Comment Log Display

Big polluters should pay for all their emissions: 100% auction of
emissions permits, no free giveaways.

- Consider cap-and-trade just a minor tool among market
mechanisms. Other tools should be brought forward more robustly,
including feed-in tariffs and carbon fees in the Plan's near-term
action agenda.

- Make sure the 33-percent renewable electricity standard by 2020
is given the force of law, either through legislation or regulatory
action.

- Promote and enable Community Choice Electricity Aggregation
(CCA) and its potentially powerful GHG reduction potential for
cities and counties.

- Give more specificity and amplitude to the goal of electrifying
transportation, especially greatly expanding ZEV numbers (plug-ins
and electric cars) beyond CARB's currently too low projected
levels.

- Greatly strengthen the too-modest land use and agricultural
sections of Plan. The Plan greatly underestimates the significance
of methane emissions, by using the 100-year global warming
potential. Over a shorter time horizon, methane accounts for 17% to
perhaps well over 30% of the state's GHGs, rather than the 5.7% in
the 2004 inventory.

- Further increase requirements for zero waste and recycling, as
well as Extended Producer Responsibility.

- Ensure that actions to reduce greenhouse gases also help,
whenever possible, to clean up California's unhealthy air.

- Limiting offsets will strengthen the demand for clean energy
innovation, which in turn provides more good jobs for
Californians.

- Any offsets allowed should at most represent only a small
portion of a polluter's required emission reductions. They should
have stringent protocols ensuring that the reductions are
quantifiable, new, permanent, subject to independent third-party
verification, enforceable by CARB, and only located in California.

- Offsets from sinks, such as planting trees or avoiding tree
cut-downs, should not be allowed, since they are too difficult to
measure and often under-perform.