Arnold's risky power play: The Golden State's small businesses worry that a new energy mandate will dim their prospects.

"It gives me the creeps," says Robert Buchanan, who owns a spoke-and-rim manufacturing firm in Azuza, Calif.

What has Buchanan so mad? A bill that California's state government passed in September requiring all businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2012. It followed another mandate that requires half the cars and light trucks in the state to use alternative fuels by 2020.


Gino DiCaro, a spokesman for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, says the measures will make it almost impossible for California companies with national reach to stay competitive.

"Small, medium and large manufacturers in California have spent a lot of money over the past five to ten years becoming more energy efficient," he says. "Now they have to spend even more money on more expensive techniques to get even more reductions."