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July 09, 2007

Moonbeam Brown's revenge

As goes California, so goes the nation

Kelo? Schmelo. What's an eminent domain threat, beaten back in some states, when all land usage can be usurped using the great cudgel of Global Warming™?

Back in the 1970's, then Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown's vision for California, especially for the riff-raff below the Grapevine, was Don't build it and they won't come. State tax revenues for highway construction and maintenance dried up like the Santa Ana River during a five-year drought. The major testament to Moonbeam's legacy for me was traveling through Orange County down the 55 freeway to Newport, then diverting onto surface streets that ran alongside a fenced, weedy pit in the ground where the freeway was supposed to be. It wouldn't be until the 1990's that the last bit of the 55 was completed.

Moonbeam has never given up on getting people to get rid of their cars.

Indeed, Moonbeam has never given up on getting rid of people.

And his weapon of choice is AB 32, California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which mandates state entities to reduce their greenhouse gases (GHGs) to 1990 levels. AB 32 also declares carbon dioxide as a "greenhouse gas" that must be monitored and regulated. As CA's Attorney General, Moonbeam has leveled this shotgun straight at the gut of fast growth counties, most recently taking the unprecedented step of suing the county of San Bernardino.

San Bernardino, California - This vast county east of Los Angeles, the biggest in the continental USA, could hold the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont and Rhode Island and still have room left over. Most of San Bernardino County remains mountains and empty desert.

But an ever-larger piece, the part known as the "Inland Empire," is freeways, fast-growing cities, traffic congestion and seemingly endless sprawl. For years, this has been the refuge, with Riverside County to the south, for hundreds of thousands of home buyers fleeing soaring Los Angeles prices.

STATES TAKE NOTE: California blames sprawl for global warming.

The county's 2 million population will grow by at least 500,000 by 2030, according to state estimates. The conventional way growth has always been handled here is to build more single-family subdivisions — the suburban dream, for sale on a third of an acre.[my note - I don't know where he got this info...the majority of subdivisions for ostensible middleclass homes is 1/6 acre]

"San Bernardino has never seen a project it didn't like," says Brendan Cummings, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has brought several lawsuits in the Inland Empire over global warming. "They rubber-stamp development. It's very much of a frontier mentality."

Even Dan Waters of the SacBee, sounds some warning notes:
When Attorney General Jerry Brown sued San Bernardino County over alleged inadequacies in its plan governing growth, he accelerated an incremental and potentially historic -- albeit little-noticed -- state takeover of local governments' jealously guarded power over land use.
...
Land use has, as a topic for debate and sometimes action, been kicked around political and academic circles for decades. A landmark shift of policy occurred in the mid-1970s when voters and the Legislature, plus then-Gov. Brown, created a Coastal Commission with land use power -- sometimes applied very narrowly with tinges of corruption -- over a "coastal zone."
...
The multifront conflict over land use authority is ... an ideological one, and that means it's also an interregional conflict in which coastal and urban liberals are attempting to impose their philosophy of development on the faster-growing, conservative suburban and rural counties of inland California -- San Bernardino, for instance.
Waters softpeddles the Coastal Commission's "tinges of corruption". The Commission's historic operation can be found as an example in Bartlet's Familiar Quotations next to Lord Acton's Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The idea of a statewide "Coastal Commission", fully subservient to the socialist CA State Legislature is an alarming prospect. Not the least of which when viewed in the context of Moonbeam's authoritarian sneers directed at San Diego
First it was the booming counties of California's Inland Empire. Now Attorney General Jerry Brown is eyeing stagnant San Diego's recent growth plan as part of his home-state mission on greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. ...

Brown's office fired San Diego a GHG warning shot last month with a June 11 letter from Deputy Attorney General Sandra Goldberg urging the city to adopt a broader range of GHG mitigation strategies. But some locals say such excessive regulation could force businesses out, reports Voice of San Diego's Rob Davis. ...

Earlier this year Brown signaled his intent to use the Act as a lever to force changes in local development blueprints. ...

Brown had previously smacked the Inland Empire's other big growth county, Riverside, with similar suits against the plans of municipalities Banning and Desert Hot Springs.

From Mike Lee
After a sharp reprimand from the State Attorney General's Office, San Diego city officials are crafting policies to deal with global warming more decisively.

Their proposed regulations mainly deal with new developments and major remodeling projects. They address everything from the types of paints and roofing materials that can be used to the varieties of landscape plants and the amount of parking spots allowed. The rules also are aimed at reducing traffic.

At first, the city wanted merely to encourage such measures in its long-term growth strategy. But in a recent letter, Attorney General Jerry Brown's staff made it clear that voluntary guidelines aren't good enough.

And if Moonbeam's demands are not met, he has backup from the CA Senate in the form of yet another bit of legislation, SB 375, that is naked in it's power play
This measure says that all transportation plans and transportation funding decisions must be made with the object of concentrating people in dense urban cores. In this bill, it is called a “Preferred Growth Scenario.” It says all transportation plans and funds must serve this “Preferred Growth Scenario,” and that, in turn, means at an absolute minimum packing in ten families per acre. Ten Families.

Welcome to the brave new world of central planning. This is a continuation of the policy that Gov. Schwarzenegger institutionalized with AB 32 and that Attorney General Brown operationalized by suing San Bernardino County.

They’re basically saying, “You cannot build new highways until you can show how you’re going to build them without using earth-moving equipment or concrete and that, once they’re built, nobody is going to use them.”

But the Left has an alternative – that’s what this bill is all about. They want everyone to move into dense urban cores – the denser the better. That’s what this bill means when it uses the term, “Preferred Growth Scenario.”

Crumbling roads? Unsafe bridges? State to city, tough sh*t, you play by our rules and you'll get some of your taxes back, or you can just crumble into the dust and good riddance.

Global Warming™ has provided the perfect cover for the Radical Environmental movement. It is a fundamentalist religion that is bent on imposing its own Enviromental Sharia, where even a small town 85 miles east of Los Angeles is being sued by the Moonbeam's office and it's fundie co-religionists in the Radical Eco movement for the unforgivable sin of allowing people to live one family per acre.

Think of your state as a Super HOA, telling you not only how to paint your home or what plants you can have in your yard, but even telling you whether or not you're are even allowed a yard or a fireplace.

As goes California ...

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Posted by Darleen at July 9, 2007 12:58 AM

Comments

I liked your comments on Identity Theft.

I'm an Identity Theft Risk Management Specialist (C.I.T.R.M.S.)

I think taht we can helpyou and your mom, before another identity theft,

Thieves frequently sell your info to other thieves, so evn if the 1 out of 700 thieves get caught, and whole new group is ready to continue the attacks.

Joe

Posted by: Joe at July 9, 2007 12:06 AM

Speaking of crazy people, check your trackbacks. The Pickled Witch of Eugene is linking to you, a year after taking a big crap at ProteinWisdom.

Posted by: Bliz at July 9, 2007 03:18 PM

Don't worry about the Azars dike Bliz. Nobody pays attention to her anymore, she's just feebly grabbing at straws for attention by linking others, don't let it work for her.

Posted by: R30C at July 9, 2007 05:35 PM

I suppose that should have been spelled dyke... but who's to say Deb doesn't retain massive amounts of water? Maybe that's what makes her so grouchy.

Posted by: R30C at July 9, 2007 06:46 PM

What's this? Darleen drew the troll out from under the bridge? I thought she was in jail or something.

Darleen, are your trackbacks broken? I linked to you too (although I'm loathe to share trackback space with that freak) but no t/b showed up?

Posted by: Beth at July 9, 2007 10:48 PM

not to worry Beth

The tbs are broken, (I need to upgrade) but I kinda left them that way for now...less spam.

Saw your link..thanks.

I haven't found the troll's link yet. Bliz, you got it handy?

Posted by: Darleen at July 10, 2007 06:33 AM

all transportation plans and transportation funding decisions must be made with the object of concentrating people in dense urban cores.

That's so they can save the desert for all the new prisons they'll need.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at July 10, 2007 07:11 AM