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California Air Resources Board News Clips for June 8, 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.

GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHANGE

California, AG Brown Favor Tougher EPA Standards. California
Attorney General Brown Jerry Brown is in favor of much-stricter
federal vehicle emission standards that would save almost 2
billion barrels of oil and curb greenhouse gas emissions by about
1 billion tons, filing a motion to support the effort. Brown, who
is a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, filed a motion in the
U.S. Court of Appeals in support of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, which is facing a legal fight with energy
companies and other industries challenging much-tougher emission
standards starting in 2012. Posted.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2010/06/07/daily14.html?t=printable
http://www.imperialvalleynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7397&Itemid=1

Republicans Try Anti-Global Warming Themes Against Sen. Boxer
And Other Democrats. One of the Senate's top sponsors of climate
change legislation is being attacked for prioritizing "the
weather" over terrorism, part of Republican attempts to use
anti-global warming themes in several primary races ending with
elections today. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/06/08/1
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/06/08/08climatewire-republicans-try-anti-global-warming-themes-a-57457.html

IFC Loan Guarantees Help Push China's Energy Efficiency Program.
An International Finance Corp. (IFC) program to promote energy
efficiency investments in China has helped curb 14 million tons
of greenhouse gas emissions since 2006, a new evaluation has
found. Overall, the audit gave the China Utility-Based Energy
Efficiency Finance Program, which currently works with two
Chinese banks to guarantee energy efficiency investment loans and
provide companies with technical assistance, a mixed review.
Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2010/06/08/4

Seeds Of Doubt Against Climate Science. Industry and free-market
advocates have joined forces to undermine tobacco research, and
they're doing so again on global warming. If some of the ongoing
attacks on the credibility of climate science feel familiar,
there's a reason. With their unattributed claims downplaying the
severity of the problem and their vague allegations of scientific
impropriety, the assaults are the latest in a long tradition of
organized efforts by industry and free-market enthusiasts to
undermine the credibility of science they don't like.One early
campaign was launched by tobacco companies. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-oreskes-20100608,0,7991035,print.story
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/climate_bill_pessimism.html

Biodiversity: The E.U.’s Next Challenge. Brussels — Even as
nations struggle to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, the
European Union is taking on a potentially more complicated
environmental challenge: preserving the world’s biodiversity.
Last week, the European Commission put biodiversity at the center
of its annual Green Week conference in Brussels after E.U.
environment ministers warned in March against “going beyond the
limits of nature,” and after heads of state and government
endorsed the ministers’ pledge to halt biodiversity loss in the
Union by 2020 and step up efforts to avert such losses globally.
Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/business/energy-environment/07iht-green.html?ref=energy-environment&pagewanted=print

A Forest Fire's Price Tag. When a tree burns in the forest, does
anyone hear? As wildfires become a bigger problem with the
effects of climate change, you may want to take notice. The
economic impacts of forest fires go far beyond local communities
and are felt on a national level.  Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/06/08/investopedia44643.DTL&type=printable

Richard Lugar's Alternative Climate Bill. One of the conceptual
difficulties with trying to evaluate various energy bills is that
the problem of climate change is qualitatively different than
other problems. Usually, whether a bill makes a problem better is
the primary question underlying whether senators should vote to
pass it. Posted.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/richard_lugars_alternative_cli.html

NM Supreme Court Clears Way For Regulators To Hear Enviro
Group's Greenhouse Gas Petition. Santa Fe, N.M. — The New Mexico
Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for a state regulatory
panel to resume consideration a petition to establish a cap on
greenhouse gas emissions in the state. The justices vacated a
lower court ruling that effectively halted the state
Environmental Improvement Board's process for gathering expert
testimony and public comments related to an environmental group's
emissions proposal. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-nm-emissions-battle,0,3272733,print.story

Is Reid's Energy Bill Worse Than No Bill At All? Harry Reid has
called for an "energy bill" by July. But it's not the energy bill
we've been waiting for. It not only lacks a price on carbon, but
as Brad Plumer explains, it makes it harder to ever get one.
Posted.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/is_reids_energy_bill_worse_tha.html

Murkowski Seeks To Rein In EPA Regulation. Fairbanks, Alaska --
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is the leading sponsor of a resolution
that would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from
regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Alaska
Republican said the EPA regulation of carbon dioxide would have a
negative economic impact on her constituents by threatening
projects such as the construction of a natural gas pipeline.
Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/07/AR2010060702836.html

Gore: Saving Climate Will Save, Not Lose, Money. MANILA,
Philippines -- Poorer countries that have borne the brunt of
climate change's effects will save, not lose, money by putting in
place ways to rescue the environment, Al Gore said Tuesday. The
former U.S. vice president spoke to a forum in Manila in one of
his first public engagements since he and wife, Tipper, announced
they had separated after 40 years of marriage. Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/08/AR2010060802057.html

VEHICLES

Transit Improvement Key To State Greenhouse Law. If California's
sweeping greenhouse emissions reduction law, SB 375, is to
succeed, the state will have to do a better job of providing
public transportation, a new report from the Urban Land Institute
(ULI) has determined. The 2009 law, known as the Sustainable
Communities Strategy, by Sacramento Sen. Darrell Steinberg, the
Senate Pro Tem, and based in part on Sacramento's "Blueprint"
land use process, requires metropolitan areas to design growth so
that new communities are less dependent on automobiles. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/06/07/v-print/2804804/transit-improvement-key-to-state.html

Tesla Reveals Loose Arrangement With Toyota For New Electric
Car. San Francisco -- Upstart carmaker Tesla Motors Inc. has
offered a blunt, real-world assessment of a recent deal it made
with Toyota Motor Corp. In a recent filing with the Securities
and Exchange Commission, Tesla said the two companies may never
get to the point where they jointly develop electric vehicles.
Tesla gave the SEC details of its plans for an initial public
offering sometime this year. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/06/08/2

Tesla Generates $13.8 Million through Emissions Credit Sale. To
help keep the company wheels turning, Tesla has sold its banked
vehicle emissions credits to other automakers and raised $13.8
million. Since setting up shop in 2003, Tesla has barely managed
to turn a profit from selling its $130,000 Roadsters. About 1000
of the pure-electric Roadsters have been sold -- primarily to
big-shot actors, musicians, and electric-car fans -- and Tesla is
slowly inching towards its initial public offering that is
expected to generate at least $100 million. Posted.
http://rumors.automobilemag.com/6655760/news/tesla-generates-138-million-through-emissions-credit-sale/index.html

More Electric Cars Means Finding New Standards To Measure Fuel
Efficiency. It used to be easy to know whether a car was a
glutton for fuel. Federal standards defined miles per gallon and
laid out precisely how the statistic should be measured. Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/07/AR2010060704242.html

Carmakers, States Side With EPA In Court Fight Over Auto Rule.
Automobile manufacturers, states and environmentalists are asking
a federal appeals court to allow them to back U.S. EPA in a
lawsuit attacking the agency's greenhouse gas standards for
tailpipes. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the
Association of International Automobile Manufacturers filed
separate petitions yesterday with the U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia to intervene in a lawsuit
challenging EPA's auto standard. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2010/06/08/9

Ford Offers Nat Gas, Propane Pickups For Fleets. Dearborn, Mich.
-- Ford Motor Co. will soon offer engines that run on natural gas
or propane to fleet customers that use the F-450 and F-550 line
of pickup trucks. Ford has told roughly 500 fleet customers that
it will provide conversions for engines later this year. The
features will be available in the 6.8 liter F-450 and F-550 Super
Duty chassis cabs. Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/07/AR2010060702268.html

FUELS

E.U. to Announce Tighter Controls on Biofuels. Brussels — The
European Commission will seek to salvage its beleaguered biofuels
policy on Thursday by announcing a quality-certification process
for biodiesel and ethanol and clarifying limits on fuels from
sensitive areas like forests and partly drained peat lands.
Ensuring that biofuels are a credible source of low-carbon energy
that deliver greenhouse gas savings compared with fossil fuels is
a key component of European Union efforts to set standards
worldwide for lowering emissions over the next 10 years. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/business/global/08biofuels.html?pagewanted=print

GE Urges Federal Panel To Fund CCS Site Studies. With
comprehensive climate legislation likely more than a year away,
the federal government should push cleaner coal technologies
along by funding site studies at promising locations for large
carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) plants, a leading
developer of power-plant technologies said today. Monte Atwell,
the head of GE Energy's gasification business, said his group is
advising a presidential task force on CCS to take steps now that
can keep the United States competitive in the race to develop
crucial clean energy technologies (E&ENews PM, Feb. 3). Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2010/06/08/10

ENERGY

Poll Shows Support For Energy Bill In Response To Spill. Voters
believe broad energy legislation should be part of the federal
government's response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according
to a poll released today that is backed by an environmental
group. About two-thirds of respondents believed that Congress
needs to take action that will be "more than a Band-Aid" and to
"pass real reforms to hold polluters accountable and invest in
clean American energy," according to the poll …Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/print/2010/06/08/4.

BLOGS

Remember the Copenhagen Accord? Back in December,
representatives of more than 190 nations gathered in Copenhagen
under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change to debate the fate of the world. They did not
agree on much, but at the end of two contentious weeks they
produced a three-page document known as the Copenhagen accord
[pdf]. Delegates did not formally adopt it; instead, they voted
to “take note” of it. Six months later, 133 nations have decided
to “associate” with the pact, which sets some rather ill-defined
goals for reducing greenhouse emissions and helping poorer
nations adapt to anticipated changes in the global climate like
rising sea levels. Posted.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/remember-the-copenhagen-accord/?pagemode=print