California’s cap-and-trade carbon market generated $4.4 billion for the state last year, and the battle has started over how to spend it.
Local clean air agencies, land preservation groups, climate advocates and more lined up to urge spending on their priorities during a recent hearing of a legislative climate committee.
Academic experts advised using part of the $4 billion for projects that would reduce consumer costs that are rising due to climate change. Projects to prevent wildfires or build electric infrastructure needed to help cut carbon emissions could contain electricity bills, they said.
“What we do with the revenues is the most important thing to ensuring that we have a politically sustainable cap-and-trade program moving forward,“ Michael Wara, director of Stanford University’s Climate and Energy Policy Program, said at the Feb. 26 Joint Legislative Committee on Climate Change Policies hearing.
