| on May 7, 2008, 10:11 AM E.S.T.
|
 Despite
a state budget up to $20 billion in the hole, despite Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger urging 10 percent cuts for state departments, and
despite revenue lagging behind expectations, the governor plans to add
211 more state employees at a cost of $55.4 million, San Francisco
Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross reported Monday.
Actually, they reported “no fewer than” 211 of these
greenhouse-gas busters will be added at taxpayer expense, drawing up to
$102,000 a year, the annual salary for the attorneys among them.
Most of these new jobs are slated for the Air Resources Board, an
imperious bureaucracy that intends to enforce the far-reaching,
potentially economically devastating and piously named Global Warming
Solutions Act of 2006, also known as Assembly Bill 32.
The ARB is busily drafting regulations that will touch every aspect
of California life as its bureaucrats seek to eliminate human-emitted
greenhouse gases. Californians should be leery of the unaccountable
ARB's new mission, which calls to mind a combination of Star Chamber
proceedings and Orwellian rule enforcement.
Defending these egregious intrusions was a spokesman for
Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, who said AB32 is, “probably
the most popular bill passed in the last decade.”
Sadly, Steven Maviglio, speaking for the speaker, more
accurately pegged AB32's significance than he may have realized. Former
movie star Gov. Schwarzenegger, ever the crowd pleaser, joined the
Democrat majority two years ago pandering to popular sentiment to bring
this law into being.
But as scientists increasingly cast doubt on man's contribution
to global warming, and science confirms we've experienced nearly a
decade of cooling and projects another decade of cooling ahead, AB32's
massive economic costs look more and more suspect. And that's if one
believes CO2 causes global warming, let alone whether man's tiny
contribution of greenhouse gases is even significant.
There's a huge cost to popular pandering, and $55.4 million in
new salaries the state can't afford is probably only a small fraction
of it. Source
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