Big Money and Big Oil Behind Prop. 23
Bankrolled by a pair of Texas oil companies and oil industrialists David and Charles Koch, Prop. 23 was intended to delay implementation of California’s innovative Global Warming Solutions Act, also known as AB 32. Passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by California Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2006, AB 32 is set to take effect in 2012 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California to 1990 levels by 2020 using a cap-and-trade system, and establish a timetable to bring California into near compliance with the provisions of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
The Beating Heart of the Mojave Desert
If passed, the California Desert Protection Act will protect over one million acres of the Mojave Desert’s last wild, scenic areas, with the creation of two new National Monuments: the Mojave Trails National Monument on former railroad lands adjoining historic U.S. Rt. 66, and the Sand to Snow National Monument, which would include areas from the desert floor of the Coachella Valley to the high country of the San Bernardino Mountains, along with several new wilderness areas providing greater species connectivity across the region.
