Remarks Against AB 1058 by Senator McClintock

Mr. President:

A few years ago, Greg Lucas coined a phrase for the source of such proposals as this. He called it the "Kumbaya-uber-alles" movement.

Let's be very clear what this does. It gives the California Air Resources Board a blank check to reduce carbon dioxide from cars.

What does that mean? We can take a pretty good guess. Just last month, the Board issued a number of proposals to do so, including:

A 50-cent per gallon increase in gasoline taxes
A two-cent tax on every mile driven for passenger cars
Reducing the speed limit to 55 miles per hour
A $3,500 surcharge on mini-vans

Fortunately, this unelected board has no power to impose these draconian measures.

But this bill gives it that power.

And for what? This is not some exotic pollutant. This is carbon dioxide. This is what we all exhale. And if you completely shut down every motor vehicle in California and went back to horses and buggies, you would only have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by one-tenth of one percent.

But it's not carbon dioxide they're really concerned about. If it was, they'd advocate expanding our gridlocked freeways. A gridlocked car creates six times the carbon dioxide per mile as a car moving at peak efficiency. If you simply relieved gridlock, you would have performed the environmental equivalent of removing five out of six cars on the roads for carbon dioxide emissions.

No, carbon dioxide emissions is not their objective. Much of their objective is old-fashioned money - motorists in this state will see thousands of dollars more taken from their wallets under this bill. (Indeed, just the gas tax and mileage tax the Board has already proposed would cost a family that drives 50,000 miles a year $2,250.) And part of their objective is a Luddite extremism that views the automobile as the root of all evil. These are the people we have placed in charge of our public policy.

A helpful safety tip boys and girls - you get the government you vote for.