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A new report co-authored by economist Chris Busch at the Center for Resource Solutions details how AB 32, California’s landmark climate and clean energy bill, reduces the risks associated with dependence on imported fossil fuels like crude oil and natural gas.  The full report can be found here.

Chris blogged about the report today in the San Francisco Chronicle. Here’s an excerpt and link to the full post:

Oil Price Shocks and the Economics of California’s AB 32

by Chris Busch

Jamie Fine, Remy Garderet, and I are releasing a new report today that profiles one of the economic benefits of California’s Assembly Bill (AB) 32 that has been left out of the analysis of the law’s economic impacts until now.  This report, Shockproofing Society: How California’s Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) Reduces the Economic Pain of Energy Price Shocks provides the first assessment of the reduced dependence on imported crude oil and natural gas that would follow from the implementation of California’s Assembly Bill (AB) 32, the state’s landmark bill clean energy and climate policy law. We find that as a result of AB 32, for the year 2020, imports to meet California’s demand for crude oil will fall by 75 million barrels (an 18% decrease) and imports to meet California’s demand for natural gas will fall by 10% compared to levels without AB 32 implementation. This would mean a reduction in California’s 2020 import bill of more than $11 billion, assuming the same prices used in analyses of AB 32 economic impacts. (All monetary values are given in 2007 dollars) And if prices were to double, the value of reductions in crude oil and natural gas imports to satisfy California demand would amount to almost $20 billion. (more)

Little federal action and the possibility that California’s landmark climate bill will be suspended – how did we arrive here?  Why haven’t we made more progress? 

The federal progress on climate policy that had been anticipated after the 2008 election has failed to materialize.  In California, the situation is not much more satisfactory.  Once boldly leading the way, now California proponents have taken on a defensive posture.   For months now, the undercurrent driving climate policy development in California has been Proposition 23, the measure that would suspend Assembly Bill 32, California’s economy-wide emission reduction law which underlies a suite of important policies. Proposition 23 would require California to lower unemployment to 5.5% for four straight quarters from 12.5% today.  California has only enjoyed unemployment below this level continuously for a year three times in the last thirty years.  (more…)