Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs, led by hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer, has figured out a way to get corporate tax evaders to give back to the 99 percent, funding schools and green jobs. The coalition, which saved California’s climate law from a Big Oil ballot attack last year, has “filed a ballot initiative to raise $1.1 billion from out-of-state companies for schools and green building projects“:

For the first five years, the Steyer measure would raise an estimated $1.1 billion each year, with $550 million going toward retrofitting of public and commercial buildings for energy efficiency, as well as job training in clean energy technology. The remaining funds would go toward the state’s general fund, including more than $200 million for K-12 schools and community colleges.

After five years, the entire amount raised by the tax law change would go toward the state general fund budget.

“It closes an existing corporate tax loophole and uses the savings to create hundreds of thousands of construction jobs in California, all designed to jump start the economy,” Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant working on the initiative, told the Sacramento Bee.

A recent poll by the University of Southern California and Los Angeles Times shows that 64 percent of registered voters would support higher taxes for better schools.

In an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) said he believes politicians in Washington need to fight the “rich people that have polluted the world” and defend climate action, as California is now doing. Schwarzenegger has joined with California’s cleantech community, the climate movement, and economic justice groups to “wipe out Proposition 23″ — the oil-funded initiative to kill the state’s landmark global warming legislation, AB 32. He believes that politicians who support our soldiers who are “risking their lives to defend this country” should “stand up against the oil companies.” Those who have instead conceded to the flood of dirty cash from polluters — at least $69.5 million in ads alone this year — are “disgusting” “wimps”:

What would help is if we are now successful in beating back the Texan oil companies, the same players that have been there for decades ruining everything. You know, trying to get rid of our light rail in 45 cities. And so now the important thing is we push back, wipe out Proposition 23. And in doing that, it will be one of the first times in a long time where oil companies — rich people that have polluted the world, who have enriched themselves in doing that — have been pushed back. And it will be that momentum.

We need to go to Washington and say, “Look what happened. You, because oil companies have spent money against you, they have threatened you, you backed off the energy policy and the environmental policy in Washington.” What wimps. No guts. I mean, here, you idolize and always celebrate the great warriors, our soldiers, our men and women who go to Iraq and Afghanistan, and they’re risking their lives to defend this country, and you’re not even willing to stand up against the oil companies? I say, “That’s disgusting.” You promised the people you’d represent them. You didn’t promise the people you’d represent the oil companies and the special interests.

Watch it:

Schwarzenegger is right — America needs more climate hawks.

Supporters of Proposition 26 — a California ballot measure that could cripple implementation of the state’s landmark climate law — are attempting to distance themselves from the unpopular effort to block the legislation. California oil companies and the Chamber of Commerce, who have sat out of the Proposition 23 fight to suspend AB32, have been quietly funneling millions of dollars to support Prop 26, which would “require a two-thirds vote of the state legislature anytime a government agency tries to assess a fee on a company that is not then used to regulate that entity”:

Unlike Prop 23, which has seen many of the big donors sit out, Prop 26 has received multimillion-dollar contributions from the likes of the California Chamber of Commerce, Chevron Corp., Philip Morris USA Inc. and Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. Also contributing are ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum, according to data available through the California Secretary of State.

The California Chamber of Commerce has pumped at least $3.3 million into Prop 26, and California’s Chevron has spent $2.5 million.

The language of Prop 26 would open the implementation of AB32 to new avenues of legal challenges and obstruction based on a “hidden taxes” argument, and is a fall-back defense for opponents of clean energy if Prop 23 fails. The oil-fueled Tea Party effort to kill California’s climate law is foundering, as the state’s voters turn against the idea that pollution is good business. A new poll finds that support for Prop 23, which would suspend the clean energy law AB32, has collapsed, despite the millions of dollars pumped into the state by Midwest oil companies Tesoro, Valero, and Koch Industries, and the AstroTurf efforts of Koch’s Americans for Prosperity.

“Rules under the global warming law, which would require companies to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, take effect in January and could be vulnerable to legislative gridlock over fees” if Prop 26 passes, the Los Angeles Times explains.

“Prop. 26 would eviscerate the funding of all air- and water-pollution programs, even oil-spill cleanup,” Warner Chabot, chief executive of the California League of Conservation Voters, told the Times.

“If 26 passes, it is a Christmas present to the oil industry, the tobacco industry and every other polluting industry. The cost of regulation will shift from the industry to taxpayers.”

This is the last of a four-part Wonk Room series examining the implications for climate and clean energy policy of the 2010 gubernatorial races. Read Part One, on heartland states, Part Two, on Tea Party candidates, Part Three, on Northeast races, or view the full governor-race compilation.

The Western Climate Initiative — a regional cap-and-trade compact between California, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Montana and four Canadian provinces — was established in 2007 and scheduled to go into effect in 2012. There are governors’ races in all the states except Montana and Washington. Republican governors in Arizona and Utah — who are cruising to re-election this fall — have already worked to scuttle their involvement. California’s contribution, the legislation known as AB 32, is under threat both from the Proposition 23 ballot initiative and from Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. The future of the compact rides on the governors’ races this November in California, New Mexico, and Oregon:

ARIZONA: Terry Goddard v. Jan Brewer
CALIFORNIA: Jerry Brown v. Meg Whitman
NEW MEXICO: Diane Denish v. Susana Martinez
OREGON: John Kitzhaber v. Chris Dudley
UTAH: Peter Corroon v. Gary Herbert

ARIZONA: Terry Goddard v. Jan Brewer

538 forecast: 4 percent Democratic pickup

Jan Brewer, who assumed the governorship when Democrat Janet Napolitano was chosen as Secreatary of Health and Human Services, officially recognizes the threat of global warming pollution but has pulled Arizona out of any effort to cap its pollution. In her executive order in February 2010 that announced Arizona would not participate in the Western Climate Initiative’s regional cap-and-trade program, Brewer admitted:

Arizona is a growing state whose greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been projected to rise, based on historical trends, as Arizona will experience population and economic growth in the future. [Executive Order 2010-06, 2/2/10]

The executive order also ordered the state to “review its adoption of the California Clean Cars Program, in light of national vehicle standards coming into place.” However, Brewer still wants the state to participate in the regional compact to “have a seat at the table” on climate issues.

Brewer promotes the state’s 15 percent-by-2025 renewable standard, and supports “adding more nuclear power to Arizona’s energy supply.”

Brewer’s opponent, Democratic Attorney General Terry Goddard, is much more concerned about the threat global warming poses to Arizona. Responding to the Supreme Court’s decision compelling the EPA to act on global warming pollution and the 2007 IPPC climate report, Goddard wrote that “it is abundantly clear that if more steps are not taken soon to respond to global climate change, Arizona will be among the places paying the biggest price.” In 2009, Goddard defended “the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to grant states the right to regulate global warming pollution from automobiles.”

Read more

“I’ve never been to a tea-party event,” pollution billionaire David Koch told New York magazine in July, 2010. “No one representing the tea party has ever even approached me.” Koch’s corporate public relations officials declared in April 2010 that “no funding has been provided by Koch companies, the Koch foundations, Charles Koch or David Koch specifically to support the tea parties.”

However, in October, 2009, Koch was applauding his army of Astroturf tea party organizers. Koch, who founded Americans for Prosperity with his brother David, was the guest of honor at AFP’s annual Defending the American Dream Summit. Independent filmmaker Taki Oldham filmed Koch beaming as organizers who run AFP’s 25 state-level outposts touted their success in mobilizing dozens of tea party events across the nation:

AFP CALIFORNIA: We helped organize huge tea parties all throughout the state. And on April 15, Tax Day, over 10,000 Californians joined us on the steps of the state capital and we held one of the largest tea parties in the country. . . .

AFP MICHIGAN: … We have held the largest tea party in the state …

AFP GEORGIA: … the largest Tax Day tea party in the nation on April 15 …

AFP OKLAHOMA: … we’ve held 29 tea parties …

AFP MARYLAND: … we organized dozens of tea parties …

DAVID KOCH: This is a phenomenal success in my judgment. Eight hundred thousand activists from nothing five years ago. This is a remarkable achievement. And we’re being effective in so many ways.

Watch it:

Oldham’s documentary, (Astro)Turf Wars, reveals that David Koch’s tea party army has demonized health care and climate legislation by stoking false fears of their costs and lying about the science of global warming. AFP, the Guardian explains, “has spun off other organizations such as November is Coming, Hands Off My Healthcare, and the Institute of Liberty, which are buying up television ads and holding rallies across the country in an attempt to defeat Democrats.”

One particular focus of Koch’s efforts this November is California’s Proposition 23, which would kill the state’s landmark global warming law. The Koch brothers’ corporation gave $1 million to the Prop 23 campaign, while AFP California attempts to stoke grassroots support, and Koch-funded think tanks attack climate policy.

(Astro)Turf Wars explains in detail how the Koch brothers and other right-wing plutocrats have succeeded in mobilizing millions of grassroots conservatives to support their pollution-for-profit agenda, at the price of the nation’s health and security.

(HT Kevin Grandia)

In an attempt to ensure that California has neither an old-energy nor new-energy economy, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has announced her opposition to Proposition 23, the oil-fueled campaign to suspend California’s landmark climate law AB 32. Whitman also reiterated her call for a one-year moratorium of AB 32, attacking it as a “job-killer”:

While Proposition 23 does address the job killing aspects of AB 32, it does not offer a sensible balance between our vital need for good jobs and the desire of all Californians to protect our precious environment. It is too simple of a solution for a complex problem. I believe that my plan to fix AB 32 strikes the right balance for California. I will vote “no” on Proposition 23.

Whitman’s “plan to fix AB 32″ is to delay its implementation and reconfigure its key provisions as the world burns, putting years of private investment and planning into disarray.

Whitman also implied that green jobs come at the expense of “the other 97% of jobs”:

This is not an easy issue. While green jobs are an important and growing part of our state’s economic future, we cannot forget the other 97% of jobs in key sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, transportation and energy. We compete for jobs with many other states and our environmental policy must reflect that reality.

In fact, the provisions of AB 32 make it possible for California’s jobs “in key sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, transportation and energy” to become green jobs, as they become more efficient, high-tech, and sustainable. Whitman’s call to suspend AB 32 would scrap the investments that would take those sectors into the twenty-first century — which is why California’s high-tech community so strongly opposes Proposition 23. In a odd coincidence, 97 percent of the funding for Proposition 23 comes from oil companies, most from three outside giants, Valero, Tesoro, and Koch Industries.

Jerry Brown campaign spokesman Sterling Clifford told the Los Angeles Times that Whitman’s position on the measure was “two empty gestures in one press release” and called it an example of “transparent politicking.”

“Throughout this campaign, she’s tried to have everything every way,” Clifford said. “Nobody has any idea what a Meg Whitman governorship would mean.”