California leaders push to extend cap-and-trade program amid Trump’s climate
NORTHSTATE, Calif. — State leaders are trying to keep the momentum going on climate efforts.
On Tuesday, Governor Gavin Newsom, along with Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, said they’ll seek an extension of California’s cap-and-trade program, which centers on climate pollution reduction. They plan to pursue the extension during this legislative year.
This follows President Trump’s April 8 executive order aiming to halt what Trump called “burdensome and ideologically motivated ‘climate change’ or energy policies that threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security.”
The cap-and-trade program sets a declining limit on the state’s biggest greenhouse gas emissions sources while also building economic incentives for investment in cleaner technologies.
Representatives with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) told the Northstate’s News the program has funded $28 billion in climate investments. They said this has led to over 500,000 projects statewide, including 800 projects in Shasta County. In addition, they said it’s supported 30,00 jobs, as well as cut millions of tons of carbon emissions.
“The reason why it has been so incredibly effective in California is that it gives the covered companies options,” CARB Chair Liane Randolph said. “They can install equipment to reduce emissions, reduce emissions in other ways, or they can purchase allowances.”
David Ledger, president of the Shasta Environmental Alliance, told KRCR he feels one part of the program that could be reevaluated is offering incentives for reforestation. However, Ledger supports cap-and-trade and said he is glad to see efforts to extend it.
“I think it’s really important for the state to jump in now and try to fight that so they can keep cap-and-trade and other states, whatever programs they have, whether it’s a carbon tax or whatnot because that’s what’s heating up the climate,” Ledger said before adding, “It’s hard to get insurance on homes because of fire, hurricanes, and flooding now. It’s just been so bad. And that’s because of all the energy that’s in the air.”
Randolph said, “Some people have opinions about the different ways of managing, some folks are concerned about forest thinning and whether or not that’s appropriate in a particular place, how that relates to commercial logging, things like that. So what I would just say is that the program provides an opportunity to fund a variety of forestry projects. Those projects will have to go through the typical process that any project would need to go through, and having this potential revenue source to do that work and protect residents from out-of-control wildfires is just a critical benefit of the program.”
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