LA Times columnist writes against Prop 23 (a prop backed by oil industry)

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Excerpt from:

California's Prop. 23, backed by oil giants with a lot to lose, needs to go down in flames

by Steven Lopez
Los Angeles Times
September 5, 2010

I don't mean to disturb your holiday weekend just when you're trying to scrub that grease off the barbecue grill. But I thought now was a good time to remind you that in two months, you'll have an important choice to make about the air you breathe.

In November, you'll be asked whether California should continue on the path to becoming one of the world's environmental leaders. Or give up the good fight and pray that the global warming deniers are right.

I'm talking about Proposition 23, which comes to us courtesy of some of the finest corporate citizens America has to offer. We begin with Texas oil giants Valero and Tesoro, which both have refineries in California and are together sinking millions into the campaign to rewrite environmental standards here.

Then there's a company owned by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch, which has kicked $1 million into the Prop. 23 kitty. Those two cowboys have earned themselves a reputation for sponsoring campaigns that deny the need for renewable energy and also for backing groups that have trained "tea party" activists.

--snip--

The goal of Prop. 23 is to derail the environmental plan we already have in place, one that was written without the help of Texans or tea party crackpots. It's called the Global Warming Solutions Act, drafted by state legislators and signed in 2006 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Scheduled to begin rolling out next year, it would require a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

But compliance would cost energy companies a few bucks. And so they came up with Prop. 23, which would delay implementation of California's landmark legislation until unemployment drops to 5.5%. I'm not a betting man, but I'm not sure that will happen before the polar ice caps melt and Seal Beach and Oxnard, among other coastal locales, are under water.

--end excerpt--

Don't forget about the Koch brothers' funding of the Tea Party!