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California Air Resources Board News Clips for December 2, 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

Living Near a Major Road Tied To Preterm Birth: Study. Women
living near major, heavily-trafficked roads were more likely to
give birth prematurely, perhaps due to traffic-related  air
pollution, according to a Japanese study. But Takashi Yorifuji,
of the Okayama Graduate School of Medicine, and his team said it
was still too early to see a clear link, while other medical
experts said noise pollution might also be a factor. Posted.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B10HA20101202

Experts Hone Plan to Burn down Chemical-Laden House. Experts in
everything from air pollution to fire barriers honed a complex
plan Wednesday to burn the “bomb factory” home on the north edge
of Escondido. While they don’t have a turnkey strategy to deal
with a situation of this rarity, explosives experts said the
developing blueprint seems solid. “The plan is tight,” said Neal
Langerman, a San Diego-based chemistry expert. Posted.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/dec/01/county-keeping-weather-eye-bomb-factory-house-plan/

Draft Rules for Boilers Were Too Strict -- EPA Air Chief. Having
taken comment on controversial new regulations for industrial
boilers, U.S. EPA now believes that some pollution limits in the
draft rules "were simply too tight to be able to be achievable,"
the agency's air chief said today, signaling that the agency is
readying final regulations that won't be as tough on businesses.
When EPA issued the proposal in April, the agency was scrambling
to meet a court deadline, said Gina McCarthy, the agency's
assistant administrator for air and radiation, on the sidelines
of an event in Washington, D.C. There are many industries that
use boilers to power their operations, and the agency had very
little information on some of them. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2010/12/02/2

INLAND EMPIRE: EPA Officials Tour Environmental Trouble Spots. On
a tour Wednesday of Inland pollution hot spots, Susan Negrete
recalled her frustration at a meeting of the California Air
Resources Board. Negrete, who lives just north of the BNSF
Railway yard in San Bernardino, was looking for some kind of
action to reduce the emissions from the yard that she blames for
her children's asthma and some of her own health problems. She is
a longtime community activist. Posted.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_tour02.47479f7.html

Kettleman City: State Air Monitoring Stopped as Birth Defects
Increased. State regulators did not monitor air quality at a
toxic dump in rural Kettleman City, during a period when there
was a spike in the number of area babies born with birth defects.
According to an email obtained from the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, state regulators suspended independent air
monitoring for PCBs and pesticides at the Kettleman Hills waste
facility in April 2008. The facility processes about 4,000 tons
of PCBs per year. Those chemicals have been linked to serious
health problems, including cancer and liver failure. Posted.
http://www.capradio.org/articles/2010/12/01/kettleman-city-state-air-monitoring-stopped-as-birth-defects-increased

Air Pollution Control District Splits From County. The county Air
Pollution Control District is now its own separate agency. On
Wednesday, the district’s board of directors completed a yearlong
process of separating from the county, although the district will
continue to contract with the county for most of its
administrative services. As of Dec. 26, all of the district’s 23
full-time employees will work for the district rather than the
county. The agency’s services and staffing will remain the same.
The move was not without some last-minute controversy. Posted.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2010/12/01/1391776/air-pollution-control-district.html#ixzz16ySLR6kV

New Air District Incentive Program Helps Fund Ag Tractor
Replacement. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control
District is offering incentive grant funds to help growers comply
with pending air quality requirements for ag tractors.
Applications are being accepted through Dec. 31, 2010, for
program funds which come from a combination of local, state and
federal sources. The monetary incentives are designed to help
growers replace older, high-polluting off-road tractors with new,
reduced-emission tractors. The State Air Resources Board is
developing rules that will go into effect in 2014 that will
require the retrofitting and/or replacement of high-polluting
engines in older off-road agricultural vehicles, such as
tractors, harvesters, sweepers and other equipment. Posted.
http://westernfarmpress.com/equipment/new-air-district-incentive-program-helps-fund-ag-tractor-replacement

CLIMATE CHANGE

States Want Cap-and-Trade Added to U.S. EPA’s Carbon Regulations.
U.S. states with cap-and-trade laws want the Obama administration
to add their carbon markets into new federal greenhouse-gas
regulations, a California environmental official said. State-run
carbon-trading programs should be “treated as equivalents or
substitutes” for Environmental Protection Agency regulations for
emissions tied to global warming from power plants, oil
refineries and factories, Mary Nichols, chairman of the
California Air Resources Board, said yesterday in a telephone
interview. Posted.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/states-want-cap-and-trade-added-to-u-s-epa-s-carbon-regulations.html

Republicans Killing Climate Committee. Republicans plan to
eliminate the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and
Global Warming, which was created in 2007 by the current speaker,
Nancy Pelosi, to examine climate change and press for possible
caps on carbon dioxide emissions. Climate change matters are
overseen by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as well as
the Natural Resources Committee; the select committee did not
pass legislation but did hold hearings, which will cease in the
new Congress. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/politics/02brfs-REPUBLICANSK_BRF.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-01/pelosi-s-climate-change-panel-will-become-casualty-of-republican-takeover.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/12/house-republicans-nix-global-w.html
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/12/house-republicans-global-warming-committee/1

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20024399-503544.html
http://www.modbee.com/2010/12/01/1453176/house-republicans-kill-global.html#ixzz16ybshIor

Plant Breeders Preparing For Climate Change. This week's United
Nations' conference on climate change in Cancun, Mexico may or
may not actually accomplish anything about climate change. But
crop breeders in India have already created varieties of vital
plants for farmers in areas likely to be strongly affected by
increasingly erratic weather patterns. Posted.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/12/plant-breeders-preparing-for-climate-change/1

Deficit Panel Cuts Energy Subsidies and Perhaps Carbon Emissions,
Too. The president's deficit commission proposed slashing energy
tax breaks yesterday, a move that could make renewable power more
competitive and help chisel down greenhouse gas emissions. But
the plan is brimming with political pitfalls and vagueness around
whether clean power subsidies might also be axed to curb the
nation's rising debt. Some economists and observers had hoped the
anticipated report would recommend raising needed revenue through
a new tax on carbon emissions, arguing it would decrease both
personal income taxes and air pollution. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/02/1

Post-Election Analysis Shows California's Democrats Swung Vote On
Climate Measure. California Democrats overwhelmingly voted
against a ballot measure in November that would have suspended
the state's global warming law, according to an analysis of
election results released last night by a nonpartisan policy
group. In a survey of California voters, the Public Policy
Institute of California found that Proposition 23 -- which would
have delayed the onset of A.B. 32 until unemployment improved in
the state -- was defeated behind 72 percent of Democratic voters
and 64 percent of independents. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/02/3

More Research Needed On Climate Change Effects In Arctic, Oceans
-- IPCC Chief. The world needs to invest more to fill "huge gaps"
in climate science research, the head of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change said on Tuesday as negotiators gathered
in Cancun, Mexico, for the latest round of climate talks. "There
are huge gaps in the effort as far as scientific research is
concerned," said Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the panel.
"What is being done today is certainly far from adequate."
Scientists, he said, need to know more about what effect warming
will have on permafrost in the Arctic. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/02/9

GREEN ENERGY

S.F. Approves Biodiesel Plant After Long Delay. San Francisco's
fat can become fuel after a long-stalled biodiesel production
facility on San Francisco's southeastern waterfront gained
approval from the city's Port Commission. The new operation,
owned by Darling International Inc., will produce 10 million
gallons of biofuel each year using leftover cooking oil. Darling
has been operating at Pier 92 since the 1960s, and already
creates tallow by melting down bones, grease and other animal
waste products from meatpacking facilities, grocers and
restaurants. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/02/BUSB1GK72T.DTL&type=printable

Brown May Find It's Not Easy Being Green. Governor-elect's plan
to expand the state's green-energy industry could mean sharply
higher costs for consumers. Jerry Brown ran for governor
promising to revive the economy through an aggressive expansion
of California's green-energy industry — but that agenda could
prove costly to consumers. Brown wants the state to make major
new investments in solar and wind power: building large-scale
power plants that run on renewable resources and placing solar
panels on parking-lot roofs, school buildings and along the banks
of state highways. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-brown-jobs-20101202,0,6338718,print.story

An Array of Companies Blooms to Ease the Often Difficult Path to
Solar. Saratoga, Calif. -- Here in the Golden State, there's a
burgeoning business in selling solar panels for the home. There's
also a business in making it less of a headache. Edward Lortz
knows about the headache side. Two years ago, he began
researching solar panels for his home in Potrero Hill, a San
Francisco neighborhood that overlooks the bay. He expected an
avalanche of data, but he figured he could handle it. In his
30-year career as a marine engineer, "one of the complaints was
that I overanalyze things. Still do." Months went by. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/02/2

DOE Expands Its Efforts In Clean Energy Supercomputing. Clean
energy is getting new attention from the nation's top
supercomputers. This week, the Energy Department announced its
largest-ever awards for computing time on its systems, hosted at
Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories. The awards of this
limited resource were given to a diverse field of 57 projects. A
number of the new awards -- as well as many renewals -- target
either clean energy technologies or climate research. One of the
new awards will go to a research group at Oak Ridge that will
study ways to increase the production efficiency of cellulosic
ethanol. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/02/8

Wood Chip Electricity Plant Gets Green Light but Raises Red
Flags. A wood chip fired electricity generation plant proposed
near Ione likely will face appeals that could further delay its
operation despite winning approval this week from the Amador
County Planning Commission. The Buena Vista Biomass Power project
seeks to convert a former coal-fired plant on Coal Mine Road
north of Camanche Lake to burn wood waste to generate 18.5
megawatts of electricity. Sacramento Municipal Utility District
would buy all of the plant's power production. Posted.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101202/A_NEWS/12020324

VEHICLES

Air District Offering $1,000 for Old Vehicles. High Desert
residents with cars, trucks, vans and other vehicles 20-years-old
or older will be able to obtain $1,000 for turning them in to the
local air quality management district. The Mojave Desert Air
Quality Management District is buying old vehicles that are
registered, still operable and have passed a recent smog test in
an effort to reduce air pollution in the High Desert. And unlike
the Cash For Clunkers program in 2009, residents aren’t required
to buy a new car, said Violette Roberts, the district’s community
relations and education manager. Posted.
http://www.desertdispatch.com/news/air-9813-vehicles-desert.html

MISCELLANEOUS

EPA Chief Prepares For the Fight Ahead. Not many Environmental
Protection Agency administrators are likely to belt out a Stevie
Wonder tune when discussing the importance of air quality. But in
the midst of a recent interview, Lisa P. Jackson delivered a
slightly off-key rendition of the 1973 hit "Living for the City"
to make a point about why she does her job: "He spends his life
walking the streets of New York City/He's almost dead from
breathing in air pollution/He tried to vote but there's no
solution/Living just enough, just enough for the city."  Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/01/AR2010120107050.html

Real Christmas Trees, Even Cut Down, Aid Environment, Advocates
Say. Cut down a tree. It's good for the environment. "We've been
telling people that for years," said Jane Harris, but she would
say that. Her family has operated Harris Tree Farm in Pollock
Pines for half a century. Now she has some environmental movement
support. The Nature Conservancy is campaigning for people to use
real Christmas trees, not the manufactured kind, as a way to
lower our carbon footprint. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/02/v-print/3226705/cut-for-a-good-causeeven-chopped.html

U.K.'S First Nearly Carbon-Free Gas Power Plant To Be Built
Within A Year. The United Kingdom's first almost carbon-free
gas-fired power plant should begin operating within a year as
part of a government competition to stimulate carbon capture and
storage (CCS) technology. The pilot plant is being built by
mining company Powerfuel PLC and Australian cement maker Calix.
It will use a pioneering technology to remove carbon from gas,
leaving behind hydrogen to drive turbines and generate
electricity. The plant will produce 10 megawatts, and is meant as
a demonstration to help win funds from the U.K. government and
the European Union. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/02/12

Methyl Iodide Gains State OK For Use On Crops. California
strawberry growers will be allowed to use a potent pesticide
listed by the state as a known cancer-causing chemical despite
vocal opposition from public health experts, environmentalists
and farm workers. On Wednesday, the state Department of Pesticide
Regulation gave final approval to methyl iodide, a fumigant
designed to eradicate bacteria, weeds and insects from growing
soils. Immediately after the approval, a group of opponents
called on Gov.-elect Jerry Brown to reverse the agency's action,
which they contend resulted after heavy lobbying by the chemical
industry. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/02/BAOQ1GKKKN.DTL&type=printable

OPINION

The EPA Turns 40. Forty years ago today, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency opened its doors, beginning a history of
improvements to our health and environment. We reach this
milestone exactly one month after the midterm elections
strengthened the influence of groups and individuals who threaten
to roll back the EPA's efforts. Last month's elections were not a
vote for dirtier air or more pollution in our water. No one was
sent to Congress with a mandate to increase health threats to our
children or return us to the era before the EPA's existence when,
for example, nearly every meal in America contained elements of
pesticides linked to nerve damage, cancer and sometimes death.
Posted.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704594804575648673952756954.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Catch a Greenie by His Tail. This week's climate-change talks
need to avoid the mistakes of a recent summit on tiger
conservation. The annual summit of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change began this week in Cancun, Mexico.
After talks in Copenhagen collapsed a year ago, no one is really
expecting a radical proposal for, say, emission cuts out of
Cancun. The first few days have produced only recommendations to
phase out incandescent light bulbs and phase in low-energy ones.
Whatever the climate in the future, the politics of climate
change remains about money. Posted.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703377504575649982721474298.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

U-T Letters: Global Warming, Dogs And ‘Don’t Ask’. Climate
science debate continues. In response to “World must act on
global warming” (Editorial, Nov. 28); “Climate legislation is
insurance for the planet” (Opinion, Nov. 28); and the interview
of Richard Somerville about global-warming scientific
communication (A scientific push to engage public opinion” (Local
reports Q&A, Nov. 28): All three of these pieces appearing at
once leads this skeptic to the conclusion that the U-T has bought
into man-made global warming as a worldwide problem of great
significance. Posted.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/dec/02/u-t-letters-global-warming-dogs-and-dont-ask/

BLOGS

Toyota Delivers Prius Plug-In Hybrids to New York City Officials.
Yoshi Inaba, president and chief operating officer of Toyota
Motor North America, Inc., made the announcement at a ceremony
this morning at New York City Hall and presented the cars to
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Janette Sadik-Khan, commissioner of
the city department of transportation. The small plug-in test
fleet is part of a broader program in the city to reduce its
emissions of carbon and greenhouse gases. It is also part of a
Toyota’s preparation for launching the plug-in cars in 2012.
Posted.
http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2010/12/02/toyota-delivers-prius-plug-in-hybrids-to-new-york-city-officials/

PG&E Taps Scrapped Appliances for Carbon Offsets. PG&E's other
offset sources include forests and methane capture projects.
Photo credit: buildandcreate, Sempervirens Fund. Northern
California’s largest utility is looking to old appliances to
supply carbon offsets for a customer program, a move that could
also bolster a nascent corner of the carbon credit market.
Pacific Gas and Electric this week said that it has added a new
offset project to its ClimateSmart program, which allows
residential and commercial customers to offset the emissions from
their electricity use through a surcharge on their monthly
utility bills. Posted.
http://sustainableindustries.com/blogs/sustainable-industries-blog/2010/12/pge-taps-scrapped-appliances-offsets

Does 29 Percent Of L.A.'s Smog Come From East Asia? Bay Area
Study: Dust Storms Carry Pollution over Pacific. To think -- all
that time we were faulting the scummy smog layer constantly
smothering Los Angeles on our own bad habits. Turns out it's been
China all along! That is, if L.A.'s Pacific positioning makes it
anything like San Francisco. We knew we hated the East for more
than freakish Tech War domination... Environmental Science and
Technology released some jaw-dropping truths about China's
contribution to San Francisco's sky grime last month. And, since
were only a few hundred miles down, we're assuming (praying) we
can piggyback this blame game for all it's worth. Posted.
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2010/12/smog_comes_from_china.php