EMISSIONS BILL DOESN'T HIT ON ALL CYLINDERS.

Byline: Gary M. Galles

WHO says our public servants in Sacramento aren't hard-working and entrepreneurial?

They were both in their moves to ram through a controversial bill to restrict carbon dioxide emissions by automobiles. Unfortunately, those admirable traits were marshaled in pursuit of far from admirable legislation.

It began with Assembly Bill 1058 by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D- Woodland Hills, which would have mandated the reduction of carbon dioxide emission from cars in the name of reducing global warming.

Undeterred by the fact that it would have a virtually undetectable effect on its alleged goal, the bill made it through all the legislative hurdles, only to be pulled from a final vote in the Assembly when not enough votes could be found for it in the face of strenuous constituent objections and an ad campaign that targeted some of the policies which could result.

Rather than admitting defeat on the bill for this session, those most eager for environmentalist votes and money in November got busy and creative.

They took AB 1493, which proposed changes in the Education Code, stripped out its contents, and replaced it with a strategically modified version of 1058.

The state Senate then bypassed normal legislative procedures to rush through the ``gut and amend'' gambit, and the Assembly passed it days later, leaving it only a Gov. Gray Davis signature away from implementation.

This was great political strategy. First, it pushed the bill through too quickly for effective opposition to be galvanized against it in the Legislature, allowing them to get credit, while putting any heat on the governor.

Second, since much of the campaign against the bill focused on its original number, switching its number to 1493 faced opponents with lost public awareness and the need to conduct another expensive ad campaign.

Third, it addressed the most common criticisms of the original bill (which originated from a California Air Resources Board document spelling out policies that might be used to accomplish such goals), by saying that it would not allow added taxes or fees on vehicles, fuel or miles traveled, bans on any vehicles, or mandatory reductions in weight, speed limits or allowable miles traveled, thus providing enough political cover to increase its vote total to the bare minimum to pass in the Assembly.

However, despite the state-of-the art politics involved, it would still be bad law.

It does rule out some of the draconian possibilities that could be imposed as a result, but certainly not all. For instance, a requirement that costs $1,000 to meet will raise car prices to consumers just as much as a $1,000 tax would, but manufacturers will be blamed for higher prices rather than politicians.

And it doesn't spell out what it does require. It provides none of the nuts and bolts details necessary to evaluate its effects and costs.

In other words, it simply assumes that future CARB bureaucrats and legislators will discover efficient, but as yet unknown and unspecified, ways to achieve carbon dioxide reductions, and implement them effectively.

In fact, AB 1493 goes beyond a level of vagueness that anyone would accept spending their own money.

The language of the bill is self-contradictory, saying that the regulations must ``achieve the maximum feasible and cost-effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles,'' while considering a whole host of other issues (including the state of the economy, jobs, competitiveness, etc.) and providing ``flexibility, to the maximum extent possible,'' as well.

But there can be no such thing as the maximum-feasible, cost-effective way to do anything, and doubly so when there must be maximum flexibility as well.

It is a matter of trade-offs. Increased carbon dioxide emission reductions can be achieved, but only at increasing costs. If the maximum feasible reduction is to be achieved, it cannot be cost-effective, and if it is to be cost-effective, it cannot achieve the maximum feasible reduction.

The language leaves CARB bureaucrats free to decide what each of those mutually inconsistent terms means.

For a law to be useful, it must define both the problem and the means of combating it clearly. If both are overly vague and the language of the law contradictory, there is little reason to believe (beyond blind hope) it will be either efficient or cost-effective.