Trade rumors

There were no movie stars or foreign dignitaries in attendance when the Market Advisory Committee held an introductory meeting downtown last week to riff on the implementation of AB 32, the global-warming law signed last year. But the public showed up to put in their 10 cents.

Arthur Boone, with the Northern California Recycling Association, argued for downsizing landfills and putting caps on the amount of materials that can be buried or burned, à la Oregon in 2002. San Francisco Community Power proposed that cities and neighborhoods eliminate pollution sources (cars, leaf blowers) and sell their “points” on the open market with other cities.

Insisting that polluters pay for their harm to the environment, Jason Barbose of Environment California proposed polluters buy emission credits instead of getting them free from the state, generating billions of dollars for public use.

The European Union representatives, city administrators, scientists and former Assembly members who make up the Market Advisory Committee will make their recommendations to the California Air Resources Board by June 30, 2007. See our interview with ARB member and UC Davis professor Daniel Sperling.