James Taranto notes in the Wall Street Journal

In his speech on “energy” yesterday, President Obama chose an especially odd example:

“In the late 1970s, the state of California enacted tougher energy-efficiency policies. Over the next three decades, those policies helped create almost 1.5 million jobs. And today, Californians consume 40 percent less energy per person than the national average–which, over time, has prevented the need to build at least 24 new power plants. Think about that. California–producing jobs, their economy keeping pace with the rest of the country, and yet they have been able to maintain their energy usage at a much lower level than the rest of the country.

We seem to remember hearing stories of “rolling blackouts” in California a few years ago. Today, with unemployment approaching 12%, California’s economy is hardly “keeping pace,” and the state’s fiscal affairs are such a wreck that they almost give New Yorkers reason to feel good about their state’s government.

further noted by James Taranto in the WSJ

Obama also claimed that California’s paucity of power plants is evidence of its success. But California uses more electricity than it generates–some 53 terawatt-hours more in 2007, or just over 20% of total consumption, according to the federal Energy Information Administration–which means it has to import power from other states not subject to California’s environmental restrictions.

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