by Katy Grimes, E&E Legal Senior Media Fellow and California Globe Editor
As Appearing in the California Globe
Lawmakers ignore the additional $3.2 billion in costs in SB 1020, which will be passed on to 27 million ratepayers
Assembly Bill 1020, a bill to establish 100% clean energy statewide, and require state agencies to accelerate their 100% clean energy policy goal by 10 years, passed the Senate Tuesday. This is just one of many 2022 climate change bills being passed by the Legislature.
Sen. Brian Dahle (R-Bieber) railed against the bill critical of propping up a lofty goal with no plan on how to achieve this.
He’s right. California lawmakers have a long history of this laissez faire style of legislating: lawmakers pass the vague law, and then allow unelected, politically appointed regulatory officials and agencies to write the laws and implementation process.
The state has passed ambitious greenhouse gas reduction and clean energy goals since 2006 when AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 was passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
At that time, AB 32 required statewide greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to at least 40% below the 1990 level by 2020. But the state achieved that in only a few short years, largely because California did not have much greenhouse gas pollution, so lawmakers moved the goal posts out to 2030, which allowed the state to continue passing more and more strict regulations and laws.
