Neither State Senator Joe Simitian of California nor the state’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, bears much resemblance to Dr. Seuss’s Lorax. But on Tuesday, like that fictional defender of the environment, they spoke for the trees.
More than six months after two Santa Clara residents were convicted under a state nuisance law for letting their redwoods cast shade on a neighbor’s solar panels, the governor signed into law a bill that gives trees the right to grow as they please — as long as they predate any solar panels they might be shading.
“I think we’ve demonstrated that there is nothing mutually inconsistent about trees and solar,” said Mr. Simitian, a Democrat who wrote the bill, shortly after the measure was signed on Tuesday. “I was frustrated by the tone of the debate at the outset — that it was somehow about trees versus solar. I thought it should be about trees and solar.”
He added, “We need to get past talking about who’s right and talk about what’s right.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/us/23solar.html?ref=us