SACRAMENTO, CA - California has a knack for showcasing how zealotry and dubious science fuels legislative laziness and unintended consequences. Consider the recently passed Assembly Bill 1493, at this writing awaiting a signature from Gov. Gray Davis.

AB 1493 comes advertised as the work of Assemblywoman Fran Pavley of Agoura Hills in southern California. It was actually composed by the Bluewater Network, an interlocking directorate of environmental groups that accept global warming as dogma while scientists remain divided on the subject. A typical global warming horror story has the Arctic melting but in the eastern Arctic, as the Washington Post recently noted, there is no sign of warming. In fact, there is even a cooling trend. It has escaped notice that in some areas last winter was the coldest on record, giving further credence to the belief that we are overdue for another ice age.

But facts do not prevent zealots from pushing for the state to �do somethingž about evil cars and their manufacturers, which they blame for the problem. In Fran Pavley they found a willing mouthpiece.

Her AB 1493 was originally AB 1058 and when introduced a number of experts pointed out that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and that California’s contribution to global carbon dioxide is minimal. There is as yet no technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. All that can be done is to restrict driving or mandate lighter vehicles. Car dealers rightly complained. But the eager Pavley, in a familiar shell game, slipped the measure into another bill and it narrowly passed, enabling some politicians to feel good about themselves under the illusion that the state is now the vanguard in the Fight Against Global Warming. Legislators also avoided any heavy lifting.

The implementing agency for Pavley’s feel-good measure is CARB, the California Air Resources Board. Whatever regulations they come up with are likely to make motor vehicles more dangerous, because of lighter weight, and certainly more expensive. Cars are not a luxury but a necessity of life in California. As PRI’s Steven Hayward, author of the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, has pointed out, older cars pollute more and this measure will motivate people to hang on to their older cars longer. As a glance at Cuba will confirm, older cars can be kept going for a long time. AB 1493, therefore, will result in more pollution.

Backers of the bill say that it gives CARB until 2005 to come up with a plan, which would not affect automakers until 2009. By then, absent this measure, the replacement of older vehicles with newer ones would have made substantial cuts in smog. It is also likely that by 2009, Fran Pavley will be long gone from the Assembly, living in comfortable retirement, and most likely driving a large, comfortable car built before the new regulations go into effect. The negative consequences of her ventriloquism for the Bluewater Network will outlive her career, a familiar pattern.

As Thomas Sowell has noted, legislators too often strive to make themselves feel noble, as though they are doing something about social problems. They tie compassion to the zeal with which they spend other people’s money. They leave un-elected bureaucrats to work out the details, and conveniently decamp before the damage becomes apparent.

The true challenge of public policy is to change that dynamic. California and AB 1493 would be a good place to start.

K. Lloyd Billingsley is editorial director of the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. He can be reached via email at klbillingsley@pacificresearch.org.