What's New List Serve Post Display

ARB Newsclips for April 22, 2014. 

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

Earth Day look back: Global climate change overshadows success in
cleaning up Los Angeles’ smog. Forty-four years ago today during
the first Earth Day, skywriting planes inscribed the word “air”
across the rust-colored skies of Los Angeles. Protesters and
lawmakers came together in a miraculous kind of Kumbaya moment to
solve the problem of L.A.’s dirty air that was damaging our lungs
and lowering property values. Posted.
http://www.presstelegram.com/environment-and-nature/20140421/earth-day-look-back-global-climate-change-overshadows-success-in-cleaning-up-los-angeles-smog


After Declaring War on Smog, China Gets Around to Updating Its
Environmental Laws. If there’s any country that needs
new-and-improved environmental laws, it’s China. The pollution in
Beijing and other cities is visible from space, and tourists
worried about unbreathable air can now buy smog insurance.
Pollution has left 16 percent of Chinese land unfit for use,
according to a recent government report, and two-thirds of
companies surveyed by…Posted.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-22/after-declaring-war-on-smog-china-gets-around-to-updating-its-environmental-laws


CLIMATE CHANGE

Forty-Four Years of Earth Day. When environmentalists proclaimed
the first Earth Day, on this date in 1970, the air was filled
with doomsday predictions. At the initial rallies to mark the
day, people warned of overpopulation, a denuded planet, hundreds
of millions of people starving to death, a new Ice Age or the
greenhouse effect. Many — though not all, obviously — of those
forecasts were off. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/forty-four-years-of-earth-day.html


There is no global warming, declare 25 percent of Americans. 
Americans have clustered into three broad groups on the issue of
global warming, with the largest, currently describing 39 percent
of U.S. adults, attributing global warming to human actions and
are worried about it, according to a new survey by Gallup Inc.
Almost as large is a group Gallup terms the "mixed middle" at 36
percent. Posted.
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/templates/print.cfm?ID=25686


Today’s Antarctic region once as hot as California, Florida.
Parts of ancient Antarctica were as warm as today’s California
coast, and polar regions of the southern Pacific Ocean registered
21st-century Florida heat, according to scientists using a new
way to measure past temperatures. The findings, published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, underscore the
potential for increased warmth at Earth’s poles and the
associated risk of melting polar ice and rising sea
levels…Posted.
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2014/04/today%E2%80%99s-antarctic-region-once-hot-california-florida


DROUGHT

Fields and farm jobs dry up with California's worsening drought.
On a recent afternoon on the main drag of Orange Grove, Calif.,
about a dozen farm workers gathered on the sidewalk in front of a
mini-mart. One man sits on a milk crate sipping a beer. A few
others scratch some lotto tickets. Salvador Perez paces back and
forth with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. If
there is no water, there's no work, he says in Spanish. Posted.
http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/04/22/43670/fields-and-farm-jobs-dry-up-with-california-s-wors/


DIESEL EMISSIONS

Air quality board considers easing diesel rules. California air
quality officials are considering giving small trucking
operations more time to comply with new rules to clean up diesel
emissions. The proposal would push back deadlines by a few years
for small fleets, lightly used trucks and those in rural areas
with cleaner air, and offer other adjustments to assist truck
owners…Posted.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/21/air-quality-board-considers-easing-diesel-rules/#ixzz2zdYPCFbH

http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/04/21/43657/air-quality-board-considers-easing-diesel-rules/

http://fleetowner.com/running-green/updated-carb-may-relax-compliance-certain-fleet-types

http://www.ttnews.com/articles/basetemplate.aspx?storyid=34769 
http://www.timescolonist.com/business/money/california-air-quality-officials-consider-relaxing-rules-for-some-diesel-trucks-1.978565
http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/story/2014/04/carb-to-consider-delaying-some-emissions-rules.aspx

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/04/21/3800345/air-quality-board-considers-easing.html

http://www.thetrucker.com/News/Stories/2014/4/22/Airqualityboardconsiderseasingdieselrules.aspx

http://fleetnewsdaily.com/california-air-quality-board-considers-easing-diesel-rules/

http://www.mantecabulletin.com/section/140/article/103806/ 
http://www.recorderonline.com/news/state_news/air-quality-board-considers-easing-diesel-rules/article_1b7ae807-9b1e-5ab3-89e9-4e5d38d703ba.html


Ports to power a new kind of cleaning crew.  A new war on air
pollution in the twin seaports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is
about to be launched.  An armada of pelican-shaped barges with
100-foot-tall towers and booms could soon be navigating the
ports, connecting their sleeves of ductwork to smokestacks of
berthed container ships, and vacuuming out an alphabet soup of
poisonous gases through a huge scrubber.  Posted. 
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/long-610755-garcia-beach.html


FUELS

Keystone Pipeline May Be Big, but This Is Bigger.  THE Keystone
XL pipeline is a great political symbol. The proposed 1,700-mile
pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels daily of carbon-heavy
crude from Canada’s Alberta oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries,
has galvanized environmental activists, who call it a litmus test
for President Obama’s commitment to fighting climate change.
Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy-environment/us-emission-rules-would-far-outweigh-impact-of-keystone-pipeline.html?_r=0
 

We Could See You in the Gas Tank Later, Alligator. PRODUCTION of
biodiesel as an alternative to fossil fuels is on the rise in the
United States, and one reason, proponents say, is that it can be
made from a long list of raw materials.“Biodiesel is made from
all sorts of fats and oils,” said Ben Evans of the National
Biodiesel Board, a trade group based in Washington. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy-environment/researchers-study-producing-biodiesel-from-alligators.html
 

Alaska Lawmakers Back Natural Gas Plans.  Alaska’s legislature on
Monday approved Gov. Sean Parnell’s plan to join four energy
companies in moving ahead on plans to build infrastructure to
transport and market 35 trillion cubic feet of North Slope gas to
be shipped by an 800-mile pipeline to a liquefied natural gas
export plant. The project is valued at $45 billion to $65 billion
for the line and gas treatment facilities. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy-environment/alaska-lawmakers-back-natural-gas-plans.html?ref=earth


EPA's newly proposed targets are bad for climate, assert industry
heads. For years, the biofuels industry has seen solid support
from the federal government. But as the administration
intensifies its message on climate change, the industry behind
the one-time pillar of global warming mitigation -- replacing
fossil fuels with biofuels -- is losing influence in the White
House. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059998219/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

VEHICLES

Tesla's Delays Upset Some China Customers. Electric-Vehicle Maker
Plans Its First Model S Delivery in Country for Tuesday. A group
of disgruntled Tesla Motors Inc. TSLA +4.66% customers in China
is protesting delayed deliveries of their cars one day before the
electric-vehicle maker is set to make its first China delivery.
The furor underscores the challenges facing auto makers in
marketing new-energy vehicles in China, which so far hasn't
delivered on the promise of becoming a major new market for
electric cars. Posted.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304049904579515434271348994?mg=reno64-wsj


Dealers not always plugged in about electric cars, Consumer
Reports’ study reveals. Also, not all staff seemed enthusiastic
about making EV sales; a few outright discouraged it. You would
think that if you were to go to a car dealership that sold
electric cars, a salesperson would want to sell you one. But that
that’s true only some of the time, a months-long survey by
Consumer Reports reveals. And that's the case with some brands
more than others. Posted.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/04/dealers-not-always-plugged-in-about-electric-cars-secret-shopper-study-reveals/index.htm

HIGH-SPEED RAIL

FRA issues final environmental documents for portion of
California's high-speed rail project.  The Federal Railroad
Administration (FRA) has issued the Final Environmental Impact
Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) for the
Fresno-to-Bakersfield segment of the proposed California
high-speed rail project.  Posted. 
http://www.progressiverailroading.com/high_speed_rail/news/FRA-issues-final-environmental-documents-for-portion-of-Californias-highspeed-rail-project--40166


GREEN ENERGY

Drones Are Becoming Energy’s New Roustabouts. THE egg white drone
lifted off from its ground station at a hospital construction
site here, hovered for an instant, then zoomed off, sounding like
a five-pound bee as it buzzed around the cranes towering over the
six-acre project. Capable of carrying a high-resolution camera
and other sensors, the quadcopter, a helicopter with four rotors
that resembles a spaceship from a 1950s science fiction
movie…Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy-environment/drones-are-becoming-energys-new-roustabouts.html?_r=0


How Green Was Thy Norman Conquest? Crown Estate Tries to
Jump-Start Britain’s Offshore Wind Sector.  WHEN William the
Conqueror invaded England in 1066, he could not have imagined
what would happen to the land he seized from the Anglo Saxons. A
thousand years after the Norman Conquest, the entity that
resulted, the Crown Estate — which owns property across Britain
and is now independent of the British monarchy — is at the heart
of the country’s push into green energy. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy-environment/crown-estate-tries-to-jump-start-britains-offshore-wind-sector.html


Ice or Molten Salt, Not Batteries, to Store Energy. ENERGY
storage is crucial to transforming the electric grid into a
clean, sustainable, low-emissions system, the experts say. And
it’s happening already, just not the way most consumers would
expect.
The simplest idea for storage — charging up batteries at night
when there is a lot of wind energy and not much demand for it, or
at midday when the sun is bright — is years from being feasible,
according to the experts. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy-environment/ice-or-molten-salt-not-batteries-to-store-energy.html


Old World, New Tech.  Barcelona is among a number of European
cities adopting new forms of technology aimed at improving
services. More important, the investments, including neighborhood
wide high-speed Internet connections and electricity charge
points for cars and motorbikes, offer ways to cut energy use and
generate income. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/energy-environment/europe-remains-ahead-of-us-in-creating-smart-cities.html
  

How conserving water, energy isn’t always about a ‘green’
lifestyle.  Lorrie Ourada’s elegant desertscape of a yard stands
out from the lush, green lawns that dominate her Porter Ranch
neighborhood. Last fall, the Realtor installed drought-tolerant
shrubs and succulents, decomposed granite pathways and large
boulders in front of her Mediterranean-style home. Posted.
http://www.sbsun.com/environment-and-nature/20140421/how-conserving-water-energy-isnt-always-about-a-green-lifestyle


Top decisionmakers pledge to keep lowering energy emissions.  A
veritable who's who of U.S. business executives, including
leaders of the nation's largest energy firms, have pledged to put
their companies on a trajectory that promotes sound environmental
decisionmaking and best practices to reduce or mitigate impacts
to air and water in a new report released this week by the
Business Roundtable. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/stories/1059998207/print BY
SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

MISCELLANEOUS

Visions of cleaner, healthier Inland Empire.  In recognition of
Earth Day on Tuesday, April 22, we asked several experts who deal
with environmental issues: What is your vision for Inland
Southern California in the next decade?” Posted.
http://www.pe.com/local-news/topics/topics-environment-headlines/20140421-earth-day-visions-of-cleaner-healthier-inland-empire.ece
 

Think globally, act locally at Earth Day events in the Inland
Empire. Inland Empire residents can expect to have almost a
week’s worth of Earth Day activities to choose from, including
community cleanups, e-waste collection events and a UC Riverside
lecture on what ancient global warming might mean for today’s
residents of planet Earth. Posted.
http://www.sbsun.com/environment-and-nature/20140421/think-globally-act-locally-at-earth-day-events-in-the-inland-empire
 

Green Prize Festival aims to make Long Beach greener. In
commemoration of Earth Day, a few Long Beach organizations are
hoping to make it easy for everyone to “be green” with the launch
of the Green Prize Festival this Saturday. The daylong festival
at Bixby Park is all about urban farmers, green artists, chefs,
green technology and even a few chickens and some bees. The goal
is to turn Long Beach into a greener city and… Posted.
http://www.presstelegram.com/lifestyle/20140421/green-prize-festival-aims-to-make-long-beach-greener


County district wants old mowers.  The Calaveras County Air
Pollution Control District is getting into the lawn mower
business by assisting residents with the purchase of new electric
mowers.  The district announced that it’s starting a grant
program for people in Calaveras County to replace gasoline- and
diesel-powered mowers with cordless, electric mowers that produce
zero emissions. Posted. 
http://www.calaverasenterprise.com/news/article_c30aaf64-c9ab-11e3-a3f8-001a4bcf887a.html
  

Ecology offers incentives to remove old wood stoves.  In an
effort to improve air quality, the Washington State Department of
Ecology is offering incentives for homeowners to remove old wood
stoves from their homes. Residents in Colville River Valley are
eligible for a $200 voucher if they turn in their wood stoves on
April 27th.  Posted. 
http://colvillestevenscounty.kxly.com/news/environment/127061-ecology-offers-incentives-remove-old-wood-stoves


No progress on move. The LA 2020 Commission was critical of the
city’s lack of effort to convince the California Air Resources
Board to build its new lab within Los Angeles and bring along
with it the 250 jobs of engineers and technicians now based in El
Monte. While the proposal looked good on paper, nothing is really
in the works on moving the 40-year-old Haagen-Smit Labs,
officials said. Posted.
http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20140420/tipoff-future-options-are-open-for-molina-yaroslavsky


Closing San Onofre could cost ratepayers $3.3 billion. Consumer
watchdog groups plan to fight a proposed settlement over the
closure of the San Onofre nuclear plant that could cost utility
users in South Orange County and San Diego more than $3.3
billion. “Under California law, ratepayers don’t have many
rights. But one cardinal right they do have is this: They only
have to pay reasonable rates,”…Posted.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/san-610763-billion-settlement.html


OPINIONS

Warm water, cold reality. Big screen "Noah," the box office hit,
presents the biblical story of near apocalypse and indifference
to God's warnings. Small screen NOAA, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Association, regularly warns of impending man-made
environmental doom on its climate.gov website. Whether one is
more susceptible to religious parables or scientific findings,
the very real effects of contemporary climate change are
happening at a stunning pace. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/22/6342823/warm-water-cold-reality.html#storylink=cpy


Trucking rules: Don't delay clean air regulations on trucks,
buses.  The California Air Resources Board will meet Thursday in
Sacramento to discuss a proposal to delay the Truck and Bus rule
requiring the vehicles to meet higher standards for clean air.
This would allow noncompliant companies to profit at the expense
of good trucking businesses that have been proactive, compliant
and environmentally responsible.  Posted. 
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_25608307/trucking-rules-dont-delay-clean-air-regulations-trucks?source=rss


On fracking, can’t California get half a loaf? Thomas Elias When
a city like Carson, home to one large oil refinery and next-door
neighbor to another, hard by the junction of two major freeways
and site of both a Cal State campus and a Major League Soccer
stadium, slaps a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing because of
environmental questions, you know fracking of California’s vast
oil and gas reserves is no sure thing. Posted.
http://www.presstelegram.com/opinion/20140421/on-fracking-cant-california-get-half-a-loaf-thomas-elias


The deadliest environmental threat (it’s not global warming).
Earth Day is a chance to take stock: What is the state of the
world’s environment? Our knee-jerk reaction is that it’s getting
worse. But that is not only mostly incorrect, it also prevents us
from using Earth Day to help do the most good to make the
environment even better. Many think the biggest global
environment problem is global warming. Posted.
http://nypost.com/2014/04/21/the-deadliest-environmental-threat-its-not-global-warming/


As nuclear power dies, solar rises.  At long last, this Earth Day
we celebrate the true dawn of the Solar Age. That sunrise is
hastened, here and abroad, by the slow demise of the once-touted
"too-cheap-to-meter" Atomic Age of nuclear power. As utilities
find nuclear power less and less cost effective, new solar
photovoltaic installations in the United States are springing up.
New solar installations in 2013 reached a record 4.2 gigawatts,
bringing the total to 10. Posted.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/22/opinion/hayes-denman-solar-power/index.html


Want green cities? Lose the cars. If you really want to strike a
blow for the environment during Earth Day on Tuesday, do yourself
and everybody else a favor and stop driving your car in town.
Really -- who needs it? This is not a message for you if you're a
farmer or live in a rural area, where it's 20 miles to the
grocery store and 100 miles to the nearest hospital. You can keep
your car; it's a safety thing. Posted.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/21/opinion/sanderson-earth-day-cars/index.html?iid=article_sidebar


BLOGS

GOP ties California Democrats to Keystone XL pipeline delays. The
Republican Party sent an email blast Monday blaming California
Democrats for delaying a controversial pipeline that even
supporters acknowledge would bring little economic benefit to the
state. The National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee
sent the letter in response to President Barack Obama's decision
Friday to extend the review period for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL
pipeline, which would bring oil from western Canada to the Gulf
Coast. Posted.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2014/04/gop-tries-to-tie-california-democrats-to-keystone-xl-delays.html#storylink=cpy


Exide lays off more than 120 employees at Vernon plant.  A lead
battery recycler with a plant in Vernon has announced layoffs for
its California employees as problems with environmental
regulators grow.  Georgia-based Exide Technologies says it’s
issuing temporary layoff notices to more than 100 hourly workers
and 20 salaried workers at its Vernon facility. Posted.
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/environment/2014/04/21/16427/exide-lays-off-more-than-120-employees-at-vernon-p/


Use This Earth Day to Urge Leaders to Take Biggest Step Possible
on Climate Change. I plan to spend this Earth Day advocating for
the single most important thing our nation can do to confront
climate change: cutting carbon pollution from power plants. These
plants kick out 40 percent of the carbon pollution in our
country. Right now they are free to dump as much carbon pollution
into our atmosphere as they want—intensifying climate change and
endangering our health in the process. Posted.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/use_this_earth_day_to_urge_lea.html
 

Three “Next Steps” for California Climate Action. California
enacted its Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) in 2006. Since
then, an entire network of interacting, mutually-reinforcing
legislation has evolved in the state, historic in how the
different measures support one another. A solar roof mandate (one
million by 2020) augments an electric vehicle mandate (also one
million in 2020)…Posted.
http://energyblog.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/03/three-next-steps-for-california-climate-action/


Happy Earth Day. We Just Reached Another Scary Climate Change
Milestone.  In May 2013, it was big news when, for the first
time, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit
400 parts per million. Now, researchers say that number has been
consistently above 400 for the last month.  Posted. 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/22/carbon-dioxide-climate-change_n_5187844.html
 

Electric-Car Buyers Younger And Richer Than Hybrid Owners. While
it might seem logical to expect the demographics for buyers of
both electric and hybrid-powered cars to be similar, the former
tend to skew considerably younger and more affluent than the
latter according to a market analysis conducted by Experian
Automotive in Schaumburg. Ill. Posted.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2014/04/22/electric-car-buyers-younger-and-richer-than-hybrid-owners/#./?&_suid=139819171946307654927198211496


Air pollution from China = stronger storms in the Pacific?  While
air pollution is now the world’s biggest environmental health
risk with 7 million deaths per year, according to the World
Health Organization, its effects aren't limited to your heart and
lungs. According to a new paper published by researchers from the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of
Technology…Posted. 
http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/air-pollution-china-stronger-storms-pacific.html
 

KBB Names 10 Best Green Cars of 2014.   Just in time for Earth
Day, Kelley Blue Book editors picked the 10 Best Green Cars of
2014 to assist eco-friendly drivers in the market for a new
vehicle.  Posted. 
http://www.autoremarketing.com/retail/kbb-names-10-best-green-cars-of-2014


Ford says C-Max mpg reduction has hurt sales.  The Ford C-Max is
having a rough time. Sales for the five-door hybrid hatchback
were down 39.1 percent in March to 2,295 cars, and sales from
January through March were down 42.5 percent to 5,566 units. In
an interview with The Detroit News, Ford Americas boss Joe
Hinrichs places the blame on lowering the model's fuel economy
rating. "We're definitely seeing consideration on C-Max decline
over time. Posted.
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/04/22/ford-c-max-mpg-reduction-hurting-sales-report/



California is in a drought emergency.
Visit www.SaveOurH2O.org for water conservation tips.