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California Air Resources Board News Clips for February 11, 2011.

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

NJ Sues PA. Coal Plant. Trenton, N.J. — New Jersey is joining in
a lawsuit that seeks to shut down a western Pennsylvania
coal-burning electricity generating plant over pollution. The
lawsuit was initially filed by the federal government, New York
and Pennsylvania. It wants the court to shut down the plant until
it meets standards of the Clean Air Act, civil penalties and
other relief. It calls the plant "one of the largest air
pollution sources in the nation." Posted.
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP722b2cc148c343329572657b6044d071.html

CLIMATE CHANGE

More Companies Push Sustainability, but Usually Not for Climate
Reasons – Study.  Corporations will work harder on sustainability
in 2011 even as the economy continues to limp and climate policy
stumbles, according to a new report. Whether they'll apply that
effort to cut carbon emissions, though, is a fuzzier question. 
In a broad survey of companies, 70 percent said they intend to
devote more money, or more attention from management, to
sustainability this year.  Posted. 
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/02/11/11climatewire-more-companies-push-sustainability-but-usual-60576.html?scp=8&sq=climate%20change&st=cse

GREEN ENERGY

LED Light Bulbs Are The Green Alternative To Standard Halogen
Light Bulbs, Right? Wrong, says a new study from UC Irvine and UC
Davis that suggests those good-for-the-environment light bulbs
contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially toxic and
hazardous substances. “LEDs are touted as the next generation of
lighting,” said Oladele Ogunseitan, the study's author and chair
of UC Irvine’s Department of Population Health and Disease
Prevention. “But as we try to find better products that do not
deplete energy resources or contribute to global warming, we have
to be vigilant about the toxicity hazards of those marketed as
replacements.” Posted.
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/uc-researchers-led-lights-contain-lead-arsenic-8634

VEHICLES

Snyder At Start Of Electric Vehicle Charger Plant. Livonia, Mich.
(AP) -- Gov. Rick Snyder says Michigan companies' production of
charging stations for electric vehicles puts the state at the
forefront of the growing industry. Snyder attended a news
conference Friday at the headquarters of Livonia-based Roush
Manufacturing for the start of mass production of the Blink Level
2 charging station. Roush received the contract from San
Francisco-based ECOtality Inc.to make the charger at a retooled
auto parts manufacturing facility in the Detroit suburb. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/02/11/state/n010159S27.DTL&type=printable
http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California/MI_Snyder_Electric_Vehicles_555134C.shtml

Volvo’s Electric Car Collision A Big Hit.  At the recent Detroit
Auto Show, Volvo Cars spotlighted the important issue of electric
car safety in an unusual but distinctive way.  On the company’s
stand there is a Volvo C30 Electric that has undergone a frontal
collision test at 40 mph (64 km/h).  Posted. 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/10/volvos-electric-car-collision-a-big-hit/
 

Officials Celebrate San Francisco's Charging Up To Handle
Electric Cars. San Francisco -- The West Coast -- and San
Francisco in particular -- is fulfilling federal dreams of a
robust electric vehicle infrastructure and green jobs, top
administration officials said yesterday. Nancy Sutley, chairwoman
of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, spoke in
front of a Tesla Roadster and a Chevy Volt, the latter of which
was plugged into a Coulomb Technologies charging station. She
invoked President Obama's State of the Union address, in which he
called for infrastructure funding reform and investment in
electric vehicles and high-speed rail (E&E Daily, Jan. 26).
Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2011/02/11/5

MISCELLANEOUS 

Kicking Our Fossil Fuels Habit.  About 65 minutes into “Carbon
Nation,” a peppy documentary about all sorts of technologies that
might help us kick our fossil fuels habit, the film acknowledges
its biggest shortcoming.  “If all these solutions are such great
ideas,” says the narrator, Bill Kurtis, “why haven’t they
happened yet?” Unfortunately, the director, Peter Byck, doesn’t
really tackle that question in the hard-nosed way that it needs
to be attacked.  Posted. 
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/movies/11carbon.html?scp=2&sq=air%20pollution&st=cse

Climate Change Skeptics Out-Dramatize Believers in London.  Two
plays about climate change hit the London stage this month, one
airing the views of the convinced and the other, those of the
skeptical. Both treat their subject in completely different
dramatic ways, but one succeeds, while the other fails dismally. 
Posted. 
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/02/11/11climatewire-climate-change-skeptics-out-dramatize-believ-85819.html?scp=4&sq=climate%20change&st=cse


OPINION

Republican Attack On EPA Will Deter Needed Action. A Supreme
Court decision, overwhelming science and even record snowstorms
don't matter to House Republicans. When it comes to climate
change, the new majority is in full denial. A House panel
excoriated Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson for
the White House's intention to limit carbon dioxide, the
heat-trapping culprit blamed for climate change. By treating her
as a punching bag, the GOP team can keep anti-regulatory fervor
alive for the next election and cut her budget. It's a
dog-and-pony show. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/11/EDTG1HLGMU.DTL&type=printable

Viewpoints: Changing Climate Will Make Coming Water Crisis Even
Worse. Climate change often seems like something remote, perhaps
affecting polar bears, or our great-great-grandchildren. The
scarcity of water, on the other hand, is all too immediate, with
the recent years of drought threatening present-day patterns of
life throughout the Southwest. What happens when the groundwater
is gone and the rivers run dry? If this sounds like a bad movie,
we've all been forced to watch a preview of it in the last few
years. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/11/v-print/3394092/changing-climate-will-make-coming.html

2011 Chevrolet Volt.  I seldom agree with the Car of the Year
awards given by magazines or panels of journalists, such as the
one issued at the North American International Auto Show in
Detroit. But I have participated in many of those presentations
and probably will do so again.  This year, however, I
enthusiastically agree with the car juries (none of which I was
on), including the NAIAS panel. The popular choice is the 2011
Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in electric hybrid hatchback sedan. 
Posted. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/11/AR2011021102741.html


BLOGS

Spill Commissioners Call for Review of Energy Policy. Two members
of President Obama’s commission on the Deepwater Horizon
explosion and spill said at a congressional hearing on Friday
that regulatory failures and industry overconfidence helped lead
to the catastrophe and called for an overhaul of federal
oversight of offshore drilling and a transition to safer, cleaner
forms of energy. Posted.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/spill-commissioners-call-for-review-of-energy-policy/?pagemode=print

For Oil Exec, an Electric Car Can Wait. There sure is a lot of
excitement percolating around plug-in hybrid and electric cars
these days. Chevrolet’s Volt and Nissan’s Leaf are the talk of
the car world, city governments are installing battery chargers,
and the Obama administration has promoted them. Even the TV
commercials for the battery chargers are cool. Bloomberg News A
Nissan employee installs a battery-charger component for a Leaf
vehicle at a plant in Yokosuka City, Japan. Posted.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/for-oil-exec-an-electric-car-can-wait/?pagemode=print

On Peer Review and (Climate) Progress.  Louis A. Derry, a Cornell
researcher and the editor of the journal  Geochemistry,
Geophysics, Geosystems, provides a valuable look inside the peer
review process in a comment on my piece assessing the debate over
Antarctic temperature trends. It merits space here as a “Your
Dot” contribution (a feature aimed at encouraging constructive
non-anonymous discussions).  Posted. 
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/on-peer-review-and-climate-progress/?scp=3&sq=Fuels&st=cse

Of Birds, Bats and Blades. The wind energy industry faces
multiple challenges in California. It's hard to find people who
are just flat out against wind energy. As with real estate,
attitudes seem to come down to location, location, location.
That's why three of the thorniest issues with wind are project
siting, transmission (lines for the power produced), and the
industry's turbulent history with birds and bats. Some of those
challenges are highlighted in this slide show, designed to
accompany my two-part radio series. Posted.
http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2011/02/10/of-birds-bats-and-blades/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FClimateWatchBlog+%28KQED%27s+Climate+Watch+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Who Wants to Cash in on Gutting the Clean Air Act? The latest
attacks on the Clean Air Act are not about policy or even
politics; they're about corruption, plain and simple. We see
these attacks coming from both Republicans and Democrats, but
nearly all of them are coming from lawmakers who have received
large infusions of cash or pressure from big polluters like the
coal industry. Most telling, the attacks are coming from elected
officials who have previously acknowledged and discussed the
dangers of climate change. Posted.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-butler/who-wants-to-cash-in-on-t_b_821463.html

We Need a Clean Energy Hiring Plan. Last week's job numbers
confirmed for yet another month that in order to truly get our
economy moving we need a national jobs strategy that unleashes
the innovation and ingenuity of the American people to move our
country forward and to get people back to work. President Obama
two weeks ago in his State of the Union called this moment our
generation's "Sputnik moment." He challenged Americans to win the
jobs and industries of the future. The president declared, "We
know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our
time. Posted.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-foster/david-foster-we-need-a-cl_b_819617.html?view=print