May rainfall?
It's been a year of unusual weather
If you want to know what President Donald Trump’s war against regulation is all about look no farther than the California air boards.
The state air board is being asked this week to upend the former cap-and-trade program that sells pollution credits so its proceeds go entirely to the state budget and the absurd high-speed rail (that’s a complete misnomer given it was supposed to be shovel ready in 2012 and not a mile of track has been laid 14 years later). In last year’s budget deal, the governor and legislative leaders locked in $1 billion annually for the silly project—think we need new leadership? That’s a huge investment on choo-choo trains that only have firm plans to go from near Bakersfield to near Merced—just the high traffic volume route to attract plenty of riders.
Meanwhile, the Bay Area board is moving ahead with plans to both ban natural gas ranges and stove tops in homes and require anyone replacing a gas water heater to install instead an electric heat pump. Its own estimates—no doubt conservative—put the hit on homeowners at $3,500 in additional cost. This for marginal, at best, improvement in air quality.
The entire premise of AB 32, signed by the misguided Gov. Arnold Schwaznegger, is to reduce so-called greenhouse gases to levels pre-2000 to stem climate change. That it doesn’t even amount to a rounding error in the thousandths (0.001) of any impact has been totally ignored. It’s “showing leadership” or perhaps something more delusional to imagine that anything the blue states on the West Coast do will offset India and China.
The state’s costly gasoline mix and excessive fuel taxes directly result in costs at the pump $1.50 above the national average. Mis-applied environmental laws and union contracts have resulted in horrible road conditions despite the excessive taxation. Way more gets spent on paper than is spent on paving roads.
Get the idea that the state is horribly misgoverned. Chew on it when you cast your ballot and remember that the governor appoints the state air board and the local ones are made up of elected officials serving in additional roles. One overdue reform would be directly electing members of the regional air and transportation boards to make members directly accountable to voters.
A happy note on this short week: this is the longest duration “unofficial” summer possible. Memorial Day came the earliest it can and Labor Day is the latest it can be. The official summer starts with the Summer Solstice June 21 and concludes when Fall starts Sept. 22.
Weather conditions here in delightful Northern California typically don’t match those dates—the fall can be quite hot and we’re going through a remarkably cool spring after the unseasonably warm March. And this week, the mountain passes that were open earlier than normal because of the low snow fall, closed again after several inches fell in the High Sierra. To say nothing of waking up to measurable rainfall this morning on May 28.
It makes for good weather conversation.
