Dozens of people, some wearing red "Save Our Jobs" T-shirts, packed a public meeting Thursday to testify that a key component of California's landmark greenhouse gas emissions law will impose enormous costs on them and consumers.

Manufacturers, oil refiners and others appeared before the California Air Resources Board to protest the state's pending cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions. The program's fees amount to a $1 billion-a-year tax increase on about 500 businesses in California at a time when the state's economy is sputtering, they said.

"We are concerned that out-of-state refiners will have an unfair advantage because they are not being held responsible for their emissions," said Lisa Bowman, a Phillips 66 worker and member of United Steelworkers Local 675.  The California Chamber of Commerce and others wrote Gov. Jerry Brown urging him to halt the start of the program, which begins in earnest on Nov. 14 and is the central element of California's 2006 climate-change law.

Read more at the Mercury News