For business, California’s cap and trade law provides new opportunities
Gina DiCaro of CMTA implied in his piece, California’s cap-and-trade needs to be well designed to protect manufacturers, that California’s landmark clean energy law, AB 32, threatens our state’s manufacturing industry.
Manufacturing in California has faced a range of threats for some time as a result of larger economic trends – including heavy investment by the Chinese government to grow Chinese manufacturing companies in virtually every sector. But AB 32 actually represents an important part of the solution because it has helped to drive investment in the fastest growing sector of California’s economic future: clean energy innovation, which is helping our state usher in the manufacturing jobs of the future.
In the few years since AB 32 was adopted, more than $11 billion in venture capital has been invested in California, at a time when our economy needed it the most. In fact, the National Venture Capital Association estimates that each $100 million in venture capital funding will help create 2,700 jobs directly and support other jobs indirectly, while generating $500 million in annual revenue over two decades.