During her debate with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) last week, GOP Senate nominee Carly Fiorina was repeatedly asked whether she supports Proposition 23, a California ballot initiative that would block implementation of AB32, the landmark California climate change law. Fiorina was non-committal at the debate, but two days later released a statement in support of Prop. 23:

Proposition 23 is a band-aid fix and an imperfect solution to addressing our nation’s climate and energy challenges…That said, AB 32 is undoubtedly a job killer, and it should be suspended.

However, according to a new study by the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment at the University of California Berkley Law school, passing Prop. 23, and thus halting the implementation of AB32 in its tracks, would be a step that leads to direct job losses:

Passage of Proposition 23 would result in direct job losses by undermining the 33 percent Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which depends on AB 32 authority (the “33% Ref ” scenario). A recent study by the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley shows that suspending the 33 percent RPS would result in a direct loss of jobs, even if the 20 percent RPS remains in effect.

The researchers also refuted the notion that AB32 is causing unemployment in California. “No connection exists between California’s current unemployment rate and AB 32,” said professor Daniel Kammen, one of the report’s co-authors. “In fact, the clean tech sector in California is one of the few areas of sustained growth during the current recession.”

The Prop. 23 campaign is being funded by Texas-based oil giants Valero Energy Corp and Tesoro Corp., who are turning AB32 “into a scapegoat and blaming it for recent job losses caused by the recession.” Koch Industries, one of the biggest polluters in the country, has also thrown its weight behind the Prop. 23 effort. But ceding to the will of these polluters would be highly detrimental to California’s economy, as AB32 has provided myriad benefits:

California’s clean energy sector has continued robust growth despite the economic recession thanks to the Global Warming Solutions Act. Clean energy jobs have grown 10 times faster than the statewide average since 2005, to over 125,000 today. And green jobs grew by 5 percent even when the state experienced an overall job loss of 1 percent between 2007 and 2008.

Fiorina hasn’t always espoused the belief that clean energy legislation is a job killer. In fact, just two years ago she said that a cap-and-trade system “will both create jobs and lower the cost of energy.” But as she’s remade herself into a conservative senate candidate, she has tossed aside quite a few of her prior positions.

For months, Republicans have been claiming that tax increases — even for the very wealthiest Americans — should absolutely not be a part of any plan to get the country’s long-term deficit under control. Some Republican members of President Obama’s deficit commission have even flatly ruled out any tax increases.

It would take draconian cuts to highly popular programs to balance the budget entirely on the spending side. And last night, on Bloomberg News, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) conceded that taxes likely need to be part of the equation:

Q: Let me ask you though, I certainly hate paying higher taxes. Most people do, I’m sure corporations do as well, but how do we get out of this mess of the last couple of years — and I look at the federal deficit — how do we get out of it without doing some kind of taxation?

HATCH: Well, we may not be able to.

Watch it:

But Hatch was quick to rule out two of the Obama administration’s proposals regarding where to responsibly raise taxes: allowing the Bush tax cuts for the richest two percent to expire on schedule (as Republicans designed them) and cutting taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies.

Hatch relied on two patently false arguments to make his case for protecting the rich and Big Oil from paying their fair share in taxes. First, he claimed that letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire would disproportionately affect small businesses, cherry-picking his data in the same way that Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) does. The fact remains that just three percent of people with any business income whatsoever would be affected if these tax cuts disappear.

Second, Hatch claimed that cutting oil subsidies would inevitably drive up oil and gas prices for everyone in the country. However, the Office of Economic Policy at the Department of Treasury has found that removing subsidies for the oil industry would affect domestic production by less than one-half of one percent.

Of course, this whole episode begs the question: if Hatch won’t raise taxes on the rich or Big Oil, but concedes that taxes may need to go up to reduce the deficit, who is he willing to tax? The middle class?

Hatch was also asked what, specifically, he would cut in the budget, since even with revenue increases some spending is going to have to be reduced. Hatch was unable to name a single specific program, instead resorting to vague hand-waving about a spending freeze (which, as economist Mark Thoma notes, if implemented strictly would mean cutting programs like Food Stamps).

I noted yesterday that several Republican lawmakers are trying to claim that Obama’s $50 billion plan to invest in infrastructure is too darn expensive, at the same time that they’re pushing for an $830 billion tax cut for the richest two percent of Americans. If these lawmakers succeed in blocking the investment, they’ll definitively prove their deficit peacockery, while also perpetuating an ongoing neglect of the country’s infrastructure, which is rapidly deteriorating.

This should be prefaced by saying that even $50 billion doesn’t come close to covering the funds needed to accomplish all the work that needs to be done in the country, but it is a start. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, it would take a $2.2 trillion investment to get America’s infrastructure into good condition, including $930 billion for roads and bridges and another $160 billion for schools.

“For the safety and security of our families, we can no longer afford to ignore the congested roads, aging dams, broken water mains, and deficient bridges we face every day,” wrote American Society of Civil Engineers President D. Wayne Klotz in last year’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. Here is the situation in some of the states where lawmakers have been resistant to Obama’s plan:

KENTUCKY: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) opposes the funding, even though one-third of his state’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete and the state has 178 high hazard dams (which is a dam where failure “would cause a loss of life and significant property damage”).

PENNSYLVANIA: Republican Senate nominee Pat Toomey opposes the funding, even though 50 percent of his state’s bridges are deficient, 44 percent of its roads are in poor condition, and it has $7 billion in wastewater infrastructure needs.

WASHINGTON:Republican Senate nominee Dino Rossi opposes the funding, even though one-third of his state’s roads are in poor condition and 29 percent of its bridges are deficient or obsolete.

OHIO: House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) opposes the funding, even though his state has 375 high hazard dams and is the country’s fifth largest hazardous waste producer. 25 percent of Ohio’s roads are in poor condition.

FLORIDA: Rep. John Mica (R-FL) opposes the funding, even though 18 percent of his state’s bridges are structurally deficient, the state has 72 high hazard dams, and needs a $15 billion investment in drinking water infrastructure.

COLORADO: Sen. Michael Bennett (D-CO) opposes the funding, even though one-third of his state’s roads are in poor condition, 18 percent of its bridges are deficient, and it has 352 high hazard dams.

VIRGINA: Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) opposes the funding, while almost one-quarter of Virginia’s roads and bridges are in poor condition and there are 143 high hazard dams.

Allowing infrastructure to deteriorate is dangerous, and cleaning up the mess after an infrastructure failure triggers a disaster is costlier than simply dealing with problems before they arise. But at the moment, it’s easier to score political points off of anything that has to do with additional government spending.