California Republican candidates, led by Meg Whitman, are running on a platform this year to rollback the state’s landmark climate-change legislation, but a new poll reveals that the GOP’s move could prove disastrous. The Field Poll shows that AB32, the 2006 law that Whitman and Republicans want to suspend because they claim it will harm the economy, is supported by 58 percent of state residents, the Sacramento Bee reports today.



Moreover, 69 percent of respondents said that the state can reduce greenhouse gases “and expand jobs and economic prosperity at the same time." Poll director Mark DiCamillo told the Bee that Californians "tend to believe … it will add jobs in the long run rather than detract.”



The poll also appears to be bad news for Texas oil company Valero, which plans to put a measure on the November ballot that would indefinitely suspend AB32. In addition, a study last month by the California Air Resources Board reported that the climate-change law likely will have no real effect on the state’s economy.