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ARB Newsclips for February 5, 2016. 

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

Parties clash over how to allocate carbon allowances. No matter
the politics or point of view on U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan,
utilities and other parties in Missouri working on a state
compliance strategy unanimously favor a "mass-based" plan to cap
power plant carbon dioxide emissions and trading of emissions
allowances.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/02/05/stories/1060031874 

AIR POLLUTION

This world map shows where pollution is getting worse. There’s
good news for the U.S. When the Eiffel Tower nearly disappeared
in a thick haze of smog last year, French authorities decided it
was time to act. They limited car traffic in Paris as a
last-resort measure. But many argued that much more should have
been done much earlier.
Many researchers, who had warned of dangerous pollution levels
for years…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/02/05/this-world-map-shows-where-pollution-is-getting-worse-theres-good-news-for-the-u-s/


ALISO CANYON

First wrongful death claim filed over California methane leak.
Methane fumes spewing from a ruptured underground pipeline near a
Los Angeles neighborhood hastened the demise of an elderly woman
already suffering from lung cancer, her family said in the first
wrongful death claim stemming from the gas leak. The lawsuit
seeks unspecified monetary damages against Southern California
Gas Co…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-methane-idUSKCN0VD2QR


Is the end in sight for the Porter Ranch-area gas leak? state
official said Thursday that under the most favorable
circumstances, the damaged well that has spewed environmentally
damaging natural gas from a storage facility near Porter Ranch
could be capped as early as the end of next week. But the
timeline, he cautioned, was fraught with variables.
http://www.latimes.com/science/la-me-0205-porter-ranch-leak-20160205-story.html


County supervisor wants more time for Porter Ranch residents to
return home after gas leak. Los Angeles County supervisor wants
residents who have been displaced by the Aliso Canyon gas leak to
have as long as 30 days after the leak is plugged to return to
their homes from temporary housing. Southern California Gas Co.
and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office agreed last December
that residents of Porter Ranch...
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-gas-leak-relocation-20160204-story.html


Calif. regs seek to prevent more Aliso Canyon-style leaks.
California regulators are readying rules to control methane from
oil and gas operations, including underground natural gas storage
tanks like the one currently leaking in Southern California. The
state Air Resources Board released draft regulations Tuesday that
would require oil and natural gas facilities to monitor for and
control methane leaks from all aspects of their operations.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/02/05/stories/1060031882 

CLIMATE CHANGE

Forests are supposed to help stop climate change. These forests
didn’t. Forests play a critical role in the global carbon cycle,
helping to mitigate climate change by storing carbon that would
otherwise end up in the atmosphere. So maintaining sustainable
forest management practices that maximize the trees’ ability to
act as a carbon sink…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/04/forests-are-supposed-to-help-stop-climate-change-these-forests-didnt/

'Wrong type of trees' in Europe increased global warming. The
assumption that planting new forests helps limit climate change
has been challenged by a new study. Researchers found that in
Europe, trees grown since 1750 have actually increased global
warming. The scientists believe that replacing broadleaved
species with conifers is a key reason for the negative climate
impact. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35496350 

Oil Industry Group's Own Report Shows Early Knowledge of Climate
Impacts.
A report the American Petroleum Institute commissioned in 1982
revealed its knowledge of global warming, predated its campaign
to sow doubt. A Columbia University report commissioned by the
American Petroleum Institute in 1982 cautioned that global
warming "can have serious consequences for man's comfort and
survival." 
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/04022016/oil-industry-report-shows-early-knowledge-climate-change-impact-api-american-petroleum-institute


Study points to developing world feeling more impact from climate
change. However, critics of the Australian research team's
efforts say industrialized nations have and will be affected,
too. A study released Friday shows that the wealthiest 4 percent
of the world’s population is creating 50 percent of the
greenhouse gas emissions, but will likely suffer little impact
resulting from climate change…
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2016/0205/Study-points-to-developing-world-feeling-more-impact-from-climate-change

Arctic sea ice sets January record low. The amount of Arctic sea
ice set a record low for the month of January, the National Snow
and Ice Data Center announced Thursday. January 2016 was a
remarkably warm month there, the data center said. Air
temperatures were 13 degrees above average across most of the
Arctic Ocean. Just before New Year’s, a slug of mild air pushed
temperatures above freezing to within 200 miles of the North
Pole…
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/02/04/arctic-sea-ice-january-record-low/79844578/


Southwest Climate is Changing as Weather Patterns Fail to Bring
Moisture. It turns out that the southwest may just have shifted
to a drier climate. Scientists have found that the weather
patterns that typically bring moisture to the southwest are
becoming rarer, which is an indication that the region is sliding
into the drier climate state predicted by global models.
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/36908/20160205/southwest-climate-changing-weather-patterns-fail-bring-moisture.htm

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/southwest-drier-climate-change-19990

Natural cycles don't explain warming, study finds. The planet
would not be warming without an extra push -- from increased
greenhouse gases or a change in orbit, for example -- because
natural feedback loops keep temperatures in equilibrium, a new
study confirms. The researchers, who published their results in
the Journal of Climate on Monday, dug into data to see what would
happen to global temperatures…
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/02/05/stories/1060031847 

Supreme Court intervention would undercut climate action – EPA.
Halting U.S. EPA's landmark Clean Power Plan would delay critical
greenhouse gas reductions and undermine a global effort to
address climate change, the Obama administration told the Supreme
Court yesterday. "Granting such relief would harm the public's
interests in implementing this duly-promulgated Rule, in reducing
the accumulation of greenhouse…
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/02/05/stories/1060031873 

DROUGHT

Barren a year ago, a snowpack station comes up deep and dense. It
was 22 degrees and snowing Tuesday morning. State snow surveyor
Frank Gehrke slowly crossed a blanketed field. He periodically
jabbed a hollow pole into the snow and then hung it from a
portable scale, reading nature to draw a bead on where, exactly,
the California drought is heading.
http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-0205-abcarian-snowpack-20160205-column.html


El Niño 'Takes A Break' El Niño, which helped increase
precipitation in California last month, is taking a break.
January brought heavy precipitation to California. But
forecasters say the next 7-to-10 days will be drier and warmer.
The water content in the Sierra snowpack currently ranges from
110 to 150 percent on average.
http://www.capradio.org/articles/2016/02/05/el-nino-takes-a-break/


FUELS

Utilities Must Reduce Methane Leaks from Natural-Gas Pipelines,
Says New Bill. With plenty of natural-gas pipelines in New Jersey
and more on the way, lawmakers want to reduce leaks in those
systems, which can pose a safety hazard to the community while
increasing pollution contributing to climate change.
http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/16/02/04/utilities-must-clamp-down-on-methane-leaks-from-natural-gas-pipelines-says-new-bill/


Obama to push $10-per-barrel oil tax for green transportation
plan.  President Obama will propose a $10-per-barrel fee on oil
production to fund a new green transportation plan, the White
House announced Thursday. The proposal would go toward a $32.4
billion annual push to green the transportation sector by funding
public transit, an urban planning initiative and clean vehicle
research, the White House said in a fact sheet.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/268266-obama-to-push-10-per-barrel-oil-tax-for-green-transportation-plan


VEHICLES

2016 Prius Four is a smarter, sleeker version of Toyota's aging
hybrid. Powered by a 1.8-liter, four-cylinder engine supported by
an electric motor and a lithium-ion battery, the 2016 Toyota
Prius Four gets great mileage — an estimated combined
city-highway 52 miles per gallon. Back in the dark days of
automotive history, fuel was cheap and plentiful and Detroit
dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-prius-review-20160206-story.html


Tesla Trails Volkswagen Despite Diesel-Emissions Scandal: Chart.
Tesla Motors Inc. shares fell 33 percent through Thursday from
Sept. 18. That’s the day Volkswagen AG’s emissions scandal began.
During that period, Volkswagen’s American depositary receipts
slid 29 percent. On Friday, Tesla declined as much as 8.7 percent
while Volkswagen’s ADRs gained as much as 4.2 percent.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-05/tesla-trails-volkswagen-despite-diesel-emissions-scandal-chart

Should Utility Customers Pay For Electric-Car Charging Stations
They Don't Use? California is by far the most advanced state in
adopting plug-in electric cars. Fully 45.3 percent of the
country's more than 400,000 plug-in cars were sold in California,
according to data from the state's Plug-In Electric Vehicle
Collaborative. But electric cars need public charging stations…
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1102231_should-utility-customers-pay-for-electric-car-charging-stations-they-dont-use


Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, January 2016: New Year, Old
Models, New Records. Like an exhausted Times Square reveler, the
Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market tends to start the New
Year slowly, and this past January was no exception. Chevy sold
94 Volts, down more than half from December's 220 but well ahead
of the 71 from a year ago.
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1102228_plug-in-electric-car-sales-in-canada-january-2016-new-year-old-models-new-records


VW RECALL

Volkswagen, Reeling From Emissions Scandal, to Delay Earnings
Report.  Volkswagen said on Friday that it would delay reporting
its annual earnings and move back the date of its annual
shareholders’ meeting because of uncertainty about the cost of
its diesel emissions scandal. The delays reflect the company’s
problems from the fallout of its admission in September that it
had equipped 11 million diesel vehicles with software that could
enable them to cheat on emissions tests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/06/business/international/volkswagen-earnings-emissions.html

http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article58604293.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/05/volkswagen-postpones-financial-results-agm-diesel-emissions-scandal


Volkswagen legal assault lands in San Francisco courts. The
international scandal over Volkswagen’s cheating on emissions
controls in its diesel engines has already produced a predictable
result — one of the most massive legal assaults in U.S. history.
Now dozens of class-action lawsuits filed nationwide on behalf of
hundreds of thousands of angry Volkswagen owners, dealers and
others have been centralized in…
http://www.montereyherald.com/article/NF/20160205/NEWS/160209844


GREEN ENERGY

After Years of Growth, Renewable-Energy Investors Pull Back From
Europe. Spain, U.K, Italy have cut incentives for
renewable-energy projects to reduce government spending. Europe
is tired of paying for renewable energy. For more than a decade,
countries across Europe used big financial incentives to become
world leaders in wind and solar development.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-years-of-growth-green-energy-investors-pull-back-from-europe-1454591209


Hartford Cuts Energy Bets Amid Pressure From Slumping Oil Prices.
Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., the insurer that sold
life units to focus on property-casualty coverage, spent last
year cutting its exposure to energy investments by more than $1
billion and hedging its bets on the sector as falling oil prices
pressured returns.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-05/hartford-cuts-energy-bets-amid-pressure-from-slumping-oil-prices


Senate Democrats block energy bill in impasse over Flint. Senate
Democrats on Thursday blocked the first bipartisan energy bill in
almost a decade after majority Republicans balked over sending
hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency aid to Flint,
Michigan, to fix and replace the city's lead-contaminated pipes.
The impasse hardened an increasingly partisan response to the
water crisis…
http://www.sfgate.com/business/energy/article/Senate-Dems-block-energy-bill-in-impasse-over-6806854.php


U.S. reaches 'turning point' in low-carbon growth. The United
States has reached a watershed in efforts to decarbonize its
energy economy, setting records in 2015 for natural gas and
renewable energy production, alongside rising investment in
energy efficiency and the continued retirement of dozens of older
coal-fired power plants.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/02/05/stories/1060031852 

OPINIONS

Why climate change is really, really unfair. With his 2015
encyclical “Laudato Si,” Pope Frances went further than perhaps
anyone has before to reframe the entire debate around climate
change by focusing on the world’s poor and the duty to protect
them from environmental harms that they did not cause themselves.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/05/why-climate-change-is-really-really-unfair/


COLUMN-Obama's budget will not lead to $10 oil tax: Kemp.
President Barack Obama's final budget will propose a $10 per
barrel oil tax, investing the proceeds in mass transit,
high-speed rail, urban planning, highway upgrades and
self-driving cars, among other programmes. "President Obama's
21st Century Clean Transportation System", outlined by the White
House to reporters on
Thursday…http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL8N15K31K


Clean Energy Revolution? To the Editor: In “Wind, Sun and Fire”
(column, Feb. 1), Paul Krugman, concluding that we can have the
energy revolution we need “even if the crazies retain control of
the House,” ignores some important realities. The powerful oil,
gas and coal industries are committed to keeping the world
dependent on fossil fuels.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/opinion/clean-energy-revolution.html


What You Get When You Mix Chickens, China and Climate Change. IT
was a gray, damp January afternoon a few years back when I
visited the Jiangfeng wholesale poultry market on the outskirts
of Guangzhou, in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. With
its bleak wire enclosures and grid of cement paths, the place had
the feel of a neglected 1970s-era urban zoo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/opinion/sunday/what-you-get-when-you-mix-chickens-china-and-climate-change.html?_r=0


L.A. needs fewer platitudes and more action on port air
pollution. When Port of Los Angeles leaders approved the
environmental impact report for the China Shipping company's
terminal in 2008, the Harbor Commission chairman at the time
boasted that the project would be among the cleanest and greenest
terminals in the world. Months later, however, port officials
quietly waived some of the most ambitious pollution-cutting
mandates… 
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-0205-port-pollution-20160205-story.html
 
BLOGS

California Leads on Reducing Methane Emissions from Oil & Gas
Operations. California took a big step forward to reduce
emissions of potent, heat-trapping methane pollution from the oil
and gas industry. Joining states like Wyoming, Colorado, and
Pennsylvania, California is proposing strong but sensible rules
to control methane across the oil and gas supply chain - from
production to transmission.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/bmordick/california_leads_on_reducing_m.html


The Great Race: The cyclist beat both car and bus - here's why.
We sent out three staffers in rush hour traffic. The mission: To
race from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica
Pier via bike, bus and car. The winner: The bicyclist. Jacob
Margolis biked there in 65 minutes, while Sue Carpenter drove and
parked in the span of 70 minutes. Leo Duran spent 94 minutes
using public transportation.
http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2016/02/04/46099/dtla-to-santa-monica-car-bike-or-bus-who-wins/


Venezuela the worst carbon polluter in Latin America, Brazil
among the best. Venezuela has the highest levels of carbon
pollution in Latin America, while its southern neighbor, Brazil
had one of the lowest levels despite being one of the region’s
wealthiest economies. On a per capita measure, Venezuelans were
responsible for 6.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2011 while
Brazilians averaged 2.2 metric tons…
http://latincorrespondent.com/2016/02/venezuela-the-worst-carbon-polluter-in-latin-america-brazil-among-the-best/





California is in a drought emergency.
Visit www.SaveOurH2O.org for water conservation tips.