The Supreme Court on June 29th blocked one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious environmental initiatives, one meant to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants. The two sides had very different understandings of the costs and benefits involved. Industry groups said the government had imposed huge costs to achieve minimal benefits. The agency said the costs yielded tens of billions of dollars in benefits.

California’s flagship climate change policy AB 32, The Global Warming Solutions Act, was signed into law in 2006 at a time when California was contributing a minuscule 1% to the world’s greenhouse gases (GHGs). Since then AB 32 has dramatically changed the state’s transportation fuels and shifted our energy sources away from oil and to renewables. Transportation technologies and fuel standards developed over the years have resulted in improved transportation efficiencies. In the past 40 years, California’s population has nearly doubled to its present 38 million, but the air quality has gotten better, not worse. Nearly a decade later, California still contributes a miniscule 1% and has had little to no impact on the reduction of global GHG emissions. Yet, the state is on a go-it-alone crusade that generates billions of dollars for the government at the expense of businesses and the financially challenged.