http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20100703_3065.phpFrom a nondescript office park here, Solaria, a solar energy company founded in 2000, is planning its move this fall to a much larger facility nearby as it progresses from research and design to full-scale production of its innovative photovoltaic panels.
Solaria's growth symbolizes an economic transformation that is reshaping the state's political landscape as California approaches a showdown over climate policy that could rattle the national energy debate.
In 2006, the Democratic Legislature passed, and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed, a pioneering law mandating ambitious reductions in the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global climate change. That law is scheduled to take effect in 2012.
But last week, an alliance of business and conservative groups qualified an initiative for the November ballot to suspend the law until state unemployment drops below 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters -- a standard that California has met only three times in the past three decades. Outside of those three instances, California unemployment hasn't dipped below 5.5 percent in any other quarter since 1980. That record suggests that the initiative aims more to inter the greenhouse-gas law than to defer it.
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