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newsclips -- Newsclips for October 21, 2010.
Posted: 21 Oct 2010 12:12:22
California Air Resources Board News Clips for October 21, 2010. 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 Paying To Pollute? New Smog Fee Proposed. Drivers in the San Joaquin Valley may soon be paying to pollute with a new smog fee attached to yearly vehicle registration. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District says the recommended surcharge could be $10 to $24 and will go into a fund for pollution control efforts. The exhausting problem started this past summer, when the federal government fined the Valley for exceeded ozone emissions limits. Posted. http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=101809&catid=29 http://www.modbee.com/2010/10/20/1392567/air-board-ponders-tighter-rules.html http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/105399183.html San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District ponders tighter rules. Air quality officials today will consider expanding rules aimed at reducing emissions from dairy farms and other livestock operations. The board of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District will take up the issue at its Fresno headquarters. People in the north valley can address the board via a video feed in Modesto. The rules, adopted in 2006, deal with volatile organic compounds, which mix with other pollutants and sunlight to form smog.. Posted. http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/20/v-print/3120378/san-joaquin-valley-air-pollution.html Tehama to Consider Air Pollution Fees. Nearly a year after rejecting an initial proposal, Tehama County supervisors are poised to vote next week on a set of new-construction fees aimed at reducing air pollution. Under the latest plan the so-called indirect source fees would be phased in, charged at 50 percent starting July 1 with the full amount kicking in Jan. 1, 2012. That means, for example, developers would pay $172 per single-family home during the initial six-month period before the fee goes to $344. Posted. http://www.redding.com/news/2010/oct/20/tehama-to-consider-air-pollution-fees/ Release Of Divisive EPA Ozone Regs Seen As Unlikely Before Election. With Election Day less than two weeks away and Republicans rallying around their opposition to U.S. EPA regulations, the agency is expected to wait before it tightens the nationwide limit on ozone pollution. At issue is the Obama administration's revision of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, which is linked to breathing problems and heart disease. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2010/10/21/1 CLIMATE CHANGE Gates Gives $700,000 To No On 23 Campaign. Bill Gates, the nation's wealthiest man, has donated $700,000 to the campaign opposing the rollback of the state's landmark climate change law. Gates, Microsoft Corp.'s co-founder is the latest high-tech billionaire to back the state's 4-year-old greenhouse gas reduction law. Last week, Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin contributed $200,000 to the No on 23 committee while Intel Corp. co-founder Gordon Moore contributed $1 million. Posted. http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/21/v-print/3119960/gates-gives-700000-to-no-on-23.html http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/10/20/2125942/bill-gates-contributes-700000.html#ixzz130je9hZr UofA to head SW Climate Science Center. The University of Arizona will head the Southwest Climate Science Center. It's one of eight regional centers being set up by the U.S. Department of the Interior to assess the impact of climate change on natural and cultural resources. The Arizona Daily Star says the UofA will set up the center with a five-year, $3.1 million grant. The effort will bring together university and federal researchers. Also involved are researchers from UCLA, the University of Colorado-Boulder, University of California-Davis, the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nev., and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/10/20/state/n171632D18.DTL&type=science California Vote Has Canadian Green Partners on Edge. Canadian provinces moving to cut their greenhouse gas emissions are facing a setback if California, a key partner, decides the battle against global warming should wait for better economic times. British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario plan to launch a carbon cap-and-trade market with California and New Mexico in 2012 -- a market scheduled to be joined later by Manitoba and at least four additional U.S. states. Posted. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69J5FA20101020 U.K. ‘Stealth’ Carbon Tax May Add 10% to Company Energy Bills. The U.K. Treasury’s decision to keep about 3.5 billion pounds ($5.5 billion) from a carbon-cutting program for large electricity users may add 10 percent to energy bills for universities, hospitals and shops. The change, announced by the Treasury yesterday after Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s spending review, will add about a tenth more to the bills of the program’s participants, said Ben Wielgus, lead adviser on the program for the accounting firm KPMG. Posted. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2010-10-21/u-k-stealth-carbon-tax-may-add-10-to-company-energy-bills.html Poll Has Calif. Climate Referendum Headed For Defeat. A California ballot measure that would derail the state's climate change law by linking it to the worst unemployment figures in a generation is headed for defeat in less than two weeks' time, according a poll out from the Public Policy Institute of California. In a survey conducted Oct. 10-17, the nonpartisan research organization found that 48 percent of those polled intend to vote "no" on Proposition 23, which would suspend the climate law until unemployment drops to 5.5 percent for a full year. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/10/21/3 Californians to Vote on Greenhouse Gas Law . On November 2, Californians will cast a critical vote pertaining to the balance of environmental policy with economic stability. A state ballot initiative, Proposition 23 (The California Jobs Initiative), would suspend implementation of A.B. 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, until the state’s unemployment rate records four consecutive quarters at 5.5% or lower. NACS fully supports this initiative, which highlights the need to balance environmental regulations with economic stability. Posted. http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/News/Daily/Pages/ND102110.aspx DIESEL Clean Diesel, Upcoming GHG Standards Topics at Washington, D.C., Event. This political season is full of angry noise about intrusive, wasteful government regulation, but on Tuesday a choir of businessmen and regulators gathered in Washington, D.C., to sing praises of each other. Truck and engine manufacturers joined with environmental activists and the Environmental Protection Agency to celebrate a successful, decade-long effort to build a clean diesel engine -- and to look ahead to upcoming fuel efficiency standards. Posted. http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/news-detail.asp?news_id=71990 FUELS State Dept. Poised To Approve Oil-Sands Pipeline. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appears ready to approve an oil pipeline stretching from Canada to Texas that has been decried by environmentalists for its potential to increase greenhouse gas emissions. In remarks in San Francisco, Clinton said "we've not yet signed off on it. But we are inclined to do so" in reference to the Canada-United States pipeline, known as Keystone XL. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/10/21/6 GREEN ENERGY SF Opens up Green Power Grid to Boats. Anyone who's watched the picturesque ferries chugging across the bay has probably noticed that there's something not-so-picturesque about them: plumes of exhaust. In an effort to cut down on emissions in the Bay, San Francisco has unveiled technology to connect boats to the city's power grid. Only three other ports in the world offer such a feature, with Los Angeles and San Diego expecting to follow suit soon. It took five years to make San Francisco's new electrical connection possible. Posted. http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/green/SF-Opens-up-Green-Power-Grid-to-Boats-104512769.html Porterville Solar Facility To Power 4,300 Homes. By the end of the year, Porterville will become home to California’s largest utility-owned photovoltaic solar facility generating enough power for 4,300 homes in the area. The first of the 29,000 solar panels was put in place last week at the 34-acre project site adjacent to the Porterville Municipal Airport. Posted. http://www.thebusinessjournal.com/energy/6827-porterville-solar-facility-to-power-4300-homes Calif. Gets More Time To Deliver Stimulus Cash For Retrofits. The Obama administration has granted California a reprieve from today's deadline for delivering $33 million in stimulus cash for energy efficiency retrofits. The state's distribution of the cash is hung up by a lawsuit, which led last week to a temporary injunction against its plan to link homeowners with incentives and contractors via a new website, Energy Upgrade California. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2010/10/21/14 Concerns Rise That A GOP Wave Could Wash Away State Climate Policies. A liberal advocacy group warns that state climate policies may suffer if Republicans win gubernatorial races in key battleground states. But those rollbacks would be difficult to achieve, says an outgoing Democratic governor, who likened such reversals to a "magic act." At stake in the coming elections are several state renewable energy standards, says the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/10/21/4 VEHICLES GM Unveils Compressed Natural Gas Cargo Vans. General Motors unveiled a compressed natural gas cargo van this week at the Green Fleet Conference in San Diego, indicating the company's primary fuel preference for a new wave of light-duty vehicles. Domestic competitor Ford (NYSE: F) and several foreign automakers are developing plug-in electric fleet vehicles. But GM has chosen natural gas--though it hedged its bet in August with an investment in Bright Automotive, which is building a plug-in hybrid cargo van, designed from the ground up for commercial and government fleets. Posted. http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/21274 Technology, Legislation Aim To Curb Black Carbon Emissions. The effect that black carbon has on the global climate is an issue that is complex and poorly understood but also heavily tied to the successful implementation of advanced diesel technology. Targets for reducing vehicle emissions in the trucking, construction, agriculture and maritime sectors have been made primarily to address local air quality and health concerns arising from smog-forming emissions. Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/10/21/5 OPINION Reverse AB 32 With Proposition 23. Economists are famous for avoiding definitive statements by saying “on the one hand” followed immediately by “on the other hand.” In the case of California’s Proposition 23, however, the sound one would hear from economists is both hands clapping. Voters will take up Prop. 23 in less than four weeks, but the ramifications will last decades. Posted. http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?_c=z7uxqt326b9f0o&xid=z7ujnd72gf93is&done=.z7uxqt326bvf0o# Don’t Let Corporations Push 23 Through. Who will benefit from Proposition 23? Certainly not California citizens, who will lose the cleaner air and green energy jobs coming through in the four years since Assembly Bill 32 put California in the lead for pollution accountability by corporations. Follow the money! The dollars for those ads are coming from Tesoro, Valero and undercover donors like the Koch Brothers. Oil companies from Texas are manipulating genuine concern about jobs with a false connection between pollution regulation and lost jobs. Posted. http://napavalleyregister.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_8171f89a-dcde-11df-96e1-001cc4c002e0.html No Clear Consensus on Effects of Prop. 23. Exactly what would happen if voters approve Proposition 23 in the Nov. 2 election is up for as much debate as the ballot measure itself. Opponents of the proposition, which would indefinitely suspend the state’s landmark climate-change law that seeks to reduce carbon dioxide emissions— argue it would create a confusing mix of rules. Posted. http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/oct/20/no-clear-consensus-on-effects-of-prop-23/#ixzz130er5Nzz BLOGS Climate: Why Bipartisanship on Energy Won't Be Easy—and Why It's Necessary. Last week I wrote about a paper on energy and climate policy that came from scholars at the leftish Brookings Institution, the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the (centrist and technology-focused) Breakthrough Institute. Called "Post-Partisan Power" (download a PDF here), the paper laid out a research and development focused approach to energy and climate policy. Instead of a firm carbon cap—which is dead now—Posted. http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/10/21/climate-why-bipartisanship-on-energy-wont-be-easy%E2%80%94and-why-its-necessary/#ixzz1310PnOaS The Cost Of Emissions. I just recently listened to an interesting presentation by Tom Marangon, managing director of Baumot UK, which makes diesel particulate filters (DPF) for a variety of diesel-powered applications worldwide. From Marangon’s point of view, one of the major “cost points” in the grand global emission control debate that does NOT get discussed enough is how reducing vehicle emissions – particularly particulate matter (PM) or soot from diesel engines – reduces health care expenses while eliminating a far more potent accelerant of “climate change. Posted. http://blog.fleetowner.com/trucks_at_work/2010/10/21/the-cost-of-emissions/ Carbon Reduction Beyond Cap and Trade or the Carbon Tax. With All The Commotion Over The Up Coming November Mid-Term Elections, The Recent Death Of Cap-And-Trade Has Been Quietly Dismissed. The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), more commonly known as the Waxman-Markey Bill, was intended to set a price for carbon. Since the threat of pricing carbon through legislation has disappeared, the current market for carbon offsets at the Chicago Climate Exchange has plummeted next to zero. Posted. http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/10/carbon-reduction-beyond-cap-trade-carbon-tax/ But What about the Children? Calling Climate Champions. The Air Resources Board announced today the creation of what they're calling a "Climate Generation Program" - it's modeled after the British Council's similar program in the UK and elsewhere. The idea is to compete through school and homework to connect their lives to the environment. Posted. http://www.scpr.org/blogs/environment/2010/10/20/what-about-children-climate-champions/ Motorists May Foot Bill for Pollution Fines. San Joaquin Valley residents may soon have to chip in and help clean the air dirtied by their cars’ emissions. At least that’s what the valley’s air district regulators are proposing: A $10 to $24 surcharge tacked onto residents’ annual car and truck registration fees. The district is facing a $29 million fine for exceeding federal ozone limits. In order to keep that fine off the backs of the industries and businesses in the region, officials are looking to have drivers help out. Posted. http://californiawatch.org/watchblog/motorists-may-foot-bill-pollution-fines-5854