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California Air Resources Board News Clips for July 27, 2011. 
 

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.

AIR POLLUTION

Fire Erupts At Northern Calif. Plastics Plant. Fairfield, Calif.
-- A fire at a plastics company sent black smoke billowing
hundreds of feet into the air Tuesday, but officials said no
building damage or injuries were reported. The fire broke out
about 1 p.m. in an outdoor storage area at the Macro Plastics
Inc. complex near Travis Air Force Base, said city spokeswoman
Gale Spears. A thick plume of dark black smoke was visible for
miles, drifting eastward to the south of Sacramento. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/26/v-print/3796167/fire-erupts-at-northern-calif.html
http://www.sfexaminer.com/news/california/2011/07/fire-marshal-employees-doing-maintenance-work-likely-started-fairfield-plast
http://www.kcra.com/news/28672566/detail.html
http://www.nctimes.com/news/national/article_84b1f0f9-7d71-55c7-82e5-7b1baab05c88.html

Texas Company Fined For California Air Pollution Violations.
Sacramento 
•  Key Energy Services pays $52,000 fine •  CARB says it’s for
smoke inspection violations. Key Energy Services LLC, based in
Midland, Texas, with West Coast offices in Bakersfield, has been
fined $52,000 by the California Air Resources Board. Through an
audit, CARB says its investigators found that Key failed to test
its California fleet’s diesel engine emissions, as required by
California law. Posted.
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/templates/print.cfm?ID=18974

CLIMATE CHANGE

California Offset Frustration Continues. Carbon market
participants on Tuesday said revisions to key rules may not be
enough to ensure that trading in secondary offset markets in
California is liquid and stable. At issue is the question of who
should be held responsible for replacing offset credits in the
event that a project is found to be flawed.
Posted.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/27/us-california-point-carbon-idUSTRE76Q4RS20110727

FUELS

AP Sources: Feds To Seek Smaller Boost To Fuel Economy After
Lawmakers, Automakers Push Back.  Officials say the Obama
administration is close to a deal with automakers to boost fuel
economy.  Officials familiar with talks between the White House
and automakers say recent changes to make it easier for light
trucks to become more fuel efficient have lowered the proposal to
54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Last month, the administration
floated a 56.2 mile-per-gallon target.  Posted. 
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_FUEL_ECONOMY?SITE=SCCOL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

AP Newsbreak:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/white-house-seeks-smaller-boost-to-fuel-economy-after-michigan-lawmakers-automakers-push-back/2011/07/26/gIQADvwRbI_story.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/business/energy-environment/compromise-may-set-a-lower-fuel-economy-target-for-2025.html?scp=1&sq=vehicles&st=cse
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fuel-economy-20110727,0,5230459,print.story
http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/07/26/2478261/white-house-says-close-to-deal.html#storylink=misearch
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110727/OEM05/110729872/1179
 BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

Charge Your Electric Car From Solar Power. Now you can power your
electric car from the solar panels on your roof. SolarCity, one
of the larger solar power installers in the West, is launching an
electric car-charger installation service for homes and
businesses. The company says it will give more consumers in the
11 states where it operates the chance to go "driving on
sunshine." Posted.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/07/charge-your-electric-car-from-solar-power/1

Electric Cars May Not Find Road To Minority Communities. Who will
own the electric car? A new report on electric cars released by
The Greenlining Institute -- “Electric Vehicles: Who’s Left
Stranded?” -- says the cost of the vehicles, plus the potential
inconvenience of charging them, could keep these cars out of
minority communities that have some of the worst smog problems in
the state. Posted.
http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?1=1&_c=zvn0iaja0g995t&xid=zvmsn3j1avxav7&done=.zvmtap2y5zej3i&_credir=1311788294&_c=zvn0iaja0g995t#

Ecotrocity And Welcome Break To Offer Free EV Charging On
Motorways.  A new scheme devised by British green energy company
Ecotricity could put an end to range anxiety for electric car
owners by providing charge points at service stations along UK
motorways.  The national charging network, which is the first of
its kind worldwide, will be free of charge to electric vehicle
(EV) drivers and will consist of 27 charging points at Welcome
Break service stations at its completion. Posted. 
http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/ecotrocity-and-welcome-break-to-offer-free-ev-charging-on-motorways-2500.aspx

GREEN ENERGY

Gov. Brown Pushes 12-Gigawatt Clean-Power Goal. California should
get that much electricity from local clean power sources — such
as rooftop solar panels, small wind turbines and fuel cells — by
2020, he says, but is short on details about how.
California wants 12 gigawatts of electricity from local clean
power sources, such as rooftop solar panels, small wind turbines
and fuel cells, by 2020…Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-small-renewables-20110726,0,1414360,print.story

Crazy Ideas For Next-Gen Wind Turbines.  Is there any image that
represents a renewable energy future better than a stately white
wind turbine turning on a hillside? Well, don't get too used to
it! Researchers are coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas to
improve on the current turbine model, the Los Angeles Times’
Tiffany Hsu reports.  Posted. 
http://www.grist.org/list/2011-07-26-crazy-ideas-for-next-gen-wind-turbines

OPINIONS

Ice Age Threat Should Freeze EPA Global Warming Regs. Rather than
spiraling into a global warming meltdown, we may be heading into
the next ice age. The U.S. National Solar Observatory, the U.S.
Air Force Research Laboratory and astrophysicists across the
planet report that the nearly all-time low sunspot activity may
result in a sustained cooling period on Earth. The news has sent
global warming theory advocates scrambling to discount and
explain away the impact on global temperatures. Posted.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/07/ice-age-threat-should-freeze-epa-global-warming-regs#ixzz1TKNnkFNU

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Standing Up For Clean-Air Laws. When I saw
Steve Milloy's attack on the bedrock clean-air laws that protect
Americans from pollution, I could only think of the many children
admitted to hospitals for asthma attacks on days when smog levels
are sky-high and children who miss many days of school because of
breathing problems they can't keep up with their classmates
("Show us the bodies, EPA," Commentary, July 21). Posted.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/26/standing-up-for-clean-air-laws/

A Decision for Clean Air. Federal mandates under the 1970 Clean
Air Act have produced cleaner cars, fuels and factories,
significantly improving the air Americans breathe. Yet the
underlying standards setting limits on ground-level ozone, the
main component of harmful smog, have remained unchanged since
1997 — even as science has made it abundantly clear that the
standard is still not strong enough to protect public health.
Posted. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/opinion/27wed3.html?scp=2&sq=air%20pollution&st=cse

Head To Head: Is Brown's Ambitious Renewable Energy Goal A
Worthwhile Pursuit? THE ISSUE: "The future of energy is not Texas
oil; it's California sun," Gov. Jerry Brown said, and he set a
goal of producing one-third of current peak electricity use of
65,000 megawatts from renewable resources by 2020 – 12,000
megawatts from localized generation and 8,000 megawatts from
large-scale projects. Is Brown's ambitious renewable energy goal
a worthwhile pursuit? Pia Lopez: Eminently worthwhile. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/27/v-print/3796483/is-browns-ambitious-renewable.html

Editorial: House Riders Threaten California's Air, Water. Under
the guise of bolstering the economy, House Republicans today will
attempt to push through dozens of policy riders that would
undercut the nation's environmental laws. Anticipated measures
would reduce the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ability
to protect air and water resources, slash the Interior
Department's Land and Water Conservation Fund and make it easier
for mining companies to carry out "mountaintop removal" – in
which entire tops of mountains are sheared off to get at the coal
underneath. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/26/v-print/3793749/editorial-house-riders-threaten.html

UC Merced Study: Climate Change Could 'Profoundly' Change
Yellowstone Ecosystem. An increase in wildfires blamed on climate
change could rapidly and profoundly alter the greater Yellowstone
ecosystem, according to a study written by environmental
engineering and geography professor Anthony Westerling of UC
Merced.
The study by Westerling and his colleagues… Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/25/3794186/uc-merced-study-climate-change.html#ixzz1TKL2IhY6

Editorial (Other Views): Time To Clear The Air. You hear a lot
these days about how mindless government policy stifles
innovation in the private sector. But in West Virginia's coal
country, the opposite has happened. The lack of government rules
has prompted a private company to stop work on a promising
antipollution technology, which sets a dangerous precedent that
utilities across the nation may follow. Posted.
http://www.thecalifornian.com/article/20110727/OPINION01/107270323/Editorial-other-views-Time-clear-air?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7COpinion%7Cs

BLOGS

A Battery That Squeezes More Miles Out of Gasoline. On Monday I
wrote about odd new devices that would help big trucks meet new
standards for heavy vehicles’ fuel economy that are expected to
be issued any day now. Also expected imminently were new
corporate average fuel economy (known as CAFE) standards for
cars, pickups, minivans and S.U.V.’s. Rules announced last year
already required that cars get an average of 35.5 miles per
gallon starting in the 2016 model year. Posted. 
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/a-battery-that-squeezes-more-miles-out-of-gasoline/?ref=earth

California And BC Feeling Carbon Offsets Headache. Concerns are
rising in California about a climate change mechanism known as
carbon offsets -- similar concerns, in fact, to those now being
felt in B.C. California is moving to enact what is arguably one
of the world's most comprehensive greenhouse gas reductions
programs, known as A.B. 32. Posted.
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Environment/2011/07/26/carbon-offset-California-BC/