Messaging the Environment: Budget Edition

The longer the budget impasse continues, the greater the impact and the more people become involved. The way things are being discussed are changing as well. When we first started hearing about Republicans monkeying around with the California Environmental Quality Act, it was described as an attempt to reign in Attny. General Jerry Brown. They wanted to take away his ability to go after localities who were not factoring in greenhouse gases to their development plans. Today's SacBee now says:

Senate Democrats enlisted environmentalists Wednesday to chastise Republicans for holding up the state budget, arguing that the GOP is seeking a rollback of a Ronald Reagan-approved environmental law at the behest of business interests.

Talk about some good framing. They have not changed their demands as far as I know, but the media, organizations and the Democrats are now getting up to speed on their messaging.

Speaker Nunez is now back, calling the Senate Republicans a "group of renegades who are totally out of touch with the votes of Californian." He will be having a conference call with myself and a few other bloggers this afternoon. It is good to have his voice back in the mix, after his absence.

Meanwhile, the movement around environmental law provided a platform to discuss other attempts by Republicans and their big business backers to try and influence the process.

In a widely publicized move, the Republican governor signed Núñez's global warming bill despite opposition from his own party. The act, also known as Assembly Bill 32, makes the state Air Resources Board responsible for regulating and monitoring emissions. Currently, the board is working on establishing the rules.

In response, a broad coalition of oil, building and manufacturing interest groups formed the AB 32 Implementation Group to make sure the state adopts climate change policy that they believe is cost-effective and technologically feasible.

This business group did not expect that their issues would be dragged into the budget process. They thought that they were going to have to exert their influence in other ways, but the Republicans brought it to them on a silver platter. All of the attention means that it will likely have to be discussed once the budget is finished, even though the Democrats and the governor do not support weakening the law. I can't believe I wrote that sentence, but it is right. The Republicans have been very effective thus far at getting their way. It's doubtful they will actually get the law change that they want, but crucial legislative time will probably have to be expended on the issue.

I can only imagine how low the legislature's approval ratings are going to be after this mess.