Arnold Schwarzenegger's environmental team is working to issue controversial climate rules. Calif. climate board to heat up debate

SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's environmental team is playing hurry-up offense to issue controversial climate rules before his term ends in January, even if it means wading into an Election Day thicket with the oil industry.

California's Air Resources Board (CARB) is on track by the end of the month to release more than 1,000 pages of proposed rules for how the state should curb greenhouse gases at power plants and other large industrial plants.


The proposed regulations will surface just days before a Nov. 2 ballot showdown over an oil industry-funded petition designed to nix the state's underlying pollution-reduction law. Schwarzenegger hopes to cap his legacy in Sacramento by defeating the initiative, known as Proposition 23.

But opponents to the California global warming law are looking for some late traction of their own in their bid to block the state’s carbon dioxide limits until the unemployment rate drops to 5.5 percent or lower for four consecutive quarters — a threshold reached just three times since 1980. Both sides of the campaign are spending millions to influence voters in what is no doubt an uphill climb for the industry, given historical trends where just over 40 percent of ballot initiatives actually win.

A September Field Poll found the initiative had 34 percent support among likely voters, with 45 percent opposed and 21 percent undecided.

Jim Brulte, a former state House and Senate GOP minority leader, told POLITICO that he’ll be on the lookout for CARB to skirt controversy with the proposed regulations to avoid angering different regions of the state, especially where locals are reliant on fossil fuels.

Brulte said he expected CARB to either avoid key details, or punt all together until after Nov. 2.

"They don't want the election to be swayed when people figure out who gets hosed," he said.

The global warming law signed in 2007 by Schwarzenegger requires CARB by Jan. 1 to adopt "market mechanisms" such as a cap-and-trade program that demonstrate the state is on a path toward curbing greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020.

The board’s staff-written proposal will come out by the end of the month, CARB spokesman

Stanley Young said Monday. That launches a 45-day public comment period, with the 11-member board then scheduled to take a final vote on the regulations during a marathon session Dec. 16-17 in Sacramento.

Derek Walker, director of the Environmental Defense Fund's California Climate Initiative, dismissed the idea that politics will prompt CARB to water down its proposal, or delay its release.

"My guess is that withholding until post-November 2 is not an option," Walker said in an e-mail. "CARB has shown a willingness to [successfully] tackle other tough issues amidst the political heat."

Last month, for example, CARB unanimously approved a requirement that 33 percent of the state's energy come from renewables by 2020.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Derek Walker's last name.

Clarification: A previous version of this story referenced a Reuters/Ipsos poll on public opinion of Prop. 23 that the news service has since retracted.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Vivyan Tran @ 10/13/2010 05:16 PM Corrected by: David Cohen @ 10/11/2010 08:29 PM Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Derek Walker's last name. Clarification: A previous version of this story referenced a Reuters/Ipsos poll on public opinion of Prop. 23 that the news service has since retracted.