Proposition 23 and jobs....

Today's post: Wednesday, 9-15-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post: Proposition 23 and jobs

The San Francisco Chronicle had a special last Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010. They had one essay in favor of proposition 23 in California and one opposed to proposition 23.

The yes folks said that prop 23 would prevent AB 32 implementation from wiping out thousands or even more than a million jobs of jobs -- or even more than a million jobs.

The no folks said the reverse, that passing prop 23 and wiping out AB 32 implementation would kill new jobs.

Clearly, to voters in the November election, virtually all of whom would like a better economy with more available jobs, jobs are the key issue.

But both sides can’t be correct.

How people will vote depends on who they believe is right.

Since the Pipe Fitters union and a union group of fire fighters were backing 23 and a group of entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley business leaders saying to vote no, clearly the backers of 23 hope that blue collar workers will believe their side and vote in favor of 23.

The major backers of yes on 23 are, according to their official website, “major funding provided by Valero and Tesoro.” These two companies would have to pay more to better clean up the air pollution at their California refineries if 23 fails to cancel clean air provisions as they hope it will do. And, if AB 32 causes gasoline sales to fall a bit by helping provide alternatives and boosting the price of gasoline somewhat, their gasoline sales will fall.

Will that cause them to close their California refineries or layoff workers there? Maybe it might. If it did, since piping is used in their refineries, maybe the Pipefitters union will have some members get laid off too. Even if it happens though, this is hundreds of jobs at companies trying to cut costs by not paying up to clean up their own pollution. It is NOT many thousands of jobs all over the state.

Will a small boost to gasoline prices and utilities bills due to AB 32 being implemented cause the loss of millions of jobs beyond that as they say it will?

They say so just fine. It clearly would be recessionary if it were to happen and voters would prefer that not happen.

But do they present any kind of evidence for this assertion? Nope. Zero. Zilch. Nada. What jobs in what other places in California would be lost? They DO not say.

Conversely the new jobs in clean energy companies already created and likely to be created are verifiable.

In my regular job, I call new and promising companies in the Silicon Valley area. And, I follow clean energy companies from personal interest. I see the growth in clean energy jobs first hand. I know they are real. The solar part of Applied Materials; SunPower; Solyndra; and Nanosolar; and electric car maker, Tesla Motors; and smart grid companies like Trilliant and Silver Spring Networks together have created thousands of new clean energy jobs. And there are literally dozens of smaller clean energy and solar start ups each adding jobs.

If 23 is passed these larger companies will add fewer jobs and some of the smaller companies that would have survived and grown and added new jobs will go out of business instead with their current employees losing their jobs.

So, first of all to me the job losses predicted by the yes on 23 people look to me to be mostly smoke and mirrors while the jobs at stake in clean energy if it were to pass, I see directly.

Unless the yes on 23 people have some real data they are keeping secret and not publicizing, all they are doing is taking oil company money to hoodwink the public.

That’s what I believe is going on.

But what about the argument that increasing energy costs will slow the economy and thereby result in fewer jobs that way?

I agree that is a valid point.

But what the supporters for yes on 23 people fail to understand is that is a very strong reason to vote no on their proposition!

If AB 32 is implemented there will be small increases in gasoline and utility bills in the first year or two afterwards. But that will gradually become a nonissue as too much demand for natural gas and gasoline begins to hit decreasing supplies. In the near term those prices will go up soon anyway because of that supply-demand imbalance.

But if AB 32 is implemented and more energy efficiency efforts are made and more geothermal, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, and wind power – maybe even nuclear power is added that would not have been without it, those prices will be moderated. They will still go up but much more slowly.

Conversely, if prop 23 passes and stops that from happening on that large a scale, both natural gas prices and gasoline will go up MORE and slow the economy more. And that’s on top of killing the new clean energy jobs that would have been created.

So, both groups have it right. The key issue is jobs.

Given the evidence I see, the yes on 23 people don’t have the evidence and the no on 23 people do.

Please vote NO on proposition 23.

California Proposition 23 backers are unethical....

Today's post: Wednesday, 9-1-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post: California Proposition 23 backers are unethical

As I’ve posted before, they wrote proof of this into their initiative!

They say their proposition is postponement or delay of AB 32; but they purposely wrote conditions into what would be needed to lift this postponement that, given today’s economic conditions are somewhere between totally impossible to meet and a one in a thousand chance. So, they deliberately call something a postponement when what they want it and know it to be is a permanent cancellation.

But I just found out, they also may have an ulterior motive besides.

If you live in either Los Angeles or near it or in the San Francisco Bay Area you have breathed in toxic pollution released by the refineries of the two companies backing Proposition 23. Since one of its effects will be to weaken pollution controls in California, they stand to save money and release more pollution if it’s passed.

Do you want to breathe extra toxic pollution or vote for something written by and supported by two unethical companies that want to cause that to happen just so it makes them a few extra bucks?

(To be sure, the poor and minority people living closest to their refineries are most likely to be harmed by this pollution.

But just in the last month, someone, & my bet is that it is one or both of their refineries in the San Francisco Bay Area, has been releasing huge amounts of pollution in the early morning hours just before 7 am. The smell was pervasive enough to come into our car on the freeway with the windows rolled up and to go into the place where I work even though the doors there had been shut all night and the windows don’t open. I smelled this years ago when I went to school and lived in Berkeley and the releases this time appeared from Menlo Park to San Jose. So this has been going on for over 40 years and the amounts released are massive indeed. I don’t know how toxic this pollutant is; but their oil refineries are one of the few places operating on a large enough scale in our area to generate that much pollution.

So, if it IS harmful, it covers so much of the Bay Area, it is NOT just the people nearby to their refineries who are being harmed.)

Also, here are excerpts from the press release I just found.:

LOS ANGELES – The Ella Baker Center and the California Environmental Justice Alliance released a study that reveals that Valero and Tesoro, the two Texas oil companies bankrolling Proposition 23 to repeal California's clean air and energy standards, have been repeatedly cited for producing deadly chemicals at their refineries that are exposing millions of California families to harm. The two companies have contributed more than $4 million to put Proposition 23 on the November ballot.

The report was re-released at a press conference at Los Angeles’ Vista Hermosa Park attended by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; No on Prop 23 Campaign Committee Co-Chair Tom Steyer; Penny Newman, Executive Director of Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice (CCAEJ) and member of the California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA); Bill Gallegos, Executive Director, Communities for a Better Environment; and Martha Arguello, Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility – LA.

The study, http://www.stopdirtyenergyprop.com/docs/Toxic%20Twins%208-31-10.pdf , titled “Toxic Twins: Soiling the Southland,” found that the two Texas-based companies’ oil refineries in the Bay Area and particularly in the Los Angeles regions “annually produce hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals.”

The study went on to demonstrate that Valero and Tesoro have repeatedly violated pollution laws in California by releasing chemicals into the air. This January, “Valero disclosed that it had 29 outstanding Violation Notices from the South Coast Air Quality Management District,” according to the report. Over 44 violation notices within a three year window have been settled between Tesoro and the Bay Area Quality Management District.

This study builds on a report by the University of Massachusetts Amherst Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) “Toxic 100 Air Polluters” report (http://www.peri.umass.edu/toxic100 ) which named Valero and Tesoro as the #12 and #32 polluters in the nation.

I’ve posted before that proposition 23 will cut back on the job creation from clean energy companies if it’s passed.

So, if these two companies cared about California’s economy, they would have designed a proposition that only shut down parts of AB 32 to avoid that. The jobs just added by clean energy companies as other parts of the California economy just LOST jobs are a FACT.

Do you trust these two companies saying that passing Proposition 23 would improve the California economy given this significant omission?

I most certainly do not.

When implemented AB 32 will gradually lower their sales of their oil and increase the pressure on them to pollute less – both of which will cost them money.

The only certain economic winners if Proposition 23 passes are these two companies.

Please join me in voting against their proposition.