BILL NUMBER: AJR 43 INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Assembly Members Bonilla and Williams JUNE 6, 2016 Relative to greenhouse gases. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AJR 43, as introduced, Bonilla. Greenhouse gases: climate change. This measure would urge the United States Congress to enact federal policies to further the effort to combat climate change. Fiscal committee: no. WHEREAS, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated in its recently released 5th Assessment Report, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, that " w]arming of the climate system is unequivocal" and "i]t is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century"; and WHEREAS, In May of 2013, the global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide reached 400 parts per million, the highest level in the last 800,000 years; and WHEREAS, In May 2014, two separate scientific papers were published in journals of Geophysical Research Letters documenting dramatic retreats of Antarctic glaciers and predicting that large-scale destruction of the West Antarctic ice sheets is likely now inevitable and will lead to sea level rises of 10 feet or more; and WHEREAS, The 2013 Indicators of Climate Change in California, released by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, found that continued warming of the atmosphere would cause threats of flooding along the coastline of California; threats to infrastructure, sewage systems, wetlands, and marine life; increased ocean acidification; increased threats from wildfires; threats to the water supply from decreased snow packs; increased asthma and respiratory illness due to higher ozone levels; increased insurance and mitigation costs; and negative impacts to the agriculture, fishing, and tourism industries; and WHEREAS, Conservative estimates by climate scientists throughout the world state that, to achieve climate stabilization and avoid cataclysmic climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be brought to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050; and WHEREAS, The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Division 25.5 (commencing with Section 38500) of the Health and Safety Code) commits the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and the Governor's Executive Order S-3-05 further calls on the state to establish a policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050; and WHEREAS, The California Global Warming Solution Act of 2006 has reached its 10-year anniversary and the California economy remains strong; and WHEREAS, The United States needs powerful new policies to meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals established in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement; now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature hereby urges the United States Congress to enact federal policies that mirror the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 to further the effort to combat climate change throughout the United States; and be it further Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States, and to the author for appropriate distribution.