Carbon & Courts II: Cap and Trade: Fixable or Fatally Flawed? (9/14/11)
b'Carbon & Courts II: Cap and Trade: Fixable or Fatally Flawed? Edie Chang, Office of Climate Change, California Air Resources Board Brent Newell, General Counsel, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment Bill Gallegos, Executive Director, Communities for a Better Environment Kristin Eberhard, Legal Director, Western Energy and Climate Projects, Natural Resources Defense Council It might be the only reference to Star Wars you\\u2019ll ever hear at Climate One. Reaching for an analogy to drive home the impact of a shrinking cap on carbon emissions in California, Kristin Eberhard, Legal Director, Western Energy and Climate Projects, Natural Resources Defense Council, asks the audience to remember the trash compactor scene from the original Star Wars.\\u201cThis is the cap for Chevron. That cap is coming down on them year after year after year. And they have to figure out what they\\u2019re going to do,\\u201d she says. \\u201cIn the trash compactor, there\\u2019s no out. They\\u2019re in it. And that\\u2019s what we\\u2019re finding. These regulated facilities are realizing that the cap is not changing.\\u201d\\u201cThe problem with Kristin\\u2019s analogy,\\u201d interjects Brent Newell, General Counsel, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, to big laughs, \\u201cis that R2-D2 actually stopped the trash compactor. And they got out.\\u201d Replace R2-D2 in the analogy with political meddling and market manipulation and the two poles of this spirited Climate One exchange on the future of California\\u2019s cap-and-trade program come into focus. Eberhard and Edie Chang, Office of Climate Change, California Air Resources Board, argue that a regulated cap-and-trade system, coupled with renewable energy targets and improved fuel economy standards, will dramatically reduce carbon emissions and give communities relief from harmful localized pollutants. Newell and Bill Gallegos, Executive Director, Communities for a Better Environment, argue that regulators at CARB are choosing not to use their authority under AB 32 to target pollution at major industrial facilities, usually sited next to neighborhoods home to low-income people of color. After reiterating that environmental justice groups firmly support AB 32, Bill Gallegos says that the lawsuit these groups filed to force CARB to scrap the cap-and-trade system was a last resort. \\u201cWe wanted to ensure that, as we\\u2019re reducing greenhouse gas emissions, let\\u2019s get the other stuff that is really choking people and killing them right now. We had a chance to do something good and, unfortunately, the Air Resources Board has not seized that opportunity,\\u201d he says. In response to Newell and Gallegos\\u2019 concern about local sources of pollutants, Edie Chang says, \\u201cWe\\u2019re also initiating a rulemaking to ensure that the seventeen largest industrial sources in the state are going to have to implement the cost-effective greenhouse gas reductions. Programs like that will make sure that localized communities experience air-quality benefits.\\u201d This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on September 14, 2011\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'