The Whole Enchilada: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Making of California's Historic Global Warming Law

The final dramatic days and hours of negotiations on AB 32, as seen from all sides. The talks included walkouts, breakdowns, reversals, crying, and threats. And just when it seemed a deal was reached, Schwarzenegger seemed ready to terminate everything. This is a powerful and intimate look inside the proverbial sausage factory of how a bill becomes a law in the 21st century.

This chapter takes us into the complicated negotiations over Assembly Bill 32, and the obstacles facing the historic legislation on climate change. The bill appears dead before Speaker Nuñez takes over authorship, and Schwarzenegger brings in British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the CEO of one of the world's largest oil producers, to build momentum.

In 2005, one of California's nastiest political fights—and an expensive special election defeat—forged an improbable, bipartisan friendship between Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that would make historic global warming legislation possible. Here we also see Schwarzenegger's dramatic political comeback, during which the Republican governor recruited Democrats as partners and leaders of his own administration. It concludes with the dramatic announcement of a historic executive order in San Francisco.