Five years ago, when backers of an idea to make California the first state to regulate vehicle emissions of the gases that cause global warming, the only lawmaker they could find to carry their bill was a rookie assemblywoman fresh out of a career teaching a junior high civics class in Moorpark.

It was introduced without fanfare. It took two years to pass and had to overcome a ferocious lobbying effort by the auto and petroleum industries.

Monday, the follow-up bill was introduced to regulate emissions from power plants and other large industrial facilities. This bill, too, is being carried by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley.

But all the other circumstances have changed.

The new bill was unveiled by Democrats at a well-attended news conference. Stories were published from Los Angeles to London.

Then, the same day, the administration of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released the report of its Climate Action Team -- a report that calls for mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial facilities.

In five years, global warming has evolved from an issue of concern only to environmentalists to one that generates high anxiety among the media, the scientific community, the public and even large investors.

A new public opinion survey by Time and ABC News shows that 85 percent of Americans believe global warming is at hand and 87 percent think government should either encourage or require that emissions be reduced.

Combine all this with rising gasoline prices, a world oil supply that has peaked, the flammable political environment of the Middle East and President Bush's call to end America's "addiction" to fossil fuels, and you have the ingredients for political action.

As it happens, there's a group in California poised to exploit the moment. Californians for Clean Energy is circulating petitions to place on the November ballot an initiative designed to generate $4 billion over 10 years to finance research and development of clean energy sources. The money would come from an oil severance tax, which California -- unlike other large oil-producing states -- does not now have. Given the oil industry's record-shattering profits last year, that might not be a hard sell.

A business group called Sustainable Environment and Economy for California has already made plain its position. Among its guiding principles is this: "SEE California opposes greenhouse gas policies that are based on new taxes."

It's a fairly safe prediction that one or both candidates for president in 2008 will make a Kennedy-esque call for a man-on-the-moon kind of initiative to free the United States from its reliance on oil -- both to battle global warming and to weaken the bargaining power of oil-producing countries in the Middle East.

Something will come of it. The train has not just left the station, it's been rolling for five years and is now storming down the tracks.

(Herdt writes for the Ventura County Star.)