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California Air Resources Board News Clips for January 19, 2012. 


This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office
of Communications.  You may need to sign in or register with
individual websites to view some of the following news articles.


GOVERNORS STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS

State of the State 2012: "California on the Mend" In his 2012
State of the State speech, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. said
California is “on the mend” and laid out an ambitious agenda for
economic growth in the year ahead. The full text of the speech is
below: (Remarks as prepared). As required by the state
constitution, I am reporting to you this morning on the condition
of our state. Putting it as simply as I can, California is on the
mend. Posted. http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=17386

AIR POLLUTION

Cabazon tribe agrees to air quality monitoring. Environmental
regulators will be allowed to enforce air quality laws on
reservation in the Coachella Valley. Environmental regulators
will be allowed to enforce air quality laws on the Cabazon Band
of Mission Indians reservation in the Coachella Valley, an
agreement reached seven months after noxious odors from a
recycling facility sickened nearby schoolchildren. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-toxic-waste-cabazon-20120119,0,6528489,print.story

South Coast Air Quality Management District, Cabazon Band of
Mission Indians near historic deal. Some east valley residents
still worried about odors. COACHELLA — Regional air quality
officials are on the verge of a landmark deal with the Cabazon
Band of Mission Indians to enforce clean-air standards on tribal
lands. “This is historic in nature,” Barry Wallerstein, the South
Coast Air Quality Management District's executive officer, said
of his agency's pending agreement with the tribe. Posted.
http://www.mydesert.com/article/20120118/NEWS01/120118016/South-Coast-Air-Quality-Management-District-Cabazon-Band-Mission-Indians-agree-Mecca-air-deal

Sierra Club sues Texas for upping plant emissions.  An advocacy
group has filed a court challenge against Texas' environmental
regulatory agency after it agreed to allow four coal-fired power
plants to emit more pollution.  The Sierra Club argues in a
lawsuit filed Tuesday that the Texas Commission on Environmental
Quality didn't allow for public comment or look closely enough at
the plants' emission controls and their impacts on air quality.
Posted. 
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_19774386?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_19774386?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com

CLIMATE CHANGE

Dueling NY studies over natural gas climate impact. ALBANY, N.Y.
— Two groups of scientists at Cornell University are dueling over
whether natural gas from shale is better or worse than coal when
it comes to global climate change. It's a significant question
because proponents of shale gas development using the
controversial practice of high-volume hydraulic fracturing argue
that natural gas is a cleaner-burning "bridge fuel" from the age
of coal to an era of wind, solar and other sustainable energy
sources. Posted.
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP5a65cb4fae304d60ba49904e3053e259.html
BY SUBSCRIPTION

Jerry Brown defends high-speed rail. Sacramento -- Gov. Jerry
Brown took ownership of California's controversial
high-speed-rail project on Wednesday in his State of the State
speech, forcefully defending the plan that has received
blistering bipartisan criticism in recent weeks. Brown likened
the project to massive infrastructure advances of past decades,
including the building of the Panama Canal, BART and the
interstate highway system - …Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/19/MNOP1MR40G.DTL

California cap and trade program likely to face legal challenges.
On Oct. 20, 2011, the California Air Resources Board adopted
administrative rules to implement California’s “cap-and-trade”
program for industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. It’s the
first of its kind at the state level, and is set to take effect
in 2013. Before it does, however, it is likely to face
significant legal challenges that, like the canary in the coal
mine, may provide a hint of what other states may expect if they
attempt to impose a similar program. Posted.
http://djcoregon.com/news/2012/01/18/california-cap-and-trade-program-likely-to-face-legal-challenges/

Report: Natural Gas From Shale Not Suitable as "Bridge Fuel," May
Worsen Climate Change. Researchers Note Gas Emissions From
Marcellus Shale and Other Sites Linked to Significant Increased
Risk of Near-Term Climate Change. Far from being a "solution" to
climate change, natural gas extracted from shale is a huge
contributor of greenhouse gases when both methane and carbon
dioxide are considered, according to a major new study by three
Cornell University researchers. Posted.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/report-natural-gas-from-shale-not-suitable-as-bridge-fuel-may-worsen-climate-change-2012-01-19

DIESEL EMISSIONS

Trucks and Diesel Air Pollution. It is annoying to be driving
behind a truck especially one that smells of diesel combustion
products. Doing something about that is desirable but it will
come at a tremendous cost. trucks are bought and used for years.
It is not something that you replace quickly because it is
costly. A common trend in environmental reporting is to put
things in terms of jobs vs. the environment. For the port cities
such as LA environmental protection has become more important
than jobs. Posted.
http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/43879/print

FUELS

Keystone XL Pipeline Seen Moving Ahead on Alternative Route.
TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline
still will move ahead with an alternate route after President
Barack Obama’s decision to deny a permit, investors, public
officials and analysts say. Obama blamed congressional
Republicans yesterday for imposing a deadline on his decision,
which he said left no time to approve the project. Posted.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-18/obama-administration-is-said-to-reject-transcanada-s-keystone-xl-pipeline.html

Obama administration denies Keystone XL oil pipeline permit. The
State Department says it needs more time to assess the proposal
under current law. Project advocates and opponents both are
likely to prolong the political fight. The Obama administration
denied a permit for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline
from Canada, leaving the door open for the builder to reapply
this year but prolonging a bitter political fight that has raged
for months and energized each party's political base. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-keystone-20120119,0,2176733,print.story
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/19/MNDA1MR7RV.DTL&type=green

Judge: California’s low carbon fuel standard unconstitutional. A
judge in Federal District Court in Fresno, Calif., has sided with
the ethanol industry in ruling that California's Low Carbon Fuel
Standard (LCFS) is unconstitutional. Judge Lawrence J. O'Neill
agreed with arguments that the LCFS is in violation of the
Commerce Clause the U.S. Constitution. Posted.
http://www.agriview.com/news/crop/judge-california-s-low-carbon-fuel-standard-unconstitutional/article_f90de266-42c1-11e1-83be-001871e3ce6c.html

VEHICLES

Car review: 2012 Subaru Impreza adds fuel economy. Subaru says
this new Impreza, available as a sedan and a hatchback, is the
most fuel-efficient all-wheel-drive vehicle in the U.S. It's
rated at 27 mpg in the city and 36 mpg on the highway. The recipe
for Subaru's compact Impreza is getting a rewrite for 2012.
Previously, it was like a bag of trail mix that skimped on the
M&Ms. The Impreza was a hearty, go-anywhere offering that was
long on nutrition but short on a key ingredient to sweeten the
concoction and broaden its appeal. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-autos-review-subaru-impreza-20120119,0,7121644.story

UK EV charge points outnumber EV cars.  The DfT has revealed that
2,500 vehicle charging points have been installed across the UK,
while sales figures for EVs stand at only 2,149 vehicles sold
since 2006, despite a government subsidy of £5,000 for
environmentally cars.  Sales of electric vehicles did rise in
2011 however, increasing from 138 units in 2010 to 1,082
registered in 2011. Posted. 
http://cars.uk.msn.com/news/uk-ev-charge-points-outnumber-ev-cars

GREEN ENERGY

Utilities unveil online tool to help customers save energy. Three
big California power utilities are launching a Web-based tool to
help their customers save energy – and money. Called “Green
Button,” the online tool unveiled Wednesday by Southern
California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas &
Electric will allow consumers and businesses to see how much
electricity they’re using and to download the data so that they
can figure out how to use less. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-energy-saving-tool-20120118,0,4452052,print.story

California utilities unveil 'Green Button' system.  Aneesh
Chopra, the Obama administration's chief technology officer,
visited Silicon Valley on Wednesday to celebrate the launch of
the "Green Button" -- an online tool that lets consumers download
energy usage data from their utility's website in an easy,
standard format.  California's utilities are leading the way: The
Green Button feature is already available on the PG&E and San
Diego Gas websites.  Posted. 
http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_19770177?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com
http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_19770177?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com

Delta solar farm could get green light under new law.  A Delta
farmer's plan to build a 120-acre solar array might yet bear
fruit, if growing actual crops on his land is as hopeless as he
claims.  San Joaquin County supervisors this week declined to
take the unusual step of canceling Michael J. Robinson's contract
under the Williamson Act, a state program that preserves
farmland.  But they did decide that the 20-megawatt solar farm -
said to be the first of its kind for San Joaquin - is compatible
with the county's General Plan.  Posted. 
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120119/A_NEWS14/201190318&cid=sitesearch

MISCELLANEOUS

WWDSS? What would Dr. Seuss say about climate change?  A version
of this post first appeared in The Last Word on Nothing.  Late
last year, I wrote about the dominance of the tragic “Lorax
narrative” in environmental reporting. It made me wonder: How
would Dr. Seuss himself tackle climate change? After all, the
story of climate change is muddy and complex, and its real drama
is both geographically distant (if you’re lucky) and years in the
future (ditto) — in other words, it lacks most of the ingredients
that make any narrative memorable.  Posted. 
http://grist.org/climate-change/wwdss-what-would-dr-seuss-say-about-climate-change/

OPINIONS

A Good Call on the Pipeline. President Obama has properly
rejected, at least for now, the Keystone XL oil pipeline that
would run from Canada to the Gulf Coast. He rebuffed the demand
of House Republicans that the controversial project be decided in
haste under an election-year deadline.  The foolish requirement
that Mr. Obama issue a decision on the pipeline by Feb. 21 —
cynically inserted into the payroll tax bill passed in December —
could never be met given the need for a thorough environmental
study before any judgment is made. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/opinion/a-good-call-on-the-keystone-xl-oil-pipeline.html

Five myths about the Keystone XL pipeline.  After months of
intense debates and protests, the Obama administration has
finally decided the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline project:
It’s not going to happen anytime soon.  The proposed pipeline
would have moved about 700,000 barrels of oil-like bitumen from
the Alberta oil sands to Texas refineries each day, and oil
companies and their allies lobbied hard for it — including with
an ad blitz that ran during Republican presidential debates.
Posted. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-keystone-xl-pipeline/2011/12/19/gIQApUAX8P_story.html

Advertising on California's beaches; keeping track of high-speed
rail; climate change in the classroom.  High-speed rail,
low-speed results. Re "Brown enlarges his bullet train role,"
Jan. 14. No one can argue against the notion that the California
High-Speed Rail Authority is struggling. But to suggest, as The
Times has, that the agency is "foundering" — that is, utterly
failing — is somewhat extreme and not necessarily the case. The
authority needs to quickly assess where and how it has gotten
sidetracked. Its draft business plan is much improved over
earlier versions, providing much greater detail as to where the
high-speed line and its stations would be located and what the
building and operating costs would be. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-0119-thursday-20120119,0,4094383,print.story

Trying to teach climate change. Re "Classrooms feel climate
skepticism," Jan. 16.This intrusion into science education is
much more dangerous than the evolution versus creation
controversy. That issue arose over a difference between
scientific views and religious beliefs. With climate change, the
opposition to the accepted science is being driven by political
and economic interests, and the consequences due to postponed
government action will probably be severe. Climate-change denial
is not a valid scientific position. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-0119-thursday-20120119,0,4094383,print.story

Opinion: Clean vehicles move California forward. Predictions
about the effect of vehicle standards are older than the Model T.
Henry Ford and Horace Dodge sued in 1904 to stop a vehicle
registration law that they said gave an unfair advantage to the
horse-drawn carriage. Fast forward to 1973, when GM warned that
extending California-style emissions requirements to the rest of
the nation raised "the prospect of an unreasonable risk of
business catastrophe and massive difficulties with these vehicles
in the hands of the public." Posted.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_19769435

The ‘Check Engine’ Light Should Be Banned. It’s pretty easy to
dismiss the check-engine light as stupid, because it is. I
suppose if you thought the smoke coming from under your hood had
something to do with the floor mats, then, sure, the check engine
light is handy. Beyond that, though, it is useless. But that’s
not the real problem. The real problem is that the check-engine
light is a tool for the propagation of consumer ignorance about
their cars. That is why it needs to die. Now. Posted.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/01/ban-check-engine-lights/

Mining site all wrong. When self-appointed expert John Husing,
who lives in Redlands, tries to tell me what is best for Temecula
it is a real source of irritation (“Quarry rejection is bad news
for all,” Perspective, Jan. 15). There is a prevailing wind from
the southwest nearly every day that would carry silicone dust
right through Temecula. There is no way that granite dust could
be mitigated entirely. That’s bad news for those living downwind
— all of Temecula — from the proposed quarry. Posted.
http://www.pe.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor-headlines/20120118-your-views-jan.-19.ece

Legal ruling could force California to rethink CO2 plan. A legal
ruling by a U.S. federal judge has left a big hole in
California's plan to cut emissions and could force the
cash-strapped and politically-gridlocked state to consider new
strategies if it is to meet its domestic goal to cut greenhouse
gas emissions. On December 29, a federal court ruled that
California's plan to cut the carbon content of transport fuels by
15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide violates the U.S.
Constitution as it discriminates against out-of-state fuel
sources. Posted.
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/California/News/2012/01_-_January/Legal_ruling_could_force_California_to_rethink_CO2_plan/

BLOGS

Chevy Modifies Volt to Improve Emissions, Boost Sales. General
Motors Co. is revamping its Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric
vehicle to meet California emissions requirements, aiming to
juice sales after failing last year to qualify for state
incentives that helped fuel the rise of Nissan Motor Co.’s rival
Leaf. Chevrolet engineers made modifications to the Volt’s
exhaust system and expect by March to begin selling models that
meet California’s stringent emissions standards, allowing
California buyers to qualify for a $1,500 state rebate on top of
a $7,500 federal tax break. Posted.
http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2012/01/19/chevy-modifies-volt-to-improve-emissions-boost-sales/?mod=google_news_blog
 BY SUBSCRIPTION

Calculating the Carbon Value of a Swamp. A nonprofit organization
and a Gulf Coast electric company have come up with a way that
might raise money to help protect New Orleans and surrounding
areas from storms made worse by climate change – by collecting
funds from people who feel bad about their carbon dioxide
emissions.  The American Carbon Registry of Arlington, Va., runs
a market for carbon credits. Posted.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/calculating-the-carbon-value-of-a-swamp/

Agriculture and Climate Change, Revisited.  Agriculture has long
been a stepchild in global negotiations over the climate. Hopes
had risen that this might change at the latest big global climate
session, in Durban, South Africa, in December. It did not.  Now,
a group of experts led by John Beddington, the chief science
adviser of the British government, is issuing a call for renewed
research and advocacy regarding the future of the world’s food
system. Posted. 
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/agriculture-and-climate-change-revisited/

The Indoor Pollution Threat You May Not Have Known Existed.
Americans spend 90 percent of their time indoors, but have you
ever thought about the purity of the air that you are breathing
as you sit inside your home, office or even a restaurant? Indoor
air quality is considered to be the fourth greatest pollution
threat to Americans by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
 Even if you can never see, and can't always smell, the chemicals
inside your home, they are there.  Posted.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/indoor-pollution-threat-may-not-known-existed-120400425--abc-news.html

EPA won’t promise final power plant carbon rules before 2012
elections. The Environmental Protection Agency will soon float
delayed draft rules to curb greenhouse gas pollution from power
plants, but the agency’s top air-quality official isn’t making
any promises that the standards will be finalized before the 2012
elections. “I at this point won’t anticipate when that is going
to be completed,” Gina McCarthy, who heads the Office of Air and
Radiation, said at a briefing Thursday hosted by ICF
International. Posted.
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/205081-epa-wont-promise-final-power-plant-carbon-rules-before-2012-elections

Chinese Climate Change Report Says Environmental Future "Grim"
While you were cheering the Obama administration's decision to
halt (for now at least) the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline—which
pre-eminent climate scientist Dr James Hansen has called "game
over" for the climate if it gets built—you may have missed that
China has just made public its latest report on how our changing
climate will damage the nation. In short: Posted.
http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/chinese-climate-change-report-says-environmental-future-grim.html

Cutting dirty diesel pollution can reduce global warming while it
improves human health. My colleague, Dan Lashof, just posted a
great summary of the study, published in Science this week that
explained how cutting soot and smog pollution could help reduce
the impacts of global warming in the short-term, while improving
human health and buying time for critically important reductions
in carbon pollution to take effect over the long term.  Posted.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/rkassel/cutting_dirty_diesel_pollution.html

First hearing on 54.5 mpg proposal reveals widespread support. 
They came from as close as the General Motors headquarters across
the street and as far away as Santa Fe, New Mexico.  They
represented groups as diverse as automakers and the military,
steel manufacturers and religious organizations.  And nearly all
of the 90 or so people who testified on a proposal to raise the
nation's fuel economy standard to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025
offered support for the plan before a joint government panel in
downtown Detroit.  Posted. 
http://green.autoblog.com/2012/01/18/first-hearing-on-54-5-mpg-proposal-reveals-widespread-support/

Amazon In Transition from Net Carbon Sink to Net Carbon Source. 
A Review in this week’s Nature shows that the southern and
eastern Amazon forest is experiencing a transition in energy and
water cycles. Preliminary evidence also suggests that the Amazon
may be transitioning from a net carbon sink to a net carbon
source.  Eric Davidson and colleagues examine recent research on
the effects of climate change and disturbances such as
deforestation and fire on the functioning of the Amazon Basin.
Posted. 
http://www.celsias.com/article/amazon-transition-net-carbon-sink-net-carbon-sourc/

How to cut carbon emissions. Don’t be middle-aged. CARBON
emissions vary hugely between countries. That is well known, as
is the finding that rich people emit more than poor ones. But a
newly revised paper* by Emilio Zagheni of the Max Planck
Institute in Rostock, Germany also shows how carbon footprints
vary by age—and the worrying implications of this. Average
spending patterns vary over a lifetime. Posted.
http://www.economist.com/node/21543133