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California Air Resources Board News Clips for June 22, 2010. 


This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office
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individual websites to view some of the following news articles.


CLIMATE CHANGE/GHG’S

President Convenes Senators for Final Chance at Climate Bill
This Year. President Obama will attempt to seize control of the
Senate's splintered climate debate tomorrow with a goal to
achieve some greenhouse gas emission restrictions before midterm
elections. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/06/22/22climatewire-president-convenes-senators-for-final-chance-13775.html
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/06/22/1

Supervisor Takes Aim At Climate Change Law. If a 2006 law isn’t
repealed, according to Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, Victor Valley
households could end up losing $4,000 each. Mitzelfelt took aim
at Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006,
Monday afternoon at the monthly Hesperia Chamber of Commerce
luncheon, held at the Courtyard by Marriott. Employing a “cap and
trade” system that allows companies to trade unused pollution
credits, the bill aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25
percent by 2020. Posted.
http://www.hesperiastar.com/news/law-3462-supervisor-aim.html

Investment Climate Harsh For Newest Energy Technologies –
Report. The inventor with a miracle climate gadget can find it.
The corporation with a clean-energy division can attract it. But
if you're anywhere in the middle, good luck capturing the prize:
money. Such is the assessment of a report released yesterday by
Bloomberg New Energy Finance: There's financing available for
newborn clean technologies and mature ones like wind and solar,
but there's hardly a drop for toddler technologies that need a
jolt of cash to reach commercial prices. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/06/22/4

Skeptics, A Tiny Minority Among Climate Scientists, Have
'Significant Influence' – Study. The vast majority of climate
scientists believe that humans are driving global warming,
according to a new study. Between 97 and 98 percent of the
world's top climate researchers agree with the major conclusions
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- that it is
"very likely" that greenhouse gases produced by human activity
have produced "most" of the "unequivocal" warming of Earth's
average global temperature during the latter half of the 20th
century. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/06/22/5

Arctic Sea Ice Melting Unusually Fast. Summer is off to a hot
start -- not just in the Washington area, but also in the Far
North, where if recent trends continue, Arctic sea ice could
reach a new record low that surpasses the foreboding milestone
set in 2007. (That's a pretty big if, however). Posted.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2010/06/arctic_sea_ice_melting_unusual.html

UPDATE 1-Kerry Says Obama Intends To Move Votes On Energy.
Washington, June 22 (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John Kerry, the top
sponsor of the climate and energy bill stalled in the Senate,
said President Barack Obama intends to pressure lawmakers to vote
for a bill that would put a price on emitting
greenhouse gases. Posted.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2212944720100622

Utility-Only Option for Climate Bill Fails to Move the Needle on
Capitol Hill. With the clock winding down on efforts to pass a
climate bill this year, Senate Democrats are still adding pages
to their policy playbook. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/06/22/22climatewire-utility-only-option-for-climate-bill-fails-to-2745.html

Editorial: The Country's Behind A Climate Bill. Polls taken in
the aftermath of the BP spill show that we're more a nation of
environmentalists than many realize. So much for the climate
bill. President Obama's big speech last week on the BP oil spill
was expected to mark the start of a major White House push for
legislation aimed at clean energy and climate change, but the
second part of that package went down like a crude-coated
pelican. Obama's failure to mention cap-and-trade, or any other
scheme to price greenhouse-gas emissions, suggests he doesn't
intend to pursue it. You can't fault Obama's political instincts.
Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-climate-20100621,0,3842681,print.story

Letters: Marriage Of Climate Change Politics And Science. I just
want to let the two UCLA professors know, in case they've been
sequestered in academia, that the "science" of climate change is
so unsettled at this point that the average person trying to make
up his mind on the topic should trust no one that claims to have
all the answers ["Reader Rebuttal: Climate Change," June 21].
I've done some reading on the topic, and according to one of the
books I've read, man is only responsible for 0.3 percent of all
the CO2 present in the atmosphere. Posted.
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/climate-254341-change-global.html

ENERGY

California Bioenergy Stymied Without Bill Passage. A bill (AB
222) that would expedite the introduction of new conversion
technologies to produce advanced biofuels and/or green power from
organic waste materials in California has recently gained support
from three powerful state regulatory agencies. Without
endorsement from two Democrats on the Senate Committee on
Environmental Quality, however, AB 222 will not reach the Senate
floor and will die at the end of the year, allowing many barriers
to bioenergy growth to remain in place. Posted.
http://www.biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=3904

Biomass Supporters Want Exemption From EPA Regulations. Biomass
proponents asserting that the carbon benefits of burning woody
products should make them exempt from greenhouse gas emission
regulations are taking the fight to U.S. EPA. A coalition of 163
groups sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Friday
pressing her to recognize the carbon neutrality of biomass energy
and expressing "dismay" that the agency's final "tailoring" rule,
which draws a line in the sand about which large sources will
need permits to emit greenhouse gas emissions in the future, does
not exempt biomass power. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2010/06/22/7

Newport Beach Neighbors Are Glaring At Solar Panels. Newport
Beach residents say the panels on a hillside home are reflecting
too much sunlight and want them moved to the roof. The owners say
that the panels are staying. Stephen and Mashid Rizzone long
planned on creating a fully "green" dream home and impart a
legacy of environmental responsibility to their children. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-newport-green-house-20100622,0,6813562,print.story

Oil Spill Pushes Carbon Tax Back Into Spotlight. Washington --
Ever since 1993, when President Bill Clinton's plan to tax fuels
was demolished by energy industry lobbyists, farmers, aluminum
makers, anti-tax groups, conservative Senate Democrats and
Republicans, energy taxes have been Washington's shortcut to
political suicide. The Senate is about to test that dictum again
this summer, deciding the fate of climate-change legislation that
would put a price on carbon, the foundation of all fossil fuels,
and remind drivers that the true cost of gassing up includes
millions of gallons of crude drenching the Gulf of Mexico.
Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/22/MNBL1E0PCQ.DTL&type=printable

Ways That Urbanites Can Turn Their Waste Into Compost. I live in
an apartment in the city with zero outdoor space, and I don't
have any plants that would benefit from compost. Is there any
reason at all, then, why I should be composting my food scraps?
Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062104047.html

SAIC Gets $13M Smart Grid Contract For Fla. City. MCLEAN, Va. --
Government contractor Science Applications International Corp.
said Monday it received a contract valued at more than $13
million to manage a "smart grid" project for the city of
Lakeland, Fla. Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062103870.html

BLOGS

Study Affirms Consensus on Climate Change. Many debates about
global warming seem to boil down to appeals to authority, with
one side or the other citing some famous scientist, or group of
them, to buttress a particular argument. The tone is often, “My
expert is better than yours!” Against this backdrop, some
analysts have been trying for several years to get a firm handle
on where climate researchers come down, as a group, on the
central issues in the global-warming debate: Is the earth warming
up, and if so, are humans largely responsible? Posted.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/evidence-for-a-consensus-on-climate-change/

Economy Exacerbates the High Cost of School Bus CNG Fuel Tanks.
Last month, the South Coast Air Quality Management District
announced one of its largest CNG school bus awards to the tune of
$25 million. In this economy, especially, it sounds like quite a
windfall for school districts. The award states that Los Angeles
Unified School District will be able to use the funds to purchase
80 new CNG school buses. In all, six Southland school districts
received more than $16.6 million for new CNG buses, with L.A.
Unified leading the way with more than $13.5 million alone.
Posted.
http://www.stnonline.com/blogs/school-bus-bay/2358-25-million-going-to-california-school-buses-for-replacements-retrofits

What The EPA Can, And Can't, Do. With senators beginning to
whine that John Kerry is annoying them by talking climate when
they want to talk midterms, it's worth thinking seriously about
what can be done on climate change in the absence of a bill that
prices carbon. Posted.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/what_the_epa_can_and_cant_do.html

A Utilities-Only Cap-And-Trade. The big movement on the
climate-change bill today is that various power players --
including, most importantly, Rahm Emanuel -- are talking up a
"utilities-only cap-and-trade bill." To put this in the simplest
terms, it would mean that we price carbon in utilities but not
cars. Posted.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/a_utilities-only_cap-and-trade.html

A Partial Price on Carbon. The odds remain slight that Congress
will put a price on carbon across the whole economy. But there’s
still a chance that it may put a price on carbon for only power
plants (but not for factories or transportation.) Posted.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/a-partial-price-on-carbon/?src=busln