California Adopts Nation’s Most Sweeping Cap & Trade Plan

But it’s just another milestone in a long journey that’s far from finished.
It’s official (no, really, this time). California has cap & trade — or will once the program starts ramping up next year. Today’s approval by the state’s Air Resources Board was described by chair Mary Nichols as like “moving a large army a few feet in one direction.”
Those other measures include stricter standards for tailpipe emissions, a “low-carbon fuels standard” (still being worked on), and the ambitious-but-attainable goal to get a third of the state’s electricity from renewable energy sources, also by 2020.
The next major milestone will come late next year, when the state begins meting out permits or “allowances” to release carbon dioxide into the air. At first, 90% of those permits will be given away but analysts have estimated that within a few years, at least half will be auctioned off at a price estimated by Thomson Reuters Point Carbon analytical service to be about $36 a ton.
To most of us, that doesn’t mean much by itself, but for a refinery pumping out a few million tons a year (link to map), that adds up to some serious revenue for the state. How those “carbon dollars” will be spent is one aspect of the program that has yet to be worked out.

See the entire article here.