Gov. Brown orders big greenhouse gas cuts

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GRA

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Via sfgate: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Gov-Brown-orders-big-greenhouse-gas-cuts-9211316.php

Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday signed the nation’s toughest climate law, requiring California to slash its greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 while leaving open the question of exactly how to do it.

No other state has enacted such deep emission cuts into law. The legislation goes well beyond the reductions required by California’s landmark 2006 global warming law, AB32, which called for returning emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The state’s emissions have fallen 9.5 percent since peaking in 2004, and analysts now consider the 2020 goal well within reach. . . .

Brown also signed a companion bill, AB197, which prioritizes efforts to cut emissions in low-income or minority communities. Many such communities are near facilities such as oil refineries and factories that produce both greenhouse gases and the toxic air pollution that can cause respiratory problems. . . .

In several ways, Thursday marked a turning point in the state’s climate fight. Lawmakers who represent low-income communities have increasingly chafed at global warming policies — such as rebates for buying solar panels or electric cars — that mainly help the wealthy or the middle class. Written by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella (Riverside County), who represents the desert communities surrounding the Salton Sea, AB197 was seen as a way to address that imbalance.

AB197 also lets the Legislature appoint two nonvoting members to the California Air Resources Board, which runs most of California’s global warming programs. And it requires the board to post on its website data about emissions of greenhouse gases and toxic air pollutants from individual facilities. . . .
 
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