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California Air Resources Board News Clips for June 23, 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.

CLIMATE CHANGE/GHG’S

Bid To Suspend California's Global Warming Law Qualifies For
November Ballot. The battle over the initiative, launched by
Texas oil giants Valero and Tesoro, will pit that industry
against environmentalists and the state's clean-tech businesses.
California headed for a high-stakes battle over global warming
Tuesday, as an oil industry-backed measure to suspend the state's
aggressive climate-change law qualified for the November ballot.
Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-climate-initiative-20100623,0,4066780,print.story
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/23/BASD1E3A7L.DTL&type=newsbayarea
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/06/22/2841698/measure-to-suspend-calif-climate.html
http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_15353911?nclick_check=1
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=15543http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-22/california-measure-to-suspend-climate-laws-on-ballot.htmlhttp://www.nctimes.com/app/blogs/wp/?p=9600http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/california-96310-ballot-law.htmlhttp://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/jun/22/in-assessing-ab32-we-called-it-as-we-saw-it/
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hKPBv6ryL27OX8lhnZ0QgZWhXl7QD9GGM6D80
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2010/06/23/5

Calif. Considers 100% Offsets As A Cost-Containment Measure. As
California continues to set up its cap-and-trade market,
policymakers are considering an even heavier reliance on offsets
to limit costs in the event that emission allowance prices soar.
Under one scenario now under consideration, greenhouse gas
emitters would be allowed to use offsets instead of permits to
cover 100 percent of their emissions under the state's cap, which
is set to reach 1990 levels by 2020. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/06/23/6

UN Climate Panel Names Authors For 5th Report. Geneva—The U.N.
science body on climate change has released a list of 831
scientists who will write its fifth report on global warming. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change received 3,000
nominations and the authors were drawn from fields including
meteorology, physics, oceanography, statistics, engineering and
economics, the Nobel Prize-winning body said. The IPCC has been
criticized by some for flaws in its previous reports. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_15356865

Supervisor Takes Aim At Climate Change Law. If California’s 2006
climate change law isn’t repealed, Victor Valley households could
end up losing $4,000 each, according to 1st District Supervisor
Brad Mitzelfelt. Mitzelfelt took aim at Assembly Bill 32, the
Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, Monday afternoon. Posted.
http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/supervisor-20013-aim-takes.html
CARBON EMISSION

Republicans To Tell Obama To Drop Carbon Caps. Key Republican
senators will enter a White House meeting next week with a plan
to resist carbon policies, pushing the president to focus instead
on a fast response to the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
that threatens livelihoods and wildlife. The strategy seeks to
sever the politically combustible topic of pricing carbon
emissions from an energy bill that could feature popular
provisions meant to expedite payments to spill victims, increase
oil companies' liability and overhaul regulatory oversight of
offshore drilling. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/06/23/2

Would a Push to Curb Carbon Really Reduce U.S. Dependence on
Oil? President Obama and congressional Democrats cite the Gulf of
Mexico oil disaster as a powerful reason to pass climate
legislation, but economists see a flaw with the link: Leading
Senate measures would do little to curb petroleum use. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/06/22/22greenwire-would-a-push-to-curb-carbon-really-reduce-us-d-19627.html

AIR POLLUTION/PORT

Project Hopes To Lower Cruise Ship Pollution. A Port of San
Diego project is hoping to help remove a significant amount of
pollution from the air San Diegans breathe. Experts said every
time a cruise ship pulls into San Diego, it brings an estimated
$2 million to the local economy. However, cruise ships also bring
a lot of air pollution. Posted.
http://www.10news.com/news/23998144/detail.html 

Scientist: Oxygen Levels Down In Gulf Oil Plumes. New Orleans—A
marine scientist says underwater oil plumes are reducing oxygen
in parts of the Gulf of Mexico, but the drop-off isn't steep
enough to endanger marine life just yet. Samantha Joye of the
University of Georgia said Tuesday that water samples show oxygen
concentrations within the plumes are dropping 1 to 2 percent each
day. She said at that rate, it would take months for levels to
become hazardous for fish and other animals. Vast amounts of
methane are leaking from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon oil well.
Microbes feeding on the methane also consume oxygen. Posted.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_15351878

Several Sierra Trails Are Toxic, Group Says. The thousands of
mine shafts that pockmark the Sierra Nevada and testify to
California's Gold Rush riches have also left a legacy of toxic
contamination in some of the state's popular recreation areas,
according to a new study. Soil tests on a handful of trails near
mine mouths in the foothills have revealed extremely high levels
of lead, arsenic and asbestos, said researchers at the Sierra
Fund, a small environmental advocacy group.  Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/23/MN2E1E36I7.DTL&type=printable

ENERGY

Viewpoints: State Is Ready To Get Smart On Energy Grid.
California's Vast Electricity Grid Has Evolved In Incremental
Fashion Over The Years. But now the state has a chance to fully
embrace "smart grid" technologies that would give consumers
control over their electricity bills, create jobs and protect the
environment. What is a smart grid? Think of it as a type of
"energy Internet." By incorporating communications technology
into every aspect of electricity generation, delivery and
consumption, the smart grid can "talk" with appliances, solar
panels and plug-in vehicles. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/06/23/2841598/state-is-ready-to-get-smart-on.html

Think Tank Tries To Prune 'Redundant' House Climate Policies.
When weighing the varying climate and energy bills on the table,
it is important to weed out options that do not make the most
economic sense. That means some central provisions passed by the
House in the energy bill from Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and
Ed Markey (D-Mass.) last year should get the ax in final
legislation, a new report finds. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/06/23/3

FUELS

Economic Summit Poised To Weaken Moves Against Fossil Fuel
Subsidies. President Obama and other heads of state are poised to
water down a commitment to phase out oil and gas subsidies, a
draft declaration obtained by ClimateWire shows. The new
communiqué indicates that eliminating the estimated $250 billion
to $500 billion countries pay to make fossil fuels cheaper to buy
and produce will now be "voluntary" and "member specific."
Posted. http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/06/23/4

BLOGS

Utilities' 'Renewable' Power Shows Sharp Uptick. California's
utilities, under state order to sharply increase their portfolios
of "renewable" power generation -- i.e. solar, wind and
geothermal -- are showing major movement, the Public Utilities
Commission said today. The commission, in a quarterly report on
reaching the goal of 20 percent renewables by 2010 and 33 percent
by 2020, said that during the first three months of this year,
the utilities hit 15.4 percent, up from 13 percent in 2008.
Posted.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2010/06/utilities-renewable-power-show.html#ixzz0rh2uwnky

Money in the Greenhouse. Just in case you doubted the power of
money to frustrate attempts to rein in greenhouse gases, read
Margot Roosevelt’s news story in the Los Angeles Times about the
successful effort, paid for mainly by oil companies, to put an
initiative on the fall ballot that could suspend the state’s
pioneering, and troubled, climate law, Assembly Bill 32. Posted.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/money-in-the-greenhouse/