Scant demand for California cap-and-trade pollution permits

California saw another three months of weak demand for pollution permits amid persistent uncertainty about the future of the state’s cap on carbon emissions, according to state data.  California will take in only about $8 million from an auction that could have generated $592 million or more if all permits were sold. The program is a prime funding source for projects including high-speed rail and transit construction.  For years, each quarterly auction consistently generated hundreds of millions of dollars. Fewer than one in five permits were distributed at an auction last month, according to the data from the California Air Resources Board. The vast majority were sold by utilities, which get them for free from the state, while some were sold to polluters in Quebec, the Canadian province that sells permits at the same auction.But revenue has plummeted in three of the last four auctions amid a series of pressures that have depressed demand.A glut of permits on the market means companies don’t need to buy them at auction to authorize their emissions in the near future. A state appeals court is considering a case that challenges the authority for the state to sell pollution permits. And the Legislature is considering whether to give the program clear authority to continue past 2020.