A controversial initiative that would postpone implementation of the state’s greenhouse gas reduction law for several years has qualified for the November ballot.

The Secretary of State’s office announced late Tuesday that the measure qualified.

The measure would suspend AB 32 until the state’s unemployment rate goes below 5.5 percent for a year. It now stands above 12 percent, and the last time it was below 5.5 percent was in 2007.

AB 32, the landmark greenhouse gas reduction law that passed in 2006 over the opposition of many of the state’s major business groups, requires businesses to reduce carbon emissions by as much as 20 percent by 2020.

The initiative was launched last year by two Republican lawmakers. Organizers submitted more than 800,000 signatures to the Secretary of State’s office, nearly double the required 435,000 to qualify for the ballot.

Two of the ballot measure’s biggest financial backers are Texas oil companies Tesoro Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. Opponents of the measure have already begun linking it to oil companies in hopes of linking it to the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The ballot measure has split the business community, with major manufacturers supporting it and some environmentally conscious businesses and alternative energy companies opposing it.