In California today, voters will decide on a measure that would effectively kill the state's aggressive climate-change legislation signed into law in 2005, which would require the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels over the next 10 years. Texas-based oil companies used the bad economy to try to chip away support for the effort, and until recently, polls seemed pretty mixed. But a recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California shows most voters have turned against it.
California has always been ahead of the curve on green issues, but this also hopefully shows the days of pitting the economy against the environment are over. Opponents of the effort to undermine climate-change law, known as Proposition 23, have pointed out that the renewable-energy sector is a strong source of growth in California. They're talking about jobs too, just not oil-refinery jobs. But states like California can't continue to go it alone -- they need national support -- and it's unclear how receptive voters outside California are to that message. Unfortunately, they're aren't any ballot measures in most states that test the appetite for environmental regulation.
-- Monica Potts
