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California Air Resources Board News Clips for December 2, 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.

Dan Walters: Air Board's Cover-Up Casts Pall On Diesel Rules. A
year ago, high officials of the California Air Resources Board
learned that the author of a statistical study on diesel soot
effects had falsified his academic credentials. The CARB
researcher, Hien Tran, acknowledged the deception and agreed to
be demoted, but after his data were given another peer review,
they remained the basis of highly controversial regulations that
will cost owners of trucks, buses and other diesel-powered
machinery millions of dollars to upgrade their engines. Posted.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/opinion/v-print/story/941189.html

Fresno Doctor Wants Truck Air Rules Suspended. A Valley
representative on the state air board wants the board to suspend
new pollution rules for trucks because they rely on research from
a staff member who lied about his credentials. Posted.
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1732165.html 

LOIS HENRY: Arrogance Pollutes Air Board. As much as the
California Air Resources Board would like to ignore this pesky
little issue of a researcher lying about his credentials and
using questionable methodology to pop out a report so the board
could justify its draconian new diesel restrictions, I'm not
lettin' it go. Posted.
http://www.bakersfield.com/news/columnist/henry/x789211529/LOIS-HENRY-Arrogance-pollutes-air-board

Bay Area Pollution District Eyes First Guidelines For Reducing
Global Warming. California developers seeking city or county
building approval have to look at how their projects affect
traffic, schools, water, smog and wildlife. They may have to add
a new concern: global warming. The Bay Area's air pollution
district is proposing the nation's first-ever guidelines for when
projects would produce enough global warming gases to warrant an
environmental review of ways to reduce them. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_13902780?source=rss
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_13902780

8,000 Dirty Trucks to Be Banned From Socal Port. The Port of
Long Beach says that by New Year's Day it will have banned about
8,000 high-polluting trucks from entering the facility as part of
an effort to reduce air pollution. Port officials said Tuesday
that 5,600 trucks that were made before 1988 have been replaced
by cleaner-burning models. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_13903028
http://www.modbee.com/state/story/955276.html#ixzz0YY3SBJJO
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2009/dec/01/8000-dirty-trucks-to-be-banned-from-socal-port/
 

Plume of Pollutants From a Small Airport. For people who live
near an airport, noise is a major concern. But air quality can be
an issue, too: after all, aircraft engines produce emissions on
the ground as well as in the air. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01obplane.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=air%20pollution&st=cse


Groups Petition EPA To Set Emission Limits Under Clean Air Act.
Two environmental groups petitioned U.S. EPA today to set
national limits for greenhouse gases using the Clean Air Act. The
Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org petitioned EPA to
designate greenhouse gases as "criteria" air pollutants, which
would require EPA to establish allowable nationwide
concentrations for the gases. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2009/12/02/1

Climate Scientist Steps Down. The British scientist at the heart
of a scandal over climate-change research temporarily stepped
down Tuesday as director of a prominent research group amid an
internal probe that follows the release of hacked emails
involving him and other scientists. The University of East Anglia
in the U.K. said Phil Jones, head of the university's Climatic
Research Unit, had decided to step aside from the director's
post. Posted.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125970198500271683.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular

U.S. Proposes Climate Adaptation Fund For Poor Nations. The
United States has proposed a new global fund that would direct
billions of dollars to help poor countries prepare for climate
disasters and adjust to low-carbon economies. The fund would
likely operate under the World Bank, U.S. Treasury officials
said, and would be the main vehicle to deliver emissions
reduction and adaptation measures throughout the world. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/12/02/02climatewire-us-proposes-climate-adaptation-fund-for-poor-53618.html

http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/12/02/1

HICKS: Climate Fears Harm Children. Here in the Midwest, we know
a thing or two about climate change. Don't like the weather? Wait
five minutes. It'll change. Perhaps it's my casual attitude about
weather generally, or maybe my cynicism about big science, but
the revelations of data doctoring by climate scientists at the
University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit didn't come as
a surprise to me. Posted.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/02/hicks-climate-fears-harm-children/


UN Official Calls for Funds for Climate Change. Developing
countries will need tens of billions of dollars each year to cope
with the effects of climate change such as floods and drought,
the global head of the U.N.'s development arm said. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/02/world/AP-AF-Climate-Poor-Nations.html?scp=4&sq=greenhouse%20gas&st=cse

http://www.contracostatimes.com/nation-world/ci_13907079

Head Of Chemistry Council Predicts Cap And Trade Will Be
Delayed. New York -- The head of one of the most powerful
industry trade groups in the United States confidently predicts
that federal carbon cap-and-trade legislation won't get passed
even in 2010, let alone by the end of this year, due to a lack of
political will. The outcome of the international climate
negotiations starting in Copenhagen next week will also fall far
short of even now-diminished expectations as economic and
political realities constrain the U.S. delegation's hand, says
Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council.
Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/12/02/3

CO2 Must Eventually Be Captured From Air -- IPCC Chief. Drastic
cuts in carbon dioxide emissions will not be enough to mitigate
the worst effects of global warming, and the world will
eventually need to absorb CO2 directly from the atmosphere,
according to Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the United
Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/12/02/10

CO2 Output Too High To Contain Warming – Study. The world's
emissions are too high to keep the planet from excessive warming
by 2050, according to a report released today from accounting
company PricewaterhouseCoopers. The Big Four firm called for
"challenging" targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at
Copenhagen. The economists apportioned out a carbon "budget"
among the world's countries and modeled the economic trajectories
for each of the G20 countries leading up to 2050, factoring in
economic output, political circumstances and each region's
potential for renewable power sources. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2009/12/01/3

Owens Lake As Solar Power Plant? The DWP seeks to build a
660-acre pilot project on the dry lake bed -- and avoid doing an
environmental impact report. Nearly a century after Los Angeles
drained Owens Lake by diverting its water to the Los Angeles
Aqueduct, the city now hopes to generate solar energy on the
dusty salt flats it left behind. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-owenslake2-2009dec02,0,7306921,print.story

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Announces Electric Vehicle
Infrastructure Plan. Along with partners, the city plans to
update 400 existing charging stations around the region and add
100, he says. By this time next year, electric vehicles could be
popping up all around Los Angeles, and the "quintessential city
of sprawl" plans to be ready, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said
Tuesday. Along with a network of partners, the city plans to
update 400 existing charging stations around the region while
adding 100, Villaraigosa said. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_13904493

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-electric-cars2-2009dec02,0,4870619,print.story

EPA Signals Support For Higher Blends but Delays Decision. U.S.
EPA said today that it may allow the mixing of larger amounts of
ethanol with gasoline, but the agency delayed a final decision on
the matter until mid-2010 to allow for additional testing. In a
letter to biofuels advocate Growth Energy, EPA hinted that it is
likely to support raising the ethanol limit above the 10 percent
allowed in gasoline under current regulations. The agency said
two tests it has completed on the 15 percent ethanol blend, known
as E15, suggest that engines in newer cars will likely be able to
accommodate the fuel. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2009/12/01/1

Eugene Robinson: Should Talk About Both The Winners And Losers
In Copenhagen. CLIMATE-CHANGE SKEPTICS are barking up the wrong
smokestack. The shell game being played isn't with the science,
it's with the solutions — specifically, the carbon emissions
targets that enlightened world leaders are pledging to meet.
That's where the numbers don't add up. Posted.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/ci_13900730

Blogs

California Dams to Feel Impact of Climate Change. California’s
high-elevation dams could generate considerably less power over
the next 40 years as a result of rising temperatures associated
with climate change, according to a recent study by researchers
at the University of California, Davis. Posted.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/california-dams-to-feel-climate-impacts/?scp=2&sq=climate%20change&st=cse


Science and the Smart Grid. The American Association for the
Advancement of Science is holding its Annual Meeting from 18-22
February in San Diego. One of the Symposium Tracks at this
conference will be on "Energy Today and Tomorrow." Within that
track, a symposium will be held which will focus on "Smart and
Secure Transmission Grids To Realize U.S. and E.U. Renewable
Energy Potentials." Posted.
http://blogs.redding.com/dcraig/archives/2009/12/science-and-the.html