California lawmakers are being pressured to eliminate or scale back a policy that has saved oil and gas companies billions of dollars in their effort to comply with state carbon-emissions regulations.
Activists from environmental and other groups are urging the Legislature to increase compliance costs for the companies by revising a policy that avoids penalizing them when their emissions exceed state limits.
The push comes as California lawmakers consider extending for another decade the law that authorizes the state’s cap-and-trade program, which cuts emission by forcing some excessive emitters to buy pollution allowances.
California effectively waives penalties for polluters in a few industries such as oil and gas by giving them the allowances for free instead of forcing them to buy from the state or individual emitters.
