Effective today, it’s no longer a crime to possess small amounts of marijuana in California. But selling unlabeled baked goods with trans-fats is verboten. (The San Jose Mercury-News , “New laws launched today statewide affect everyone from bakers to paparazzi.”)

These economy-boosting, jobs-creating strategies are among the 750 laws signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010, many of which go into effect with the start of 2011. The Sacramento Bee reviews the statutory onslaught in “New year, new laws: A sampling of the nearly 750 bills signed into law in 2010.”

As for manufacturers, the greatest impact from state government probably comes from the cap-and-trade regulation adopted by the California Air Resources Board on Dec. 17. From the California Manufacturers and Technology Association (CMTA), “CARB adopts cap & trade“:

The market will start on January 1, 2012. Between now and then CARB will be building the market structure and finalizing important details left undone in the regulation. Also adopted were a series of resolutions for additional work to be done, described by one board member as “longer than Santa’s list.” Included is a commitment to perform an update by July 31, 2011 on the progress being made on implementation issues, among which is the status of the Western Climate Initiative, estimates of expected offset supplies, a schedule for training covered entities, and finalization of the allowance allocation system. There will also be more work on the emissions intensity and trade exposures of different industries prior to the start of the program.

CARB believes that it has legal authority to conduct an auction under the program, but does not have authority to direct expenditure of the monies. CARB resolved to deposit 10 percent of the auction revenues into the Air Pollution Control Fund for appropriation by the legislature on programs for GHG reductions and green collar employment in disadvantaged communities.

(Meanwhile, in Europe, “ Europol Arrests More Than 100 In Carbon Trading Fraud.”)

From EDAWN, a Reno economic development organization, “Two California Manufacturers Invest in Reno AM2T Moves to Reno and Synvasive Technology Expands Existing Operations“: “Reno, Nev. (December 20, 2010) – - Two California manufacturers looking to escape the high costs of doing business in the Golden State are investing in Reno creating much needed jobs and opportunities.”

The Reno release came out the same day that State Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, published an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times, “California isn’t broken.” Although higher taxes would fix it.

Steven Greenhut, editor of www.calwatchdog.com, refutes the column in a San Francisco Examiner piece, “Living in state of delusion. He includes the perspective from manufacturers: “CEOs like to live in California,” said Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. “It’s nice to have a corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley or San Diego. But they do their manufacturing someplace else.”

• KBPS.com, “New Year Brings New Safety Labor Laws“
• San Mateo Daily Journal, “New year means new laws“
• BakersfieldNow.com, “New laws in the new year“
• Los Angeles Times, “New laws aim to make Californians healthier and safer“

From the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, “CA manufacturing gets a little help in state’s races and propositions:

Here’s the “GOOD” for manufacturing

• Prop 26 passed and taxes can’t be passed as fees.
• Prop 24 failed and a few of CA’s competitive tax policies remain.
• Redistricting commission remains intact (Prop 20 passed and Prop 27 failed).
• Steve Cooley still has a chance to be Attorney General (Cooley’s statement).
• Pro-manufacturing candidates, Anthony Cannella and David Valadao, won competitive state legislative races.

Here’s the “REAL BAD”

Prop 23 failed, ensuring increased energy rates and other costs for all manufacturers.

The race for attorney general between Cooley and Kamela Harris, the San Francisco District Attorney, is headed for a full count and then a recount.

CMTA drives home the message, one that California’s voters seem to be missing:

With 12.4 % unemployed, more than a third of our manufacturing base gone, and the rest of the country opting to vote for private sector economic growth yesterday, California must find ways to be a competitive place to operate. For example, CA needs to join the rest of the country and exempt from sales tax the purchase of manufacturing equipment. CA also needs to reform its regulatory process by introducing independent economic analysis. Message to all manufacturers: We need your help to make our case in California in 2011!

From Gino DiCaro at the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, the Mpowered Blog, “‘Cool Cars’ embodies Sacramento’s ‘bumbling, well-intentioned, paternalistic nonsense’,” the offense because the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) attempt to force through regulation more energy-efficient cars.The policy won’t work, imposes unnecessary additional costs, threatens public safety, and further damages California’s economy. Gino gives us the nickel tour:

CARB’s  “Cool Cars” policy was set up in 2009 as an AB 32 early action item to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by reflecting heat away from cars, thereby requiring less air conditioning and less fuel.

CARB originally tried to ban dark colored vehicles.  That didn’t fly with the public, auto dealers, manufacturers and anyone else who breathes in California.  Whew.

CARB then focused on a policy that mandated a reflective layer in all car windshields by 2012 and all windows by 2016.  They did this before any analysis on economic or safety impacts and without regard for alternatives with similar emission reductions.

Policies like this require extensive research to ensure proper benefit with the least amount of economic burden.  Over the past few months important information and data on these two fronts has emerged from the Wireless Association and the Auto Alliance that prove that the proposed “Cool Cars” policy creates:

• A substantial economic burden (costs 2 and a half times more than CARB reported)
• A serious concern about public safety because of negative effects on GPS ankle mechanisms and less cell phone 911 call completion
• Overall administrative nightmares for any system using toll road and bridge transponders

Even when presented with these problems and new information on better alternatives, CARB is still unwilling to budge and provide any flexibility or necessary changes in the regulation.

Well, at least the escaped felons speeding across the desert won’t be able to mock their victims with a cell phone call.

We’re always hearing that California is a pioneer, blazing the path for the rest of the country (as in auto emission controls). Pretty awful stuff. At what point do we drop the “well-intentioned” description?

The Washington Times today editorializes on the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) latest act of reality-ignoring arrogance, a proposal to mandate reflective window glazings on vehicles to keep the vehicle insides cool. Turns out the materials block GPS and wireless signals and would add about $250 to the cost of each car and light truck.

From “Unhealthy CARB“:

The problem is that the new windows would reflect radio waves, thus highly compromising the use of GPS units, garage-door openers, laptop computers, satellite radio systems, parolee ankle bracelets, wireless medical equipment and cell phones. CARB admits the mandate would interfere with radio signals but is poised to promulgate the new rule later this month anyway. A 15-day public comment period would follow, during which alert consumers could overwhelm the bureaucrats with objections. …

The rule would be particularly infuriating because it’s unnecessary. Manufacturers have offered at least two other nonmetallic methods – using light-absorbing materials rather than reflecting materials – to reduce the warming effect of sunlight on cars. Those methods do not interfere with radio signals and are cheaper.

The San Diego Union Tribune earlier weighed in on the regulation, calling the CARB’s actions both farcical and a travesty. In its editorial, “Common sense-less,” the paper quotes veteran auto-industry analyst Drew Winter:

CARB regulators don’t know anything about the business of building and selling vehicles and only care about improving fuel economy. Unlike automotive engineers, they are not required to care about safety, durability, customer satisfaction or unintended consequences…

CARB regulators have forced positive change in the auto industry with tough regulatory actions for the past 30 years, but this new strategy of telling auto engineers how to hit fuel-economy targets in addition to mandating them is bizarre and potentially dangerous. CARB needs to give up trying to design vehicles or be stopped before its arrogance and ignorance cause real harm.

Of course. Everyone knows that designing cars is a job best left to Congress and the EPA.

From George Ou at Digital Society, “California vehicle standard blocks cell, radio, and GPS“:

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) just passed a new regulation that requires glazed glass in automobiles that is supposed to reduce the need to use air conditioning.  The catch is that the same properties that block electromagnetic sunlight radiation also blocks lower frequency electromagnetic radio waves.  That means radios, satellite radios, GPS, garage door openers, and cell phones will be severely degraded.  Even more surprising is that it requires this glass even for jeeps that have soft covers, plastic windows, and no air conditioning.  Furthermore, the rules are so stringent that they effectively make sunroofs black, even though many consumers use the covers.

Here’s some background on CARB.  This is the same group of regulators who passed a controversial regulation that would require completely new diesel engines which will cause the state tremendous economic loss, and the same group who mandated the costly use of carcinogenic MTBE in California’s reformulated gasoline.

Meanwhile, the California State Energy Commission is getting ready to ban larger flatscreen televisions because of their energy consumption. But there surely will be no unintended consequences from this latest regulatory fiat, right? (continue reading…)

A commentary from Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association, commenting at the MPowered blog, “Why Not California #8: More solar companies producing elsewhere to sell to California.”

It looks like Tennessee just attracted a $1 billion solar manufacturing facility and 500 accompanying jobs from a German solar firm, Wacker Chemie, and an Associated Press story hints that the Volunteer state put up a $50 million incentive package to recruit the high wage company.  This news adds to a previously announced $1.2 billion investment from another solar firm, Hemlock Semiconductor, looking to produce solar products in Clarksville, Tennessee

Why is it that little old unsophisticated Tennessee can attract $2.2 billion in solar power investments and the home of solar and other green power mandates can sit and watch its unemployment numbers skyrocket to the country’s third worst rate – 10.1 percent – and leave behind an economy-altering number of manufacturing jobs.  Didn’t Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and then-Assembly Speaker Nunez promise that California’s global warming mandate would create tens of thousands of new green jobs in the Golden State.  And didn’t the California Air Resources Board in its economic analysis of AB 32 say that “implementing the recommended measures will have an overall positive impact on economic growth in California”?  Peer reviews shot many holes in the analysis and disputed AB 32′s “riskless free-lunch” and now we’ve seen states such as Tennessee, Oregon and Nevada begin to attract these very high wage manufacturing jobs and create hundreds of green careers for their working families.

Could one of the main answers be that business costs are so high in California that we will never see significant green investments; that workers in other states will be the chief beneficiaries of California’s environmental mandates and that California’s brightest and best are fleeing to states that put a high priority on economic growth.  The latest cost of doing business survey by the Milken Institute finds that operating costs for California manufacturers are 38 percent higher than for their competitors in Tennessee.  Is it any wonder that investments in industries that create high wage jobs routinely bypass California.

The climate IS changing in California, and changing for the worse. Unfortunately, it’s the business climate.

As you might guess, Jack’s post is one of a continuing series. Here’s another: “Why Not California #7: California-based company banking on Las Vegas solar manufacturing“

From The New York Times, “Economic Crisis Complicates California’s Goals on Climate“:

COLTON, Calif. — Only a few years ago, CalPortland planned on keeping its plant here operating as long as Mount Slover’s limestone held out. For more than a century, Colton’s kilns and crushing machines have been churning out cement for the streets and buildings of Los Angeles.

But the company says the plant’s future is now uncertain. The recession has sent cement prices plunging, lowered profits and forced CalPortland’s drivers to cut back on hours. And the company says it faces new expenses: the cost of meeting California’s new requirements that manufacturers take steps to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming.

The state’s plan includes a cap-and-trade system, a concept that President Obama endorsed in his speech last night. It turns out that in trying to sell the scheme to transform the state’s economy, economist/advocates/analysts dramatically underestimated the costs.

But the projections were strongly criticized as unrealistic by the affected industries and by independent economists who reviewed the analysis — including two from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, which supports the emission reduction goals.

In one withering review, Matthew E. Kahn of the University of California, Los Angeles said the analysis unconvincingly portrayed the law as “a riskless free lunch.” Another economist, Robert N. Stavins of Harvard, said the regulators were “systematically biased” in ways “that lead to potentially severe underestimates of costs.”

The comments are found in the peer review comments to the California Air Resource Board’s Economic Analysis Supplement to the Climate Change Draft Scoping Plan.

So much for policy being driven by sound science. It’s certainly not a good precedent for a national cap-and-trade scheme.

From California Manufacturers and Technology Association, a good update about the practical effects of legislating against economic activity in the hubristic belief you can control global temperatures. And this in a state with the highest electricity rates in the country:

Unless Governor Schwarzenegger vetoes SB 1762 (Sen. Don Perata), there’s a good chance that the state’s residential and industrial energy consumers will see the first chunk of increased global warming costs before the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has even finalized a scoping plan that will inevitably put the country’s highest premium on all products that start or end in a greenhouse gas in California.

SB 1762 creates a “Climate Change Institute” that among many things would become California’s greenhouse gas research and development center.  The life of the institute will use close to $500 million, in which $370 million will be collected from electricity and natural gas consumers.   Until the state reforms AB1X and un-exempts the majority of residential users, only the largest residential and industrial users will pay the cost.  With or without an AB1X fix, SB 1762 is just a taste of what’s to come under California’s massive global warming regulation.  And here, we come to one of the biggest rubs of all — it’s a “taste” that completely ignores and circumvents CARB’s authority to guide AB 32′s implementation, regulations, costs, and research and development. (continue reading…)