What's New List Serve Post Display

CARB Newsclips for February 17, 2017. 

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.

CARB BUSINESS

The California Air Resources Board will conduct a public meeting
at the time and place noted below for the following two items: 
Public Meeting to Consider the 2016 Ozone Sip for Ventura County
and to Consider the Ozone SIP for San Diego County. 

          DATE:  March 23 and 24, 2017

          TIME:  9:00 a.m.

      LOCATION:  County of Riverside
                 County Administrative Center
                 1st Floor Board Chambers
                 4080 Lemon Street
                 Riverside, CA 92501

Interested members of the public may present comments orally or
in writing at the meeting and may provide comments by postal mail
or by electronic submittal before the meeting.  To be considered
by the Board, written comments not physically submitted at the
meeting, must be received no later than 5:00 pm, March 20, 2017
and addressed to the following: 

Postal mail:  Clerk of the Board, Air Resources Board
              1001 I Street, Sacramento, California 95814

Electronic Submittal:
              http://www.arb.ca.gov/lispub/comm/bclist.php 

To provide your comments before the Board meeting and to view the
Notices listed below please go to:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/lispub/comm/bclist.php

1)            Notice of Public Meeting to Consider the 2016 Ozone
SIP for
Ventura County

Further inquiries regarding this matter should be directed to
Austin Hicks, Air Pollution Specialist, South Coast Air Quality
Planning Section at (916) 322-8279 or Carol Sutkus, Manager of
the South Coast Air Quality Planning Section at (916) 322-1229.

The report may also be obtained from ARB’s website at
https://www.arb.ca.gov/planning/sip/planarea/vensip.htm


2)        Notice of Public Meeting to Consider the Ozone SIP for
San Diego County

Further inquiries regarding this matter should be directed to
Monica Lewis, Air Pollution Specialist, South Coast Air Quality
Planning Section at (916) 324-2716 or Carol Sutkus, Manager of
the South Coast Air Quality Planning Section at (916) 322-1229. 


The report may also be obtained from ARB’s website at
https://www.arb.ca.gov/planning/sip/planarea/sansip.htm  


The Air Resources Board has posted an Errata for the proposed
Regulation for Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for Crude Oil
and Natural Gas Facilities. 

On February 3, 2017, the Air Resources Board released a “Notice
of Public Availability of Modified Text and Availability of
Additional Documents and/or Information” for the proposed
Regulation for Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for Crude Oil
and Natural Gas Facilities. The deadline for public comment on
the modified text and additional documents is February 21, 2017.

PLEASE BE ADVISED that Attachment 2, the additional documents to
the Notice of Public Availability of Modified Text and
Availability of Additional Documents and/or Information, has a
few minor errors, as described below. The errors are located on
page 4 of the “Revised Emission and Cost Estimates for the Leak
Detection and Repair Provision” document, which is posted at the
following website:
https://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/2016/oilandgas2016/oilandgas2016.htm


1.            In Table 2, the costs in the Set Up Cost column
should  have
been multiplied by a cost recovery factor of 0.23, reflecting
that the these costs are amortized over five years, because
stakeholders commented that it is anticipated that LDAR vendors
will change every five years, thereby requiring a new set up
cost.  The remaining values in Table 2 are correct.

2.            The Set Up Cost calculation equation now correctly
shows the
cost recovery factor of 0.23, along with an explanation of why
this cost is amortized.

This errata, including the attachment which illustrates the
corrections and the complete notice of public availability of
modified text and availability of additional documents and/or
information are available on ARB’s website at the following
address:
https://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/2016/oilandgas2016/oilandgas2016.htm


Any questions regarding these corrections should be directed to
Jim Nyarady, Manager, Oil & Gas Section, at (916) 322-8273 

CAP AND TRADE

State leaning toward cap-and-trade extension. Cap and trade is
still gathering momentum as the state's preferred policy to
reduce emissions despite anti-poverty groups' best efforts to
stymie it. Activists who oppose cap and trade for its potential
to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions while allowing emissions
at individual facilities to increase have mounted a fierce
battle…
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/02/17/stories/1060050243 

AIR POLLUTION

Oakland warehouse fire: Air quality district to investigate
charred debris dump. Saying he had “extreme concerns” over the
mysterious dumping of charred debris from December’s fatal Ghost
Ship fire in an open field, the Bay Area’s top air quality
regulator said Thursday he will launch an investigation to check
for asbestos and other contaminants.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/17/oakland-warehouse-fire-air-quality-district-to-investigate-charred-debris-dump/


Global Pressures to Fix Climate Change Push Demand for Air
Quality Control Systems. Global pressures to fix climate change
are prompting industrial and manufacturing facilities to
implement air quality systems to comply with clean air standards.
The demand is escalating further because economies are expanding
and the resulting increase in housing and construction, all of
which use iron and steel.
https://www.environmentalleader.com/2017/02/global-pressures-fix-climate-change-push-demand-air-quality-control-systems/


London to tax old cars to combat air pollution. Motorists in
London who own old polluting vehicles are to be hit with a new
charge from October, Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Friday, two days
after the EU ordered Britain to cut air pollution. "The context
is this: over 9,000 Londoners die each year because of low
quality air," Khan told the BBC after announcing the new "Toxic
Charge".
https://www.yahoo.com/news/london-tax-old-cars-combat-air-pollution-105840840.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2888048/pollution-cars-fined-toxicity-charge/
 

CLIMATE CHANGE

New supercomputer aids climate research in top coal state. A new
supercomputer in the top coal-mining state has begun critical
climate-change research with support from even some global
warming doubters, but scientists worry President Donald Trump
could cut funding for such programs. The $30 million, house-sized
supercomputer named Cheyenne belongs to a federally funded
research center. It got to work a few 
weeks ago crunching numbers for several ambitious projects, from
modeling air currents at wind farms to figuring out how to better
predict weather months to years in advance.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CLIMATE_SUPERCOMPUTER?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


Climate change is threatening to push a crowded capital toward a
breaking point. On bad days, you can smell the stench from a mile
away, drifting over a nowhere sprawl of highways and office
parks. When the Grand Canal was completed, at the end of the
1800s, it was Mexico City’s Brooklyn Bridge, a major feat of
engineering and a symbol of civic pride: 29 miles long…
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/17/world/americas/mexico-city-sinking.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fearth&action=click&contentCollection=earth®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront


Will This Climate Change Supercomputer Survive? A new
supercomputer in the top coal-mining state has begun critical
climate-change research with support from even some global
warming doubters, but scientists worry President Donald Trump
could cut funding for such programs. The $30 million, house-sized
supercomputer named Cheyenne belongs to a federally funded
research center.
http://www.agweb.com/article/will-this-climate-change-supercomputer-survive-naa-associated-press/


Scientists keep an eye out for another El Niño. There's a chance
that an El Niño event could form this year, according to
scientists. El Niño events — characterized by warm weather and
stormy conditions over the Pacific Ocean — generally take place
every two to seven years. Normally, a warm event is followed by a
cooler La Niña event. 
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/02/17/stories/1060050219 

Obama's lame-duck EPA signed last-minute climate waivers. U.S.
EPA signed off on five environmental waivers for California in
the waning days of the Obama administration, clearing the decks
for any short-term clash over climate change policies between the
state and President Trump's administration.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/02/17/stories/1060050240 

Lawmakers eye shifting climate research from NASA. Lawmakers are
remaking NASA in order to leave parts of the agency's earth
science program untouched but remove its climate change research.
It's still unclear exactly how lawmakers plan to transform NASA's
mission, but Republicans and Trump administration officials have
said they want the agency to focus on deep-space missions and
away from climate change research…
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/02/17/stories/1060050245 

Highway agency drops mentions of climate change. The Federal
Highway Administration has replaced the term "climate change"
with "resilience" in some of its bureaucracy. A team working to
prepare the country's roads for global warming and to reduce
vehicle emissions, previously called the "Sustainable Transport
and Climate Change" group, adopted the name…
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/02/17/stories/1060050242 

Moody's: Rest of world may pick up U.S. slack on emissions.
Nations are still on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
worldwide, despite promises from the Trump administration to roll
back American environmental policies, Moody's Investors Service
said. In a report published yesterday, analysts at the ratings
agency said the United States will likely set less ambitious…
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/02/17/stories/1060050238 

DROUGHT

Brazil races against time to save drought-hit city, dying crops.
The shrunken carcasses of cows lie in scorched fields outside the
city of Campina Grande in northeast Brazil, and hungry goats
search for food on the cracked-earth floor of the Boqueirao
reservoir that serves the desperate town. After five years of
drought, farmer Edivaldo Brito says he cannot remember when the
Boqueirão reservoir was last full. But he has never seen it this
empty.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-drought-idUSKBN15W1HP 

Record drought + record rain = toppled trees. How do you know if
your tree is in trouble?  At Elysian Park near Dodger Stadium
last weekend, hikers walked their dogs along the popular hiking
trail, unconcerned by a recently toppled tree. But with more
winter storms predicted, and news of a 100-year-old pine tree
falling on a house and car in Pasadena on Tuesday, it’s hard for
homeowners to be equally nonchalant.
http://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-fallen-trees-20170215-story.html


FUELS

EPA Nominee Pruitt Ordered to Produce Documents About Fossil Fuel
Ties. An Oklahoma judge, responding to a suit by an advocacy
group, has ordered Scott Pruitt to turn over records, although
the deadline is after his likely confirmation. An Oklahoma judge
on Thursday ordered the state's attorney general, Scott Pruitt,
to quickly release thousands of pages of documents after years of
delay.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16022017/epa-scott-pruitt-oklahoma-judge-oil-gas?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=a2c2f35560-Today_s_Climate12_10_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-a2c2f35560-327747457


MISCELLANEOUS

Pruitt OK'd as EPA chief over environmentalists' objections. Over
the strong objections of environmental groups, the Senate
confirmed Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection
Agency on Friday, giving President Donald Trump an eager partner
to fulfill his campaign pledge to increase the use of
planet-warming fossil fuels. In six years as Oklahoma's attorney
general, Pruitt filed 14 lawsuits challenging EPA regulations…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SENATE_TRUMP_CABINET?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

OTHER RELATED STORIES
http://www.sfgate.com/local/politics/article/Senate-will-vote-on-EPA-nominee-won-t-see-10940832.php

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/us/politics/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency.html?mtrref=undefined

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/The-Latest-Senate-confirms-Mulvaney-as-budget-10937418.php


CalEPA Task Force Steps Up Enforcement In West Oakland. West
Oakland can expect increased enforcement of trucking emissions,
backyard businesses and stormwater runoff in the next few months
as a new environmental justice task force gets to work, according
to representatives of the state Environmental Protection Agency.
Representatives of CalEPA met with residents at the West Oakland
Senior Center…
http://hoodline.com/2017/02/calepa-task-force-steps-up-enforcement-in-west-oakland


OPINIONS

The bipartisan solution to climate change. In the four years that
I’ve worked daily to promote solutions to climate change, I’ve
experienced more ups and downs than I could possibly count. I’m
not going to lie — election day was definitely a low point. How
do we build toward prudent, workable policy solutions when the
new president is also climate denier-in-chief?
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/four-744320-climate-years.html




California is in a drought emergency.
Visit www.SaveOurH2O.org for water conservation tips.