What's New List Serve Post Display

CARB Newsclips for July 19, 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 (CARB) invites you to
participate in a public workshop July 19 & 20, 2017 to discuss
concepts for a regulatory revision intended to clarify
California’s racing vehicle definition.  Pursuant to California
law, racing vehicles, defined as competition vehicles not used on
public highways, are exempt from emissions control requirements.

Agenda:
https://www.arb.ca.gov/enf/racingvehicles/racingvehicles.htm     


_______________________________

The Air Resources Board (ARB) announces the launch of its new
California Dairy and Livestock GHG Reduction Working Group (Dairy
Working Group) and Subgroup list serves that will provide
interested stakeholders with up-to-date information about current
activities and processes.  Sign-up for the main Dairy Working
Group process List Serve:
https://www.arb.ca.gov/listserv/listserv_ind.php?listname=dairy  
   

CAP AND TRADE

A Canadian Province Pushes California on Climate Change.
California Governor Jerry Brown just won a big victory in his
efforts to fight climate change, but Canada’s Ontario province
has been pushing him to go further. As the two sides hammer out
details of a long-planned merger of their carbon markets, Ontario
minister for environment Glen Murray says there are holes in the
Golden State’s system…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-19/a-canadian-province-has-a-surprising-message-for-california


Eight Republicans backed Jerry Brown's climate change bill —
here's what that means for their political futures. How peculiar
are the politics of climate change in California? Just look at
this week’s vote on cap and trade, which saw a Republican former
grape farmer from Modesto and a Democratic former math teacher…
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-cap-trade-climate-change-california-legislature-political-landscape-20170719-htmlstory.html

What the approved cap-and-trade package could mean to Central
Valley residents. Legislation approved Monday by the state
lawmakers will extend the cap-and-trade program to combat global
warming, despite concerns it could raise gasoline prices. A
companion bill, AB 617, will require more localized monitoring of
air pollution and calls for the state Air Resources Board to
establish minimum standards…
http://www.modbee.com/news/article162288718.html#storylink=cpy 

Eight California Republicans defy national party line, support
climate change regulation. An almost surreal 2017 political scene
was on display Monday in Sacramento: Republicans and Democrats,
including Gov. Jerry Brown, standing on a stage together at a
late-night news conference — celebrating a climate-change policy
victory. The glimmer of bipartisanship over a tough vote…
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/18/eight-california-republicans-defy-national-party-line-support-climate-regulation/
 

Latest California innovation: A Republican case for cap and
trade. Minutes after a bipartisan coalition of California
lawmakers voted to extend the state’s landmark climate change
policy for another decade, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown stood in
front of a bank of television cameras and compared the plan to
one championed 30 years ago by GOP icon Ronald Reagan.
https://calmatters.org/articles/latest-california-innovation-republican-case-cap-trade/
 

AIR POLLUTION

Employers warned to offer commuter benefit to workers in Bay
Area. Air pollution regulators are warning thousands of Bay Area
employers they could be fined for failing to comply with a rule
requiring them to offer a commuter benefit to employees who get
to work via van pool, bus, train or bike. Under the 2014 rule
made permanent last year, employers with 50 or more full-time
workers…
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/18/bay-area-employers-warned-to-offer-commuter-benefit-to-workers/



LA, Long Beach ports’ plan to clean up air pollution will cost as
much as $14 billion. Declaring it the largest environmental
investment ever undertaken by a cargo complex to wean itself off
diesel dependency, Los Angeles and Long Beach port officials
today unveiled their Clean Air Action Plan update — with a price
tag that could reach $14 billion. The latest installment in a
decade-long effort to reduce pollution…
http://www.presstelegram.com/environment-and-nature/20170719/la-long-beach-ports-plan-to-clean-up-air-pollution-will-cost-as-much-as-14-billion
 

House votes to delay Obama-era smog reductions. The House voted
Tuesday to pass a Republican-backed bill delaying implementation
of Obama-era reductions in smog-causing air pollutants. Congress
voted 229 to 199 to approve the Ozone Standards Implementation
Act of 2017.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/house-votes-delay-obama-era-smog-reductions/


Heavy Smoke From Wildfires Causing Health Concerns Across Valley.
Heavy smoke from several wildfires is drifting across the Central
Valley and the foothills. Warnings are out for people to take
precautions if they see or smell smoke. A smoky haze runs from
southern Tuolumne County down to Tulare as 4 wildfires continue
to burn. In some areas such as Merced County, ash is falling from
the sky. http://www.capradio.org/99040 

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt comes to Utah, says he’ll
reconsider new pollution mandates at two coal-fired power plants.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to reconsider a 2016
order mandating new pollution controls at two coal-fired power
plans in Utah intended to keep the skies clear around national
parks.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/5522569-155/top-epa-administrator-to-talk-air

EPA, businesses blast states' bid to intervene in ozone case. Too
late and out of place. That's the initial response from U.S. EPA
and business groups opposed to a recent bid by California and a
half-dozen other states to intervene in long-running litigation
over the agency's 2015 ground-level ozone standard. "Such a
request is due 30 days" after a petition for review is filed,
attorneys for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce…
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/07/19/stories/1060057617

CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change will force today’s kids to pay for costly carbon
removal technologies, study says. The longer humans continue to
pour carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the closer we draw to
leaving the next generation with an unmanageable climate problem,
scientists say. A new study, just out Tuesday in the journal
Earth System Dynamics, suggests that merely reducing greenhouse
gas emissions may no longer be enough…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/07/19/climate-change-will-force-todays-kids-to-pay-for-costly-carbon-removal-technologies-study-says/?utm_term=.a24bdc9b6842

How Y2K Offers a Lesson for Fighting Climate Change. Last week,
New York magazine published a riveting and frightening look at
the future of the planet we call home. Now that global warming is
well underway, we are in for an apocalyptic awakening, and “parts
of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other
parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this
century,” the writer, David Wallace-Wells, argues.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/technology/y2k-lesson-climate-change.html?_r=0


Talking About Climate Change With Al Gore. In 1997, Al Gore, then
the vice president of the United States, helped forge the first
climate change treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, promising the rest of
the world that the United States would lead the fight against
global warming. That promise was broken when President George W.
Bush later announced that the United States would abandon the
treaty.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/climate/al-gore-climate-change-timestalks.html


Here are the political ripple effects from this week's big
climate vote in California. How peculiar are the politics of
climate change in California? Just look at this week’s vote on
cap-and-trade, which saw a Republican former grape farmer from
Modesto and a Democratic former math teacher from Bell Gardens
aligned against a mild-mannered Santa Cruz liberal and a
provocative…
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-here-are-the-political-ripple-effects-1500481502-htmlstory.html


Climate change could mean a much wetter California. Californians
have been bracing themselves for a drier future accompanying a
warming climate. But research by scientists at the University of
California, Riverside, suggests that the state may actually get
wetter in the event of severe climate change. The study,
published July 6 in Nature Communications, reports that more
years in the state could look like El Niño ones…
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article160865574.html#storylink=cpy


California’s economy will suffer plenty from climate change. But
at least it’s not Florida. Higher crime rates and electric bills.
Crops and laborers wilting in the sun. A new study says
California’s economy is going to lose billions of dollars a year
to climate change. But hey, it will be a picnic compared to
states like Florida and Texas. The groundbreaking study, led by
two UC Berkeley scientists, says global warming will punish some…

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article161851888.html#storylink=cpy
 

So Far, 2017 Is 2nd-Hottest Year on Record. At the halfway point
of the year, 2017 remains the second-hottest year to date—a
surprise given the demise of the El Niño that helped boost
temperatures to record levels last year. The continued
near-record warmth is a marker of just how much global
temperatures have risen thanks to the greenhouse gases
accumulating in the atmosphere from fossil fuel use.
https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2017/07/18/so-far-2017-is-2nd-hottest-year-on-record/


Fixing the planet could cost younger generations $530 trillion if
nothing is done about climate change. By continuing to delay
significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we risk
handing young people alive today a bill of up to US$535 trillion.
This would be the cost of the "negative emissions" technologies
required to remove CO₂ from the air in order to avoid
dangerous climate change.
http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-will-cost-future-generations-trillions-2017-7


Global warming melts ice, alters fabled Northwest Passage. More
than a century has passed since the first successful transit of
the treacherous, icebound Northwest Passage by Norwegian explorer
Roald Amundsen in 1906. Now The Associated Press is sending a
text, video and photo team through the passage, where global
warming is melting sea ice and glaciers at a historic rate…
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/global-warming-melts-ice-alters-fabled-northwest-passage/


Nitric Oxide: A New Threat to Global Warming. They have found a
vital step in the nitrification process, which is partially
responsible for agricultural emissions of dangerous nitrous oxide
and its chemical cousins into the atmosphere, causing global
climate change. Present biochemical models hold the view that
inorganic hydroxylamine is the only intermediary produced when
bacteria convert ammonia…
http://www.azocleantech.com/news.aspx?newsID=24194 

GREEN ENERGY

Clean Energy Is Trouncing Oil, Gas and Coal in Trump Era.
President Donald Trump took office vowing to revive the coal
industry’s fortunes. So far, the smart money has been on clean
energy. An index of 40 publicly-traded solar companies,
wind-turbine component makers and others that benefit from
reduced fossil fuel consumption is up 20 percent this year.
That’s more than double the S&P 500’s 9.8 percent gain.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-18/clean-energy-is-trouncing-oil-gas-and-coal-in-trump-era


National lab blueprint would cut CO2 at low cost. The Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory has developed a new blueprint for
slashing emissions and energy use without much effort or cost.
The recipe focuses on commercial buildings, which consume a
significant portion of the nation's energy. Together, commercial
and residential buildings spew about 12 percent of the nation's
carbon dioxide, according to U.S. EPA.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/07/19/stories/1060057595 

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Newly passed pollution bill is ‘downpayment’ to environmental
justice. As the quieter ‘companion bill’ to Monday’s
cap-and-trade extension legislation, Assembly Bill 617 sought to
placate environmental justice advocates who have increasingly
complained that the state’s globally ambitious climate policy
overlooks a local problem: poor California communities living in
the shadow of polluters.
https://calmatters.org/articles/pollution-bill-legislature-just-passed-downpayment-environmental-justice/


OPINIONS

Now that cap and trade is approved, here’s what Jerry Brown and
legislators must do. Gov. Jerry Brown could rightly take a bow.
Speaker Anthony Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León
ought to pat themselves on the back and give high-fives to
Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes. They all deserve
accolades. They had important parts in approving the far reaching
cap-and-trade package of bills… 
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article162276683.html#storylink=cpy


How cap-and-trade bill will help the state while reducing
greenhouse gas. The Legislature passed a major environmental
protection bill Monday that brings flexibility, clarity and
transparency to California’s cap-and-trade program. By bringing a
market-driven approach to curbing greenhouse gases, this plan
will reduce regulation, lower costs, cut taxes, protect jobs and
provide a model for other states.
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article162248223.html#storylink=cpy


Readers' best comments: Wildfires a harbinger of global warming.
Letter to the editor: Many people are concerned about global
warming but assume that its predicted damages will come well
enough in the future that there will be plenty of time to deal
with it later. This mindset is naive and dangerous. Wildfires are
a case in point. The startling increase in the frequency and…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/your-take/2017/07/19/readers-best-comments-global-warming-contributes-wildfires-your-say/475941001/


Cap-n-Trade—and Costs—Up. A punch from the left, a punch from the
right but still standing, battered but victorious, the
cap-and-trade extension. It was an odd fight. Republicans citing
environmental groups’ positions to oppose the measure; Democrats
hauling up the flag of big business in support. Establishment
Republicans like former Gov. Pete Wilson …
http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2017/07/cap-n-trade-costs/
 
BLOGS

Tuolumne County Air Pollution Control and Health Department
Publishes Air Quality. Local air quality conditions have been
impacted by nearby fires today and are forecast to be similar
through mid-week. Air quality will be worse in the morning and
improve with winds from the west as the day goes on. It is
possible that the air quality may reach levels that are
unhealthy.
http://goldrushcam.com/sierrasuntimes/index.php/news/local-news/10470-tuolumne-county-air-pollution-control-and-health-department-publishes-air-quality-categories-and-visibility-in-miles


No talking climate change to Zuck, White House tells scientist.
As part of his “not running for president” cross-country tour,
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a trip to Montana’s
rapidly melting Glacier National Park last weekend. 
But a few days before his visit, according to a report in Mic,
the Interior Department canceled his plans to chat climate
change…
http://grist.org/briefly/no-talking-climate-change-to-zuck-white-house-tells-scientist/