Norway, with a population of just over 4.5 million, is one of the richest countries in the world. Since oil was discovered on its continental shelf in 1971, it has grown to become the third largest exporter of oil and gas in the world. It is completely self-sufficient in meeting its petroleum and electrical energy needs. Paradoxically, it also has the second highest gasoline pump price (after Turkey) in the industrialized world of over $7 per gallon.
Long ago, the Norwegian people wisely realized that their finite oil resources will run out within a century. Therefore, they determined to use some of the wealth from their petroleum to develop a system of low-cost, alternative, environmentally friendly energy production to power their country when the oil runs out in less than 50 years. Nearly two-thirds of the retail price of a gallon of gas in Norway is tax, with a large portion of the taxes collected from oil companies and the public contributed to the fulfillment of their alternative energy plan for the future. The government has set up a state company, Enova, which is partly financed by a tax on electricity, to fund and oversee the various private companies that are working toward this admirable goal.
The result is that Norway is on the leading edge of alternative energy development and implementation—way ahead of the United States. They have developed everything from wind power and sea wave generators to hydrogen fuel cell technology, making these integral parts of their energy self-sufficiency profile.
We have a chance in California to set up a similar program here by passing Proposition 87. Admittedly, it is a smaller, paler imitation of the Norwegian system, but it is a start that can be expanded and developed over the next decade. If we don’t do something about getting out from under energy dependency now, we are in for trouble in just a few years.
Proposition 87 would impose a tax on oil pumped from lands within our state—to be paid by the companies extracting the product—to finance an Enova-like department in the state government that will fund and oversee the development of alternative energy sources. The law forbids the oil companies from passing on the cost to the public, so they are fighting it tooth and nail, spending millions to defeat the measure. These are the same companies, Exxon and Chevron for example, who make massive profits, pay their CEOs astronomical sums, and get away with pumping oil from federal lands without paying the required royalty to the citizens because the Bush/Cheney administration lets them. Employing their usual scare tactics to get their way, the oil companies say that such a tax would cause the price of gasoline to skyrocket in California. But several states (including Texas!) already have such a tax and the price of gas in these states has not been affected. Furthermore, the proposition has a finite lifespan of $4 billion collected and spent over ten years. The goal is to reduce California’s petroleum consumption by 25 percent, while developing energy alternatives and programs to educate the public in new energy usage.
Proposition 87 may not be perfect, but it will provide the citizens of California with a plan to improve our chances of achieving energy independence in the not-so-distant future. It’s to our advantage to proactively empower our state government to take a few steps down this path to becoming more like Norway. Our historic neglect of the inevitable has made our energy future bleak, and there are few options on the table. Can we afford not to vote “yes” on Proposition 87?
NOTE: You can vote early from now until Election Day at the County Registrar of Voters office at 1555 Berger Dr., Building 2, on weekdays from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., and Saturday, October 28, and Saturday and Sunday, November 4 and 5, from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. http://www.sccvote.org
The big, bad oil companies might have a point here. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to pass the cost along to the consumer? If you want to reduce driving, emmissions, etc you make gas more expensive so consumers buy less of it.
does anyone know what 87’s definition of alternative energy includes?
The reason I ask is that not all alternative energy is equal.
Some politically popular alternative energy “sources”, like hydrogen, actually increase our consumption of fossil fuels.
Others, like wind and solar, really help.
I want to know what I’m voting for.
Prop. 87 creates another bureaucracy with no well-defined goals, no oversight, and no mandate to produce viable results. It’s another poorly written “people’s initiative”. Vote NO!
“Proposition 87 would impose a tax on oil pumped from lands within our state”
So oil pumped in California is made artificially more expensive and California loses jobs and private investment to other states where oil is not subject to the prop 87 tax?
This is supposed to help California’s economy and ability to compete … how?
The environmental goal is good and like many Californian’s I don’t trust oil companies except they always do things to enrich themselves not for any public good
Many of us also don’t trust government or many of environmental groups who have very poorly thought out proposals with many unintended financial and legal consequences where much of the tax money is wasted on lawsuits
There are 4 major questions that need to be answered about how to get it done before I will vote for it
1) How can you guarantee that the cost will not be passed on to the public as higher cost – like Norway where they have high mileage / efficient vehicles – most people don’t want to pay $5-8 per gallon and no guarantees of results
2) I have no confidence that a state run program will be efficient and produce cost efficient results based on many past state programs that waste tax money What will assure taxpayers their money will be spent efficiently for actual results
3) Private sector has been working on these programs with only limited results for years so why will government with our $4 billion get better results and how do you measure results or success?
4) What exactly are we voting for, who or which organizations proposed it, what is their track record of both proposing and running cost efficiently programs of $4 billion or more? Is this the first tax or the first of many with permanent government staff and all the special interests making money off the programs?
I think it is in everyone’s best interest to read the entire text of the proposition carefully. It is too important to dismiss without serious consideration, expecially in light of the situation the world is in currently. You can do this by turning to page 160 of the Voter Information Guide. All of your questions will be answered there.
#1 This is a windfall tax on excess profits made by the oil companies. See Sec 2 excerpts below.
#4 Every other oil producing state already has a Prop 87-type tax. See Sec 2D excerpt below:
As stated in the text of the proposition:
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND DECLARATIONS
D. California is the only major oil-producing state in the country that does not impose a comparable fee on oil produced at its wells. California’s oil producers are enjoying windfall profits at the expense of California consumers and taxpayers.
E. An assessment paid by California’s big oil companies on their excess profits is a proven way to reclaim some of those revenues without raising prices for consumers. California is the only one of the nation’s top five oil-producing states without a comparable assessment on oil producers. These assessments have proven to be impossible for the big oil companies to “pass along” to consumers in the form of higher gas prices at the pump because oil prices are set on the global market without regard to regional or local costs or assessments.
#2 The proposition text addresses your question in depth. It is summed up in Sec 3 K. There is an open-ended intent concerning funding technologies yet to be discovered or developed.
SEC. 3. PURPOSE AND INTENT.
K. Ensure that the revenues from the new assessment on California oil producers are invested wisely in the most promising research and technologies, and require mandatory independent audits and annual progress reports so that the leaders of this project are accountable to the people of California.
#3 John Michael
I think if you read the entire text of the proposition you will find that this is no ordinary government department. For instance, the makeup of the board is quite specific (see below). Also, this is more of a highly educated “enterprise board” that grants the windfall tax money to private companies and inventors who demonstrate exceptional ability to fulfill the mandate of the measure—that is, to develop alternative energy production that will benefit the public and replace dwindling oil reserves and other older, dirtier forms of energy. I don’t see that dismissing this measure purely on the basis of fear of creating more “government bureaucracy” is a valid argument on your part and hope you will reconsider.
I think creating a board as follows makes a lot of sense (from the text of the proposition):
SEC. 6 Section 26004 of the Public Resources Code is amended to read:
(a) There is in the state government the California
Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing California Energy Alternatives Program Authority. The authority constitutes a public instrumentality and the exercise by the authority of powers conferred by this division and Article XXXVI of the California Constitution is the performance of an essential public function.
(b) The authority shall consist of nine members, as follows:
(1) The Secretary for Environmental Protection The Director of Finance.
(2) The Chairperson of the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission.
(3) The Treasurer.
(4) A Californian who has expertise in economics, energy markets, and energy efficiency technologies, appointed by the Governor.
(5) A Californian who has expertise, and who has demonstrated leadership, in public health, appointed by the Governor.
(6) A Californian who has expertise in finance, start-ups, and venture capital, preferably with experience in enterprises comparable in scale and purpose to those that would be eligible for funding pursuant to the Clean Alternative Energy Act, appointed by the Controller.
(7) A renewable energy or energy effi ciency expert from a California
university that awards doctoral degrees in the sciences who is either a
member of the National Academy of Sciences or the National Academy of
Engineering, or a Nobel Prize laureate, appointed by the Speaker of the
Assembly.
(8) The dean or a tenured faculty member of a major, nationally recognized California business school that awards post-graduate degrees who has significant experience in as many as possible of new technology ventures, entrepreneurship, consumer marketing, consumer adoption of new trends, and enterprises comparable in scale and purpose to those that would be eligible for funding pursuant to the Clean Alternative Energy Act, appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules.
(9) A Californian who has expertise, and who has demonstrated leadership, in consumer advocacy, preferably with substantial experience in consumer marketing and business, appointed by the Attorney General.
Jack #6: I have read it thoroughly, as well as the arguments pro and con and the independent analysis. Creating another government bureaucracy is not the way to achieve this goal.
JMO, Chevron probably wants to marry you and have your children. Just the semantics of their anti 87 ads provide the transparency to easily see they’re trying to dupe people into thinking the price of gasoline will skyrocket when that is not the case at all. Texas has this same type of arrangement and gas is cheaper there than it is here.
Jack-
Thanks for a thorough and well thought out response.
I found the section in the text of 87.
87 (section 2c) has the best definiton of alternative energy I’ve seen in a while. It spells out that you need to evaluate the full fuel cycle, including production and distribution.
Then, after setting a great standard, it gives a motley list of technologies which are to be included, disregarding the standard.
Some items listed, like hydrogen, actually produce more greenouse emissions and environmental damage than gasoline. Others, like biodiesel, are really good.
I don’t think the legislature could do any better, but it’s frustrating.
Greg #9
Thanks for your assessment.
I agree that Prop 87 isn’t perfect but at least it is a start in the right direction and we MUST make a start. Hydrogen has its problems and maybe it won’t make it in the end, but there are lots of other options and it is important to explore them systematically and knowledgeably with the best of intentions for the public good. Leaving it to the big oil companies would be a huge mistake if history is an indicator as their determination to maximize their own profits will drive the choice of what technology they get into, and doing the best thing as far as the public is concerned won’t enter into the equation.
Mark T#8: I have neither read, seen, nor heard any Chevron or other oil companies’ ads re the proposition. I have merely read what is supplied in the ballot statement.
The goal of alternative energy is one that I wholeheartedly embrace. Prop. 87 is not the means to get there.
Get over your knee jerk reaction to anything oil companies oppose, read the text and the independent analysis in the ballot statement. You impress me as a bright fellow, so perhaps you will come to understand what I have—another govt. bureaucracy as this is set up will not solve the problem.
Or we can agree to disagree. But to accuse ime of some nefarious complicity in Bog Oil’s conspiracy is unwarranted. Reasonable minds can differ, without being berated. Unless, of course, you’re DB or RC.
Mt Van Zandt,
If the people of Norway are making such great strides toward finding alternative sources of energy, why doesn’t the U.S. government invest in the Norwigen Co. in exchange for their technology? The gonvernment has been investing is U.S. auto makers since the Arab oil embargo of the 70’s and all they’ve manage to do is crank out bigger and shiny gas hogs.
I think it’s worth looking into just to make sure we don’t try and reinvent the wheel.
I submitted a few comments earlier and they were not posted. What needs to be done to have comments posted? Thank you.
First Time-
As long as your comments were not overtly racist, sexist, demeaning, or personal attacks or full of profanity, they would have gone through.
Obviously do what you just did and your thoughts will be posted. Sorry for the confusion.
JMO, I wasn’t aiming to accuse you of anything but if what I posted has you comparing me to the likes of RC or DB then thanks for pointing that out.
We agree on a lot of things JMO but 87 apparently isn’t one of them. I’m with Jack on this one. It may not be perfect but it’s a start. My main concern is how they expect to really enforce keeping oil companies from recovering their tax monies at the gas pump. We’ve seen how slick some big time accounting firms can be and the oil companies surely employ the best and brightest. But I’m willing to give it a shot since as I stated above, in articles I’ve read about this proposition, those states where this tax has been implented haven’t seen an impact on prices at the pump.
Prop 87 won’t raise gas prices.
Oil producers would love to pass the price on to conumers, but they can’t. Not because of the law, but because of economics.
Chevron can’t charge more for California oil than other producers charge for similar oil from other states and countries. If they did, no one would buy their oil.
#19 – RvW: I think a lot of money was spent by fossil fuel energy companies to nip any tax proposals in the bud back then.
To me it boils down to a few questions: 1) Do you believe in the infinite use of a finite resource? 2) Should the market solve climate change and energy independence w/o government or tax funding? 3)Will this be more of a government bureaucracy than a real step towards the goals in Q#2?
If the answer to each is ‘yes’ then vote against it.
I am looking at who is for it and who is against it and after reading everything I have been sent – even considering my bias towards free enterprise over government programs – will vote ‘yes’.
Thank you for the article and discussion.
Some of the comments on here are truly alarming. People are willing to gamble away $4B on the basic thought process of ‘let’s try this and see if it works.’
What absolute sophistry.
Anyone remember Proposition 10 from 1999?
The goal of the formation of the county-by-county anti-smoking boards was to help curb smoking. This was paid for by a huge increase in taxes on smokes, a/k/a “The Meathead Tax,” so named after Rob Reiner. And after several years of that bureaucracy, what has been achieved? Kids are still smoking, cigs are some of the most expensive in the land, there’s yet ANOTHER cig tax-raise initiative on the ballot, and Meathead had to resign from the state board because he was caught diverting money from the Meathead Tax receipts into promoting his universal preschool initiative, which was defeated last year.
Knowing this, knowing what glowing results (/sarc) we’ve achieved so far from the Proposition 71 stem cell fiasco, we’re now going to give the ‘crats in Sacto another $4B to play with from the oil companies?
Yeesh.
Anyone who thinks that any tax increase will not somehow find its way back into the pump price is an out-and-out dolt.
If the goal is energy independence, then the only impetus for that can come from the federal level by way of some sort of Manhattan Project type of approach.
The approach proposed by prop 87 is just a dandy way to toss money at a (maybe possibly potential future) solution, whilst looking really good for the latte-swilling Prius drivers down Hollywood way when it comes time for campaign contributions.
If the Prop 87 backers were serious about their goals, then logic would suggest that they would support increased drilling off the California coastline. Any takers on that one?
John McE # 14 said: As long as your comments were not overtly racist, sexist, demeaning, or personal attacks or full of profanity, they would have gone through.”
So why does DB get a pass on those rules? Pretty much everything he posts is either racist, sexist, demeaning, or a profanity-laden personal attack…and lately, homophobic, as well.
Mark T # 15 wrote: “My main concern is how they expect to really enforce keeping oil companies from recovering their tax monies at the gas pump.”
Truth is, it is virtually unenforceable. That is just one reason why I’m voting NO. We already have the highest gas prices nationwide due to numerous rules other states don’t operate under.
I like Refugio #12’s idea—let’s just license the technology from Norway if its so hot.
It may be ‘virtually’ unenforceable but enforceable nonetheless per the language of the proposition. Will we see higher prices because of it? Insignificant to me.
I laugh when people bring up the price of gas. It is so cheap here!. It reminds me of how many times I heard, -if we don’t build the nulear power plant our rates will sky rocket! My only reply was – good, then other forms of energy will become cost competitive – ones that are better for the earth and those who live upon it.
“the goal of alternative energy is one that I wholeheartedly embrace”—jm o’connor
beautiful words, jm o’c, couldn’t have said it better myself.
AP (#23),
Achieving the goal of making other forms of energy cost competitive via skyrocketing oil prices is a conservation strategy built around the financial ruin of this country. Skyrocketing energy prices in America would be good news only for foreigners—primarily the ones who are sitting on oil. Besides crippling transportation and production here, and pushing millions of young families out of their homes and into bankruptcy, a strategy that achieves a serious reduction in American consumption of oil will force the oil producers to find a new market (or expand, through lower prices, existing markets, like China). The net result will be this: the use of oil will increase in nations with the least effective pollution controls, America’s crippled economy will cripple its ability to fund energy research, and the resulting inflation will make this country’s economic muscle a distant—and scary—second to its military might.
Hardship will not provide a quick fix for a technology whose time has not come, no matter how much eco-maniacs think we deserve to suffer. Good solutions will arrive when good science finds them. Making half-assed technologies price-competitive does nothing to improve their half-assed performance. Remember, the Yugo entered this market offering nothing but a competitive price.
This stuff is stale, like a movie remake: John Calvin rides again—preaching suffering, sacrifice, and $7 gas not in service to God, but in service to Mother Earth. And again the sin (this time, being born in a consumer nation) was ours at birth.
Sorry, AP, I don’t believe. And by the way, I think the Greens belief-based opposition to nuclear energy is just as dogmatic and dumb as is Missouri’s belief-based opposition to the Theory of Evolution.
Another#23: Let me re-phrase—it will be absolutely unenforceable.
Although the higher prices may be insignificant to you, that’s not the point. Prices have already gotten to the point that it impacts lots of hard working folks who are barely making it as it is. For a lot of the people who serve folks like you for whom price is no object, this could mean a choice between gasoline on the one hand, and food for their kids, or heat in the winter for others. NOT a good choice.
It’s easy for a person for whom price is not an object to add a couple of cents to a gallon of gas. I’m glad for you that you are so successful. For others, though, it is a big problem.
Take a moment and consider the position of those who are not as lucky as you to be able to afford the increase; then re-think your very elitist position on this ill-conceived initiative.
I wonder how many landlords are in favor of California’s voters going after the oil company’s excess profits? If I recall correctly, it was only a few years ago that it was the excess profits of landlords that were the targets of the public’s ire. I suspect those once-greedy landlords are breathing easier these days, given that rents are down, vacancies up, and no one’s paying any attention anymore to their bottom line.
Who gets the finger pointed at them next year?
Hold on, I fell asleep in 1975 but if i remember correctly we were going to run out of oil by 1980 and we needed all sorts of tax schemes to help fund alternative energy within five years. What happened?
#25 JMO nails it. Limousine liberalism.
Case in point – Prop 87 spokesman Al Gore.
“Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.”
…
Maybe our very existence isn’t threatened.
Gore has held these apocalyptic views about the environment for some time. So why, then, didn’t Gore dump his family’s large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family’s trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock. Oxy has been mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm
Fact is we had sky rocketing oil prices and we will have them again. It put a huge crimp in my budget. You assume I am wealthy because I don’t care about the price of gas? How shallow you sound in your inability to believe that that there are those who care more about the future for their children than the price of gas.
Yes, it affected our lifestyle but I was encouraged by the news of the investments being made in alternative forms of energy and those being made that will eventually bring down the cost of manufacturing solar cells. Yet it is not all about private investment. Huge structural changes need to be made that will take the type of investment that can only be done by government. Big Oil won’t do it, we know that. So let’s do it ourselves through Prop 87.
Will Prop 87 cause an increase in prices at the pump? I don’t think so. But if so then not anything more than a few pennies per gallon and yes I could be wrong about that but no one will suffer any more than is suffering today. Done correctly we could instead be celebrating an abundance of clean energy instead of what we have today which is a continued dependence on foreign oil and an oil based economy where more must be had at any cost. That is a recipe for war that will lead to the ruin of our economic engine AND our miltary might. No distant seconds there.
Continued reliance on an oil economy will result in climate change through global warming gas emissions and I applaud our Governor and Mr. Gore for their leadership on this issue. The fact that neither live off the grid in one room shacks does not make them hypocrites.
So that makes me a limousine liberal and an elitist? At least I am not a shill for the oil industry.
Best regards,
AP #27 said: “Continued reliance on an oil economy will result in climate change through global warming gas emissions and I applaud our Governor and Mr. Gore for their leadership on this issue. The fact that neither live off the grid in one room shacks does not make them hypocrites.”
What absolute tripe.
Firstly, our Governator and Algore are not hypocrites for not living off of the grid. What makes them hypocrites is the fact that they are both telling everyone else who will listen that we all need to CONSERVE!, whilst they are leading the overly abundant lifestyles that they decry and tell all who would listen to abandon. Algore is particularly guilty of this particular sin, especially when he was flying all over the place promoting his docuspiel “An Inconvenient Truth” – and flying all over the place on private jets.
Next: Our reliance on an oil-based economy causing “global warming?” Do you really believe that? And did you have these opinions back in the early 1970s when some of those same scientists were haranging us about the upcoming Ice Age?
When Pinatubo erupted in 1991, the worldwide average temperature dropped by 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit within three years (source – “http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/of97-262/of97-262.html”). Other volcanoes have gone off since, some in more spectacular fashion, others not so much. The bottom line, though, is that there is nothing that we puny humans could do to the atmosphere save global thermonuclear war that the planet itself cannot self-regulate.
When Algore decides to be a little more ‘green’ in his day-to-day existence, I’ll start listening a little more to his spiel. When Arnie gets rid of some of his fleet of Hummers, then I’ll be interested in his support of additional taxation on gasoline for the entire state just to burnish up his personal ‘green’ image.
To honestly support 87, you don’t have to be Theodore Kaczynski, but it sure helps if you don’t act like Barbra Streisand either, insisting that other people live the lifestyle you think they should lead for their own good.