PLF's carbon dioxide cap and trade challenge pushes forward

August 06, 2013 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Today Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) filed the closing legal brief in Morning Star Packing Company v. California Air Resources Board, PLF’s lawsuit challenging CARB’s Cap and Trade Regulation.  The illegal auction component of the regulation seeks to siphon billions of dollars of revenues from productive private hands into the bottomless pockets of California’s bureaucracy, ostensibly in the name of controlling carbon dioxide emissions.

This lawsuit is important to California and the Nation.  In California, the cost of everything from gasoline to groceries will go through the roof, as regulated businesses pass on their auction expenses through the chain of distribution to consumers.  And small businesses will be forced to close their doors because of the prohibitive costs of bidding successfully for carbon emissions allowances.  Meanwhile, billions of additional dollars will go to California’s already-bloated government, which will certainly find inventive and hurtful ways to spend the extra money.  At the same time, red states are rolling out welcome mats at their borders for California’s beleaguered businesses, with the promise of fewer regulations and taxes.  And blue states wait patiently to see whether California’s grand experiment in regulating carbon dioxide will survive the legal challenge.  If California’s experiment survives, expect states like New York, Illinois, and Oregon to hop on the carbon dioxide regulatory bandwagon.

Of course, no matter where you pitch your tent, nothing succeeds like success.  If PLF’s lawsuit is successful, the nightmare scenarios could be averted, and CARB will be taught the important lesson that it is not above the law.

The hearing on PLF’s legal challenge is scheduled for Wednesday, August 28, 2013, in Sacramento County Superior Court.