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California Air Resources Board News Clips for October 14, 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

EPA’s Jackson Says House Measures Would Gut Clean-Air Act. Lisa
Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,
said efforts to limit her powers are “unprecedented” and pledged
that rules aimed at coal-powered power plants won’t harm electric
reliability. Proposed legislation, such as a measure being
considered in the U.S. House to block pollution controls on coal
ash, would result in “gutting the heart of the Clean Air Act,”
Jackson said today at an event sponsored by Politico in
Washington. Posted.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-14/epa-s-jackson-says-house-measures-would-gut-clean-air-act.html

In another swipe at EPA, House passes bill to delay pollution
controls on industrial boilers. Washington — The
Republican-controlled House is continuing its campaign against
environmental regulations, this time passing a bill to delay
rules to curb toxic air pollution from industrial boilers and
incinerators. The legislation passed 274-142 on Thursday. It
joins a host of other measures aimed at weakening, delaying or
scrapping EPA regulations that Republicans view as job killers.
Posted.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/in-another-swipe-at-epa-house-passes-bill-to-delay-pollution-controls-on-industrial-boilers/2011/10/13/gIQAyJsUiL_story.html
http://www.modbee.com/2011/10/13/1903273/house-backs-bill-delaying-toxic.html
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_19107847
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_19107847

The EPA doesn’t regulate farm dust, it regulates air pollution.
One cardinal rule of American politics is "Thou shalt not piss
off the farmers." (Remember how farms were going to get a free
pass on cap-and-trade?) Conveniently for Republicans, earlier
this year, air monitors in Arizona found high levels of
particulate matter in the air, and the EPA traced it to farms and
had to work with farmers to minimize the amount of dust their
work was creating. Now, Arizona is very, very dusty place, and
particulate matter is a hazard to air quality. Posted.
http://www.grist.org/list/2011-10-13-the-epa-doesnt-regulate-farm-dust-it-regulates-air-pollution

CLIMATE CHANGE

Gore links climate change to Great Lakes problems. Former Vice
President Al Gore linked climate change to a rash of
environmental catastrophes Thursday, from floods in Pakistan to
drought in Texas and rampant algae blooms sucking oxygen from
Lake Erie. The fallout from a warming planet is being felt around
the world, Gore said in a speech during the annual meeting of the
International Joint Commission, which advises the U.S. and
Canadian governments on issues affecting shared waterways. Things
will get worse unless people reject a campaign of denial
orchestrated by the fossil fuel industry and make significant
reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, he said. Posted.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gBq_T-P00UuqYQHCr9Y3Pl93DhAQ?docId=8d3e9f91f6ea41788bf88efb8d62d977

DIESEL EMISSIONS

Clean Diesel (CDTI) Bus Polution Control Order.  Clean Diesel
(NASDAQ:CDTI) has received an order for its approved emission
reduction products for retrofitting Purifilter Plus diesel
particulate filter(DPF) emission reduction systems to school
buses under the California Air Resources Board program for
Northern California. The orders were received from Emissions
Retrofit Group, a key distributor of Clean Diesels ECS-branded
emission reduction products.  Posted. 
http://www.dailymarkets.com/stock/2011/10/13/clean-diesel-cdti-bus-polution-control-order/

VEHICLES

New Nissan hybrid and CVT headed to North America. The Nissan
Altima mid-sized sedan could get a big boost in fuel economy with
next year's model change as the brand rolls out an improved
continuously variable transmission and its first in-house
front-wheel hybrid system for North America. The upgraded
pulley-style transmission alone should lift fuel efficiency by 10
percent over the CVT now used in the Altima and other vehicles,
including the Maxima and Rogue. Posted. 
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111013/OEM05/111019937/1186
 SUBSCRIPTION ONLY

Chevy Spark Electric Minicar Designed for California Emissions
Compliance.  General Motors confirmed yesterday it will make an
all-electric minicar called the Chevy Spark, to debut in 2013.
While more product choice of electric cars is a positive step for
the market, EV advocates worry that another small limited-range
and potentially underpowered electric car will fuel negative
stereotypes about electric vehicles. They wonder why the Spark
was selected as the company's first all-electric model since the
ill-fated EV1, when GM is capable of producing a much more
appealing and exciting electric vehicle.  Posted. 
http://www.plugincars.com/chevy-spark-electric-minicar-designed-california-emissions-compliance-108392.html

GREEN ENERGY

House panel looks at Solyndra loan restructuring.  A House
hearing on a solar panel manufacturer that went broke after
receiving a half-billion dollar federal loan erupted in a
partisan skirmish before any witnesses had testified Friday. Rep.
Henry Waxman called the hearing "a rigged proceeding."  Democrats
on the House Energy and Commerce Committee criticized Republicans
for not allowing the Energy Department to testify and for
blocking the release of an Energy Department memo that outlined
the legal basis for its decision to restructure the $535 million
loan to Solyndra.  Posted. 
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SOLAR_MANUFACTURER_INVESTIGATION?SITE=RIPRJ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

AP Newsbreak:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/house-panel-probes-obama-administration-decision-to-restructure-loan-to-troubled-solar-company/2011/10/14/gIQAGD1IjL_story.html
http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/10/14/2576436/house-panel-looks-at-solyndra.html#storylink=misearch
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_19112284
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_19111949
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/oct/14/house-panel-looks-at-solyndra-loan-restructuring/

OPINIONS

Editorial, other views: Environment suffers under GOP House.
Republicans in the House are best known for their inflexible
opposition to tax hikes and government spending, but that's
nothing new for the GOP; what marks this group as different is
that it is perhaps the most anti-environment Congress in history.
So far, that hasn't had much impact because Republicans control
only one house, and Democrats in the Senate have blocked their
most extreme attempts to gut the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.
Posted.
http://www.thecalifornian.com/article/20111014/OPINION01/110140325/Editorial-other-views-Environment-suffers-under-GOP-House

BLOGS

On False Equivalence and False Inequivalence. Just over a week
ago, I wrote a quick post on a new sociological analysis of
organized efforts to sow doubt about global warming. The analysis
was illustrated by a flow chart of what the researchers called
the “climate change denial machine.” I added an update a day
later describing a chart of the “climate alarmism machine”
created in response by an Australian blogger. John Rennie, the
former editor in chief of Scientific American, criticized me for
engaging in “false equivalence” — a habit that I, and many
others, have long criticized, particularly on science stories. He
was right. Posted.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/on-false-equivalence-and-false-inequivalence/

Group launches online environmental accident map. The nonprofit
environmental monitoring group SkyTruth on Thursday launched a
real-time alert system that uses remote sensing and digital
mapping to track pollution events in the United States. The
SkyTruth Alerts system shows air and water pollution, toxic
spills and other incidents on an interactive map, noting the time
of the event and whether toxic materials are involved. Users can
track specific geographic areas and receive updates via email or
RSS feeds. Posted.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/10/skytruth-pollution-map-bp-gulf.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GreenspaceEnvironmentBlog+%28Greenspace%29

UK energy secretary: proposed 80 mph speed limit should only
apply to electric vehicles. A proposed increase of the speed
limit on UK roads – to 80 miles per hour – is not without
controversy, concerns and complaints. How about this for an
unlikely solution? UK energy secretary Chris Huhne reckons the
proposed 80-mph limit motorway should only apply to electric
vehicles. Posted. 
http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/13/uk-energy-secretary-proposed-80-mph-speed-limit-should-only-app/

Evolution, climate denial: Are they linked?  Poll scientific
specialists on evolution and global warming, and the results are
overwhelming: a strong consensus that the scientists say is
founded on equally strong data.  But among the general public,
the response can be quite different. Eugenie Scott, a science
education activist best known for fighting creationism in public
schools, says denial of evolution has much in common with the
popular backlash against climate science.  Posted. 
http://sciencedude.ocregister.com/2011/10/13/evolution-climate-denial-are-they-linked/146143/

New catalytic process efficiently extracts hydrogen from
bioalcohols, including ethanol.  Researchers led by Matthias
Beller at the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis in Rostock
(Germany) report in the journal Angewandte Chemie on a new
catalyst that allows for the use of bioalcohols, including
ethanol, for the production of hydrogen. Their novel process
proceeds efficiently under particularly mild conditions.  Posted.
 http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/10/beller-20111014.html