{"id":21699,"date":"2016-09-17T13:01:45","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T18:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21699"},"modified":"2016-09-17T13:01:45","modified_gmt":"2016-09-17T18:01:45","slug":"why-overregulated-california-is-leading-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21699","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘overregulated’ California is leading the way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why ‘overregulated’ California is leading the way<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

Ideologues hate it when the facts get in the way of their theories. California’s Gov. Jerry Brown\u00a0signed trailblazing legislation<\/a>\u00a0last week that commits the state to audacious greenhouse gas emission reductions by 2030 of 40 percent below 1990 levels. Not surprisingly,\u00a0longstanding critics from the business community were howling once again<\/a>about how California’s business climate will deteriorate as a result.<\/p>\n

The law extended efforts under California’s previous\u00a0cap-and-trade<\/a>\u00a0bill which set emission targets for 2020 to match 1990 levels.<\/p>\n

Predictions of doom for the California economy are a perennial staple of California politics. But is there any truth to them?<\/p>\n

First, here are the bald facts.\u00a0Growth of California’s ‘overregulated’ economy<\/a>\u00a0has frequently exceeded the\u00a0U.S. economy as a whole<\/a>\u00a0since 1998. Annual growth in gross domestic product shown in the linked graphs is not a perfect measure of economic vitality, but it shows that fears that California is somehow stunted by its so-called excessive regulatory and tax burden isn’t supported by the growth numbers.<\/p>\n

Moreover, states that rank highest in typical business-oriented think tank ratings such as\u00a0North Dakota and Wyoming saw their economies shrink by 6.7 and 2.9 percent respectively in 2015 as California led the nation with an expansion of 4.2 percent<\/a>. Of course, North Dakota and Wyoming were hit hard by the decline of oil prices as their economies are largely extractive. California’s economy is far more diverse.<\/p>\n

It’s probably true that carbon emissions intensive industries will now think twice about expanding their presence in California. But those industries aren’t really the future that California is seeking.<\/p>\n

Instead, the state is becoming a leader in\u00a0solar<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0wind<\/a>\u00a0energy and\u00a0energy efficiency<\/a>\u00a0technology and policy. These are cutting edge industries that other states should envy California for. One has to look no further than the\u00a0coal industry<\/a>\u00a0to see\u00a0what’s in store for the fossil fuel industry as a whole<\/a>\u00a0and the economies that rely on them.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why ‘overregulated’ California is leading the way Ideologues hate it when the facts get in the way of their theories. California’s Gov. Jerry Brown\u00a0signed trailblazing legislation\u00a0last week that commits the state to audacious greenhouse gas emission reductions by 2030 of 40 percent below 1990 levels. Not surprisingly,\u00a0longstanding critics from the business community were howling once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,12724,14288,328,3973,4752,2530,4967],"class_list":["post-21699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-california","tag-cap-and-trade","tag-emission-reductions","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-jerry-brown","tag-kurt-cobb","tag-regulations","tag-resource-insights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21700,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21699\/revisions\/21700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}