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California Air Resources Board News Clips for September 24,
2009. 
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.

A New Crop Of Eco-Warriors Take To Their Own Streets. Along the
I-710 corridor, where cargo-carrying trucks and trains spew
diesel pollution around the clock, grass-roots groups are
persuading residents to act and making clean air a priority. It
is 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Along streets of grimy stucco bungalows
with bougainvillea, American flags and "Beware of Dog" signs on
chain-link fences, a couple of residents are hosing down lawns.
It ought to be quiet, but it's not. Behind the garden walls of
Astor Avenue, there's a chugging and a hissing and a clanking and
a squeaking. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-air-pollution24-2009sep24,0,7153996,print.story

The Challenge Of Climate Change. At a UN summit on climate
change in New York, U.S. President Barack Obama asked world
leaders to come together in pursuing policies that allow
economies to grow without endangering our planet. Over the next
few months, nations of the world will be working to reach a new
international agreement to combat climate change. Climate change
affects all nations. Rising sea levels, more powerful storms and
floods, and more frequent droughts know no borders. President
Obama believes all countries must work together to address
climate change, and the time for action is now. Posted.
http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2009-09-23-voa6.cfm

No Vote On Murkowski's EPA Amendment – Reid. Senate leaders
reached an agreement today allowing votes on a limited number of
amendments to the annual spending bill for environmental
agencies, excluding a controversial amendment that would limit
U.S. EPA's regulatory authority. The amendment from Sen. Lisa
Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would prohibit EPA for one year from
regulating stationary sources of carbon dioxide emissions was not
among those amendments granted votes under the agreement, Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced today. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2009/09/24/1

California Governor Fails to Live Up to His Green Goals. In a
strange but interesting demonstration of cynicism, Governor
Schwarzenegger recently signed an executive order directing state
agencies to develop regulations requiring all utilities to
achieve 33 percent renewable energy by 2020 -- while at the same
time promising to veto a far stronger and smarter mandate in two
similar bills finally passed by the Legislature.  Posted.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/09/california-governor-fails-to-live-up-to-his-green-goals

Government Backs A Private Emissions-Trading Experiment. New
York -- The voluntary carbon market is coming to China, at least
in a very limited and tentative way. Yesterday, at the New York
Stock Exchange, officials unveiled their plans for the "Panda
Standard," a voluntary offset project design and verification
scheme that would generate a greenhouse gas emissions abatement
credit that climate-conscious companies or consumers could use to
offset their own emissions. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/09/24/3

EV Makers Try To Temper Expectations Ahead Of Calif. Rule.
California took the pulse of the zero-emissions vehicle industry
this week and found plug-in electric vehicle manufacturers
worried about charging infrastructure and public expectations.
The California Air Resources Board is hearing from fuel cell and
EV manufacturers in preparation for releasing regulations for its
Zero-Emissions Vehicle Program. Targets for 2015 and thereafter
are due out by Nov. 10, with final targets due by early next
year. In its fifth major revision of the program since 1990, it
voted last year to reduce the 2014 sales target from 25,000 to
7,500 vehicles (ClimateWire, Sept. 22). Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/09/24/4

The Goal: More Environmental Friendliness. Homemakers dry
clothes the old-fashioned way, with a line, a few clothes pins
and a lot of fresh air. School teachers encourage students to
collect paper scraps from home to create classroom art projects.
Those blessed with green thumbs teach impoverished communities
how to grow cheaper, healthier foods in their own backyards.
Posted. http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_13402694

Gore: Climate Change Laws 'Crucial Step' In Crisis. New
York—Former Vice President Al Gore told attendees Wednesday at
the Clinton Global Initiative to reach out to U.S. senators and
urge them to pass climate change legislation, saying it was the
"crucial step" in solving the climate crisis. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/nation-world/ci_13400290

Aiding Poor Nations In Cutting Emissions. United Nations
Tuesday's U.N. climate summit gathering and a G-20 meeting in
Pittsburgh this week are seen as an attempt to pressure nations
to commit to a climate treaty at Copenhagen in December, and to
pay for poorer nations to burn less coal and preserve forests.
Posted.
http://headlines.ocregister.com/news/percent-43529-emissions-greenhouse.html

Offsets Purchased For Climate Summit. Perhaps the most direct
impact of the U.N. Summit on Climate Change this week was in the
tons of CO2 world leaders emitted in flying to New York City --
not to mention those fleets of limousines and cavalcades of
attending advisers. This year, however, the United Nations
decided to address its delegates' emissions by buying carbon
offsets equal to the 461 tons of carbon dioxide generated by the
summit. Those offsets are going to support a biomass plant in
rural India that turns farming leftovers like rice husks into
electricity. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/09/24/11
http://www.contracostatimes.com/nation-world/ci_13403029

'Real Deal' Holyfield Tackles Global Warming. Atlanta—Evander
Holyfield has no intention of hanging up his gloves. In fact,
he'll have a new nickname the next time he climbs into the ring.
The Real Deal is now the Lean Green Fighting Machine. Refusing to
give up on his goal of retiring as heavyweight champion even as
he approaches his 47th birthday, Holyfield said he'll travel to
South Korea in November for his next bout—he's not even sure of
the opponent—and bring along a message of preserving the
environment. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/sports/ci_13409486

Satellite Reveals Faster Melting Of Polar Ice. A NASA satellite
has revealed more accurately than ever that polar ice in
Antarctica and Greenland is melting from glaciers and ice sheets
far faster than scientists had previously thought, a discovery
that one UC Berkeley climate expert calls "ominous and
distressing." Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/24/MNMM19R00D.DTL&type=printable

Warming Climate Brings New El Niño 'Flavor,' Study Finds.
Climate change may be the cause of a new "flavor" of El Niño that
has emerged since the 1970s, according to a new study. While the
classic El Niño is marked by warmer surface waters in the eastern
Pacific Ocean and changes in wind patterns that, among other
things, reduce hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, the new variant
is markedly different. Known by some as "Modoki," a Japanese word
meaning "similar, but different," it heats up the central
Pacific, leaving swaths of cooler water to the east and west.
Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/09/24/5

The Globe's 2 Largest Emitters Lay Out Hazy Plays to Curb CO2.
United Nations -- In the end, the two most important world
leaders at the first-ever U.N. Summit on Climate Change didn't
say enough to satisfy supporters or quell critics. President
Obama, taking the dais before more than 100 heads of state,
pledged that the United States would help lead the world in
permanently reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Chinese President
Hu Jintaoannounced that his country would cut carbon intensity by
a "notable margin" per unit of economic growth. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/09/23/23climatewire-the-globes-2-largest-emitters-lay-out-hazy-p-46216.html
 
E.U. Overstepped Bounds On CO2 Limits, Court Says. Poland and
Estonia have the right to challenge the size of carbon dioxide
emission caps placed on them by the E.U. authorities, the
European Court of First Instance, Europe's second-highest court,
ruled yesterday. The nations have challenged cuts mandated by the
European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, that
trimmed their CO2 allowances drastically -- Poland by 27 percent
and Estonia by nearly 48 percent. Those cuts were needed, the
commission said, because the countries' previous emissions
allocations had been overly generous. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/09/24/9

Oakland Solar Firm Hits Desert Swarm. BrightSource Energy has
encountered some storm clouds in its quest to bring a solar
future to large stretches of the western United States. The
Oakland-based developer of solar farms has been forced to scuttle
its plans to build a solar energy plant in the Broadwell Dry Lake
area of California's Mojave Desert. Posted.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_13404230

Mark Landsbaum: No Fuel Like An Old Fuel. Every year local,
state and federal lawmakers churn out hundreds of new laws most
people are unaware of, even though they are obliged not to break
any of them. Why? One answer is that it's not necessarily your
interest that lawmakers had in mind, especially when they single
out particular beneficiaries. Posted.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/government-oil-energy-2578127-new-prices

U.S. Panel Shifts Focus to Reusing Nuclear Fuel. Oxon Hill, Md.
— With a federal plan to handle nuclear waste in deadlocked
disarray, an advisory panel that has spent 20 years studying a
proposed repository at Yucca Mountain turned Wednesday to
discussing ways of reusing the fuel instead. But the meeting of
the panel, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, made evident
that such reuse was uncertain, along with the future of Yucca
Mountain, in Nevada, about 100 miles from Las Vegas. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/business/energy-environment/24yucca.html?_r=1&hpw=&pagewanted=print

Duke, Fpl To Switch To Hybrid, Electric Vehicles. Columbus,
Ohio—Two of the nation's largest power generators said Thursday
that they plan to begin switching their company cars and trucks
to plug-in hybrid vehicles or all-electric vehicles starting Jan.
1 to help cut greenhouse gas emissions. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_13409874?nclick_check=1

Agency Posts Tutorial On Engine Regulation. The California Air
Resources Board (ARB) posted a succinct 25-slide tutorial on the
fleet requirements of its large spark-ignition (LSI) engine
regulation on 15 September. "I use the slides in my presentations
on the requirements of the regulation and thought that they might
be useful to operators visiting the LSI page to better understand
the requirements of the LSI regulations," says Mark Williams, air
pollution specialist with the zero emissions vehicle
implementation section in the mobile source control division of
Sacramento-based ARB. Posted.
http://www.forkliftaction.com/news/newsprint.aspx?nwid=7639

T. Boone Pickens Promotes Natural Gas Bills At Long Beach
Convention. Long Beach - BP Capital Management founder and
chairman T. Boone Pickens on Wednesday urged professionals in the
solid waste industry to support two upcoming bills that would
further efforts to make natural gas an alternative for fuel.
Posted. http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_13406403

Chevron Seeks Ecuador Liability In Pollution Case. San Ramon,
Calif. (AP) --Chevron Corp. sought Wednesday to force Ecuador
into international arbitration for alleged trade violations, an
apparent effort to protect itself against a feared negative
ruling in a $27 billion lawsuit over environmental damage.
Chevron accuses Ecuador of "exploitation" of a civil suit filed
over environmental damage that plaintiffs allege Texaco caused in
the Amazon rainforest between 1964 and 1990. Chevron, the
second-largest U.S. oil company, acquired Texaco in 2001. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/23/financial/f164517D95.DTL&type=printable

BLOGS

Will California Crack Down On Rail-Yard Pollution? Will
California crack down on toxic pollution from rail yards?
Community and public health groups are planning a demonstration
at Friday's Air Resources Board meeting in Diamond Bar to demand
that the state enact tough regulations on the California's 18
rail yards.  Trucks, trains and cargo-handling equipment spewing
diesel emissions in the yards have caused high cancer risks,
according to recent studies. Southern California authorities
passed anti-idling rules on locomotives three years ago, but
Union Pacific Railway and BNSF Railway got them overturned in
court. Posted.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/09/railyard-pollution-california.html

Whitman Would Suspend Global Warming Law. Republican
gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman said in San Diego on
Wednesday she would suspend Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's
signature environmental initiative if elected. The former eBay
CEO told an audience at Gen-Probe Inc. in Mira Mesa she would
issue an executive order suspending AB 32 that restricts
emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming,
until its long-term economic consequences are better understood.
Posted.
http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/news/breaking/2009/09/whitman_would_suspend_global_w.html

Will It Blend? Not If CARB Has Anything To Say About It.  Will
it blend? If the answer is no – as was the case with the boron
steel used to create the latest Ford Fiesta – perhaps all that's
needed is a more powerful blender (insert appropriate Tim
Allen-esque grunting sounds here) complete with handlebars and a
twist-grip throttle? Enter the Party Blender, which uses a
gas-powered engine in lieu of a standard wimpy plug-in electric
motor. Posted.
http://green.autoblog.com/2009/09/24/report-will-it-blend-not-if-carb-has-anything-to-say-about-it/print/

Global Warming Peace In Our Time? Uh, Not Quite… If you read
only headlines, you might think China and the U.S. have agreed to
declare global warming peace in our time, ala Neville Chamberlain
in another era and another issue. After all, one nearly local
newspaper reported this optimistic headline: “U.S., China seek to
reignite global talks on climate change.” Posted.
http://orangepunch.freedomblogging.com/2009/09/23/global-warming-peace-in-our-time-uh-not-quite/13031/