What's New List Serve Post Display

ARB Newsclips for March 4, 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.

AIR POLLUTION

South Coast AQMD head’s performance to be reviewed as board
member ideologies clash. When the South Coast Air Quality
Management District holds its monthly meeting on Friday, one of
the items on the agenda will be looking at the performance of
executive officer Barry Wallerstein. A recent shift in the
board’s makeup, including several new appointees…
http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2016/03/03/46886/south-coast-aqmd-heads-performance-to-be-reviewed/


ExxonMobil sued over Baton Rouge chemical plant's emissions.  An
environmental group's lawsuit claims ExxonMobil Corp. continues
to violate Clean Air Act regulations despite a 2014 settlement
over emissions from the company's Baton Rouge chemical plant. The
Louisiana Environmental Action Network sued the company in
federal court on Thursday.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/business/20160304/exxonmobil-sued-over-baton-rouge-chemical-plants-emissions


Judges toss 'too late' lead emissions challenge from greens.
Environmentalists' complaint that U.S. EPA's regulatory scheme
allows for harmfully high lead emissions in Puerto Rico came
about 35 years too late, a panel of federal judges found today. A
three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit dismissed a legal challenge from the Sierra
Club de Puerto Rico and others.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/03/04/stories/1060033484 

Settlement possible in aerospace challenge to new EPA rule.  A
federal appellate court put an aerospace industry challenge to
new U.S. EPA emissions rules on hold while the two sides try to
work out a deal.  In an order yesterday, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a joint
motion filed Wednesday by EPA and the Aero MACT Group to hold the
case in abeyance…
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/03/04/stories/1060033486 

Judge sets trial against Ameren for Clean Air Act violations. 
After half a decade of litigation, the federal government's
lawsuit that claims Ameren Missouri violated rules of the Clean
Air Act at its coal power plant will go to trial.  The suit
claims Ameren made large changes to its 1,200-megawatt plant
without obtaining the necessary permits. The Justice Department
and U.S. EPA say this caused the Rush Island coal plant to have
higher pollution emissions.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/03/04/stories/1060033473 

ALISO CANYON

Porter Ranch air likely the most tested in America, experts say.
It’s been suctioned and grabbed at, feared and loathed. In the
days after an estimated 100,000 tons of methane spewed from an
aged natural gas well and into the skies above the hills of
Porter Ranch, fearful residents moved out and fancy air monitors
moved in.
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/environment-and-nature/20160304/porter-ranch-air-likely-the-most-tested-in-america-experts-say


CLIMATE CHANGE

Oil Gears Up for Another Climate Fight. A Harvard economist known
globally for his work on climate change policy sat in the
Sacramento office of the oil industry’s lobbying firm recently,
making the case that California is fighting global warming the
wrong way.
The state has a good cap and trade system, Robert Stavins said,
but some of its other environmental policies are weakening it.
http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/03/04/oil-gears-up-for-another-climate-fight/


Could climate change force migration and limit agriculture?
(+video). Two new climate-related studies point to the drastic
effects of climate change in the coming decades, including a drop
in global food availability and the potential for certain regions
to become uninhabitable. Separate studies analyzing the future
impacts of climate change suggest that people around the world…
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2016/0303/Could-climate-change-force-migration-and-limit-agriculture-video


Darker ice leads to faster melting in Greenland. Greenland's
snow-white ice is getting darker and melting faster, a new study
shows. Soot deposited from forest fires is helping to color the
snow, drawing in warmth like a black car in summer. But even
cleaner ice may be melting faster due to higher temperatures that
cause the formation of larger ice grains, according to the study…
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/03/04/stories/1060033466 

Climate change impacts on diets could kill more than half a
million. Climate change could make diets less healthy, killing
more than 500,000 people a year globally by 2050, according to
new research published in The Lancet. The research found that
climate change could limit the amount of fruit and vegetables
available, leading to higher risks of disease, stroke and
diet-related cancers.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/03/04/stories/1060033418 

DROUGHT

El Niño returns: Big weekend storms coming to Bay Area. A series
of storms will rumble into California this weekend, bringing
strong winds, 2 to 3 inches of rain to most Bay Area cities, 4 to
7 inches of rain in the coastal mountains and up to 2 feet of new
snow in the Sierra Nevada by Monday morning, forecasters said
Thursday. The storms threaten to down trees and knock out power
in some places…
http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_29592560/california-drought-big-weekend-storms-coming-lots-rain


U.S. sends disaster response to drought-stricken Ethiopia. The
Obama administration announced yesterday that it will send
disaster response teams to Ethiopia to respond to the country's
worst drought in a half-century. U.N. aid agencies say more than
10 million people are in need of food and more than 400 children
are at risk of malnutrition.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/03/04/stories/1060033462 

VEHICLES

Tesla Takes on the Dealerships—and GM. The electric-car company
wins a legislative fight in Indiana.  “We need your help,” Tesla
wrote in a Feb. 19 e-mail to its customers in Indiana. The state
legislature was about to move forward with a bill that would have
forced the electric-car maker to find a franchisee to operate its
one showroom in the state, setting a precedent that would make it
harder for Tesla to open others elsewhere.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-03/tesla-takes-on-the-dealerships-and-gm


Japan plans real-world diesel emissions test after companies
fail. Japan's transport ministry plans to start real-world diesel
emissions tests after an experiment found four models from
Toyota, Nissan, and Mitsubishi that produced more nitrogen oxide
(NOx) emissions than the nation's rules allow, according to The
Japan Times. Regulators there usually only perform emissions
checks in the lab.
http://www.autoblog.com/2016/03/04/japan-plans-real-world-diesel-emissions-test-after-companies-fai/


VW RECALL

CalSTRS joins legal fight over Volkswagen diesel scandal. CalSTRS
said Friday it’s joining a German shareholder lawsuit against
Volkswagen over the diesel emissions scandal, adding its
considerable weight in ramping up pressure on the embattled
automaker. “Volkswagen’s actions are particularly heinous, since
the company marketed itself as a forward thinking steward of the
environment…
http://www.modbee.com/news/business/article64020272.html#storylink=cpy


GREEN ENERGY

Sweden Invests 20 Million Euros for Clean Energy in Zambia.
Sweden’s development agency will finance a 20 million-euro
($22-million) fund to develop clean energy in Zambia through
2018. The Vienna-based Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Partnership said it will also work with Power Africa and other
partners to roll out the project.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-04/sweden-invests-20-million-euros-for-clean-energy-in-zambia


Off-grid solar to be $3.1B market by 2030. Roughly 99 million
unelectrified households in the developing world could see
reliable power delivered via solar panels by the end of the
decade, according to findings released this week by the World
Bank Group. In a sweeping market study, the international
development bank found that a massive scale-up in investment and
deployment of off-grid energy solutions has made the industry an
emerging powerhouse.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/03/04/stories/1060033461 

Cooling your shirt, not a house, and other innovations to cut
carbon. One the hottest trends at the Advanced Research Projects
Agency-Energy's annual summit this week was, well, heat.
Technologies for generating high temperatures, keeping them high,
storing that heat for later and cooling back down again were all
on display on the conference's crowded showroom floor outside
Washington, D.C.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/03/04/stories/1060033463 

OPINIONS

Welcome back, smog: What the new pro-polluter air board means for
us. To the editor: The South Coast Air Quality Management
District seems about to follow the sterling example set by the
California Coastal Commission at its recent meeting in Morro Bay:
Fire the competent executive officer who is not bending
sufficiently to satisfy business interests and try to find a lap
dog who will. ("Southern California smog regulator may be forced
out amid shift on air board," March 1)
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-le-0304-friday-smog-air-board-20160304-story.html


Urban Farms Lay the Groundwork for Cleaner Air. The San Diego
City Council voted unanimously this week to implement AB 551, a
state law passed in 2013 that lets urban areas create “urban
agriculture incentive zones” within which private landowners can
secure a property tax reduction by committing their land to urban
agriculture for at least five years. This is a very welcome
development.
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/opinion/urban-farms-lay-the-groundwork-for-cleaner-air/


Why Nuclear Energy Can Help Fight Climate Change. The critics are
wrong. America is facing critical decisions as a country about
how to combat climate change, and it’s imperative that those
decisions are based on solid facts as we shape a clean energy
future for the U.S. We are at a turning point, and if we are
going to effectively fight climate change, we will need every
carbon-free source of electricity we can bring to bear.
http://fortune.com/2016/03/04/climate-change-nuclear-energy/ 

BLOGS

Is Worry Worthwhile in Confronting Climate Change? Is worry
worthwhile in confronting a challenge as complex and sprawling —
in time and geography — as greenhouse-driven climate change? I’ve
addressed this question before in various ways, but was prompted
to dig into my ideas and feelings about the building greenhouse
effect with new rigor when two very different magazines…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/is-worry-worthwhile-in-confronting-climate-change/?_r=0


Post-Paris: There Is No Denying Clean Energy Future. On February
9, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling to pause implementation
of the Clean Power Plan while the lower court reviews the
legality of the regulations. The "stay" of the rule means that
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may not enforce
the Clean Power Plan pending the resolution of the case on the
merits.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/we-mean-business/post-paris-there-is-no-de_b_9383230.html


“Global warming is now in overdrive”: We just hit a terrible
climate milestone. We’ve just surpassed a historic climate
threshold — and the world is still heating up. As of Thursday
morning, for the first time in recorded history, average
temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere briefly crossed the
threshold of 2 degrees Celsius above “normal.
http://grist.org/climate-energy/global-warming-is-now-in-overdrive-we-just-hit-a-terrible-climate-milestone/




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