California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Wednesday that all state IT operations must use 30 percent less energy by 2012 among several other mandates relating to green IT, according to CivSourceOnline.com, a leading information technology news website. Failure to comply will result in reduction of state-allocated budget for IT.

All organizations funded by the California state government must hire chief information officers to oversee the shift by April 1, 2010. The governor also advised organizations to bring in information security officers to prevent any information loss or security risks as many of the changes will include shifts to cloud computing.

To help move the energy-saving effort along, Schwarzenegger reduced the cap on state-owned IT storage space by 50 percent, which will be met by July 1, 2010.

"With today's action we are acknowledging the progress that has been made, while laying the framework to make further improvements in the state's IT
operations," Schwarzenegger said in a statement, according to CivSource.

Green IT represents a major portion of green jobs that President Barack Obama directed $100 billion toward as part of his February 1 budget proposal, according to the Los Angeles Times.ADNFCR-2553-ID-19614278-ADNFCR