Comment Log Display

Re: CARB Scoping Plan Final Comments

 

Dear Chair:

 

Thank you for you and your staff's hard work on the Climate Change
Scoping Plan. Your plan will shape the state's response to global
warming over several decades.

 

As you meet Dec. 11-12 to consider whether to adopt the plan, I
hope you take the time to review three key areas: land use,
auctions, and offsets.

 

Land Use: Please consider setting a higher target for land use
pollution reduction, since the low target included in the current
version will not help the state to achieve its longer-range 2050
goal for reducing the pollution that causes global warming. But
changing land-use practices now will reduce sprawl, preserve
pollution-absorbing open space, and provide a net economic benefit
to our state.

 

Auctions: Please consider requiring auctions not giveaways for any
and all carbon allowances granted by CARB. Not only does auctioning
promote polluter accountability and encourage faster reductions of
emissions, but the auction system also would provide revenue for
important goals that CARB shares with the environmental community,
such as providing better transit, green jobs and help for
low-income areas.

 

Offsets: Please think about reducing the offsets allowed under
this plan. Under the current plan, polluters could rely entirely on
offsets in the early years of the program, thus allowing polluters
in capped sectors to delay making their own emission reductions
until later years, in some cases not until 2018.

 

Thank you for the strong leadership you have provided and continue
to provide as California addresses the pollution that causes global
warming.

 

Yours sincerely,
Robert E. Rutkowski 

 

cc:
House Leadership


2527 Faxon Court
Topeka, Kansas 66605-2086
P/F: 1 785 379-9671
E-mail: rutkowski@terraworld.net