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California Air Resources Board News Clips for October 7, 2009. 

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.



Will Carbon Cap Ruin Business? Not For Foresters. Will
California's drive to cut greenhouse-gas emissions succeed only
in slashing businesses' profits and workers' job opportunities?
That's what critics say, arguing that the cost of reducing carbon
dioxide will be the knockout punch to our state's already wobbly
kneed economy. At least one major company, however, is already
cashing in on carbon. And ironically enough this green-business
pioneer is environmentalists' Public Enemy No. 1. Posted.
http://www.redding.com/news/2009/oct/07/will-carbon-cap-ruin-business-not-for-foresters/?print=1

SPI Offset Deal Scoffed At By Some Observers.  About a week
after a new state program was adopted to allow polluters to buy
carbon offsets from logging companies, environmentalists say
their fears are coming to fruition: logging companies earning
millions of dollars for disguised clear-cutting practices.
California’s largest private landowner and logging giant, Sierra
Pacific Industries, recently entered into the nation’s largest
forest carbon offset deal to date.  Posted.
http://www.uniondemocrat.com/2009100698021/News/Local-News/SPI-offset-deal-scoffed-at-by-some-observers

Activists Sue Texas To Restrict Greenhouse Gases.
Dallas—Environmental activists sued the Texas environmental
agency Tuesday in an effort to force the state to regulate
greenhouse gases, asking that coal-fired power plant projects be
halted until that happens. The Texas Commission on Environmental
Quality issues air pollution permits that set limits on toxic
releases, but the agency says there is no need to regulate carbon
dioxide. Texas emits more greenhouse gases, made up mostly of CO2
emissions, than any other state. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_13497716#
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/07/AR2009100700037.html
http://www.sacbee.com/702/story/2235903.html

Senate Climate Bill Would Speed Emissions Reductions. Senate
legislation designed to slow global warming would reduce
greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly than competing legislation
passed by the House of Representatives, according to a draft bill
obtained by USA TODAY. Posted.
http://www.news10.net/news/green/story.aspx?storyid=68201&catid=62

'Hot Button' Climate Issue Spotlights How U.S. Chamber Sets
Policy. U.S. Chamber of Commerce staff decides the trade group's
climate and energy policy positions without approval from the
board of directors, Nike Inc. charged as it formulated a plan to
call for greater chamber openness. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/10/06/06greenwire-hot-button-climate-issue-spotlights-how-us-cha-24103.html

Senate Dems Opening to Nuclear as Path to GOP Support for
Climate Bill. Key Senate Democrats signaled yesterday they are
willing to negotiate with Republicans on nuclear power and
expanded domestic oil and gas development if it helps in nailing
down the 60 votes necessary for floor passage on a comprehensive
global warming and energy bill. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/10/07/07climatewire-senate-dems-opening-to-nuclear-as-path-to-go-28815.html?pagewanted=print

Climate Agency Sees China’s Efforts Paying Dividends. Little
good can be said about the worst economic slump since the 1930s,
but it has produced at least one piece of positive news: the
downturn will make it a bit easier to slow the rise in emissions
responsible for climate change. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/business/energy-environment/07emissions.html


The Costs Of Climate Change Fight. California’s climate police
have begun charging businesses millions of dollars in global
warming fees to enforce arbitrary regulations, even as their
federal counterparts move to forcibly reduce industrial
greenhouse gas emissions with even more costly regulations.
Posted.
http://www.desertdispatch.com/opinion/california-7030-change-climate.html


Giants in Cattle Industry Agree to Help Fight Deforestation. Rio
De Janeiro — Environmental groups hailed a decision this week by
four of the world’s largest meat producers to ban the purchase of
cattle from newly deforested areas of Brazil’s Amazon rain
forest. At a conference on Monday in São Paulo organized by
Greenpeace, the four cattle companies — Bertin, JBS-Friboi,
Marfrig and Minerva — agreed to support Greenpeace’s call for an
end to the deforestation. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/world/americas/07deforest.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Aviation Industry Gets Climate Bill Clause To Disappear. At
least for the moment, the aviation industry has convinced
Congress that it's not like the other emitters. Originally, both
the House and Senate considered adding language to their climate
bills regulating the emissions from new aircraft and engines.
U.S. EPA would be in charge of setting up the regulations, which
would follow guidelines similar to those for fuel efficiency in
cars and energy efficiency in appliances. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/10/07/3

U.S. Economy Could Worsen Climate Bill Prospects. Washington -
Global warming legislation, already facing difficult odds in the
U.S. Senate, looks even tougher to achieve because key lawmakers
fear taking big steps on the environment when the economy is
still shedding jobs. "I think standing in a deep economic hole is
a difficult time to do big policy things that cause uncertainty,"
said Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan. Posted.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN06426695

Green Group Says U.S. Climate Bill Won't Hurt Farms. Washington
(Reuters) - Global warming poses more of a threat to U.S. farm
incomes than does the climate change bill passed by the U.S.
House, which will have a "negligible" impact on American
agriculture's bottom line, an environmental group said on
Wednesday. Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/07/AR2009100700074.html

California Debates Over Energy Origins. Sacramento - California,
the state that led the country in establishing a Renewable
Portfolio Standard, is moving toward upping its RPS to 33
percent—but how it will get there is yet to be determined. After
California voters in November 2008 rejected Proposition 7, a
ballot initiative that would have required all electricity
providers in the state to increase their renewable energy
generation to 40 percent by 2020 and 50 percent by 2025, the
state legislature in September 2009 passed two bills mandating
utilities to get one-third of their power from renewable sources
by 2020. Posted.
http://www.sustainableindustries.com/energy/63610937.html

Feds Award $2.7M For Wolverine Carbon Project. Traverse City,
Mich.—An electric power co-op that wants to build a coal-fired
plant in northern Michigan has received a $2.7 million federal
grant for a project designed to prevent industrial carbon dioxide
from contributing to climate change, officials said Tuesday.
Posted. http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_13499503#
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/06/AR2009100603126.html

Where's the Next Boom? Maybe in 'Cleantech'. Our economy sure
could use the Next Big Thing. Something on the scale of
railroads, automobiles or the Internet -- the kind of
breakthrough that emerges every so often and builds industries,
generates jobs and mints fortunes. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/07/business/AP-US-Meltdown-The-Next-Boom.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=air%20pollution&st=cse
http://www.contracostatimes.com/business/ci_13498453#

LBCC Gets Grants For 'Green,' Construction Training. Long Beach
- Long Beach City College has been awarded about $2.4 million in
grants to train students to work in the "green" transportation
and construction industries. The three grants will help the
college train about 400 workers over the next 18 months to handle
jobs in the green transportation and construction sectors.
Posted. http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_13498924#

Toyota To Unveil Electric Concept Car In Tokyo. Toyota Motor Co.
will unveil the newest version of its electric concept car at the
Tokyo Motor Show later this month. The four-seat FT-EV II --
based on Toyota's iQ compact -- runs on lithium-ion batteries and
has a top speed of more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) an hour.
The firm, a pioneer of gas-electric hybrids, said it intends to
launch an electric car in the United States by 2012. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2009/10/07/7

Opinion: Clean-Tech Investment Flowing To California Because Of
Climate Change Policies. Over the past year in California,
multinational corporations, private investment firms and even the
Department of Defense have pumped more than a billion dollars
into, of all things, algae. This recent influx of funds for
research and development of this humble organism is also one of
the clearest indicators to date that California is headed in the
right direction when it comes to fighting climate change. Posted.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_13497367

Opinion: The Costs Of Climate Change Fight. California’s climate
police have begun charging businesses millions of dollars in
global warming fees to enforce arbitrary regulations, even as
their federal counterparts move to forcibly reduce industrial
greenhouse gas emissions with even more costly regulations. Two
bills in Congress propose yet further convoluted schemes to drive
up conventional energy costs by forcing further emission
restrictions. Posted.
http://www.desertdispatch.com/opinion/california-7030-change-climate.html

Opinion: Climate Change Is Already Making Us Sick. As Congress
debates health care reform, we risk missing a critical
opportunity to combat one of the greatest threats to human health
— climate change. The urgency is driven by evidence that the
effects of climate change are having immediate impacts on human
health: The World Health Organization estimates that at least
150,000 people have died annually of causes related to climate
change since 1970. Posted.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_13499695?nclick_check=1

Opinion: U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Feels The Heat. Companies are
fleeing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as though the association
had the plague. PG&E, Exelon, PNM Resources, Apple - and this is
all within the past two weeks. If the chamber keeps up its fierce
opposition to climate change legislation, the defections should
continue. According to a statement from chamber President Thomas
Donohue, the chamber supports "strong federal legislation and a
binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and
address climate change." Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/07/EDV51A1SS5.DTL&type=printable

Opinion: Our Three Bombs. I am a 56-year-old baby boomer, and
looking around today it’s very clear that my generation had it
easy: We grew up in the shadow of just one bomb — the nuclear
bomb. That is, in our day, it seemed as if there was just one big
threat that could trigger a nonlinear, 180-degree change in the
trajectory of our lives: the Soviets hitting us with a nuke.
Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/opinion/07friedman.html?_r=2&sq=+Schwarzenegger&st=nyt&scp=3&pagewanted=print

Heating Bills Should Drop This Winter. As the cold winds of a
stormy economy blow across the Bay Area, there may be one
consolation for residents: the area's major utility says heating
bills will likely drop this winter. Pacific Gas & Electric
residential customers will probably pay about $7 less for natural
gas heat for the period of October through February, compared
with the same time period in 2008, said PG&E spokesman Jeff
Smith. Posted.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_13499756#
http://www.contracostatimes.com/nation-world/ci_13496770?nclick_check=1

Westlake Center Launches Easy-To-Understand Science Talks. A
second series of easy-to-understand scientific lectures hosted by
the Westlake Village-based Discovery Center for Science and
Technology kicks off this month. Dubbed “Science Everyone Can
Understand,” the Science Speaker Series, which begins Oct. 15,
offers a selection of public talks on topics ranging from
renewable energy sources to earthquakes, astronomical discoveries
and climate change. Posted.
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/oct/07/westlake-center-launches-easy-to-understand/

BLOG

Slashing Carbon Emissions The Old Fashioned Way. They’ve
inadvertently discovered how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:
Destroy the economy. We’ve been explaining that for some time,
but now via the AFP news service we’re told “The global economic
crisis will slash carbon emissions in 2009, opening a narrow
opportunity to take decisive action on global warming, the
International Energy Agency said Tuesday.” Posted.
http://orangepunch.freedomblogging.com/2009/10/06/slashing-carbon-emissions-the-old-fashioned-way/13365/

Lumber Company Enters Carbon Market. Sierra Pacific Industries,
the second largest lumber producer in the United States, has
announced it is creating a carbon sequestration project on 60,000
acres of California forest land. The company said the project
will be the biggest of its kind in the nation and will sequester
an additional 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide beyond what
would have occurred given standard logging practices. Posted.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/lumber-firm-enters-carbon-market/?pagemode=print

The Kelley Blue Book on Climate Change. Whenever anyone buys or
sells a car in America, they are likely to settle on a price as
listed in the Kelly Blue Book, the authoritative final word on
automobile value since 1926. When you go to the doctor with an
illness, your physician is likely to have the Merck Manual on her
bookshelf. The Merck Manual was first published in 1899 as an
important medical authoritative reference guide and aid to
physicians and pharmacists. Posted.
http://blogs.redding.com/dcraig/archives/2009/10/the-kelley-blue.html
 
Chamber Representative Says Clean Energy Mandates Distort the
Market. At a forum Monday at Columbia Law School’s Center for
Climate Change Law, a representative of the United States Chamber
of Commerce discussed his concerns about what he said were
negative effects of clean-energy and efficiency mandates on the
market. Posted.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/chamber-representative-says-clean-energy-mandates-distort-the-market/

Nissan Builds Viral Excitement for Leaf Electric Car. If you
know anything at all about how battery cars work, your knowledge
base isn’t going to be significantly increased by this
Nissan-generated video (recently posted to YouTube). You are,
however, likely to be impressed by the fast-moving graphics,
whose pace may remind some viewers of the very successful viral
video “The Story of Stuff.” Maybe your pulse rate will increase
slightly, especially if you’re less than 40. And that’s basically
the idea. Posted.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/nissan-builds-viral-excitement-for-leaf-electric-car/?pagemode=print