On Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:40:51 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:


Thank you, C.A.R.B. I like breathing easy now.

I disagree with that sentiment. I had my smog license and watched
some pretty nice vehicles go into meltdown after installing some of
CARB's required devices and settings. Millions of dollars of vehicle
engines were toasted from that idiocy. CA air would have greened
fairly quickly anyway, sticking to federal guidelines, so I think it
was a ghastly waste, a crime against the populace.


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/1...onbeam-assist/

California Air Resources Board cap and trade program circumvents state
open meeting laws with a Moonbeam assist
Posted on July 14, 2012 by Anthony Watts

Strong headline, I know, but I didn’t believe this was true until I
researched it myself. First some background; I once served as an
elected official on my local school board. During orientation and
virtually every annual CSBA meeting after that, along with numerous
public meetings and letters to the editor where people constantly
reminded us of the Brown Act, it loomed large as the most important
law that we had to follow.

We were constantly reminded that if we did not follow the letter of
the law and provide full and open access to all meetings (the
exception being employee management) we would be guilty of breaking
the open meeting law and subject to severe penalties. If our local
school board in our small town ever tried to hold a closed-door
meeting without the knowledge of the public, not only we would we be
excoriated in the press and public discourse, but we would also have
people filing for our election recall.

So, it was with shock and surprise that I learned today that the
California Air Resources Board declared the method by which they could
circumvent the public meeting laws. Even more shocking they put it in
writing and, got the California State legislature to pass it as a law
as a rider on a totally unrelated bill of legislation, and Governor
Brown signed it into law on June 27th, 2012.

My friend Eric Eisenhammer first alerted me to the issue on his
California Political Review blog. He writes:

On the afternoon the state budget was signed into law last
Wednesday I received an email from a local activist informing me that
hidden in a trailer bill titled SB 1018 was a provision exempting the
upcoming cap and trade auction from open meeting rules.

CARB formed a company called Western Climate Initiative Inc.
(WCI), to manage its upcoming cap and trade auction. This shadowy
corporation, registered in Delaware, will be responsible for imposing
billions in hidden energy taxes on California ratepayers and small
businesses without public scrutiny or accountability.

SB 1018 was a “gut and amend” bill, with over 100 pages inserted
the day before the bill was signed into law along with the state
budget. This legislation did not go through one committee hearing and
most legislators probably never had a chance to read it. But buried
in this bill in Section 12894(b)(2) is a line exempting WCI from a
critical provision of the California Constitution, known as the
Bagley-Keene Act, which provides meetings be open to public scrutiny.

Small business owners and citizen energy consumers care about
protecting the environment, but CARB continually behaves as if it has
something to hide.

When I first read that I really could not believe it. I could not
believe that a state agency who is beholden to the same sorts of open
meetings law that I was as a school board member would go to the
lengths of trying to circumvent it, much less get it passed into law
as an exception. So, I decided to check it out for myself.

First I located the document related to SB 1018. Eric was kind enough
to direct me to the actual document and to the section that was
relevant. Here is the URL of just one section of the monster sized
SB1018 bill, section 39. The PDF:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/..._chaptered.pdf

The relevant part is in 12894(b)(2) of SB 1018. You can find that
section from the bottom of page 23 to near the top of page 24. The
relevant section says:

Chapter 5. Greenhouse Gas Market-Based Compliance
Mechanisms and Linkages to the State

12894. (a) (1) The Legislature finds and declares that the
establishment of nongovernmental entities, such as the Western Climate
Initiative, Incorporated, and linkages with other states and countries
by the State Air Resources Board or other state agencies for the
purposes of implementing Division 25.5 (commencing with Section 38500)
of the Health and Safety
Code, should be done transparently and should be independently
reviewed by the Attorney General for consistency with all applicable
laws.

(2) The purpose of this section is to establish new oversight and
transparency over any such linkages and related activities
undertaken in relation to Division 25.5 (commencing with Section
38500) of the Health and Safety Code by the executive agencies in
order to ensure consistency with applicable laws.

(b) (1) The California membership of the board of directors of the
Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, shall be modified as
follows:

(A) One appointee or his or her designee who shall serve as an ex
officio nonvoting member shall be appointed by the Senate Committee on
Rules.
(B) One appointee or his or her designee who shall serve as an ex
officio nonvoting member shall be appointed by the Speaker of the
Assembly.

(C) The Chairperson of the State Air Resources Board or her or his
designee.
(D) The Secretary for Environmental Protection or his or her
designee.
(2) Sections 11120 through 11132 do not apply to the Western
Climate Initiative, Incorporated, or to appointees specified in
subparagraphs (C) and (D) of paragraph (1) when performing their
duties under this section.
(c) The State Air Resources Board shall provide notice to the
Joint Legislative Budget Committee, consistent with that required for
Department of Finance augmentation or reduction authorizations
pursuant to subdivision (e) of Section 28.00 of the annual Budget Act,
of any funds over one hundred
fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) provided to the Western Climate
Initiative, Incorporated, or its derivatives or subcontractors no
later than 30 days prior to transfer or expenditure of these funds.

Did you catch it? Most people wouldn’t as it is a very short sentence
written in gov-speak with redirected references to other laws. I only
caught it because I was familiar with the sections pertaining to the
state open meeting laws.

Here’s the relevant section:

(2) Sections 11120 through 11132 do not apply to the Western
Climate Initiative, Incorporated, or to appointees specified in
subparagraphs (C) and (D) of paragraph (1) when performing their
duties under this section.

Still don’t see it? It is about sections 11120 through 11132 of The
California Code.

What are Sections 11120 through 11132? Wikipedia has a good summary:

The Bagley-Keene Act of 1967, officially known as the Bagley-Keene
Open Meeting Act, implements a provision of the California
Constitution which declares that “the meetings of public bodies and
the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public
scrutiny”, and explicitly mandates open meetings for California State
agencies, boards, and commissions. The act facilitates accountability
and transparency of government activities and protects the rights of
citizens to participate in State government deliberations. Similarly,
California’s Brown Act of 1953 protects citizen rights with regard to
open meetings at the county and local government level.

The act also reaffirms, “The people of this state do not yield their
sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in
delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to
decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for
them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may
retain control over the instruments they have created.”

Here’s the relevant section of the code, section 11121, which says
private corporations setup to do state business are not exempt:
As used in this article, “state body” means each of the following: (a)
Every state board, or commission, or similar multimember body of the
state that is created by statute or required by law to conduct
official meetings and every commission created by executive order. (b)
A board, commission, committee, or similar multimember body that
exercises any authority of a state body delegated to it by that state
body. (c) An advisory board, advisory commission, advisory committee,
advisory subcommittee, or similar multimember advisory body of a state
body, if created by formal action of the state body or of any member
of the state body, and if the advisory body so created consists of
three or more persons. (d) A board, commission, committee, or similar
multimember body on which a member of a body that is a state body
pursuant to this section serves in his or her official capacity as a
representative of that state body and that is supported, in whole or
in part, by funds provided by the state body, whether the multimember
body is organized and operated by the state body or by a private
corporation.

Section 11122.5 reads:
(a) As used in this article, “meeting” includes any congregation of a
majority of the members of a state body at the same time and place to
hear, discuss, or deliberate upon any item that is within the subject
matter jurisdiction of the state body to which it pertains. (b) (1) A
majority of the members of a state body shall not, outside of a
meeting authorized by this chapter, use a series of communications of
any kind, directly or through intermediaries, to discuss, deliberate,
or take action on any item of business that is within the subject
matter of the state body. (2) Paragraph (1) shall not be construed to
prevent an employee or official of a state agency from engaging in
separate conversations or communications outside of a meeting
authorized by this chapter with members of a legislative body in order
to answer questions or provide information regarding a matter that is
within the subject matter jurisdiction of the state agency, if that
person does not communicate to members of the legislative body the
comments or position of any other member or members of the legislative
body.

There are some exceptions listed in 11122.5, such as for conversations
in open air public meetings and gatherings, but nothing like the
blanket exception written in for WCI in SB1018.

Consider this a minute. CARB sets up a private corporation, Western
Climate Initiative Inc. to manage the cap and trade program, doesn’t
even bother to put the corporation in California, and opts for
Delaware and the advantages that brings over California incorporation.
Delaware is well known as a corporate haven, and that alone suggests
they want it out of the prying eyes of California taxpayers.

But that wasn’t good enough, they take the extraordinary step of
writing in an exemption to prevent public scrutiny, and then hide it
as a rider in the 100+ pages inserted the day before the bill was
signed into law along with the state budget, effectively preventing
any scrutiny.

What is CARB intent on hiding in WCI? Now, with a secret meetings get
out of jail free card signed by Govenor Moonbeam, We may never know.
Just like with the publicly funded Michael Mann fighting tooth and
nail to prevent his emails from seeing sunshine, so it seems CARB has
taken a cue from the behavior of climate science in general, and in a
wave of the hand brushed aside the directive Bagley-Keene Open Meeting
Act, deciding they know what is best for the people:

The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public
servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and
what is not good for them to know.

Mary Nichols – leader of a a criminal agency?

In my opinion, this flagrant and orchestrated criminal disregard of
the California open meetings law is the epitome of unmitigated gall on
the part of CARB, and specifically CARB director Mary Nichols who has
made it clear she doesn’t give a rats ass about what the people of
California have to say about her empire and how it operates.

At this point, when they decide they can hold themselves above the law
that every other town board, council, and agency has to follow, I’m
ready to declare CARB as an enemy of the people of California.

If you are a resident of California, complain loudly to your elected
representatives and write your newspapers. The only way to fight this
is with more sunshine.



One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not
agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my
earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure
- and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his
fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

- Jeff Cooper