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The California Civil War: Greens vs. Blue Collar Workers

A group of 16 Assembly Democrats, led by Henry Perea of Fresno County, sent a letter to the California Air Resources Board to reconsider the state’s cap-and-trade program because of its impact on the middle-class and the poor.

Perea has proposed Assembly Bill 69, which would establish a three-year suspension on the cap-and-trade program’s requirement to buy permits for transportation fuels. This rule will be enforced for the first time on January 1, 2015.

It turns out that the state’s emission trading program has already taken a toll on the state’s economy after only one year of the program’s existence. Currently, California has the second highest underemployment rate in the nation at 16.7%, slightly behind Nevada’s 17.4%. California also has the highest gasoline prices in the continental United States with an average $3.90 per gallon (as of August 9, 2014).

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