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newsclips -- Newsclips for May 3, 2013
Posted: 03 May 2013 11:15:02
ARB Newsclips for May 3, 2013. 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. CAP AND TRADE Cap and trade law vs. agriculture focus of Assembly hearing. A joint informational hearing is being scheduled for next week on how California agriculture can help the state meet its air quality goals. Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, D-Davis, chairwoman of the Assembly Select Committee on Sustainable and Organic Agriculture, and Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, chairwoman of the Assembly Select Committee on Agriculture and the Environment, will hold the hearing. The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, May 8, beginning at 10:30 a.m. in the State Capitol, room 126. Posted. http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_23163355/cap-and-trade-law-vs-agriculture-focus-assembly AIR POLLUTION APNewsBreak: Judge Axes Federal Suit Over Lake. A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles against air quality regulators who are requiring the city to do more to control dust on a lake that was siphoned dry a century ago to provide water for the booming metropolis. U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii granted a motion Wednesday to dismiss the lawsuit in the latest chapter in a decades-old spat over water rights in the arid region 200 miles north of Los Angeles. The lawsuit was filed last year in U.S. District Court in Fresno. Posted. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CALIFORNIA_WATER_WARS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT AP Newsbreak: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130502/us-california-water-wars/?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=green http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/apnewsbreak-federal-judge-tosses-lawsuit-filed-by-los-angeles-over-lake-dust-control/2013/05/02/64beb346-b382-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/may/02/apnewsbreak-judge-axes-federal-suit-over-lake/ http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/apnewsbreak-judge-axes-federal-suit-lake-19096981#.UYPTVMpglNs Chemical pesticides burn in Calif. Wildfire. Fire officials say they will dispatch a hazardous materials team to deal with a store of highly toxic pesticides that have caught fire in a massive Southern California wildfire. Cpt. Scott Dettorre tells the Ventura County Star ( http://bit.ly/132NTEh ) the pesticides were stored at the Laguna Farms property near the California State University Channel Islands campus. Dettorre says nearby residents are being warned to stay out of the smoke. Posted. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/may/02/chemical-pesticides-burn-in-calif-wildfire/ Air quality advisory issued due to fire, dust. Air quality will be compromised today in Ventura County as a result of the Camarillo Springs fire and dust kicked up by Santa Ana winds. The county Air Pollution Control District issued an advisory this morning urging all residents in areas with blowing dust, smoke and ash to use caution and avoid unnecessary outdoor activities. Meteorologist Kent Field said residents in those areas should avoid vigorous outdoor or indoor exertion and that children, elderly individuals and people with respiratory or heart disease should stay indoors. Smoke and ash from the fire is considered unhealthy in and downwind of the fire. Posted. http://www.vcstar.com/news/2013/may/02/air-quality-advisory-issued-due-to-fire-dust/ Santa Clara County receives 'F' for air pollution. Despite Santa Clara County getting an "F" grade for this year's state of the air report released by the American Lung Association, the report does show notable progress in efforts to reduce ozone and particulate pollution in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The 14th annual report ranks cities and counties most affected by air pollution and details trends over the past decade. The grades are based on the weighted average of days when air pollution levels reach the higher ranges. Posted. http://www.mercurynews.com/sunnyvale/ci_23161329/santa-clara-county-receives-f-air-pollution http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_23161329/santa-clara-county-receives-f-air-pollution?IADID=Search-www.insidebayarea.com-www.insidebayarea.com Companies spend millions to reduce air pollution. Some companies operating in Southern California are spending millions of dollars to help reduce air pollution and it’s showing results. Los Angeles, Riverside and Long Beach still remain the worst place for ozone pollution nationwide, but the number of unhealthy air days has dropped over the last decade, according to a report by the American Lung Association. Posted. http://www.scpr.org/news/2013/05/02/37107/companies-spend-millions-to-reduce-air-pollution/ CLIMATE CHANGE The year 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record. The United Nation’s weather agency has confirmed that 2012 was the ninth warmest year since record keeping began in 1850, and the 27th consecutive year that global land and ocean temperatures were above average. Last year exceeded the global average temperature of 58 degrees Fahrenheit despite the cooling influence of a La Nina weather pattern, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s annual climate report. Posted. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-2012-record-heat-20130502,0,2784525.story HIGH-SPEED RAIL Rail authority defends bullet train bidding criteria. The California bullet train agency on Thursday defended its bidding criteria for selecting the winner for its first construction contract, saying that the process held down prices and was handled properly. The California High-Speed Rail Authority has come under fire from critics who assert changes to the bidding criteria could jeopardize the quality of the project. The authority tentatively chose a team led by Sylmar-based Tutor Perini to build a 29-mile segment of track through Fresno even though it had the lowest technical score. The team had the lowest-cost bid, at just under $1 billion. Posted. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bullet-contract-20130503,0,7557395.story?track=rss GREEN ENERGY Oil drilling technology leaps, clean energy lags. Technology created an energy revolution over the past decade - just not the one we expected. By now, cars were supposed to be running on fuel made from plant waste or algae - or powered by hydrogen or cheap batteries that burned nothing at all. Electricity would be generated with solar panels and wind turbines. When the sun didn't shine or the wind didn't blow, power would flow out of batteries the size of tractor-trailers. Posted. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ENERGY_TECHNOLOGY_RACE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT Other related articles http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/05/02/3282914/oil-drilling-technology-leaps.html#storylink=misearch www.vcstar.com/news/2013/may/02/oil-drilling-technology-leaps-clean-energy-02/ Is Waste Management Evolving Into an Energy Company? Landfill gas, as a by-product of microbial activity, forms from the anaerobic decomposition of organic waste materials (trash), and consists primarily of methane as well as carbon dioxide. The biogas produced by landfills can be used as an energy source -- from fueling trucks to generating electricity. Utilizing this gas for electricity can also deliver a continuous, stable source of electricity to power grids -- which is something other "green" energy sources such as wind and solar often cannot. So, how to invest? Posted. http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Is-Waste-Management-Evolving-Into-an-Energy-4485704.php OPINION Make plan to maximize the use of natural gas. California has numerous opportunities to achieve our state’s ambitious carbon emission reduction goals, while at the same time fostering jobs and supporting industries involved in clean energy. One area of opportunity is natural gas. There is a lot of it. It is lower priced than alternatives. And it is a domestic resource. Now is the time for the state to determine a clear roadmap that effectively guides our current use of natural gas to further reduce emissions and move us toward a clean energy economy. Posted. http://www.pe.com/opinion/local-views-headlines/20130502-opinion-make-plan-to-maximize-the-use-of-natural-gas.ece BLOGS Air Pollution’s Role in Heart Disease. Air pollution has been linked to cardiovascular disease, and now researchers may be closer to understanding why: it increases atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, a known risk for heart attack and stroke. Researchers did ultrasound examinations on 5,362 men and women over 45 in six metropolitan areas, measuring the thickness of their right common carotid artery, one of two arteries that carry oxygenated blood to the neck and head. Posted. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/air-pollutions-role-in-heart-disease/ On ‘Unburnable Carbon’ and the Specter of a ‘Carbon Bubble’. A new buzz phrase in the push to limit greenhouse gas emissions is “unburnable carbon” — an effort to define and then wall off the portion of the world’s still-vast reserves of coal, oil or natural gas that might, if combusted, cause unacceptably costly or dangerous climate change. The effort builds, to a large extent, on studies aiming to create a “carbon budget” for the world’s nations — divvying up the amount of emissions (and thus fuels) below that threshold. The most notable paper, published in Nature, was ”Greenhouse-Gas Emission Targets for Limiting Global Warming to 2 °C.” (2 °C being 2 degrees Celsius). (Earlier this year, Katherine Bagley wrote a nice piece on the influence of that paper.) Posted. http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/on-unburnable-carbon-and-the-specter-of-a-carbon-bubble/ April 2013: Prius sales slow, competition grows edition. Year-over-year advanced-powertrain sales numbers in the US continued to slow last month as Japanese automakers like Toyota and Honda failed to hit the demand levels seen in 2012. A surge in Nissan Leaf sales, which helped push plug-in sales up 41 percent from a year earlier, and demand for newer Ford hybrids helped offset the effect of falling Prius sales. Still, advanced-powertrain sales rose just 6.5 percent to 52,671 units in April. Through the first four months of the year, Americans bought just over 200,000 advanced-powertrain vehicles, up 14 percent from a year earlier. Posted. http://green.autoblog.com/2013/05/03/april-2013-green-car-sales/