Users will have to pay for consequences of climate change

From And WaltersCalmness

This comment was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Theory that oil companies should be of legal responsibility for the effects of climate change is spread to left -wing organizations in California and their political allies for several years.

The movement accumulates new vigor, as this year the deadly fires passed through Los Angeles County and accepts two forms – lawsuits and legislation.

As a A recent article of SalMatters Remarks, “all over the country countries, cities, tribes and environmental groups have filed dozens of court cases against oil companies claiming that they have filed the public about the dangers of their products. These cases share a major argument: oil companies knew that fossil fuels manage the climate change.”

However, as Michael Gerrard, Environmental Law Expert at the Faculty of Law of Colombia, told Calmatters reporter Alejandro Lazo, “There are many court cases, but so far no court has held fossil fuel companies financially responsible for steam gas emissions.

Meanwhile, there are several bills in the legislature that, if they are in force, will open the door to hit oil companies in the pocket book.

Senator Scott WienerDemocrat from San Francisco introduced Senate Bill 222 In January, as the fires were still raging. This will allow homeowners and insurance companies to judge oil companies for fire in theory that their products create conditions for destructive flames.

However, the bill was aside during its initial hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee, gathering only five votes.

The second measure, SB 684It would create a pollutant program to pay a Superfund program and enable a state agency to determine how much atmospheric damage was caused by oil between 1990 and 2045 and will impose costs for oil companies.

Worn by Senator Caroline MenjarDemocrat from Van Nuys, the bill is waiting for the Judiciary Committee.

The main assumption of both lawsuits and legislation is that oil companies will be forced to acknowledge their contribution to climate change and pay billions of dollars as compensation and punishment.

However, the theory has an aspect that advocates never mention – that corporations can convey these costs to customers in the form of higher prices.

By chance, California already has a mini-refreshment of the pollutant movement called hat and tradeAnd this proves that users ultimately give birth to the financial burden.

Since 2012, the California Air Resources Council has set limits on how much greenhouse gases can be broadcast by certain industries and trading “emissions”, collecting billions of dollars each year.

Paying for emissions, corporations are thought to have an incentive to reduce them. Whether this is true is still an open question and one of the reasons for doubt is their ability to transfer weight to consumers.

The legislative analyst service that advises the legislature on financial issues, publishes Report on the limitation and trade system This week.

Among other things, the report confirms that California motorists are already paying a lot more for fuel due to a cap and trade.

It binds the current effect at 23 cents per gallon and if the prices of an auction of emissions rise to its upper limit, “Cap-and Trade will contribute approximately 74 cents per gallon to the prices of gasoline …”

The LAO report estimates that at a higher level, “the average household will pay about $ 700 a year as a result of the program”, adding “such higher costs would be particularly burdensome for lower income households as they tend to spend a relatively high share of their transport fuel income compared to the richer households.”

So you have it there. Whatever California does to reduce its carbon footprint to zero, it will be expensive and California users will encounter even higher costs, in the same way as President Donald Trump’s tariffs affect rates prices. We should not pretend anything else, as defenders to reduce carbon carbon are inclined.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.