It seems the common thread here, is localities looking for controls on local health damaging pollutants. That issue is orthogonal to the CO2 issue, for which the cap and trade program was designed. Cap and trade (or better a CO2 tax) is ideal for a global pollutant like CO2, but is not the right system for controlling local point sources of pollution. That would be an entirely different program.

If the scale of the climate change problem was such that we only needed to reduce our GHG emissions by 20-30% over the next four decades, then cap and trade or carbon taxes would be workable. Unfortunately, our decades of head-in-the-sand behavior has led us to the point where we need to reduce our emissions by 80-90% in less than twenty years or risk being the generation that ended history.

Since the wealthiest 20% of the population are directly or indirectly responsible for well over 40% of our GHG emissions and they are insensitive to the price associated with those emissions, neither state or federal cap and trade (emissions can still be produced off-shore while the benefits are realized at home) nor carbon taxes will cause adequate emissions reductions.

There seems to be only one way to get out of this mess: personal GHG-emissions quotas. The advantages are several: 1.) we're all in it together. 2.) It can be implemented immediately with quotas on liquid fuels and grid power. 3.) It undoes globalization.

"...they said excessive regulatory costs could drive electric bills sky high, further harming consumers and struggling businesses."

Only "free" markets unfettered by government regulation can work.   The same old talking point.  Enron used it to conceive this bastard child, cap and trade.

Only government leadership can address this economic and climate emergency.  We have seen what unregulated "free" markets have produced.  Corruption amd manipulation by insiders that has caused this economic crisis.

Insist on direct subsidy diversion from the oil and fossil fuel industry to specific renewable/conservation technology and contracts from government particularly with auto makers, that specify the production of plugin hybrids in return for bail out money.

There are enough renewable/conservation energy devices that have already been developed, only waiting for mass production, to compete on a pure cost basis with fossil and nuclear power.  Government action needs to be focused on this mass production effort, not on boondoggle corruption friendly schemes like cap and trade, auctioned GHG permits, or offset plans.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

If this cap-and-trade mechanism has a component that redistributes wealth from rich Californians to the world's poor, then that would be great.

CO2 is a global problem. It doesn't matter where the reductions are made - in California or in Congo.

Now I understand the poor in California, but they are "wealthy poor". They should understand that their are also the "real poor", people who make less than $0.3 a day.

If the cap-and-trade shifts money to the "really poor", so that they can get access to low-cost renewable energy, or so that they don't have to burn down forests, then we all benefit.

Maybe it's cruel to make a distinction between the "well off poor" and the "real poor", but the distinction is there, and a cap-and-trade with export of money to the real poor, can help close this wealth gap.

The idea that there's a wide backlash against Schwarzenegger's plan or cap-and-auction seems exaggerated to me; I'm I know this is just a blog post, but it would have been good to show that there's a lot of praise to go along with the criticism to give a fuller picture of what's happening.

haha, REALLY?

<quote> As they filed out, they shouted, [...] "Si Se Puede, Si Se Puede" -- a pointed translation of Obama's campaign slogan, "Yes We Can, Yes We Can."</quote>

Are you kidding me? I hate to pick at straws here, but "Si se puede" is the landmark chant of the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez's movement.

Obama is the one that pointedly translated the slogan. If I was a mexican farmworker I'd be pretty pissed. Being an Italian immigrant, I can only stand in solidarity.

Great article by the way.

www.campusprogress.org

"...Si Se Puede, Si Se Puede" -- a pointed translation of Obama's campaign slogan, 'Yes We Can, Yes We Can...' "

I can't even express my disgust at the ignorance of this statement.  Anyone who has ever worked at all with the Latino movements will know this chant begun long before Obama.  You do know what the UFW is, right?  I bet somewhere Delores Huerta is giving this "Veteran Environmental Journalist" a dirty look.

If we can't begin to understand the at-risk constituencies we are supposedly fighting for, we can not win the battle against climate change.  Solidarity the best way to advance our goals---but with ignorance like this, I assume "blowing off steam" and fighting amongst ourselves will be hindering us for a long time.