A ballot measure in California that aimed to suspend the state's global warming law, was defeated Tuesday.


Proposition 23 would have suspended AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, passed in 2006, until unemployment dropped in the state. Backed largely by two Texas-based oil refiners and California business groups, including the California Trucking Association, Prop 23 lost by 61 percent to 39 percent.

Valero Energy Corp., the nation's largest independent oil refiner and the main backer of the proposal, characterized AB 32 as "an anti-fossil fuel law."

Proposition 23 would have suspended the regulations until unemployment in the state drops to 5.5 percent for a year.

AB 32 has led to everything from a low-carbon fuels standard to a mandate that a third of the state's electricity come from renewable sources within a decade, and a cap-and-trade system to limit the emissions of large industrial facilities.

One of the most visible results of AB 32 to the nation's trucking industry are aerodynamic requirements for 53-foot van trailers operating on state highways -- whether or not the fleet is domiciled in the state.

However, officials with the California Trucking Association and the Clean Trucks Coalition told the Los Angeles Transportation Club last month that even if Prop 23 passed, it was unrealistic to expect rollbacks in the truck regulations that are already on the books, according to a report in the Journal of Commerce.

Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, issued a statement saying, "The defeat of Proposition 23 will hurt families across California by destroying jobs and raising the costs of gasoline, diesel fuel, electricity and more. It is the wrong medicine at the wrong time for California's ailing economy, which suffered from a 12.4 percent unemployment rate in September that left 2.27 million men and women unable to find jobs they so desperately need."