Update on PLF's challenge to California's cap-and-trade regulation

October 29, 2015 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

The briefing in our lawsuit challenging the auction component of CARB’s cap-and-trade regulation has been completed for many months, but the California Court of Appeal, Third District, has yet to set a date for oral argument.  Although the panel was appointed last June, we wont know the identities of the judges until an oral argument date is announced.

There is much at stake in this lawsuit.  CARB is not only illegally siphoning billions of dollars from the private sector in a vain effort to control carbon dioxide emissions in the state, it plans to use those billions to fund a complex scheme to de-carbonize the California economy. Without legislative authorization, Governor Brown is moving forward to require an 80% cut in statewide carbon dioxide emissions below 1990 levels.  He plans to achieve that lofty goal by 2050.  In the process, he has drafted virtually every major California regulatory agency to do his bidding, including but not limited to agencies regulating oil production, farming, water distribution, and transportation.  The funds required to overhaul the California economy in such a way will come from the cap-and-trade auction revenues. If our lawsuit is successful, those funds wont be available.

In fact, the plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 80% is a fool’s errand.  Chances are, the only way to achieve that goal is to ban humans and animals from the state.  Even then, the resulting uncontrolled wildfires will likely push us over Brown’s emissions limit.