California state senator Bob Dutton in Capitol Weekly on the ill effects of California’s emissions regulation:

When Governor Schwarzenegger signed AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, into law more than three years ago, he declared that the sweeping new regulations imposed by the measure would be “good for business.”
Since then we’ve learned these regulations carry a multibillion dollar price tag and will be the largest tax increase ever imposed by unelected regulators in California — call it the “global warming tax.”Green jobs compose less than one percent of California’s economy. That’s right, less than one percent. From 1995 to 2008, California added only 42,000 new green jobs. At that rate of growth, it would take 89 years for green jobs to replace all of the other jobs California has lost in the current economic downturn.
Even worse, economists warn that, rather than create a surplus of jobs, the global warming tax will kill up to 1.1 million more jobs in the future.
Clearly, green jobs won’t save us. We need other jobs too.
Yet California’s high costs and hostile business climate are driving the very folks who create those jobs to other, more business-friendly states. Since 2000, California has lost more than 600,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs. Even green industries are choosing to expand outside California.
Business relocation specialist Joseph Vranich sees the problem firsthand. His full-time job is advising companies who want to flee California. He recently noted that no one is calling him to say they’d like to move to California, adding that businesses in California face a “coming financial tsunami from AB 32.”
Many companies that compete in the global marketplace don’t have the luxury of passing higher costs onto consumers.
Consider CalPortland Cement. As a result of AB 32, the company cancelled its California expansion plans and is considering expanding in Nevada instead. The company also recently laid off 100 highly paid workers when it closed its cement operations in Colton.
Steve Regis, vice president of engineering at CalPortland says, “We’re not like other companies. We simply cannot pass our cost on to our customers because we’re truly a world market. We compete with China, so we’re really in danger.”

Read the whole thing here.