The GOP's Big Green Gamble

Joe Mathews is a journalist, an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing writer at the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of The People's Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy and co-author of the new book, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix it.

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AP Photo (2) In California, ground zero for support of government’s role in saving the planet, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are betting on a climate change backlash in 2010.

Could a political backlash against climate change legislation develop in, of all places, California?

Two wealthy, first-time political candidates in 2010 statewide races—eBay chief-turned-gubernatorial contender Meg Whitman and Hewlett Packard CEO-turned-U.S. Senate challenger Carly Fiorina—are betting on it.

Whitman is showcasing a promise to put a one-year moratorium on regulations stemming from a landmark 2006 law, strongly backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that requires the state to roll back greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Fiorina has been hammering federal cap-and-trade legislation sponsored by the incumbent she’s challenging, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

The reaction of most of California’s political establishment to the Whitman-Fiorina strategy? They’re nuts.

In this, the politically ambitious Silicon Valley Republicans are making perhaps the biggest, most consequential political gamble of anyone in the country.

Conventional wisdom says the Golden State is far too green for such a strategy to work. Big majorities of California voters—be they Democrats, independents, or Republicans—have long favored aggressive government intervention to save the planet, including tough mandates on carbon emissions and renewable energy mandates. AB 32, the law Whitman wants to suspend, is nearly as popular as free cerveza.

But Whitman, Fiorina and the strategists advising them are wagering that the recession and job loss in the state are deep enough (the 12.5 percent unemployment rate, a post-war record, is among the highest in the country) to unsettle public opinion here. For the next few years, they argue, even California’s green-minded voters will be more interested in economic repair than anything else.

If voters agree with this assessment, next year’s contests for governor and senator California could be seen as a moment when the political winds on climate change shifted, turning the debate away from the broad question of whether climate change is a threat and towards more nettlesome controversies over the costs of doing something about it.

“The economy has catapulted jobs to the top of the political issue food chain,” says Rob Stutzman, a leading Republican strategist here who previously worked for Schwarzenegger and now advises Whitman. “The intensity of support for new environmental fees and taxes is waning in the face of the real human toll this recession is having.”

The reaction of most of California’s political establishment to the Whitman-Fiorina strategy? It’s nuts.

The policy objections—that Whitman and Fiorina are offering a false choice, and that environmental regulation and economic growth can go together—are strong. But the political objections to this strategy have been even stronger, with Whitman and Fiorina’s push against climate legislation widely dismissed as a foolish mistake by political rookies.

Whitman, who has been running since February (Fiorina only became a candidate this fall), has taken the brunt of the criticism. Veteran journalists Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine called the ex-eBay chief’s turn on AB 32 “pretty dumb political strategy” that must have been suggested by “some highly-paid, airhead adviser.” Democrats predictably piled on, and even Schwarzenegger took a shot at his fellow Republican, suggesting Whitman’s stance was merely political posturing. “I’m sure she doesn’t want to be counted as one of those Republicans who would move us back to the Stone Age,” the governor said.

These critics inevitably cite polling on environmental issues. A survey released this summer by the Public Policy Institute of California found that three in four California voters believe that climate change poses a serious threat to the state’s economy and quality of life. But surveys, when examined more closely, suggest that Whitman and Fiorina’s strategy, whatever its merits or defects as policy, may have some chance of succeeding politically.

The same PPIC survey that shows Californians taking climate change seriously also shows that Californians are increasingly divided on specific actions to tackle the problem. Support for AB 32 has declined 12 points since the recession began (though the support still remains high at 66 percent). Residents are nearly evenly divided on a carbon tax and the cap-and-trade legislation that has been a target of Fiorina.

December 8, 2009 | 11:32pm

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Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Climate Change, California, Ab 32, U.s. Sen. Barbara Boxer, Hewlitt Packard, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cap-and-trade, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Silicon Valley, Ebay, Republicans

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jezter54

As a Californian conservative I applaud this stance and hope that it marks a turning point in public opinion. Can't wait for 2010 elections to see if I am right!

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The GOP's Big Green Gamble

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