It was just nine months ago that Gov. Jerry Brown basked in the

A Sacramento Bee account laid out how the four-tern governor had come to see the issue as vital to his legacy and considered the conference “the crucial event for the future of the world” because of its potential to inspire much broader efforts to curb the emission of greenhouse gases believed to contribute to global warming.

But back home, Brown’s vision is getting a much tougher reception than it did in France. It’s increasingly unclear whether the governor can even garner enough support in the California Legislature for legislation that would build on AB32. While the measure, SB32, won approval from the Assembly on Tuesday and is likely to be approved by the Senate next week, its implementation is tied to the passage of AB197 by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella. SB32 can only take effect if AB197 is approved this session.

Garcia’s measure would both increase legislative oversight of the state Air Resources Board and require the air board to put more pressure on local factories and oil refineries to cut their emissions. This, in theory, would respond both to greens’ concerns that the cap-and-trade framework is too passive and to state lawmakers’ anxiety over the air board throwing its weight around in ways that cost local jobs.

Siding with ‘people’ over ‘polar bears’

Such a concern about the effects of environmental laws on local jobs wasn’t raised by many Democrats during 2006 when AB32 was approved. But since California switched to the “jungle primary” in 2012 — in which the top two candidates in the June primary advance, regardless of party — the Legislature has seen a surge in business-friendly Democrats suspicious of the green agenda.

“It’s great to hear about saving polar bears and hugging trees, and making sure we address global warming from a world perspective,” Garcia told the Los Angeles Times. “But how about people?”

Last year, these pro-business Democrats teamed with Republicans to kill Gov. Brown’s and Senate President Kevin de Leon’s push for a 50 percent reduction in gasoline use by vehicles in California by 2030.

Increasingly, it looks like Brown’s best option to build in on his legacy is a 2018 ballot measure extending AB32. Polling shows Californians support even more ambitious climate change policies than AB32.

In 2010, Proposition 23 — a measure to repeal AB32 — was rejected by state voters, 62 percent to 38 percent.

The governor may also try to use executive orders to extend AB32. But few authorities on California’s government believe a current governor can bind the actions of future governors or legislatures.

But that looks like a premature judgment based on the events of the past year. Business interests and the California Chamber of Commerce have had consistent success in working with moderate Democrats in the state Legislature who share their wariness toward far-reaching measures that could hurt the economy or make life more costly in their home districts.

The most prominent example: For the second straight year, a bloc of Democrats are getting in the way of Gov. Jerry Brown’s desire to gain significant environmental legacies.

Last year, they opposed the governor’s call for a law mandating that vehicles on California’s roads and freeways use 50 percent less gasoline by 2030. Brown worked with Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, to enact Senate Bill 350 and establish California as a trailblazer yet again on pioneering environmental legislation.

But the California oil industry’s argument that such a law would be costly and especially painful for poor residents — buttressed by campaign donations to sympathetic lawmakers and TV attack ads — eventually led Brown and his allies to give up on the gasoline provision of the bill, unable to muster majority support in the Assembly. Criticized for being indifferent to the needs of the environment, the moderate bloc fired back. Then-Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno, said the California Air Resources Board ignored how much its rules would hit the pocketbooks of the poor.

Governor hunting for green policy legacy

Now perhaps the state’s most famous environmental measure of this century — AB32, the sweeping 2006 law requiring a long-term state shift to cleaner but costlier forms of energy — could face a 2020 sunset without an even stronger measure taking its place, as environmentalists have long hoped.

This prospect led Brown to take the extraordinary step of trying to bind future governors and Legislatures to ambitious environmental goals that extended to 2030 — 11 years after he left office. The California Air Resources Board said Brown’s executive order was legal because “AB32 explicitly states the intent to maintain and continue reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases beyond 2020.”

State Senate Minority Leader Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, asked the Legislature’s legal staff whether this was valid. In April, she got her reply.

“We think the determination of a standard for the statewide (greenhouse gas) emissions limit is a fundamental policy decision that only the Legislature can make,” Legislative Counsel Diane Boyer-Vine wrote. 

Since then, environmentalists — and, behind the scenes, possibly Brown himself — have been lobbying to pass an extension of AB32 and seeking to revive Brown’s push to cut petroleum use as well. As the Sacramento Bee’s Dan Walters reported recently, they’re not making progress. At least 15 Assembly Democrats could pair with 28 Assembly Republicans to block any bills they consider too hard on poor Californians.

It appears that California is now like the other three megastates — Texas, New York and Florida — in which pro-business Democrats have significant power in their legislatures.

The state senator who changed California politics

This development suggests that former state Sen. Abel Maldonado could end up being a more consequential figure in California politics than many governors. The only reason the jungle primary exists is that the Santa Maria Republican rancher would only provide the final vote needed to enact the state budget in 2009 if the Legislature gave California voters the chance to amend the state Constitution in the June 2010 primary.

Democratic legislative leaders went along both because of their desperation to get a budget in place with temporary tax hikes — and because of their confidence they could defeat the measure in June 2010.

They failed, with voters backing the historic change to a “top two” primary by 54 percent to 46 percent.