Last December, Apple announced its next manufacturing facility – one that would build Macs – would be built in the U.S., not overseas. Many hoped a company facility in Elk Grove CA would be the selected site. But that’s not to be, and California’s anti-carbon crusaders are to blame.
Apple announced last week that it will invest $100 million in a new facility – in Texas. The new plant will assemble Macs from components manufactured just about everywhere in the U.S. but California – Illinois, Florida, Kentucky and Michigan.
Why not California? Top among the many probable answers is energy costs, because it takes a lot of juice to build a Mac. Thanks to AB32, the ridiculously named Global Warming Solutions Act – energy costs in California are soaring as mandated increased reliance on expensive alternative energy sources are driving up power costs.
The smart-thinking editorial writers at the San Diego Union Tribune had this to say about Apple and AB32:
[Apple's decision] is primarily a result of AB 32, the landmark 2006 state law forcing a shift to cleaner but costlier forms of energy. After the law was passed, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and many green lawmakers and leaders predicted it would prompt the rest of the world to copy California, as had happened with many previous pioneering environmental policies.
That never came to pass. Instead, the big news on the energy front has been the revolution in fossil fuels, thanks to hydraulic fracturing and other improved energy-exploration tools. This has produced huge new supplies of natural gas in a half-dozen states, sending its price tumbling and prompting major European firms like BASF and Royal Dutch Shell to move manufacturing to the U.S. — something that would have seemed unthinkable a few years ago.
But such European firms have no interest in manufacturing in California. It is simply not cost-competitive with many other areas in the U.S. — a fact the Apple decision underscores.
So, as another $100 million leaves California and a raft of new jobs ends up in Texas, what do Californians think of all this? Chances are, they’re just fine with it because they’ve been well indoctrinated to be scared of global warming.
A just published Public Policy Institute survey (see page 20, here) tells us this:
A majority of Californians (57%) say global warming will pose a serious threat either to them or to their way of life in their lifetime; 39 percent say it will not. A decade ago, the perceived personal threat was much lower (45% yes, 50% no, July 2003). Adults nationwide are far less concerned: in a March Gallup poll, most said global warming will not pose a serious threat to their way of life (34% yes, 64% no).
Here’s how that majority of frightened Californians breaks down: 68% of Democrats are afraid global warming will pose a serious threat in their lifetime, but only 29% of Republicans are. Angelenos (66%) and San Franciscans (61%) are the most frightened, but majorities in the Inland Empire (52%) and Orange County (51%) are convinced warming will harm them. Only in the Central Valley do the frightened drop below 50%, at 49%.
This shows how effective the PEER Axis – Progressives, Environmentalists, Educators and Reporters – have been in establishing global warming as a threat in California. One can only hope people will wake up and call for change as they see their energy bills soar thanks to AB32′s green energy mandates, while realizing all that green energy hasn’t slowed down the PEER’s efforts to stir up greater global warming fears one iota.