FOX & HOUNDS DAILY: Delaying AB 32 is Risky Business

By Hank Ryan, Executive Director of Small Business California

http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/blog/hank-ryan/6916-delaying-ab-32-risky-business

There's an unsettling, ongoing effort to dismantle California's roadmap to a clean energy future - one that will create uncertainty for California businesses.

Since AB 32 was passed four years ago, California businesses have been busily planning and participating in the implementation process by the Air Resources Board. Many have invested in technology and products to make their businesses more efficient and reduce pollution.

These investments are part of the reason California is home to seven of the top 10 clean tech businesses in America, and five California cities are on the top 10 list of the best places for clean-tech businesses in our nation.

But now some of the same forces that tried to scuttle the law in the first place are using words like "suspend" and "delay" to essentially kill this momentum. Pulling the rug out from the businesses that already have planned for the future - and creating an environment of uncertainty for thousands of the state's businesses that employ millions of Californians - will certainly do nothing to improve our economy and, in fact, would worsen it. Small Business California believes that, implemented effectively, AB 32 is the right path for California.

California's clean technology sector received $2.1 billion in investment capital in 2009 -- 60 percent of the total in North America and more than five times the investment in our nearest competitor, Massachusetts. It's no wonder that the National Venture Capital Capitalists Association is among the many pro-business groups that support AB 32 implementation. They know that any move to delay this law will kill clean technology jobs, innovation, and billions of dollars of investment in California. That is why hundreds of business leaders and small businesses across the state support the continued implementation of AB 32.

According to a report released this week from the state's Economic Development Department, there are more than 500,000 clean tech jobs in California. Most of them are in the manufacturing and construction sectors, providing opportunities up and down the career ladder. These high-paying jobs are spread across the state, from large-scale renewable energy projects underway in the Central Valley and desert counties to small businesses that dot the suburbs.

Recent economic studies show that the clean job sector is also the fastest-growing in the state. The number of California green businesses has increased 45 percent and green jobs expanded by 36 percent from 1995 to 2008, while total jobs in California expanded only 13 percent. Economist Stephen Levy, Director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, recently concluded in a study "it is likely that the first beneficiaries of green job growth will be workers who are currently unemployed."

Delaying implementation of AB 32 is a  lose-lose-lose for California - it will cost our state jobs, increase pollution, and drive up energy costs for small businesses. As the Gulf oil spill has reminded us, we need to continue California's leadership in weaning ourselves off oil and toward a clean energy economy. Slowing down that transition will only hurt our attempts to recover from the recession.