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newsclips -- Newsclips for January 5, 2012.
Posted: 05 Jan 2012 12:06:10
California Air Resources Board News Clips for January 5, 2012. 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 Clean-air tractor saves fuel, cuts pollution. When Guillermo Bucio climbs behind the wheel of Acquistapace Farms' new high-tech, clean-air tractor, he's stepping into the future but harking back to the past. The $250,000 contraption uses satellite-based navigation to ensure straight crop rows, rides on tank tracks to reduce soil compaction, and boasts emission controls that bring it close to pollution levels of an old-school horse and plow - zero. Posted. http://syvnews.com/news/local/clean-air-tractor-saves-fuel-cuts-pollution/article_39b79b80-368e-11e1-9803-0019bb2963f4.html CDC scientist proposes wide testing on gas drilling safety to humans, animals, environment. One of the government’s top scientists says much more research is needed to determine the possible impacts of shale gas drilling on human health and the environment. “Studies should include all the ways people can be exposed, such as through air, water, soil, plants and animals,” Dr. Christopher Portier wrote to The Associated Press in an email. Posted. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/environment/cdc-scientist-proposes-wide-testing-on-gas-drilling-safety-to-humans-animals-environment/2012/01/04/gIQAanL4aP_story.html CLIMATE CHANGE Delta, Lufthansa among first airlines raising fares to cover new European emissions rules. Within days of new European rules on carbon emissions produced by passenger jets, two major airlines say they will raise fares. Delta Air Lines Inc. began adding $6 per round trip to the price of tickets sold in the U.S. for travel to Europe. And Deutsche Lufthansa AG said it will raise prices but not right away. Posted. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/delta-lufthansa-among-first-airlines-to-signal-higher-fares-to-cover-european-emissions-rules/2012/01/04/gIQAa41caP_story.html China calls on Europe for talks over carbon charge. China urged the European Union on Thursday to heed objections to its plans to charge airlines for carbon emissions and to hold talks with opponents. The charges, which took effect Sunday, are aimed at curbing emissions of climate-changing gases but airlines oppose them as an improper tax. The ratings agency Fitch warned last month the conflict could spiral into a global trade dispute. "China opposes the EU forcing through unilateral legislation," said a foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei. Posted. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_EUROPE_AIRLINES?SITE=OKTUL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT AP Newsbreak: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/china-calls-on-europe-to-heed-objections-to-airline-carbon-charge-hold-talks-with-opponents/2012/01/05/gIQAUPX5bP_story.html http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_19680236?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com http://www.nctimes.com/business/china-calls-on-europe-for-talks-over-carbon-charge/article_8cc89100-ed0f-5f13-8a30-b0e622591bfa.html#ixzz1ibiyxpjd Higher Education Can Make a Significant Impact in Combatting Climate Change. As this year’s 17th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa, resulted in yet another stand-off among today’s leading nations, there are plenty of reasons to share in the embitterment and despair shadowing the climate change community. And while the Durban discussions did lead to a few positive …Posted. http://apus-sustainability.com/tag/californias-air-resources-board/ Scientists back 'significant broadening' of climate research. U.S. scientists want to expand research into climate change to focus on its social effects and ways to adapt to a changing planet, but tighter budgets may crimp those plans, the National Academy of Sciences reported Thursday. The 10-year plan reviewed by the academy represents a "significant broadening" of the federal Global Change Research Program, which includes researchers from across the U.S. government. Posted. http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/05/us/climate-research/index.html DIESEL EMISSIONS School buses ‘go green’ after retrofit. A retrofitted school bus is a cleaner school bus. That is the motivation behind the Lower-Emission School Bus Program administered by the State of California’s Air Resources Board (ARB). Kernville Union School District Superintendent, Robin Shive, demonstrated how the district is doing its part to comply with the program. “California mandates that all buses be retrofitted with an exhaust system to lower the emissions.” She continued, “KUSD received a grant to get a head start on keeping the valley and its residents ‘green’.” Posted. http://www.kvsun.com/articles/2012/01/04/kv_life/education/doc4f0370ab60a89612224621.txt L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa Celebrates Milestone in Clean Truck Program at Port of Los Angeles. Delivering on his promise to reduce pollution at the Port of Los Angeles and protect public health, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today marked a major milestone in the Clean Truck Program. The program required all trucks at the Port of Los Angeles to meet the toughest environmental standards in the nation by January 1, 2012.“The Clean Truck Program has greened our port for the long haul and ensured Angelenos will breathe cleaner air for generations to come,” Mayor Villaraigosa said. Posted. http://californianewswire.com/2012/01/04/CNW10657_110258.php Diesel spill in Huntington Harbour. Containment booms are being use to prevent the spread of a diesel fuel spill in Huntington Harbour. Huntington Beach fire spokesman Jeff Lopez tells City News Service that a fuel slick the size of a football field appeared in the harbor behind Peter's Landing on Wednesday night. A department hazardous materials squad and the California Department of Fish and Game have been working to contain the spill. Posted. http://www.modbee.com/2012/01/05/2012494/diesel-spill-in-huntington-harbour.html FUELS Oil industry chief warns Obama on Canada pipeline. The oil industry's top lobbyist warned the Obama administration Wednesday to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline or face "huge political consequences" in an election year. Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said it would be a "huge mistake" for President Barack Obama to reject the 1,700-mile, Canada-to-Texas pipeline. Obama faces a Feb. 21 deadline to decide whether the $7 billion pipeline is in the national interest Posted. http://www.modbee.com/2012/01/04/2011485/oil-industry-chief-warns-obama.html Corn Board lauds judgment striking down California’s carbon fuel standard. The Nebraska Corn Board celebrated the end of 2011 with a victory when Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill struck down California’s low carbon fuel standard. Judge O’Neill found the standard unconstitutional by violating the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution. “This is a great victory for Nebraska’s ethanol and corn industries and Nebraska’s economy as a whole,” said Tim Scheer, farmer director from St. Paul and vice chairman of the Nebraska Corn Board. Posted. http://www.imperialrepublican.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3613:corn-board-lauds-judgment-striking-down-californias-carbon-fuel-standard&catid=41:agbusiness&Itemid=53 VEHICLES California's push for cleaner cars draws the usual squeals from Big Oil. If California highways and parking lots look considerably different in 2025 than today, it will probably be because they'll contain almost 1.5 million more hybrid cars and trucks, hydrogen-driven vehicles and plug-in hybrids that run mostly on electricity, except on long trips. That's the vision behind the latest set of proposed rules rolled out by the California Air Resources Board, even as the Republican chairman of the main investigative committee in the House of Representatives seeks to drag it into hearings about whether it is exceeding its mission. Posted. http://www.mercurynews.com/columns/ci_19678725 http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_19678725?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com Report: GM wants to work on all Chevy Volts sold in U.S. for fire danger. Detroit -- A person briefed on the matter says General Motors will ask Volt owners to bring their electric cars into dealers to strengthen the structure around the batteries. The move is similar to a recall and involves the 8,000 Volts sold in the U.S. in the past two years. The move comes after three batteries caught fire after side-impact crash tests done by federal safety regulators. Posted. http://www.mercurynews.com/cars/ci_19680381 Toyota works on recycling hybrid batteries. Forget those fears that hybrid and electric vehicles will result in landfills full of dead batteries. When Toyota hybrid battery packs reach the end of their lives, every piece is recycled. And it’s all because of a program launched a year ago by Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. and its dealers. Moreover, service departments can use the battery-handling process to help sell new vehicles to used-Prius owners. Posted. http://www.europeanplasticsnews.com/subscriber/headlines2.html?cat=1&id=1325757572 GREEN ENERGY Struggling Idaho solar plant fears power cutoff. A struggling plant in southeastern Idaho that hopes to produce material for solar panels fears Idaho Power Co. will shut off its electricity after it missed a payment. Hoku Materials Inc., which has survived so far with help from Chinese financiers, recently said that Idaho's biggest utility threatened to cut off power to its unfinished Pocatello plant after the company missed a payment. It lodged a formal protest with Idaho Public Utilities Commission regulators after getting a termination of service notice. Posted. http://www.nctimes.com/ap/business/struggling-idaho-solar-plant-fears-power-cutoff/article_16192434-f69a-5524-8362-99bef8d1834f.html MISCELLANEOUS Personnel Profile: David Pettit. David Pettit is a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, currently involved with the recent litigation around California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Tell me a bit about yourself. I’ve been a litigator for about 35 years now. I was a legal services lawyer for a while, I was in private practice for many years following that, and I’ve been here at the NRDC for close to five years now. And a lot of litigation I do has to do with air pollution and environmental justice issues. Posted. http://www.capitolweekly.net/features/personnelProfile.php?_c=109fb7d8whpxmc8&1=1&id=109day5zm0vlats&done=.109dorc1xln7g2z&_credir=1325789381&_c=109fb7d8whpxmc8 Man gets 12 years in prison for green energy scam. Federal prosecutors say a Carson man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for getting dozens of people to invest a total of more than $1 million in a non-existent wind energy technology business. A judge on Wednesday also ordered 42-year-old James Rivera to pay restitution of more than $1 million to victims in the case. Rivera was convicted of soliciting investments in companies that he falsely claimed would manufacture revolutionary new wind turbines to produce electricity. Posted. http://www.modbee.com/2012/01/04/2012209/man-gets-12-years-in-prison-for.html Pick Your Poison. State figures on pesticide use show increasing reliance on methyl bromide alternatives. It was a good year for strawberries in Monterey County, and also for the pesticides that make them a nearly $1 billion crop. The quantity of pesticides applied locally to all crops rose to nearly 9 million pounds, a 12-percent increase from 2009 to 2010, according to figures released last week by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. Posted. http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/2012/jan/05/pick-your-poison/ OPINIONS Mercury News editorial: Peer review should bury high-speed rail How many fiscal autopsies will it take before the state buries the corpse that is California's high-speed rail proposal? The latest ugly conclusion comes from the high-speed rail peer review group, which on Tuesday recommended that the Legislature not approve the appropriation of bond proceeds for the project this year. Amen to that. Posted. http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_19675945 New effort to improve cars draws usual opposition. If California highways and parking lots of 2025 look considerably different from today’s, it will probably be because they’ll contain almost 1.5 million more hybrid cars and trucks, hydrogen-driven vehicles and plug-in hybrids that run mostly on electricity except on long trips. That’s the vision behind the latest set of proposed rules rolled out by the California Air Resources Board even as the Republican chairman of the main investigative committee in the House of Representatives seeks to drag it into hearings about whether it is exceeding its mission. Posted. http://napavalleyregister.com/news/opinion/columnists/new-effort-to-improve-cars-draws-usual-opposition/article_283b8770-34fb-11e1-9037-0019bb2963f4.html INLAND: Golf-path dream. Money earmarked to improve air quality should pay for projects that actually address pollution. Southern California Air quality officials should use a new pot of money to curb pollutants in the Coachella Valley, and not spend most of the funds on a proposal that has at best a tenuous relationship to cleaner air. Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit wants to spend up to $40 million in air quality funds to pay for part of a 30-mile parkway for joggers, bicycles and golf carts. Posted. http://www.pe.com/opinion/editorials-headlines/20120104-inland-golf-path-dream.ece How Traffic Jams Affect Air Quality. No one will be surprised to learn that areas with the largest number of cars on the road see higher levels of air pollution on average. Motor vehicles are one of the largest sources of pollution worldwide. You may be surprised to learn, however, that slower moving traffic emits more pollution than when cars move at freeway speeds. Traffic jams are bad for our air. Posted. http://www.environmentalleader.com/2012/01/05/how-traffic-jams-affect-air-quality/ The case of the missing gas mileage. Contrary to common perception, the major automakers have produced large increases in fuel efficiency through better technology in recent decades. There’s just one catch: All those advances have barely increased the mileage per gallon that autos actually achieve on the road. Sound perplexing? This situation is the result of a trend newly quantified by MIT economist Christopher Knittel: Posted. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/cars-on-steroids-0104.html BLOGS A Photographic Blast From the Past. In January 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency asked nearly 100 freelance photographers to roam the country in the pursuit of a single goal: documenting “the environmental happenings and non-happenings” of the decade. By 1977, the photographers had submitted more than 80,000 images for the project, known as Documerica. About one-quarter of the photographs were shown in public exhibitions but then filed away and largely forgotten. Posted. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/a-photographic-blast-from-the-past/ California Urges Drivers to Change the Oil Less Often. A California agency is campaigning to get car owners to change their motor oil at a longer interval, claiming that the time-honored practice of switching the oil every 3,000 miles is financially wasteful, detrimental to the environment and unwarranted. Michael Springer/Bloomberg NewsDrivers of new cars are encouraged to change their oil at a longer interval than in the past. Posted. http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/california-urges-drivers-to-change-the-oil-less-often/ And Now, the Oil Industry Caucus. North America could be self-sufficient in gasoline and diesel fuel in 15 years if only the government would get out of the way, the president of the American Petroleum Institute said on Wednesday in a “state of American energy” address intended to raise the industry’s profile in the presidential election. Jack N. Gerard, the president and chief executive of the trade group, said repeatedly that his organization would not take a position on whom to vote for. Posted. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/and-now-the-oil-industry-caucus/ For Seal Pups on Thin Ice, a Short Childhood. For a mother harp seal, timing is everything. Pups are born and nursed on seasonal sea ice during a brief window before the spring sun melts the ephemeral nursery. After only 12 days, the mother weans her pups and the family slides into the ocean together. Should the ice melt early, however, the pups will meet an early end, either drowning in the sea or getting crushed by shifting floes. In 2010, nearly 100 percent of eastern Canadian pups are estimated to have perished in this situation. Posted. http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/a-short-childhood-for-seal-pups-on-thin-ice/ Biodiesel and the 'unconstitutional' LCFS. The LCFS excluded corn ethanol due to its high carbon intensity, but used cooking oil biodiesel achieved the lowest rating ever scored by CARB. So what's the biodiesel industry's position on the finding that the LCFS violates the U.S. constitution? Ever since it was released a couple of years ago that corn ethanol scores poorly under the California low carbon fuel standard…Posted. http://biodieselmagazine.com/blog/article/2012/01/biodiesel-and-the-unconstitutional-lcfs Residents Near Highways in LA Deserve Clean Air Too. Yesterday, NRDC along with Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and Communities for a Better Environment filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) challenging the failure to provide air monitoring for harmful particulate pollution near highways in the Los Angeles region. You can read about the lawsuit here. Posted. http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amartinez/residents_near_highways_in_la.html Dr. Paul Anastas outlines EPA’s new research paradigm, The Path Forward; realigning EPA research around sustainability. In a paper published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, Dr. Paul Anastas, Science Advisor to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as the Agency’s Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, outlines the principles of the EPA’s new research paradigm called “The Path Forward”, as well as the actions taken since 2010 to align EPA’s research efforts with the goal of sustainability. Posted. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/01/anastas-20120105.html New silica-organic hybrid absorbents deliver among highest performance yet reported for CO2 capture from air. A team from the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, reports on an improved material for capturing carbon dioxide from the air—silica−organic hybrid adsorbents—in a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Reported capture values under humid conditions are among the highest reported for CO2 adsorption from the air. Posted. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/01/loker-20120104.html First Ford Focus Electric heads to Google. This time last year, Ford was pulling the wraps off the Focus Electric at CES in Las Vegas. Twelve months later, Ford is slowly beginning production of its first EV at its Michigan Assembly plant and dropped off one early example to the crew at Google. We're not sure what the search giant is doing with Dearborn's inaugural EV, but something involving either Google Street View or its autonomous vehicle program isn't out of the question. Posted. http://green.autoblog.com/2012/01/04/first-ford-focus-electric-heads-to-google/ Chevy Volt has best month ever, but Nissan Leaf still wins 2011 plug-in sales contest. And the numbers are in. For December, the Chevrolet Volt sold 1,529. units, putting the plug-in car's 2011 total at 7,671. While that overall number fell well short of the announced target of 10,000-12,000, December 2011 was the Volt's best sales month ever and the positive trend positions the car in a good place going into 2012. Posted. http://green.autoblog.com/2012/01/04/chevy-volt-has-best-month-ever-but-nissan-leaf-still-wins-2011/ Insurance payouts point to climate change. Natural disasters in 2011 exerted the costliest toll in history — a whopping $380 billion worth of losses from earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, tsunamis and more. Only a third of those costs were covered by insurance. And the tally ignores completely any expenses associated with sickness or injuries triggered by the disasters. Posted. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/337368/title/Insurance_payouts_point_to_climate_change