Monday, September 27, 2010 Santa Clara, California
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke out strongly against Proposition 23 at the Commonwealth Club. He attacked as ‘cynical’ efforts by Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro to ‘kill’ California’s AB32 climate legislation, calling the efforts driven by ‘self-serving greed’, and comparing these efforts to a conspiracy in the twenties which destroyed light rail in America. While critiquing national efforts at climate legislation as ineffective, he praised President Obama’s intentions. Citing failures at the national and international levels, he stressed the importance of California’s AB32 to provide a strong financial zone for green development and green job creation, referring to the struggle over Proposition 23 as a battle.
“Does any one really believe that these companies out the goodness of their black oil hearts are spending of millions and millions of dollars to protect jobs?”
Partial excerpt: “Those who seek to overturn our carbon reduction law say that the green tech future is to costly… But here’s what the don’t want to tell you: The cost calculations doesn’t include the increased cost of doing business their way. The old way.”
“They don’t include the cost for instance of rising oil prices as the developing world demands more and more oil. They don’t include the cost of job losses that these rising oil prices would force. They don’t include the cost of hundred of billions of tax breaks that have gotten and continue to get. They don’t include the cost of pollution that they are already causing. The cost for instance of the hundred thousand Americans who die every year from smog related diseases.
They don’t include also the cost of 6.5 million hospital visits per year for smog related illnesses.
They don’t include the cost of the next war over oil – and believe me eventually it would come – as we become more and more dependent on oil. I mean I think that we have had enough wars in the Middle East because of oil – don’t you think so?”
The Governor’s statement was also covered at GreenTechMedia and on MSNBC:
story by James George