Calif. cap and trade plan cleared by court

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Source: San Francisco Chronicle

An appellate court is allowing California to go ahead with a market-oriented cap-and-trade system of pollution credits to combat global warming while state officials appeal a judge's order to look harder at alternatives that some environmentalists prefer, such as a tax on carbon fuels.

The order by the state's First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco was a victory for the California Air Resources Board, which says it needs to keep planning in order to put cap and trade into effect by January as scheduled.

On Wednesday, however, the board said it was delaying enforcement against polluters until January 2013 to allow more time for preparation and fine-tuning.

The case arises from a dispute between state regulators and some environmentalists and antipoverty activists over how to implement California's global warming law, AB32. The law, the first of its kind in the nation, requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/29/BAHT1K49H5.DTL