Emisions Remissions?

UCLA co-generation plant

California's cash-strapped public universities would save millions of dollars under legislation by Orange County state Sen. Mimi Walters, but the bill's prospects are uncertain because it would alter a landmark global warming law beloved by environmentalists. Walters' proposal seeks to exempt University of California and California State University campuses from the new cap-and-trade program established under the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, otherwise known as Assembly Bill 32 or AB32, one of the nation's most ambitious environmental laws...

At least five UC campuses, including Irvine, UCLA and San Diego, qualify for the cap-and-trade program in 2013...

The UC system has budgeted $8 million to comply with AB32 – for just the next fiscal year.
For that much money, the UC system could accommodate another 800 students, UC Vice President Patrick Lenz told members of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee last month. He and the system later backed off those comments, saying there is "not a direct correlation" between student enrollment and the money for cap-and-trade. He also later noted in a letter to committee chairman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, that it's possible the system won't have to buy any credits to cover its 2014 emissions...

Full story at http://www.ocregister.com/news/trade-501273-cap-emissions.html

The following is the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in 2011 by UC campuses covered under the AB32 cap-and-trade program. The emissions are displayed in units of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

UCLA – 205,299
UC San Diego – 160,579
UC Irvine – 69,979
UC San Francisco – 68,566
UC Davis Medical Center – 63,693
UC Davis – 62,259

Well, the emissions could be worse: