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newsclips -- Newsclips for July 3, 2012
Posted: 03 Jul 2012 12:18:10
ARB Newsclips for July 2, 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. AIR POLLUTION EPA grants stay in NM emissions case. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday gave New Mexico officials, the state's largest electricity provider and others more time to sort out a solution for curbing haze-causing pollution at a coal-fired power plant in northwestern New Mexico. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson signed a 90-day stay so parties can evaluate alternatives for the San Juan Generating Station. Posted. http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/jul/02/epa-grants-stay-in-nm-emissions-case/#ixzz1zZsXekC9 http://www.modbee.com/2012/07/02/2267463/epa-grants-stay-in-nm-emissions.html#storylink=misearch EPA proposing to approve Ariz.'s air quality plan. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to approve Arizona's plan to control sulfur dioxide and soot at three power plants in the state. EPA officials also are proposing additional pollution controls for nitrogen oxide at those plants in an effort to improve visibility at 18 national parks and wilderness areas in Arizona. Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/EPA-proposing-to-approve-Ariz-s-air-quality-plan-3680614.php CLIMATE CHANGE This US summer is 'what global warming looks like'. If you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, scientists suggest taking a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks. Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho. These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will come with climate change, although it's far too early to say that is the cause. Nor will they say global warming is the reason 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June. Posted. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g7xfErZetaXe0iCQL5VPDTuWNvzA?docId=02baae09ba264eb68696397ed5ee06ad AP Newsbreak: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/3/this-us-summer-is-what-global-warming-looks-like/ http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_20995833/this-us-summer-is-what-global-warming-looks?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_20995833/this-us-summer-is-what-global-warming-looks?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com http://www.nctimes.com/news/national/this-us-summer-is-what-global-warming-looks-like/article_4528d070-20c9-5c6c-9e2b-dfa0c76814c6.html Australian PM defends carbon tax. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has launched a radio and television campaign promoting her widely unpopular carbon tax on the country's biggest polluters. "People will have the opportunity to judge for themselves," she told Australian television. "And what people are going to see is tax cuts," Gillard said, addressing the nation yesterday. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2012/07/03/8 EPA keeps threshold in place for greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. EPA reaffirmed today that it would not regulate smaller sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the near future. The Clean Air Act required EPA to consider the feasibility of reducing its threshold for regulation of greenhouse gases, but its final "step three" of the so-called tailoring rule confirmed that the agency will regulate only new sources that emit at least 100,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent, or existing sources that meet the same threshold when they expand to increase their emissions by at least 75,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2012/07/03/2 'Global warming' disappears from flood legislation. The words "global warming" were stripped from legislation reauthorizing the nation's flood insurance program before Congress passed it Friday. But the bill is still expected to expand the program's consideration of climate change, experts say. Although the measure doesn't explicitly task the Federal Emergency Management Agency with diagnosing the impacts of greenhouse gases on flooding nationwide, it requires officials to ascertain the effects of sea level rise, intensifying rainfall and hurricane-driven ocean surges on its 5.6 million policyholders. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2012/07/03/2 After the Earth Summit, young people push for real change. There are two ways to respond when you watch the world’s leaders attempt to solve the planet’s most pressing problems and fail: You can despair or you can raise hell. After watching the 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen collapse, many bright-eyed young people despaired, suffering through months of what can only be described as a “Hopenhagen” hangover. More recently, when the diplomats at the Rio+20 Earth Summit produced a policy document with all the weight of a fluffy pink cloud, we watched the cloud pass and decided to get down to business. Posted. http://grist.org/politics/after-the-earth-summit-young-people-push-for-real-change/ DIESEL EMISSIONS Navistar Alters Course. Navistar International Corp. NAV +7.16% is expected to disclose soon that it is backing away from the pollution-reduction technology for its engines that has weighed on the U.S. truck maker's sales and brought it into conflict with federal regulators, said people familiar with the company's plans. The company plans to adopt the same process for treating diesel-engine emissions used by its rivals in an attempt to reverse falling truck sales and regulatory uncertainty that has caused its stock price to collapse and made the company the subject of takeover speculation. Posted. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304708604577503292076655510.html?KEYWORDS=air+pollution FUELS Sunoco refinery to stay open in Philadelphia. The oldest and largest refinery on the East Coast will stay open thanks to a deal between Sunoco and the private equity firm The Carlyle Group, with the groups announcing Monday that they have agreed to terms on a joint venture at the facility. The new venture also will make a substantial investment in the facility to help it import lower-cost oil from North Dakota's Bakken formation, shift to refining a higher proportion of ultra-low-sulfur diesel and use natural gas from the booming Marcellus Shale formation that lies below much of Pennsylvania, Carlyle officials said. Posted. http://www.nctimes.com/business/sunoco-refinery-to-stay-open-in-philadelphia/article_8d0ab932-11de-5b72-bc77-52f257b9c5d0.html http://www.modbee.com/2012/07/02/2266730/sunoco-refinery-to-stay-open-in.html#storylink=misearch VEHICLES U.S. Car Sales Climbed in June. General Motors and Chrysler reported double-digit sales of new vehicles in June as the auto industry was helped by lower gas prices and steady demand. G.M. said Tuesday that its sales in the United States increased 15.5 percent during the month to 248,000 vehicles, which the company said was its best monthly performance in nearly four years. Chrysler reported a 20 percent increase over the previous year, marking its best June sales since 2007. Posted. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/04/business/us-car-sales-climbed-in-june.html GREEN ENERGY Imperial Irrigation District offers free energy-efficiency upgrades to small businesses. Small businesses in the Imperial Irrigation District service area are eligible for free energy-efficiency surveys and upgrades under the district’s Open for Business program. The program sends energy experts to qualifying small businesses to conduct an audit of its facilities and install energy efficiency equipment — such as efficient light bulbs, occupancy sensors and LED exit signs — free of charge. In 2011, more than 900 small businesses in IID's service area participated, saving more than 2.9 million kilowatt hours of energy — the equivalent cutting the carbon emissions of 185 homes a year. Posted. http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012120702004 Wind credit with bipartisan backing gets lost in election-year fray. The ongoing campaign to extend a tax break vital to the wind industry is experiencing something of an identity crisis. On the one hand, the credit has broad bipartisan support and efforts to extend it have been championed even by some freshman Republican lawmakers swept into office on the tea party-backed wave two years ago. On the other, congressional Democrats and the Obama administration are increasingly pointing to inaction on the credit to attack their political rivals and draw contrasts aimed at highlighting GOP support for the oil industry. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2012/07/03/1 MISCELLANEOUS Midwest ranchers, lawmakers protest EPA flyovers. Midwest ranchers have never been enamored with environmental regulators, but they really began to complain after learning that federal inspectors were flying over their land to look for problems. The Environmental Protection Agency flies over power plants and other facilities nationwide to identify potential air, water and land pollution. It began using aerial surveillance in the Midwest in 2010 to check farms for violations of federal clean water regulations. Posted. http://www.nctimes.com/news/national/midwest-ranchers-lawmakers-protest-epa-flyovers/article_9d702e96-9189-5f7e-953f-a9fd5f303a0c.html BLOGS More Views on the Gas Rush and Hydraulic Fracturing. Here are a couple of reactions to my exchange with “Gasland” filmmaker Josh Fox after signals emerged that New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is poised to end a state moratorium on gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing. (In a related development, North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat who does not flatly oppose hydraulic fracturing, on Sunday vetoed a bill championed by state Republicans that she said was insufficiently protective of water supplies and landowners.) Posted. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/more-views-on-the-gas-rush-and-fracking-debate/ Beyond Maize in Malawi. Jordan Schermerhorn, a recent graduate of Rice University, is the 2012 “Win A Trip” winner. She is currently traveling with Nick through parts of southern Africa. In her third post she writes about how farmers in Malawi are adapting to agricultural changes that threaten their livelihoods. The first president of Malawi imposed a strict dress code, banning women from wearing pants until the mid-1990s. Today the remnants of this policy can be seen in a wariness of pants that persists rural villages, so I purchased a chitenje – a type of wrap skirt – for our trip to observe drought resilience projects outside of Balaka. Posted. http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/beyond-maize-in-malawi/ The Tricky Business of Counting Rain. The number of water-monitoring stations around the world has declined steadily over the last quarter-century, and economic doldrums and a lack of resolve on the policy-making front could cause the trend to hold for years to come, researchers warn. This could deprive scientists and practitioners of data essential to immediate and long-term water resource management decisions, many argue. From 1989 to 2006, the number of stations across Europe fell by nearly half, from 10,000 to less than 6,000, according to a study published this month in the Journal of Hydrometeorology. (Half of the 6,000 are in Germany.) Posted. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/do-not-publish-the-tricky-business-of-counting-rain/ For Compact E.V.’s, Divergent Approaches in Quest for Performance. The purely electric Coda compact sedan, reviewed by Bradley Berman in Sunday’s Automobile section, can travel farther than other cars in its class. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates the car’s range at 88 miles on a full charge, but Mr. Berman repeatedly found the car capable of exceeding that number, yielding more miles than the Ford Focus Electric or Nissan Leaf. Rather than accomplishing that feat with finesse, Coda does it with a big hammer — more specifically, a bigger battery, the rough analogue of having a larger fuel tank on a gasoline-burning vehicle. Posted. http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/for-compact-e-v-s-divergent-approaches-in-quest-for-performance/ Author Claims Electric Vehicles Are a Green Illusion. To hear automakers and environmentalists tell it, electric vehicles (EVs) are the greenest and cleanest solution to personal mobility. But in his book Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism, author Ozzie Zehner argues that EVs are more symbolism and marketing than environmental and fossil-fuel saviors. And in many cases, EVs are actually worse for the environment than traditional gas-powered vehicles. To prove this, Zehner, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, points to what he views as the fuel-inefficient process of manufacturing EVs, and claims that they don’t make a big difference in greenhouse-gas emissions. Posted. http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/07/green-illusion/ Tata works with French company on sub-$20,000 EV. Yes, the car will still cost less than $20,000. No, we still don't know when it's coming out. India-based Tata Motors is working with France-based Dassualt Systems at developing more technology for the eMO ("electric mobility") electric vehicle that's so far only appeared in concept form, the Hindu Business Line reported. The two companies are working on design touches that will keep both the cost and weight of the vehicle as low as possible in order to reach the goal of selling a vehicle with a 100-mile single-charge range for less than $20,000, according to the publication. But there's still no word on how much Tata's investing or when a production model will see the light of day. Posted. http://green.autoblog.com/2012/07/02/ tata-works-with-french-company-on-sub-20-000-ev/