Representing big business and labor, the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance is calling for a comprehensive, peer-reviewed economic study on the potential effect of a carbon cap. The group is pushing to have the study available before the state imposes mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Without the study, a cap could take an untold toll on the economy, said Victor Weisser, council president, at a California Environmental Protection Agency-sponsored panel discussion in Los Angeles May 17. He added that a ceiling on carbon dioxide pollution could be especially costly for the electric power industry. The meeting is one of a series CalEPA has held around the state to discuss the state climate action initiative, which would cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80 percent of those levels by 2050 (Circuit, April 7, 2006). Environmentalists on the panel, however, urged that the state move forward quickly to establish the cap to provide certainty for businesses and to enable a market for technologies that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "You can't have a market without a cap," said Devra Wang, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's California Energy Program. The initial economic study shows that the state would benefit from the climate action initiative, noted Alan Lloyd, state Climate Action Team chair. Weisser asserted that "Closing down generation plants before their useful life is done is going to be throwing away capital that's already been invested." He said that any cap should allow California companies to meet emissions limits by undertaking the least-cost greenhouse gas reduction projects anywhere in the world, particularly in rapidly growing nations such as China and India. California will further study the economic impacts of a carbon cap, Lloyd said. AB 32, authored by State Senator Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), would establish a carbon cap (Circuit, April 21, 2006).
