California lawmakers cast key votes Tuesday for ambitious climate pollution reduction goals after 2020 — shortly before learning that an auction held under a program designed to help achieve those goals had flopped, hinting at major challenges ahead.

The state Assembly voted 47-29 to approve SB32. The bill would require the state government to enact rules and programs to “ensure” that greenhouse gas emissions fall to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. That’s more ambitious than national goals and it’s in line with those adopted in Europe.

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“Another theory is that people are really starting to have doubts about whether this is a sustainable program, and whether the allowances they’re buying now are going to be useful after 2020,” said Michael Wara, an energy and environmental law expert at Stanford.

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Wara said he interpreted the latest auction results as indicating that “there’s not a lot of confidence” in the market after 2020.