020.
Yet the clean-tech industry and their billionaire investors say they need the 33 percent level to have the force of law, rather than just being an executive order, to give them confidence to invest billions of dollars to build industrial-size solar and wind farms.
“Investors, financiers and developers of renewable energy are saying that the policy has to be set in stone, rather than just an executive order that can be overturned anytime,” said Daniel Kalb, California policy coordinator for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “This is a top priority.”
Democrats in the Legislature have introduced legislation to codify the 33 percent level, and environmental groups say they hope the measure will be fast-tracked and signed soon by Brown, who promised during his election campaign that he would support a standard of 33 percent.
“If California does something this big, it will have a significant effect on neighboring states and the whole Western region,” Kalb said.
