If anyone is looking for evidence that government unions use their immense influence to support the growth of an authoritarian state, look no further than their unequivocal support for global warming “mitigation,” and all attendant agencies and laws to support that goal.

How Gov’t Unions and Crony Capitalists Exploit Global Warming Concerns - California Political Review https://t.co/TECDtxsS8E

— CA Political Review (@CAPoliticalRev) June 23, 2016

If anyone is looking for evidence that government unions and crony capitalists work together – contrary to the conventional wisdom that presents the appearance that they are in conflict – again look no further than their shared support for global warming mitigation, expressed in the legislative mandate to reduce CO2 emissions. AB32 implements this by forcing industrial entities to purchase permits to emit progressively smaller quantities of CO2, via an auction process that is expected to raise $20 billion per year to finance renewable energy investments.
Think about how government unions will benefit from all this money:

• Transit workers will claim a share because they will be getting cars off the road.
• Firefighters will claim more fires are because of global warming and demand more funds – when in reality most severe wildfires are the result of decades of forest mismanagement and unwarranted wildfire suppression.
• Cities will qualify for proceeds when they zone extremely high density housing.
• Code enforcement officers will declare that the percentage of their jobs oriented towards conservation and energy/water efficiency qualifies them for a share of the proceeds.
• Teachers will declare that the percentage of their curricula oriented towards climate education qualifies them for a share of the proceeds.
• More generally, municipalities will collect more property tax as restrictive zoning elevates the cost of housing.

Think about how crony corporations and corrupt financial special interests benefit from this money:

• Wall Street traders will set up new subsidiaries to traffic in carbon emission auctions and take a cut.
• “Green” entrepreneurs will manufacture devices calculated to save energy and water – despite the fact that the shortages are contrived.
• Producers of energy and water will sell at higher prices since competitive development of these resources is restricted.
• Utilities whose profits are “decoupled” from the quantity of energy and water they deliver will increase revenue and hence their profit margins which are pegged to revenue, without having to increase services.
• Manufacturers of noncompetitive products with no natural demand – high speed rail is a perfect example – are enriched via hundreds of billions of investment for their supposedly greener and cleaner solutions.
• More generally, artificial scarcity causes asset bubbles which benefits wealthy investors and pension funds, but impoverishes ordinary workers.

Even if CO2 is a threat to life on earth, there is an alternative that merits discussion:

California's cap and trade program may be in collapse.

CA #capandtrade program may be in collapse https://t.co/QCEGYtUZxd #CAPolitics

— HJTA.org (@HJTA) June 15, 2016

The linchpin of California’s climate change agenda, a program known as cap and trade, has become mired in legal, financial and political troubles...

The program has been a symbol of the state’s leadership in the fight against global warming and a key source of funding, most notably for the high-speed rail project connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles.

But the legality of cap and trade is being challenged in court by a business group, and questions are growing about whether state law allows it to operate past 2020. With the end of the legislative session in August, Gov. Jerry Brown, lawmakers and interest groups of all stripes are laying the groundwork for what could become a battle royal over the future of California’s climate change programs.

Unless the state acts, “the whole system could fail,” said Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles). “If that happens, we could lose an entire stream of revenue to make our communities more sustainable.”....

Unless the California Air Resources Board takes action soon, motorists could be hit with a 76 cent per gallon gas tax increase in January.

◼ ENVIRONMENT: Gas prices fueling debate - The Press Enterprise via Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
◼ LIKE Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association on FACEBOOK

Come Jan. 1, fuel producers will have to buy credits to cover auto emissions. Industry representatives said the consumers will bear the cost of those credits.

California drivers can expect to pay 16 to 76 cents per gallon more once the cap-and-trade changes are in effect, according to Fed Up at The Pump, a coalition of fuel producers and business groups that calls the upcoming cap-and-trade change a hidden tax.

“Now is not the time for California’s environmental bureaucrats to play social engineers and price out consumers who need to fill up their gas tanks to make a living,” read an issue summary on the Fed Up coalition’s website.

Al Gore Sued By 30,000 Scientists For Global Warming Fraud

◼ 30,000 scientists, including the founder of The Weather Channel, have come forward to sue Al Gore for fraud. Al Gore has made massive profits in the promotion of the global warming mythology, and he played a key role in getting the 'Cap and Trade' legislation passed. Perhaps this lawsuit will finally give the thousands of 'dissenting' scientists a voice again.... - healthwyze.org

The Golden State's fastest-growing entity is government and its biggest product is red tape

◼ Joel Kotkin: The Great California Exodus, A leading U.S. demographer and 'Truman Democrat' talks about what is driving the middle class out of the Golden State. - Allysia Finley/Wall St. Journal

Nearly four million more people have left the Golden State in the last two decades than have come from other states. This is a sharp reversal from the 1980s, when 100,000 more Americans were settling in California each year than were leaving. According to Mr. Kotkin, most of those leaving are between the ages of 5 and 14 or 34 to 45. In other words, young families....

And things will only get worse in the coming years as Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and his green cadre implement their "smart growth" plans to cram the proletariat into high-density housing. "What I find reprehensible beyond belief is that the people pushing [high-density housing] themselves live in single-family homes and often drive very fancy cars, but want everyone else to live like my grandmother did in Brownsville in Brooklyn in the 1920s," Mr. Kotkin declares.

"The new regime"—his name for progressive apparatchiks who run California's government—"wants to destroy the essential reason why people move to California in order to protect their own lifestyles."

Housing is merely one front of what he calls the "progressive war on the middle class." Another is the cap-and-trade law AB32, which will raise the cost of energy and drive out manufacturing jobs without making even a dent in global carbon emissions. Then there are the renewable portfolio standards, which mandate that a third of the state's energy come from renewable sources like wind and the sun by 2020. California's electricity prices are already 50% higher than the national average.... More, at the link.

Stunning report: Obama used administrative earmarks to buy Congressional support for his wildly unpopular agenda

◼ Wondering how President Obama convinced politicians to vote for Cap-and-Trade, Obamacare and other unpopular bills that Democrats knew would put their seats at risk? - Doug Ross

◼ ‘Buying’ House Votes for Unpopular Legislation - Heritage.org

At least 32 vulnerable House Democrats received significant federal grant money in the periods leading up to or directly after their votes on at least one of these three pieces of legislation (see charts below), raising concerns that those grants may have been used either to encourage or reward votes in favor of the administration’s position.

...while administrative earmarking is a practice used by nearly every administration, CRS found in a report published in April 2010 — immediately after the time period at issue — that “[b]oth the number and value of earmarks requested solely by the President increased since FY2008.” The number of earmarks had increased by 54 percent, CRS found, while the value of those requests had increased by a whopping 126 percent.

The timing of those requests also suggests political factors at play. Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Elections Commissioner, said the administration’s actions “show how taxpayer funds are used for crass political purposes — it is a rank abuse of the government’s power and another sign of this administration’s lack of a moral compass.”

Gov. Brown's cap-and-trade spending plan angers businesses

◼ He aims to spend $1 billion from the auction of greenhouse gas emission credits to help shrink the budget shortfall. Industry groups call that a back-door tax hike. - Marc Lifsher/LA Times

Gov. Jerry Brown has found a new pot of money to help him fill a $9-billion hole in his proposed budget: $1 billion from auctioning credits to allow California companies to emit greenhouse gases.

But business groups are already denouncing Brown's plan as a back-door tax increase that they intend to challenge in court if the proposal is approved as part of the state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

"At a time when the public is concerned about jobs and the economy, the budget proposes a new tax on California businesses for climate change activities," said Dorothy Rothrock, vice president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Assn. "The anticipated $1 billion is not windfall revenue. The funds will be paid by California employers suffering the worst recession since the Great Depression."

The so called cap-and-trade system is a critical piece of AB 32...