Clean Air

By Kristin Eberhard
Natural Resources Defense Council

California’s safest option for guarding against lawsuits over how it spends the billions anticipated from its landmark cap-and-trade program is to channel the auction revenue toward reducing greenhouse gas pollution and furthering the goals of its Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), according to a recent analysis.

The conclusion by the UCLA School of Law’s Emmett Center on Climate Change and Environment may put the brakes on some of the wide-ranging suggestions for using the state’s fee revenue.

By Alan Kandel

In Southern California over the past two decades much in the way of air quality improvement has been achieved. There has been a marked reduction in both fine particle pollution generated at area ports (as we’ve learned from Part 1) and motor vehicle-produced smog (ground-level ozone).

Fine particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) is emitted from motor vehicles and other mobile sources (both on and off-road) in addition to industrial and power plant (stationary) sources as well as from forest fires, according to information provided by California Watch Health and Welfare reporter Bernice Yeung in the article: “Southern Californians at risk of death from air pollution, EPA says.”

By Donald Cohen
The Frying Pan

El Segundo city manager Doug Willmore didn’t know who he was messing with.

In January, 2012 the L.A. Times reported that El Segundo, home to a huge Chevron refinery, was considering raising the oil giant’s taxes to help meet the demands of a growing town. Refineries around the state pay far higher taxes to their local governments than Chevron does – which is why Willmore figured the proposal made sense.

By Kevin Hall
Central Valley Air Quality Coalition

As Californians, we value innovation.  We are often first in the nation with fresh approaches and out-of-the-box thinking.  These qualities have helped our state become an economic powerhouse and a place that leads our country with groundbreaking new ideas.  It is with this in mind that I share with you the importance of California’s leadership in the coming days.  

In Washington, D.C., the House of Representatives is expected to soon consider H.R. 7, a Republican bill that will dramatically and negatively affect energy policy in our country.   

By Alan Kandel

Fine particle and ozone pollution, despite tremendous strides made in terms of filtering such pollutants from Southern California air, is still very pronounced, so much so that recent research revealed, “Southern Californians are among those at highest risk of death due to air pollution, according to recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency research published in the journal Risk Analysis,” reported Bernice Yeung of California Watch.

“Among the most populated areas of the country, Los Angeles had the highest estimated rate of deaths attributable to air pollution, at nearly 10 percent; San Jose had the lowest at 3.5 percent, according to Yeung.

Part 1 of this two-part series examines steps made to clean up fine particle pollution at California seaports, particularly those in the South Coast Air Basin.

By Marcy Winograd
Former Democratic Candidate for Congress

After the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, with its codification of imprisonment without charge or trial, I could no longer register voters for the Democratic Party – even with the hope of involving new registrants in the California Democratic Party’s popular Progressive Caucus. If I could not ask someone to join the Democratic Party, I could not in good conscience stay in the party, even as an insurgent writing resolutions and platform planks to end our wars for oil.

Unfortunately, too many corporate Democrats, beholden to big-money donors or to a jobs sector dependent on militarism, vote for perpetual war and the surveillance state, replete with secret wiretaps, black hole prisons, and targeted assassinations. Far too many who are fearful or bought by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee vote for legislation that relegates Palestinians to second-class citizenship and threatens to take our country to the brink of an unthinkable war on Iran.

By David Pettit
Natural Resources Defense Council
 
The process to implement California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard has had an interesting month. In mid-December we achieved a great victory when California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) unanimously agreed to move forward with implementation of the low emission fuel standard. However, a couple weeks after the December 15th vote, a legal ruling was issued that might delay that progress. Following is an explanation of the LCFS and what the ruling means for the program’s future.
 
What is LCFS?
 

By Alan Kandel

The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (SJVAPCD) had been airing a public service announcement and mentioned is something to the effect that because of the actions of Valley residents, the winter of 2010/2011 was the cleanest in years, maybe the cleanest on record. It’s ironic though: this December in the Valley has been declared the most polluted in a decade.

To account for such a stark contrast, what I believe is responsible for the difference is that the condition of the air in the Valley last winter was a fluke, favorable weather conditions prevailed and a mixing of the atmosphere helped significantly in keeping the air far less polluted. For this December, on the other hand, the air has been mostly stagnant, this coupled with fireplace use during burn bans. The exception to this was December 1, when conditions were extremely windy in the Valley.

By Alan Kandel

Prior to going to work for the Union Pacific Railroad, in Fremont, and retiring as a railroad signalman, in the late ‘70s I was employed by a Bay Area-based manufacturing company that specialized in producing sophisticated electronic measurement or monitoring equipment. This company, I believe, employed about 80 people in all.

At this point you may be saying to yourself “So what?” What’s “so what” is, back in the day, there wasn’t any such thing as indoor smoking bans and at the time of my departure from a company of five full-time employees and one supervisor in the test and tech department only two employees (myself and one other) did not smoke. But if you consider breathing in second-hand smoke smoking, then, in essence, we were all smokers like it or not.

By David Dayen

For the first time, government scientists concluded that hydraulic fracturing, the process of shooting massive quantities of water and chemicals into rock to release natural gas, contaminates drinking water. The study concerns an incident in Pavillion, Wyoming, and culminates three years of research of the local aquifer.