The only thing worse than the smog in LA is the traffic, many believe. The rest believe that the only thing worse than the traffic in LA is the smog. New legislation is being mulled that would allow for an extra $90 DMV fee or an 3 percent fee on gas to combat both. But the real strategy is ultimately to fight global warming.

“The money would fund improvements to mass transit and programs to relieve traffic congestion,” according to the LA Times. Good things, you might say. Of course, as with any initiative in California, this one is controversial. “This seems to be a cashing in on public sympathies on global warming to generate additional funding for programs that already exist,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (that’s Jarvis of 1978 tax-slashing Prop. 13 fame).

It’s being handled in tricky manner. By calling the measure a “climate change mitigation and adaptation fee,” it needs just a simple majority rather than the two-thirds needed in California to pass a new “tax.”

In an editorial last week, The Orange County Register complains about the tactic by the bill’s author, Democratic Assemblyman Mike Feuer of Los Angeles:

We concur about the traffic mess, but with little else Mr. Feuer claims in seeking to overtax motorists. The assemblyman’s sleight of hand conflates two issues, the real problem of congested traffic and the contrived emergency of so-called global warming.

You’re going to see more of this approach; call it a battle within a war. Global warming is such a hot-button issue (see the OCR’s take on it, above) and has proven so difficult to legislate against (or even talk about without nasty, polarized debates) that those who want a war against climate change will more and more simply aim their legislative ammunition at smog, traffic congestion and foreign oil dependency, long dubbed foes worth fighting. I mean, who can say “smog isn’t real or “I think we should just hope OPEC pumps more oil” (oil and gas both set new price highs today)? Unlike a typical evil enemy, climate change will be battled without even mentioning it.

Meanwhile, a poll published by the San Francisco Chronicle finds Californians support higher fees for gas-guzzling vehicles, regardless of whether they’re called taxes or fees. Jarvis must be rolling over in his grave after all he did.

Given California’s long history of leading the way on automotive pollution regulation — the state enacted the nation’s first automobile air pollution laws in 1966, as the New York Times pointed out in an editorial yesterday about the extent to which California is progressive on climate change — don’t be surprised if similar measures pop up soon in other states.