Last weekend Australians voted the ruling Labor Party from power. The Opposition Coalition led by Tony Abbott of Australia's conservative party, which is called the Liberal Party, defeated Labor Party candidate Kevin Rudd on promises to end the country's carbon tax.

Gone from office is Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who was replaced as Labor Party Leader by Rudd. Gillard left extremely unpopular because, among other policies, she had imposed the carbon tax. She also was working with California environmental officials.

The landslide victor, Abbott, commonly is referred to as “pugnacious.” He promised to curb Gillard's more restrictive environmental policies, which have damaged the country's recent mining boom. As the anti-Labor Party poster nearby shows a major Abbott plan was getting rid of Gillard's carbon tax.

Abbott proclaimed, “Australia is once more open for business.”

Broken promise

When elected six years ago, Gillard promised voters she would not impose an economy-wide carbon tax on the country. Then she reneged on that pledge, imposing it on July 1, 2012. According to the Carbon Tax Facts website, which backs the tax:

“At the centre of the government’s policy on climate change is pricing carbon. Many commentators and politicians have referred to this as a 'carbon tax.' The idea is that polluters will pay per tonne of carbon they release into the atmosphere. This cost will initially be set at $23, and increase gradually until 2015, when we will shift to a trading scheme that will let the market set the cost. This is widely thought of as the most effective and least costly mechanism to reduce carbon output and reduce the level of climate change that is occurring.”

But Gillard's reneging on her pledge riled Aussie opposition.  Two grassroots organizations, The Carbon Sense Coalition and the No Carbon Tax/Climate Skeptics Party, took on her Labor Party.  Then several large Australian businesses and the country’s second largest airline, Virgin Australia, posted losses for the year, blaming her carbon tax.

California cooperation

Just this past summer, Gillard's government was working with California on carbon trade implementation. Reported Reuters:

“California and Australia on Tuesday agreed to share information on the design and implementation of their carbon markets, a move that could help pave the way for an eventual link between the two jurisdictions.

“The two partners agreed to share technical expertise on market design, administering allowance auctions, and implementing carbon offset schemes, while also discussing how to link their markets in the future.”

Hey, Abbott!

Abbott promised a distinctly different environmental program from Gillard. He pledged to dump the carbon tax and end any thought of entering into an emissions trading or carbon credit auction scheme.

In addition, Abbott pledged to promote the use of domestic oil, natural gas and coal, as well as developing nuclear energy for Australia. And he promised to impose tougher environmental standards for wind energy plants; and to address noise pollution complaints from residents living near the nation’s giant wind farms.

Abbott is a former Rhodes Scholar, seminarian and one-time manager of a cement plant, one of the industries hardest hit by the carbon tax.

Global warming

Critics of Abbot's position contended that global warming mandates drastic action against carbon pollution. The Carbon Tax Facts site cited above argued:

“Aside from a swathe of overwhelmingly negative effects to our way of life and the environment if we do not make a global effort to fight climate change, there are significant risks to the Australian economy if we do not take steps towards pricing carbon. John Birmingham of the Sydney Morning Herald published an illuminating article detailing how we will end up paying whether or not a price on carbon is introduced. The difference is to who that money will go – to Australian taxpayers in the form of compensation, or to overseas jurisdictions in the form of penalty payments. [-]

“To illustrate the risks facing us if we do not act, let’s consider the case of Qantas, who now faces an initial carbon tax penalty of 15% on its carbon emissions for any flights it makes into or out of Europe. This penalty will increase over time, and is payed directly into the coffers of the European Union. The reason for its imposition is specifically because Australian does not have carbon price in place.”

But voters weren't convinced the threat was so serious, and backed Abbott.

Warren Duffy, president of Friends for Saving California Jobs, is an award-winning talk show host, columnist and author.  His recent book is “The Green Tsunami-A Tidal Wave of Eco-Babble Drowning Us All.” 

By Warren Duffy

Earlier this month, a rally sponsored by Citizens Against Common Core was held in Sacramento on the steps of the Capitol. What is Common Core? In a nutshell, it’s a new, top-down national educational program that California is adopting in 2014 for students in grades K-12.

The Common Core program to be administered in California is an educational plan orchestrated by representatives of the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Governors Association and various members of the Obama administration and teachers’ union representatives.  Many parents object that Common Core will operate through computers that will collect private and personal information about students and their families. Teachers complain they are being forced to teach a program that has never been tested on public school students.  However, teachers have also been made aware that if they protest, they are in danger of losing their jobs.

Some objections focus on the literature portion of the Common Core program that reduces classic books from 80 percent of the school curriculum to only half.  Said Anthony Esolen, a professor of Renaissance English Literature at Providence College in Rhode Island:

“What appalls me most about the standards … is the cavalier contempt for great works of human art and thought, in literary form. It is a sheer ignorance of the life of the imagination. We are not programming machines. We are teaching children. We are not producing functionaries, factory-like. We are to be forming the minds and hearts of men and women.  Frankly, I do not wish to be governed by people whose minds and hearts have been stunted by a strictly utilitarian miseducation…. Do not train them to become apparatchiks in a vast political and economic system, but raise them to be human beings, honoring what is good and right, cherishing what is beautiful, and pledging themselves to their families, their communities, their churches, and their country.”

California experiments

California has tinkered with many progressive education programs over the years, ranging from New Math to New New Math and Whole Language reading instead of phonics.  At one time, urban educators wanted to include the street-slang language Ebonics into the public-school classroom. There was also the infamous CLAS Test — the California Learning Assessment System that was kept secret from parents until it was introduced into the classroom and word leaked out that the program leaned more on opinion, not actual learning.

A controversial element of CLAS described a scene where students were to choose who would be offered a spot in a lifeboat after a passenger ship sunk.  With not enough room for every passenger to board the lifeboat, children were asked to choose who would board and who would not.  When it was learned the correct response was an older man should be cast off because he had already lived his life, parents objected, refused to permit their children to take the CLAS program and very quietly, CLAS exited the state.

Opposition

Parents now fear the national Common Core teaching program could return similar techniques to the classroom.  A protest movement has been launched across the country.  Many organizations are at work oppopsing Common Core, including TruthInAmericanEducation.com, Two Moms Against Common Core and Hoosiers Against Common Core.

Former California school teacher Orlean Koehle taught speech, drama and journalism in the state’s classrooms for years.  After raising six children and returning to the classroom, she was shocked by the many reforms and changes.

That prompted her to write, “Common Core — A Trojan Horse for Education Reform.”   In it, she observes, “The federal government’s control over education can turn into something that has already been tried in other countries where our schools and universities are no longer centers for education, but now centers for propaganda and indoctrination.”

Warren Duffy is president of Friends for Saving California Jobs and author of “The Green Tsunami-A Tidal Wave of Eco-Babble Drowning Us All.”

By Warren Duffy

Opposition is growing to government plans to squeeze Californians into high-rise apartments and mass transit.

The March 2012 issue of “Western City,” published by the League of California Cities, included an article authored by Gary Gallegos titled, “Trailblazing a Sustainable Path.”  He said a lack of state funding was thwarting “the progressive plans” of SANDAG, the San Diego Association of Governments, one of four large regional planning agencies in California.

SANDAG had been working on a program to implement a 40-year transportation plan for the region that was environmentally friendly, complying with SB375, which was passed in 2008. SB 375 mandated state planning for “sustainable development,” which mainly means encouraging people to move into high-rises and take public mass transit.

Gallegos’ article begins by explaining, “In October 2011 the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), one of the four largest metropolitan planning organizations in California, became the first to adopt a transportation plan with a sustainability component.”  That component was outlined in Senate Bill 375 and a very comprehensive element to SANDAG’s 2050 Regional Transportation Plan.

Lawsuit

Although it is reported the plan was not done in haste, but took more than two years to design and gather “extensive public output,” there are those who disagree.  A group normally known for a more radical approach to environmentalism, the Sierra Club, joined other environmental activists to sue SANDAG and successfully delay any further action for the 40-year regional transportation plan.

As more Californians are getting educated to the 20-, 30- and 40-year green sustainable long-term regional planning goals for their communities, statewide opposition is growing.

The most recent comes from OneBayArea, a joint authority of four regional governments. Located in Northern California, this planning group was recently successful in passing a 20-year plan, the Bay Area Prosperity Plan, impacting nine counties, 101 cities and 7.5 million people.

The plan merges cities, abolishes county lines, authorizes the closing of some roads and the building of residential “stack and pack” housing in lieu of new construction of single family homes.  The impact of this plan has created such an outrage among concerned citizens that funds are being raised to file a lawsuit against the plan.

In the Los Angeles area that includes Orange County, the Southern California Association of Governments is a similar umbrella planning group.  In March 2012, this group unanimously adopted a “2012 to 2035 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy”.  SCAG’s $524-billion program promises to expand housing near public transportation by 60 percent and fund public biking and walking improvements by 350 percent in the next 23 years.

A Southern California city with long term green planning push back is Aliso Viejo, located in Orange County. After spending $400,000 on consultants, the city’s 104-page “Green City Initiative” has encountered not just opposition from its residents, but a well informed and newly elected council member, Mike Munzing.  The council vote on this initiative has been postponed twice, with businesses and private citizens demanding the council return to the drawing board.

Scrutiny

As city planners are falling under more and more scrutiny by an increasingly well informed public, the American Planning Association (those leading the parade nationally and locally) has put a happy face on their long range, green plan with a newly revised “Glossary for the Public”.

In my recent book, “The Green Tsunami”, I cited a talking point memo from APA’s CEO Paul Farmer to hundreds of regional planners arming them for a debate. The memo read, “As planning and planners have become targets of suspicion and mistrust, it is more important than ever to avoid polarizing jargon, to focus on outcomes important to local citizens and to maintain a fair, open and transparent process.”

More suspicion and mistrust is rising among the people concerning the goals of “stack and pack” housing, public vs. private transportation, and a debate on “the collective good” superseding individual freedom. It would appear public hearings and lawsuits on long-range, green, regional development plans in California will be contentious for years to come.

Warren Duffy is president of Friends for Saving California Jobs and author of “The Green Tsunami – A Tidal Wave of Eco-Babble Drowning Us All.”

By Warren Duffy

Is gas at more than $4 a gallon in California high enough?

Not if David Lipton gets his way. The former member of the Clinton administation now is the deputy director of the International Monetary Fund. He recently urged, “It is time for subsidies to end and carbon taxation to be put in place.”

Ending subsidies taken from taxpayers is one thing. But actually raising taxes yet again is another.

According to the Washington Post, “For the United States, the IMF estimated that would require a $1.40 levy per gallon of gas and other fees totaling more than $1,400 per person each year — around $500 billion in total, or more than 3 percent of the country’s annual economic output.” The money would be used to “battle climate change and pay for social programs.”

That echoed the words of former Energy Secretary Steven Chu, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

So the $4.50 a gallon you just paid for gas soon could be $6. A 16-gallon fill-up could rise from $72 to $102. 

Lipton’s approach stems from the ongoing global warming debate.  For him it is only logical to fund social programs for more underdeveloped countries that fall victim to the aftermath of global warming through no fault of their own.

Energy taxes

Lifton and the IMF agree that, from the United States and China to the poorest of the poor, countries should be more aggressive in developing energy tax and pricing policies that reflect the true cost of fossil fuel use. That would include such “externalities” as pollution and the steps needed to mitigate the effects of a warming climate. In other words, it is once again time for the rich to pay “their fair share,” with “the rich” defined as all Americans.

This IMF scheme, fundamentally a transfer of wealth, is no different from the carbon auctions that began in November 2012 by the California Air Resources Board.  From the $400 Million of revenue brought in from the auction, Gov. Jerry Brown supports a similar wealth redistribution scheme to be passed along to low-income communities located near freeways and industrial pollution sources.  

This latest idea for “wealth redistribution” was announced when the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research came up with a new environmental issue called “the urban heat island effect.”  This scientific-sounding theory claims there is a “high temperature dome of heat created over an urban or industrial area by hot layers forming at building top or chimney levels.”

We’ve seen this before. Specifically, the supposed threat of global warming brought the passage of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of  2006. At the time, we were told passage of this law was critical to California in order to address the problem of global warming presumably caused by greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, being trapped in the atmosphere and causing the earth’s temperatures to skyrocket. 

This law allowed for the implementation of the cap and trade auction and the necessity for those CO2 emitters to “cap” their gases and pay the state in “trade” for a credit so they might continue polluting.  It would appear since the globe has not warmed for 16 of the last 18 years, as the latest studies show, supporters of the California’s cap and trade scheme have been forced to rethink their strategies for the redistribution of wealth.  Hence, the urban heat island effect has been suddenly unearthed in Sacramento.

No global warming

Indeed, the lack of evidence for recent “global warming” has forced a change in terminology. In his 2013 State of the Union Address, for example, President Obama used the new phrase, “climate change,” which covers just about anything.

Whatever the supposed environmental problems might be, state and federal governments are more than willing to solve any issue with increased taxes and fees or more rules and regulations that add to the cost of just about everything.  The California Chamber of Commerce is preparing for a May 2013 hearing claiming that CARB’s cap and trade program is nothing more than an “illegal tax.”

And both the Chamber and the Pacific Legal Foundation have sued to throw out cap and trade as an illegal tax.

Ernest Moniz is Obama’s nomination to replace Chu as Energy Secretary. Although Moniz has not yet weighed in on a carbon tax, we know his boss is increasingly frustrated that Congress has not taken more direct action on the White House’s environmental agenda.  A carbon tax or possible alternative, a national cap and trade scheme modeled on California’s, might be tried through executive orders.

By Warren Duffy

If you are looking for employment where you can be mistaken time and time again and  still maintain your job,  try weather forecasting.  Predicting the weather day to day, seven to 10 days in advance is challenging.

Yet there are those in that vocation still predicting “climate change” in seven, 10, 20 and even 50 years with determined veracity. It is such predictions that brought us California’s AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, and similar legislation.

The debate on global warming is rapidly escalating as the assumption, touted by so many climate scientists, that carbon dioxide (CO2) is extremely harmful to the atmosphere, is now being questioned.  According to a new NASA study, could this pesky gas actually be cooling the planet?

And article in the Washington Post by Ed Rogers is headlined, “The Insiders:  Voters are cool and the planet is too.” He cites a recent Pew Research poll showing fewer and fewer Americans say global warming is a serious problem.

Add to that more research showing the globe has not warmed in the last 15 years, and one begins to wonder if AB 32 is out of step with 2013 climate reality seven years after it was signed into law by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Pause for concern

In England, one of the leading proponents of the alarming global warming scenario, London Telegraph writer Geoffrey Lean, just wrote an article titled, “Global Warming: time to rein back on doom and gloom?” He believes the lull in global warming for 16 of the last 18 years has given him pause for concern, and now is reconsidering his view on the subject.

Of course, the U.S. Department of Energy has tried its hand at forecasting. Time and time again the USDE has thrown all its marbles at green technology in an effort to wean the country from using those harmful fossil fuels. Their “forecasts” have been no more accurate than the global warming predictions of 20 years ago.

Whether the new generation of climate change projects will turn out to be as counter productive as Fisker electric autos or Solyndra’s circular solar panels is to anyone’s guess.

Years ago, when the earth’s climate stats began to level off and didn’t reflect the abrupt “hockey stick” peak climate scientists had forecast, some clever person replaced “global warming” with “climate change,” which can mean literally anything anyone wants it to mean.

If there is a drought, the climate alarmist claims it is an obvious result of climate change.  If there are storms and floods — climate change. A hurricane decimates the East Coast of our country — climate change. The term covers anything and everything.

Even Wall Street is in the business of “global warming” theatrics.  An article written in Bloomberg Businessweek reported hedge fund experts on Wall Street are putting their risk capital investments into climate change business ventures where the world warms and the oceans rise.  One example: the private equity firm KKR snagged a 25 percent stake in Nephila Capital, which trades in derivatives that hedge against natural catastrophes and extreme weather events, such as last year’s Hurricane Sandy.

The California Air Resources Board has moved its Website homepage away from “global warming” to “climate change projects.” But they can’t do anything but still devote a page titled, “AB 32: The Global Warming Solutions Act.” It would take an act of the Legislature to update the bill’s name. Which would be embarrassing, and remind everyone of the lack of global warming.

AB 32 and similar laws, such as SB 375, were based on the “global warming” alarmism of the the mid-2000s. That was the period of Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Its untruths garnered him an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize.

CARB’s quarterly cap-and-trade auctions that began in November 2012 now are justified not by “global warming,” but “climate change.”

New forecasts

In light of the apparently erroneous predictions of global warming for the last quarter century, what if the forecasts for the next 75 years are equally wrong?  What if global warming never happens?  Then, why does California need a “Global Warming Solutions Act” complete with cap and trade?

Similarly, what if the earth’s temperature increases at precisely the rate the computer programs predict, between one and two degrees Celsius by 2099?   Would it be less expensive and make even more sense to adjust accordingly as the environment changes, rather than taking drastic steps to avoid a predicted climate cataclysm that might never happen?

Lord Christopher Monckton was the energy advisor to the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. As he said in his 2012 presentation to the California Legislature, making a comparison to global warming, “If the cost of replacing an automobile is less than the cost of insuring the vehicle from an unforeseen catastrophe, why buy expensive auto insurance?”

What are the Sacramento politicians missing?

Warren Duffy is an award-winning talk show host, columnist and author, with an Honorary Doctorate in Theology from the California Pacific School of Theology. Check out his new book, “The Green Tsunami: The Tidal Wave of Eco-Babble Drowning Us All.” 

By Warren Duffy

Just a few years ago…

In 2005, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed of the alleged threat of global warming, “I say the debate is over. . . . We know the science, we see the threat, and we know the time for action is now.”

Along with then-Assembly Speaker Fabio Nunez, Schwarzenegger drafted legislation that became AB 32, the  California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

In 2006, former Vice President Al Gore produced “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary about global warming’s supposed threat. The subtitle in the advertisements punned, “A Global Warning.” It won an Academy Award and garnered a Nobel Peace Prize for Gore.

Turn the page to 2013, and the evidence shows that there has been no global warming. A recent headline in The Australian highlighted, “Twenty year hiatus in rising temperatures has climate scientists puzzled.” The sub-headline, “DEBATE about the reality of a two-decade pause in global warming and what it means has made its way from the sceptical fringe to the mainstream.” 

NASA report

A new NASA report reveals, “NASA’s Langley Research Center has collated data proving that ‘greenhouse gases’ actually block up to 95 percent of harmful solar rays from reaching our planet, thus reducing the heating impact of the sun.” This revelation debunks the greenhouse gas (GHG) theory about pesky carbon dioxide (CO2) trapping heat in the earth’s atmosphere, causing the planet to warm.

But AB 32 specifically was designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a 25 percent reduction. The California Air Resources Board was tasked with implementing AB 32. Yet if the NASA report is correct, increasing such gases as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide actually protected the planet from solar rays, reducing temperatures.

Despite these recent reports, the global-warming alarmism continues from some quarters.

The Daily Caller recently wrote that earthworms, of all things, are causing accelerated global warming. And you thought those wiggly little buggers simply aerated your garden soil. The report said, “Earthworms play an essential part in determining the greenhouse-gas balance of soils worldwide, and their influence is expected to grow over the next decades. They are thought to stimulate carbon sequestration in soil aggregates but also to increase emissions of the main greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.”

(Wasn’t sequestration about Washington, D.C. budget economics?)

Despite the earthworms, the consensus lately is one of a 180-degree-turn against the popular notion of the threat of global warming. In March, The Economist published a lengthy article that concluded, “If climate scientists were credit rating agencies … climate sensitivity would be on negative watch — but not yet downgraded.”

If that is the case, have views changed in the U.S. and California governments?  Apparently not.

Carbon auction

CARB continues to move forward with yet another cap-and-trade carbon credit auction, scheduled for May 16, 2013.

In addition, any California businesses using vehicles such as trucks or buses now must comply with CARB’s latest emission standards.  The CARB police are in full force to make doing business in the state all pain and no gain.

At the federal level, President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address claimed the last 12 out of 15 years the planet had warmed. He issued an authoritarian warning, “If Congress won’t act to protect future generations — I will.  I will direct my cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take to reduce pollution, prepare our community for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”

Although federal and state officials so far have not change their policies, one thing they have changed is their rhetoric. In his 2009 Inaugural Address, Obama attacked “the specter of a warming planet.”

But in his 2013 address, that has morphed into “the threat of climate change,” with no mention of global warming. The regulations and the budgets have to be justified somehow.

By Warren Duffy

In 2009, President Obama was preparing to attend a U.N. Conference in Copenhagen. The conference subject matter was “Climate Change.” That was a switch. The phrase replaced “Global Warming” as the U.N.’s primary environmental threat.

So Obama expected Congress would arm him with a cap-and-trade plan to show America’s leadership in fighting for a safe and clean environment.  Even though his fellow Democrats then controlled both houses of Congress, he left for Copenhagen empty handed.

California was not that fortunate as cap and trade and a very strict environmental program did come to California.  In November 2012, the first California cap-and-trade auction took place. At the same time, the California Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit, calling the cap-and-trade plan an “illegal tax” and demanding it be terminated. The auction and stringent environmental regulations are under the direction of the California Air Resources Board.

In December 2012, the U.N. Conference on Climate Change was held, ironically, in the “greenhouse gas” polluting nation of Qatar. The conference launched a campaign to extend the stringent U.N. Kyoto Accords of 1997. The campaign would include the “Agenda for the 21st Century,” usually called just “Agenda 21.”

Specifically, the climate activists have set as their goal to enact a much more extensive treaty extension by 2015. It would take effect in 2020, complete with an international cap-and-trade program.  Make no mistake, action like that will devastate the Western economy.

Damages

Second, the U.N. activists instituted at Qatar a climate “Loss and Damage Mechanism.” This makes the developed nations of the world, including the United States, liable for environmental “damages” to Third World countries.  Those countries still “developing” will be able to sue the wealthier nations of the world because the U.N. claims inclement weather and a poor environment from greenhouse gases are the direct result of industrial pollution from those affluent nations.

Never before has such a troubling scheme been suggested or approved at any U.N. conference.  How it will work is anybody’s guess, but the details are expected to be part of the comprehensive 2015 U.N. plan.

Finally, the Qatar Conference established a U.N. Green Climate Fund. Hillary Clinton, then the U.S. secretary of state, committed $12 million from U.S. taxpayer dollars to the fund.  The fund would be underwritten by the developed countries of the First World, with generous contributions awarded to Third World countries for assistance in developing green energy.

The themes of a “redistribution of wealth” and a “sustainable environment and economy” have been a constant at the U.N. since the first Earth Summit at Rio in 1992.  With a majority of U.N. nations still considered Third World countries, the majority of voting members are eager to divvy up money and punish the nations of the West for their industrial success.

California cap and trade

In California, the voices are multiplying to stop the environmental regulations and abusive overreach of power that continue to damage the once Golden State. The third quarterly cap-and-trade auction is scheduled for May 2013. The first two were in Nov. 2012 and Feb. 2013.

Optimistically, Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Legislature anticipated a $1 billion windfall from the first two auctions, squabbling needlessly among themselves on how they would spend this cash.  Unfortunately, the November 14, 2012 auction brought in $176 million.  That auction would have probably garnered much less had Edison International not made a bidding mistake, purchasing 72 percent of the available credits up for auction.   

Undeterred, CARB staged a second auction on Feb. 19, 2013, netting $223 million. Bottom line: instead of netting $2 billion out of the first two auctions, California’s windfall was about $400 million.

More regulations

CARB continues to issue more stringent regulations as new phases of the cap-and-trade plan are introduced.  Every year more businesses are forced to participate in the four-times-a-year bidding.  California now has more environmental laws than any other state in the Union.

Is there any wonder why businesses are either fleeing the state, or taking a second look at opening their doors in sunny California?

Further, a stealth U.N. organization, the International Council on Local Environmental Issues, has snuck into California cities and towns. Bypassing local governments, ICLEI has created 14 global regions around the world, with their American U.N. office located in Oakland.

Many citizens of California have become aware of the ICLEI back-door activism and have demanded their local elected officials withdraw from the U.N. organization and abandon the globalist environmental agenda.

On March 19, 2013, the citizens in the Town of Danville asked that participation in the One Bay Area Regional U.N. Agenda 21 Plan be ended.  In the end, the locally elected officials listened, but ignored their own citizens’ pleas and passed the ICLEI plan.

Similarly, even in Orange County, the city of Aliso Viejo has invested $400,000 researching a grandiose sustainability community plan the, “Green City Initiative.” Actual motto: “It’s all about GREEN. It’s all about the FUTURE.”

The plan has also drawn objections from city elected officials and local community citizens.  The final vote on the plan has now been postponed twice.

Is it “We the People” who are in charge of America and California — or the United Nations?

Warren Duffy is an award-winning talk show host, columnist and author, with an Honorary Doctorate in Theology from the California Pacific School of Theology. Check out his new book, “The Green Tsunami: The Tidal Wave of Eco-Babble Drowning Us All.” 

By Warren Duffy

AB 245 is a bill that would reverse the secrecy that currently exists around the cap-and-trade auctions of the California Air Resources Board. As CalWatchdog.com reported last August, the Legislature “nixed” proposals to mandate accountability under Sections 11120-11132 of the California government code, which is the Bagley Keene Open Meeting Act.

AB 245 is sponsored by Assembly Member Shannon Grove of Bakersfield. The bill would open all carbon auctions to public scrutiny.

Europe’s problems with cap and trade show why public scrutiny is necessary.

California’s February cap-and-trade carbon auction by CARB went off as planned. But a similar auction  in Europe was canceled for the first time in eight years as the reserve price was not met.

The EU’s historic cancellation of a carbon-credit auction is the result of years of a sluggish business economy.  Many businesses were forced to curtail production because of the economic turndown and that, in turn, dropped the use of fuel and the production of polluting carbon exhausts.  That put a damper on the need for businesses to buy carbon credits. And the floor literally fell out from under the cap-and-trade market.

In 2012 alone, the price per carbon credit dropped 49 percent, one half of its asking price.  In the last five years, the price has plummeted by an astounding 90 percent and carbon credits are now virtually worthless pieces of paper. Such are the vagaries of the auctioning of non-tangible assets.

Credit slips

For example, when commodities like wheat, corn or oil are traded, there is a supply of tangible assets investors purchase. Even if the price drops, you still hold the asset.

In the non-tangible world of “carbon,” only credit slips are being traded.  They are of no value unless there is a strong demand by someone having scarce supplies.  For five straight years, that has not been the case and businesses have a glut of unused carbon credits.  As more credits came onto the market with each new auction, the price per unit started to free fall, causing this week’s auction cancellation.

Carbon credit auctions are the central ingredient in both the EU’s and California’s cap-and-trade systems.

California held its first two quarterly auctions in the state’s history in Nov. 2012 and Feb. 2013.  Though response to those auctions has been mixed, the results have been generally disappointing.  Revenue figures from both auctions vary. But when combining the income from both, they fall extremely short of lofty goals of pre-auction predictions and the dollar figure Gov. Jerry Brown plugged into his fiscal 2012-13 budget.  Together, the two auctions were supposed to net the state $2 billion; but they raised a bit less than $500 million, combined.

Last fall, the Legislature squabbled with the Governor over how an estimated $1 billion of revenue from each auction would be spent.  While legislators insisted on overseeing the expenditures of the “windfall” profits, the governor expected at least a sliver of the green pie revenues to help fund his California High-Speed Rail Authority project in the Central Valley.

Depending on a wide range of variables, California could potentially fall into the same glut-of-market trap on carbon credits.  If, for example, the state continues to auction carbon credits four times each year, the supply could overwhelm the demand and drive prices below the floor price set.  That price is set by CARB.  How the state might implement reforms to the auction process to avert an auction cancellation has yet to be discussed publicly by CARB officials.  But then, CARB is known for not discussing much about cap-and-trade carbon auctions publicly.

Alarms

However, the results from the first two CARB auctions contain a few cautionary alarms for state regulators and legislators.  While CARB officials deemed the first auction a glowing success, later revelations showed that one of the bidders, Edison International, mistakenly purchased more than 70 percent of all of the credits CARB auctioned.  The asking price set by CARB was $10 a ton and the top price bid at auction was only about 11 cents over the floor price.  No one has offered any analysis of how successful the auction would have been had Edison not made their astoundingly large “blunder.”

The second auction proved a shade more successful from both revenue and operational viewpoints.   At least that’s the analysis of the auction according to CARB.  The cap-and-trade auctions are veiled in strict secrecy and no information is available to anyone, not even participants.  Bidders don’t know whom they are bidding against and prices are not publicized to other bidders.  Participants simply submit a bid to CARB, bids are accepted in order, with the highest price getting first choice. That continues until all the credits are sold.

To protect their veil of secrecy, CARB has openly threatened businesses that might be tempted to reveal how much they paid for credits or how many they purchased.  By not complying to these demands by CARB, a business would be banished from future auctions.

AB 245, if enacted, would cut through the smog to let citizens see what’s really going on.

Warren Duffy is an award-winning talk show host, columnist and author, with an Honorary Doctorate in Theology from the California Pacific School of Theology. Check out his new book, “The Green Tsunami: The Tidal Wave of Eco-Babble Drowning Us All.” 

On Monday, April 1 at 9:15 a.m. Pacific Time, he will be appearing on the Dennis Miller show to discuss the book. Listen here.

By Warren Duffy

America’s forefathers rebelled in 1776 against “taxation without representation.” Who now is willing to step up and stop “regulation without representation”?

On November 14, 2012, eight days after the election, the California Air Resources Board will launch the first ever Carbon Credit Auction implemented by their Cap and Trade scheme. This is a program with overreaching regulations already being felt throughout the state.

Although the first waves of the Cap and Trade program have begun, the first carbon credit auction will give the state government its biggest bite ever into our state’s economy and strengthen the implementation of California’s strict enforcement, beginning Jan. 1, 2013, of the Cap and Trade program deriving from AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

All California businesses that have not already fled the state will be passing onto consumers the higher costs forced on them through these regulations and the necessity to “play and pay.” If a business is unable to meet CARB’s demands, it will have no choice but to close its doors.

California consumers will feel the impact at the grocery store, retail stores, construction projects and the gas pump. On April 25, 2012, the California Trucking Association issued a report, “The Impact of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and Cap and Trade Programs on CaliforniaRetail Diesel Prices.” The news from the report is shocking:

“CTA estimates that the combined effect of the two programs [Low Carbon Fuel Standard and Cap and Trade] could increase California-only retail diesel prices by $2.22 a gallon by 2020.” That means the price of a gallon of diesel oil will rise by 50 percent in our state, to $6.69 a gallon by 2020.

The report goes on to predict:

“The average price difference between California and neighboring states … will make California a less attractive destination for containerized imports from the Pacific Rim and reduce economic benefits, employment income and state and local taxes generated by that import trade.”

Many family-owned trucking businesses have already driven into the junkyard.

If the California Trucking report is not grim enough, an account submitted by Varshney & Associates for the California Small Business Roundtable details some sobering statistics concerning AB32.

Remember, AB32 is California’s landmark legislation to address global warming and  the reduction of green house gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.  That’s a 25 percent reduction. Accomplishing that goal meant, according to the Varshney study, the development of “a California cap-and-trade program that links with other Western Climate Initiative partner programs to create a regional market system.” Enter the auction of “carbon credits.” However, WCI has evolved to be much more.

Varshney’s report clearly explains:

“Legislative and regulatory mandates may result in practices, enact policies that raise the costs of operating for small business or provide a deterrent to small business growth, and hence provide disincentives for economic risk taking and entrepreneurship.” 

Fees and costs

Following that framework, fees have been established, including CARB’s administrative costs for forcing these regulations down the throats of California businesses and consumers.  And when it comes to consumers, the report notes that these increased costs mean, “[E]ither that they must spend more if they have the funds available or reduce their expenses in other areas.”  If reducing expenses, “[T]hey must reduce expenses by nearly 26.2 percent.”

Another skeptical review of AB 32 comes from Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, who said, “[T]he negative impact [of AB32] has been underestimated while the benefits have been exaggerated. Other states are suggesting that business owners move their businesses out of California before the ‘cap-and-trade earthquake hits.’”

California has indeed been “quaking” since AB32’s tentacles began strangling businesses, yet our state legislature appears incapable or disinterested in stopping CARB.  Businesses have pleaded to CARB Director Mary Nichols at meeting after meeting and California citizens have blanketed Gov. Jerry Brown’s office with petitions — all begging for Cap and Trade to be stopped.

Although AB32 allows the governor to delay Cap and Trade for one year during a period of poor economic conditions, all appeals have been ignored. Why? CO2 levels have dropped to the lowest in 20 years without Cap and Trade. Now is the time to readdress the fundamental need for Cap and Trade.  If the Carbon Credit Auction is not stopped before November 14, California’s economy will encounter a seismic shift of catastrophic proportions.

A revolt is brewing against this “regulation without representation.” One group fighting Cap and Trade tyranny is Friends for Saving California Jobs, where I serve on the Board of Directors.

If interested in contributing to the new revolt, email: info@friendsforcajobs.com.

By Warren Duffy

Cap and Trade is coming — good and hard. So far, numerous pleas to Gov. Jerry Brown, California Air Resources Director Mary Nichols and the California Legislature to delay the start of the first Cap and Trade carbon credit auction have fallen on deaf ears.  Following a dry-run test of the program in August, CARB is poised to launch the auction on November 14, 2012.

California will become the second largest carbon trading market in the world, just behind the European Union, whose Cap and Trade program began in 2005.  Although there is much to be learned from the EU experiment, those in charge of California’s agenda cannot be bothered with such nonsense.  After all, this is not just America, but California.  Any American knows that, “As goes California, so goes the nation.”

In Brown’s budget for fiscal year 2012-13, which began on July 1, there is a line item for the upcoming auction listing income of $1 billion. Being a rather complex operation, the auction requires expert and diligent oversight to avoid anyone “gaming” the system.  Not only will the state’s business community participate, but commodity speculators will be anxiously joining in the trading as well.  So who, exactly, will oversee this complicated auction that is now three weeks away?  Western Climate Initiative Inc.

On November 28, 2011, WCI was established as a not-for-profit corporation in the state of Delaware, as Katy Grimes was the first to report here on CalWatchDog.com.

James Goldstene, the CEO of CARB, is also listed as the Chairman of the Board of WCI Inc.   In other words, the head of the auction oversight group is also the CEO of the organization he is overseeing.  According to a document filed with the California Secretary of State’s office on December 23, 2011, WCI’s principal place of business is listed as 2 Wall Street, New York City, N.Y.

On September 25, 2012, papers were filed with the California Secretary of State listing the address of WCI as 980 Ninth Street, Suite 1600, Sacramento, Calif.  However, that address is listed as a branch office of a statewide personal injury law firm.  The person verifying the Statement of Information is listed as Patrick Cummins, who was recently hired as the interim executive director of WCI.  Since 2000, Cummins has served as the project manager for the Western Governors Association in Denver, Colo.

Filing papers

As required, the state filing papers also included WCI’s IRS Form 990 for the year ending December 31, 2011.  It was signed by CARB CEO and WCI Chairman Goldstene, showing a post office box in Sacramento as WCI’s address.  The CPA who prepared the 19-page set of documents is in Lafayette, Colo.  So we have a Colorado CPA filing tax documents for a California oversight group that is incorporated in Delaware, but has a Wall Street business address for some documents and a Sacramento address for others.

The Western Regional Climate Action Initiative began on February 26, 2007  under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He called upon four governors from the states of Washington, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico to form an organization and sign a document with the lofty goals of solving the “effects of a hotter, drier climate including prolonged droughts, excessive heat waves, reduced snow packs, increased snowmelts, decreased spring runoff, altered precipitation patterns, more severe forest and rangeland fires, widespread forest diseases and other serious impacts.”

From these humble beginnings, the California Legislature adopted Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which was signed into law by Schwarzenegger.  The unelected CARB bureaucracy then was authorized to oversee the program of reducing carbon emissions in the state to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

Cap and Trade program

The bill also provided for a statewide Cap and Trade program. CARB eventually entered into an agreement with WCI Inc to oversee this commodity trading program.

As “climate alarmism” grew to an international movement in the first decade of the new millennium, WCI expanded quickly and at its peak included seven western states by adding Montana and Utah to its original member states and four Canadian provinces.  Mexico, several Pacific islands and California Indian Tribes were considering joining the group. But when the global economy collapsed in 2008, one by one every WCI partner dropped out of the agreement except for California and the Canadian province of Quebec.

From all of this, we have the state of California now launching an expensive campaign of carbon credit auctions to supposedly alter the impact of greenhouse gases (GHG’s) on the planet’s environment, with only one partner in North America, Quebec. WCI announced that Patrick Cummins of Quebec would be its interim executive director.

The board of directors of WCI now includes twice as many Canadian representatives as Californians.  The vice chairman of WCI is Robert-Noel de Tilly, the senior policy adviser in the Climate Change Office of the Quebec Ministry of Environment. And the WCI treasurer is Jean-Yves Benoit, an economist in the same office.

Tim Lesiuk, the secretary of WCI, is also the executive director of business development and chief negotiator for the Climate Action Secretariat of British Columbia. And another director, James Mack, is the head of the British Columbia Climate Action Secretariat.  The only other Californian on the WCI board of six members is Matt Rodriguez, the secretary for the California Environmental Protection Agency.

Bureaucrats

None of the resumes of the WCI board members lists any background or oversight with the kind of commodity trading the California Cap and Trade carbon auction promises to introduce.  All board members are environmental bureaucrats.

The WCI board held an organizational meeting January 12, 2012 at the Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. The minutes of the meeting report that Michael Gibbs, an employee of the California Environmental Protection Agency, told the attendees the WCI Financial Committee is “establishing bank accounts, support for transactions in two currencies, (and) prudent management in conformance with an adopted investment policy.”

“Adopted investment policy”?  Is that why WCI located its office on Wall Street?  Is WCI planning to invest in carbon credits, and can it do that as a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization under the IRS code?  Investments of any kind would appear to stray far afield of the original goals of the Western Climate group in 2007 to simply coordinate efforts to “solve effects of a hotter, drier climate including prolonged droughts, excessive heat waves, reduced snow packs.”

The lingering question remains for so many: What exactly is the role of this newly incorporated Delaware corporation in the overall scheme of California’s Cap and Trade carbon credit auction program?  WCI reportedly was tasked with developing “a multi sector, market based” Cap and Trade program in September 2008 and July 2010. Which brings up more questions.

Can an international corporation create a complicated state environmental program without any input from the California Legislature?  Can CARB honcho Mary Nichols outsource the design, implementation and oversight of this expensive program with the only partner being in Canada? And can she enter into a treaty with that foreign country receiving no approval through the legislative process of California’s state elected officials?

Rather than this being accepted as California business as usual, these questions and many others need answers.  Californians deserved answers long before any auction could be held.  The reason for the auction is to “cap” the emissions of oil refineries (think higher prices at the pump to pay for the scheme), power plants (think higher utility bills), diesel truck operators (think higher costs for all consumer goods) and 400 other separate California business categories.

No other state in America is participating with California in this Cap and Trade scheme. No one in California will escape the heavy costs this catastrophic scam will bring our state.