Deep dive into California's Cap & Trade system (Senator Laird is on the Senate's Working Group on Cap & Trade, which met last week to disuss how far we want to extend it, and whether to move up the current sunset ); How Cap & Trade works: measure emissions, and if over a cap, company has to pay a fee for the amount of emissions over the cap - alert listener Eric in Santa Cruz texts in that they can buy emissions from other companies, which is how Tesla was able to survive before they had cars to sell - Senator Laird adds that Tesla also takes advantage of emission-free car subsidies; funds paid to the state to to a fund that is ostensibly used to pay for actions to reduce emissions, but in the past the Governor has raided that fund to pay for other things; over time, the cap remains the same, but the price of credits over the cap goes up; there's pressure to renew the current system, which came out of 2006 law AB32 under Governor Schwarzenegger to encode the Kyoto Protocol agreement; Cap &Trade has 2 arms: Regulatory (where oil companies got some allowanes in what some view as a "sweetheart deal", and Where Does the Money Go?; discussion of bill sunsets; Tamara texts re: Highway 1, and Senator Laird discusses his monthly call with the head of CalTrans, and will add this tohis list (his most recent call was yesterday); tariffs and Federal chaos? California is not remaining quiet! California Ag exports will get hit hard - trying to negotiate directly with Canada; Senator Laird is nervous because of the impact of tariffs, economic downturn on California state budget; Senate Study Group on the aging of LGBTQ Californians - new report out from state office, and will address with hearings soon (June? July?).

(interviewed by "Dangerous Dan" Orange on KZSC's "Bushwhacker's Breakfast Club. 2025 is Bushwhacker's 36th year on the air! Thanks for listening!)