“We should not be using models to ‘validate’ policy and regulations. We should be using the models to better inform policy debates and avoid picking technological winners and (more frequently) losers.”
California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) put the state on a track rejected by the nation as a whole: a regulatory limit on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This policy, which I have criticized as elitist climate policy postmodernism [1], is an all pain, no gain policy with high implementation costs.
The result of AB 32, California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), has been debated for six-plus years, including the release of rival studies estimating regulatory impacts. Studies do not debate the climate-change impacts because the answer is … nil.
LCFS requires fuel producers to lower the average carbon content of their products 10 percent by 2020.…