Near Zero’s Danny Cullenward was quoted in a ClimateWire story on the appellate court decision on California Chamber of Commerce v. CARB, a case in which carbon market opponents challenged the legality of the state’s quarterly allowance auctions.
The decision by the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento found that the cap-and-trade program is not an illegal tax as industry groups had contended. It frees the state to continue holding auctions through 2020.
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“It’s great for the state,” said Danny Cullenward, a research associate at the Carnegie Institution for Science who has been analyzing the market since its inception. “It’s an unambiguous win.”
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Observers disagreed on whether that part of the ruling would affect future legal challenges to the program. While [UCLA Emmett Institute Co-Director Cara] Horowitz said the court’s “rationale makes the auction look less like a tax under any analytical approach,” Cullenward said a supermajority vote is still needed. “This case does not change the question or the need for ARB or any other advocate of carbon pricing to obtain legislative authority and confront Prop 26,” he said.
Read the rest of the story, “Court upholds California’s cap-and-trade program” by Debra Kahn, on the ClimateWire website. (It was also republished on the Scientific American website.)