Catching up with California

That's what Lisa Jackson, EPA, wants the rest of the country to do. From her speech analysis at The Foundry, Heritage Society.

"According to Jackson, climate change regulations have their “roots” in California, and much of what the President is trying to accomplish is guided by what California has already achieved. She touts that the United States is finally “catching up with what’s happening [in California]”

But what do we want to catch up to? A report by the American Lung Association from May 17, 2009 shows that Los Angeles, Fresno, Bakersfield, Sacramento, Visalia, and Hanford all rank in the top ten of one or all three categories of pollution: short-term particle pollution, ozone pollution and year-round particle pollution. Maybe the results will come in the future but it’s highly unlikely the economic pain will be worth the negligible environmental benefits.

California’s unemployment rate for August 2009 was 12.2 percent, nearly 5 percentage points higher than a year ago and tied for fourth highest in the country. While supporters argue that thousands of green jobs will be created, David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation warns that green job growth is “grossly overstated because they don’t take into account the jobs lost elsewhere.”

The irony of mainstream environmentalists praising one of the most polluted states as a model to follow in one of the most polluted cities in America has not been lost on critics. It has become very clear that the concern is not so much for the pollution itself: mainstream environmentalists offer effulgent praise to California, calling it a “green state” not because it is clean but because it has installed stringent greenhouse gas regulations. The California energy plan should be used as a lessons learned model rather than hailed as a success.

In April she spoke to Black Enterprise, praising Van Jones, who is the unvetted, avowed Communist with a prison record, who resigned in the middle of the night when the president's closed circle of marxist appointees decided he was expendable (moved over to Podesta's think tank).

"We’re already seeing political and local leaders be very thoughtful about ways to really be transformative [with her share of $7 billion in ARRA]. Obviously the job part of it we touch, but we’re not leading. The White House has hired Van Jones from Green for All to be the special advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the Council on Environmental Quality." Lisa Jackson, EPA