I am honored to announce that I earned a 100 percent rating from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)/California for my support of small business owners in California. The top score is the result of supporting or opposing a series of key bills that affected California’s small businesses.

The NFIB/California Voting Record was developed through the selection of 11 bills taken up by the State Legislature in 2009 that had a key impact on small business. I was one of just 12 State Senators to receive a perfect score of 100 percent.

Those bills included measures (which I supported) that reduced the bureaucratic regulatory burden on small business owners and increased opportunities for small business contracting. Also, there were measures that I opposed which enlarged taxes, increased workers' compensation premiums or expanded health care costs through increased state regulation.

These issues are of significant concern to small business owners in California. The State Legislature needs to focus on legislative efforts that promote small business and job creation.

We must remember that small business is the engine that drives the economy and job creation in California. Support of small business creation and expansion should be a common, shared goal of every state elected official.

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Fuel Taxes Must Rise, Harvard Researchers Say

This recent article provides a look into the effects of AB 32 will likely have on transportation - although it is based on EPA actions on nationwide carbon emissions and efforts to reduce oil dependence.

According to the Harvard report, to meet the Obama Administration's targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon, according to researchers. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 - the target set in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) budget for fiscal 2010 - the cost of driving would simply have to increase, according to a report released by researchers at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Bottom Line:

It’s Harder than it looks. Reducing oil consumption and carbon emissions from transportation is a much greater challenge than conventional wisdom assumes. It will require substantially higher fuel prices, ideally in combination with more stringent regulation.

Higher gasoline prices are essential. Reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the transportation sector 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 may require gas prices greater than $7/gallon by 2020.

Tax credits are expensive. While relying on subsidies for electric or hybrid vehicles is politically seductive, it is extremely expensive and an ineffective way to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the near term.

Climate and economy not a zero-sum game. Aggressive climate change policy need not bring the economy to a halt. Even under high-fuels-tax, high-carbon price scenarios, losses in annual GDP, relative to business-as-usual, are less than 1%, and the economy is still projected to grow at 2.1-3.7% per year assuming a portion of the revenues collected are recycled to taxpayers.

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Outside the Beltway: AZ Rejects Economy-Killing Energy Taxes

Utah is not the only Western state that is rejecting the Left’s global warming regulation policies. This week Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed an executive order stating that Arizona will not endorse any emission-control plan that could raise costs for consumers and businesses.

The Arizona Republic reports:

"Arizona will no longer participate in a groundbreaking attempt to limit greenhouse-gas emissions across the West, a change in policy by Gov. Jan Brewer that will include a review of all the state’s efforts to combat climate change. State officials said the policy shift was rooted in concerns that the controversial emissions plan would slow the state’s economic recovery.

"The governor’s order is another blow to the Western Climate Initiative, a group of seven states and four Canadian provinces that joined forces in 2007 after growing impatient with the federal government to address climate change."