George Rebane
Evidence is mounting daily that the California Air Resources Board is grossly incompetent – this in addition to having all the other diseases and ailments that normally infect big powerful government bureaucracies. The SF Chronicle reported (here) over two weeks ago that –
California grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state's clean-air standards, and scientists have spent the past several months revising data and planning a significant weakening of the landmark regulation, The Chronicle has found.
All this continues to give a bigger lie to the “benefits” of implementing AB32 that our politicians (including our RINO governator) have been ramming down our throats for the last three years. But did this latest revelation cause even a ripple in the propaganda about this landmark command and control legislation?
Today AB32’s backers fear most of all that passage of Prop23 will halt their plans for growing government, increasing taxes, adding to the regulatory burdens for business, and in general taking California into federal receivership as a failed state.
For the few who do pay attention, toting up CARB’s crap on this legislation paints an unbelievable picture of hubris and incompetence. Consider just some of the visible aspects of how this agency has misadministered AB32.
• Lied about then rejected the Legislative Analyst’s Office report on the negative economic impact of AB32;
• Employed a self-proclaimed ‘scientist’ Hien T. Tran who lied about his missing doctorate to develop CARB’s draconian diesel diktats based on faulty data and analytics.
• CARB’s chairwoman Mary Nichols covered up Tran’s lack of qualifications and erroneous results, apparently because she liked the power it gave her agency to increase its regulatory scope.
• Hired Charles River Associates to redo LAO’s work and produce a better result. Then covered up CRA’s report when it reported that AB32 implementation would have a negative impact on California’s economy.
• Continued to publish and promote AB32 benefits (especially about “cleantech” jobs and economic impact) that it knew to be either totally false or at best unsubstantiated.
• And now it turns out that its internal analytics arm has blown (by hundreds of percent) every important prediction it has made (and the state’s leftwingers have and continue to tout) about the ‘impact’ on California if AB32 is not fully implemented.
One wonders what it will take to do a complete top-to-bottom house cleaning at CARB. Apparently its administrative and technical incompetence is not a factor here as long as the agency keeps pumping out politically consumable garbage that can be sold to its gullible constituencies.
In the meantime, all California voters have to slow down this rogue bureaucracy is Proposition 23. Please inform yourself and vote YES on Prop23, it is the biggest decision since Prop13 that California voters will be asked to make.
(Both RR and NC Media Watch have provided extensive coverage on the shenanigans related to AB32 and Prop23. In addition, Russ Steele’s NCMW is the best local source on all things related to climate change. Search on ‘AB32’, ‘Prop23’, and ‘Proposition 23’.) H/T to RR reader for pointing to the SF Chronicle piece.
rebanesruminations.com 
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