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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who has challenged many members of his party to take climate change seriously, said Friday that he plans to invite lawmakers and governmental executives from around the globe to California this fall to address solutions to the problem. The governor said he will invite officials from Europe, as well as from Australia, China, India and other countries, in the hope of forming an international alliance of community and regional leaders. He is planning the conference for November, a month before the United Nations holds its next round of international climate talks...

SAN FRANCISCO — Either John McCain or Barack Obama would do a better job of dealing with global warming than President Bush has done, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday. The governor addressed the Commonwealth Club of California at the Fairmont Hotel on the eve of the two-year anniversary of AB32, California's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Ten other states have enacted similar laws since, he said, all realizing "Washington is asleep at the wheel, we cannot look for leadership there." Asked later what climate-change advice he has for the next president, he replied, "It doesn't matter who is going...

The Tire Pressure Strategy was identified as one of these Early Actions. While current Federal law requires auto manufactures to install tire pressure monitoring systems in all new vehicles beginning September 1, 2007, owners of older vehicles will lack this important tool to help them reduce their climate change emissions. ARB staff is currently investigating various options to ensure that tire pressures in older vehicles are also properly maintained.

SACRAMENTO – California is on the verge of initiating a historic rewrite of local planning laws, fusing for the first time the issues of urban growth and global warming. Unprecedented nationally, the complex legislation would steer communities toward land-use policies to contain sprawl, using as much as $12 billion a year in state-controlled transportation funds as an incentive. “This bill will change the way California grows,” said state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, its author. Under the measure, the state Air Resources Board would establish targets for 17 regions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of a broader campaign to...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — For decades, California cities and counties knew one way to grow — by sprawling outward. That approach, which has led to ever longer commutes, jammed freeways and worsening air quality, is being challenged under a bill that was approved Saturday in the state Legislature. If signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not yet indicated whether he would do so, the bill would require local governments to plan their growth so that homes, businesses and public transit systems are clustered together. The goal is to help California meet the emission mandates spelled out in a wide-ranging...

Shorter commutes. Less sprawl. Cleaner air. Denser housing closer to downtown near transportation hubs. "Smart growth" it's called. California policy makers have been yakking about this -- dreaming about it -- for decades. But too many interests have been prospering from dumb growth or have merely been skittish of a future they can't quite visualize. Enter a tenacious policy wonk with roots in local government: state Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). He has just managed to finesse to the verge of legislative passage a visionary smart growth bill that, by its nature, also fights global warming. ... (snip) The measure (SB...

A publicly funded, world-class research institute that would develop answers to the threat posed by climate-changing greenhouse gases is being crafted in the Legislature, and is among the last-minute proposals expected to come before the Legislature in the closing days of this year's legislative session. The plan differs sharply from the original blueprint proposed by California's top utilities regulator, state Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey. Legislation encompassing the new, estimated $87 million-a-year plan is likely to be completed within a few days. At time when public attention is focused on California's $15.2 billion budget shortage, the proposed California Institute...

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO: The California Air Resources Board will hold a public meeting Friday in San Diego to discuss the state's plan to combat global warming. The meeting will run from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the chambers of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, 1600 Pacific Highway, in downtown San Diego. The board's staff will explain a draft proposal released in late June that is expected to guide policies for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change. Staff members also are prepared to receive several hours of public comment on the plan, which is...

California's electrical utilities probably will miss the state's 2010 deadline for increasing their use of renewable power and could face a serious obstacle if Congress does not extend tax credits for wind farms and solar plants, according to a report issued Friday. By the end of 2010, the state's large, investor-owned utilities are supposed to ensure that 20 percent of the power they sell comes from such renewable sources as the sun and wind. Utilities such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. have been frantically signing contracts with wind farm and solar power plant developers to meet that deadline. But...

SAN FRANCISCO -- California's effort to limit vehicle emissions of gases that contribute to global warming hit a snag Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that the state and environmental groups acted too early when they sued the Bush administration in January for blocking the law. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit filed by California, 15 other states and five environmental groups over the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to let the state enforce its limits on greenhouse gas fumes from new cars and trucks. The court said the Jan. 2 suit was...

California, six other Western states and four Canadian provinces launched plans on Wednesday for one of the world's largest carbon-trading systems, a sweeping effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. The North American program, like a similar market-based system in Europe, focuses on heavy polluters such as electric utilities, oil refineries and large industrial and commercial facilities. Environmental groups immediately questioned whether the plan will be tough enough on polluters, while industry groups said the program lacks details. California officials said the proposal will be an integral part of the Golden State's ambitious goal of reducing...

California, six other Western states and four Canadian provinces will launch a market-based carbon trading system in a major North American effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, according to a draft proposal released today. When it officially begins in four years, the program would first target heavy polluters such as electric utilities, oil refineries and large industrial and commercial facilities, which would be required to begin reporting emission levels beginning in 2011 to allow participating governments to agree on the maximum level of emissions for the region. The plan also includes an offsets system, part of...

Given California's infinite diversity and its maddeningly diffused governmental apparatus, it's rare for the state's politicians to undertake a comprehensive and expansive change of public policy. The decades-long stalemate on water, the state's perpetual budget crisis and the failure of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care plan are merely three examples of the political system's chronic inability to act decisively and effectively. And even on those rare occasions when major new policies are adopted, they tend to fall well short of their purported benefits, a sterling example being the unanimous approval of electric energy "deregulation" in 1996 that became a colossal...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California on Thursday took a major step forward on its global warming fight by unveiling an ambitious plan for clean cars, renewable energy and stringent caps on big polluting industries. The plan, which aims to reduce pollutants by 10 percent from current levels by 2020 while driving investment in new energy technologies that will benefit the state's economy, is the most comprehensive yet by any U.S. state. It could serve as a blueprint not only for the rest of the United States, ... "This is of tremendous importance, not only for California," Mary Nichols, chairman of...

SACRAMENTO – California's top air-quality agency for the first time on Thursday will reveal a long-awaited strategy for how it expects business and the public to respond to the challenge of dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and cars. By itself, the draft plan before the Air Resources Board will not impose specific regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Instead, the plan is widely expected to set the course for establishing state policies that will redefine energy use in California. No sector will be excused. The proposal will lay out blueprints for refineries,...

Capitol Weekly asked the California Air Resources Board to submit a commentary for our special section on greenhouse gas. Ttwo commentaries were submitted by members of the public at CARB's request. --- Last year, clean technology venture capital poured into California at an unprecedented rate. Nearly 1.8 billion dollars were invested in California companies - that’s almost a 50 percent increase over the year before. What opened the floodgates? Multiple factors but perhaps the most significant was the passage of the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32). Before AB 32’s adoption, a lot of venture capital investment in clean technology...

Thus far, California’s landmark law to cut greenhouse gases from its factories and businesses—a law that has given Gov. Schwarzenegger an international image of environmental activist—has been mostly talk and little action. Rules covering perhaps 60 percent of the reductions needed to meet the targets are already in place or soon will be, the result of other laws, covering such things as renewable energy standards, energy efficiency, clean-car rules, low-carbon fuel standards and others. One key component, to cut greenhouse gases from car tailpipes, is stalled pending a federal waiver, although that permission is all but certain after President Bush...

SACRAMENTO – Powerful state senators from both parties are challenging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed spending spree on selected state programs to address global warming. Drawing particular scrutiny is the Institute for Climate Solutions, a new creation of the Schwarzenegger-appointed Public Utilities Commission that would cost ratepayers $600 million over its 10-year life. During a recent Senate committee hearing, Republicans and Democrats claimed the institute was illegal without Legislature approval. That sparked a blunt exchange between lawmakers and Michael Peevey, the commission president who at one time pounded the table to drive home his points. The confrontation was as much about...

Dulles, Virginia -- Bowing before the politically correct lords of the environmental movement, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared this week that when it comes to the issue of climate change, “America has to lead, and [California is] doing so with or without Washington.” Schwarzenegger was explaining his decision to ratify a two-year environmental alliance between the state of California and the People’s Republic of China under the supervision of the United Nations. Frustrated with the Bush administration’s reluctance to embrace a global climate treaty that would place caps on greenhouse gas emissions, Schwarzenegger engaged the UN and China by making...

Surely the reporter laughed herself silly while she was writing this. Los Angeles' DWP -- the dirtiest producer -- wants to be exempted from the mandate. They say it's not fair because privately owned So Cal Edison & PG&E are cleaner producers. Lenin would approve. Go read the whole thing. I provide a few snippets howlers in my post below....

The Public Utilities Commission's recent proposal to use a cap-and-trade system to fight global warming pollution from utilities has triggered alarms that ill-conceived policies might lead to price gouging and brownouts. Those are reasonable concerns. A poorly designed cap-and-trade system could lead to a steep rise in utility bills and worsening pollution in largely poor communities. However, a well-designed cap-and-trade system would ensure that Californians avoid these problems while reducing global warming pollution. The real benefits of a cap on pollution linked with a market-based solution is that it will unleash innovation, provide new revenue streams for the state and...

Santa Barbara, California - Participating in a conference of green-tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, corporate executives and environmental and business journalists, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger again today explained how California's environmental policies and focus on booming clean- and green-tech industries will help the state weather a slowed-down economy. He spoke about California's wave of growth in the green technology industry during a conversation at the Wall Street Journal's ECO:nomics Conference in Santa Barbara. "California's environmental policies are driving a whole new industrial revolution in our state that is opening up huge opportunities for California companies to grow and strengthening our economy at...

California's landmark legislation to fight global warming has been on the books for more than a year, but it still lacks stable, long-term funding to help meet its ambitious goal to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal calls for a stopgap, two-year effort that relies on borrowing money from a state beverage container recycling fund to run the program. On Monday, members of a joint legislative committee raised questions about funding for AB32, the high-profile measure that seeks to cut the state's carbon emissions by about a third by 2020. "Borrowing from (the recycling fund) ......

In the first such program in California, and perhaps the United States, Bay Area air pollution regulators are proposing to charge an annual fee to thousands of businesses based on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit. The fee - 4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide - would affect everything from oil refineries to power plants, and landfills, factories and small businesses like restaurants and bakeries. --snip-- After years of voluntary measures, the fees, proposed this week by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, set a precedent as the first time that businesses and government agencies would...

Speech was given on October 12, 2007 in Newport Beach. You have extended me a very dangerous invitation tonight – to speak to a gathering of political conservatives on the day that Al Gore has received the Nobel Peace Prize for discovering that the earth’s climate is changing. I’ve heard that he’s going to contribute half of his prize money to environmental causes and use the other half to pay his electricity bill. And anything left over will come in handy to help pay for the fleet of private jets that allow him to travel around the world to tell...

<p>Environmentalists and industry officials alike are holding their breath, waiting for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to act on a stack of environmental bills in the next few days that would do everything from require green building standards on new homes and commercial buildings to banning a controversial type of chemicals in children's toys.</p>

When it comes to energy, California has often been seen as the Promised Land. Beginning with oil and hydropower in the mid-19th century, and then later with renewable energy and efficiency in the 1970s and '80s, California has always leaped into the challenges of our energy conundrum with blindfolded gusto - and blazed trails in the process. Despite the Golden State's energy meltdown just seven years ago - remember the rolling blackouts, bankruptcies and the shenanigans of Enron and company? - all eyes today are again focused on California and its radical legislative agenda addressing the largest energy challenge of...

California Attorney General Jerry Brown settled his global warming lawsuit Tuesday against San Bernardino County, working out an agreement on what had been a stumbling block to obtaining a deal on the state budget. Under the terms of the deal announced by Brown in a Los Angeles news conference, the fast-growing county in the heart of the Inland Empire of Southern California will amend its general plan within 30 months to include a greenhouse gas reduction policy. The process will include an inventory of all "known, or reasonably discoverable, sources of greenhouse gases" in the county. In addition, the county...

As the stalemate over the budget continues into its seventh week, taxpayers are troubled over mischaracterizations in the mainstream media about who is responsible. The negative attention is focused on Senate Republicans who are being portrayed as the obstructionists. But viewed fairly, their position is both reasonable and mainstream. They want to see a balanced budget -- rather than saddle future generations with a massive debt load – and they want to ensure that the $42 billion dollars of bond financing for infrastructure just passed by voters last November is actually spent on infrastructure. Moreover, the position which these Senators...

Hyperbole in Sacramento is distorting an entirely reasonable argument. Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, believes the government shouldn't be allowed to sue to force compliance with rules that don't yet exist. After all, how can anyone comply with rules that don't exist? How would anyone know whether he or she is breaking the law? Nevertheless, Attorney General Jerry Brown is on a Kafkaesque mission. He already has sued the county of San Bernardino, hinted at doing the same to several other local government agencies and has succeeded in inhibiting two Northern California refineries from moving ahead with expansion plans. Brown's...

California Public Utilities Commission unveiled a proposal to create financial incentives for utilities to get their customers to use less power, with the threat of big fines if they do not. The plan would help meet the aggressive targets of the state's global-warming law passed last year, which calls for drastic cuts in CO2 emissions. "This is one of the most important regulations on utility efficiency in history," said Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the energy program of the Natural Resources Defense Council. It's precedent-setting for the nation." Opponents say California, which has some of the highest electricity rates in the...

SACRAMENTO As California begins mapping out its strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions, how industries will be forced to comply is emerging as one of the most complex aspects of the debate. A key component of the state's plan to implement last year's far-reaching global warming law was submitted Friday to California air regulators. The state Air Resources Board received a 107-page report commissioned last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that endorses a market-trading program. Under such a program, power plants, refineries, cement plants and other industries that produce greenhouse gases can buy and sell credits for their emissions. That...

Not a single Republican voted for California's landmark global warming law when the state Senate passed it last year. Today, the minority party is taking advantage of the law by using it as leverage during negotiations on the overdue state budget. Republicans are upset that Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has told at least a dozen cities and counties that they must offset the increased greenhouse gas emissions that will be a byproduct of future growth. Republicans say that will hurt cities' and counties' transportation and housing plans, and want language in the state budget to protect local governments...

California Assembly Bill 32 ("Greenhouse Gas Law") Abrogates "The Pasadena Way" The Pasadena Pundit - July 23, 2007 The City of Pasadena has always prided itself in its leadership capabilities in taking over the construction of the Gold Line from the MTA, creating its own health department separate from L.A. County, issuing its own cleanliness ratings of local restaurants instead of the County, and historically taking the lead in founding the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California back in the 1930's. It might be called "the Pasadena Way." But Pasadena is taking a huge risk by its unquestioning embrace of...

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger portrays himself as a global environmental leader, but that image was tarnished Friday as two former state air pollution officials testified about an administration they said is working to weaken global warming initiatives. Schwarzenegger's top aides have meddled in the day-to-day affairs of the state Air Resources Board, compromising its independence and integrity even as the Republican governor was traveling the world promoting the state's landmark global warming law, according to its former chairman, Robert Sawyer, and past executive director Catherine Witherspoon. "To say it was schizophrenic is to be kind. It was absolutely appalling,"...

California and Manitoba on Thursday pledged to work cooperatively to advance greenhouse gas emission reductions, particularly in the areas of clean energy, sustainable transportation and sustainable agriculture. “This agreement with Manitoba, along with California's other agreements with the United Kingdom, Northeast states and others will address an issue that our federal government has yet to tackle," says Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger As part of the five-year agreement signed by Mr. Schwarzenegger and Manitoba Premier Gary Doer, Manitoba intends take steps to continue to support greenhouse gas reduction goals and to enable credit-trading opportunities, particularly for sustainable on-farm practices. Initial work will...

About six weeks ago, I published a column ["Arnold can't give us 'green' cement," also at FR] in a number of newspapers warning that the governor’s dueling promises to radically reduce carbon dioxide emissions while delivering a new era of public works comprised a public policy charade of breathtaking mendacity. Highways, dams and aqueducts require heavy construction equipment and prodigious amounts of concrete that in turn produce enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. I wrote: “The governor is now on the horns of a dilemma of his own making. He must either confront the fact that AB 32 was an intellectually...

The chairman of the California Air Resources Board, Robert F. Sawyer, was fired by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week amid mounting criticism of the agency's leadership on global warming and air pollution policies. Sawyer and the governor's office gave sharply differing accounts of why he was let go after 18 months at the helm of what has long been described as the world's most influential air pollution regulatory agency. "I was fired, I did not resign…. The entire issue is the independence of the board, and that's why I got fired," Sawyer . . . Sawyer said he had declined...

The Farce About Ethanol...By State Senator Tom McClintock In response to my blog, "Ethanol Economics," Former Secretary of State Bill Jones (now Chairman of Pacific Ethanol), made five key points in his piece, "The Facts About Ethanol."  Just for fun, let's run "The Facts About Ethanol" through the old fact-checker: "Today, ethanol is about 65 cents per gallon cheaper than gasoline in the California market." That's only after taxpayers and consumers have kicked in a subsidy of $1.50 per gallon - or $7 billion a year paid into the pockets of ethanol producers to hide the staggering price of ethanol...

SB 375 requires all regional transportation planning decisions and all transportation funding to be limited to a “preferred growth scenario,” that requires a minimum housing density of 10 units per acre. It was adopted by the Senate on June 7, 2007. Here is Senator McClintock’s speech in opposition to the bill: Mr. President: This measure says that all transportation plans and transportation funding decisions must be made with the object of concentrating people in dense urban cores. In this bill, it is called a “Preferred Growth Scenario.” It says all transportation plans and funds must serve this “Preferred Growth Scenario,”...

GOV. Arnold Schwarzenegger has staked his administration upon two signature issues: his international leadership to reduce greenhouse gases and his promise to construct new highways, dams, levees, aqueducts and other public works. In April "the green governor" toured the globe to tout his greenhouse-gas bill (AB 32) that requires a 25 percent reduction in carbon dioxide by 2020, making it the most restrictive emissions law in the country. More recently, the governor toured California to tout his public-works renaissance that requires $40 billion in taxpayer-financed bonds, making it the biggest borrowing binge in the country. Individually, these two media events,...

As deadlines loom in California's landmark law to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, the Senate hopes to write into the state budget a rule that forces Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Market Advisory Committee to eschew closed-door meetings and allow the public to view its deliberations. The committee is charged with proposing the heart of the carbon-emissions law--the system of rewards and penalties that will actually make the statute work. The confidential nature of the committee is well known in the Capitol but has been largely ignored outside the state, where the focus has been as much on Schwarzenegger, an actor-turned-politician with a huge...

Since he made California the first state to limit greenhouse gases, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been signing agreements with other governments to address global warming. He has struck deals with Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico, New York, Utah and Washington. He signed one with the United Kingdom even before the California law came into being. And he's done them with a state in Australia and a province in Canada, where he travels this week to sign two more. But the Democrats who wrote and passed the global warming bill Schwarzenegger signed into law are hardly celebrating the governor's deal-making. While they...

BERKELEY — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described California's push to make fuels powering our automobiles more environmentally friendly as "our race to the moon," saying efforts to strip climate-warming carbon from gasoline will serve as a model for the rest of the world, reduce dependence on foreign oil and provide drivers with "the best weapon" against rising fuel costs. Schwarzenegger spoke Friday at an international low-carbon fuel symposium at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where more than 200 representatives of industry, government and nonprofit activist groups from around the world gathered to hear an update on the governor's proposed low-carbon fuel...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has boosted his environmental profile by signing global warming agreements with states and foreign governments, most recently one this month with the Australian state of Victoria. Schwarzenegger officials say the agreements are intended to force the federal government to take a more stringent approach to tackling global warming. But some critics note the signings have given Schwarzenegger opportunities for photo-ops with foreign leaders, and Democrats have raised concerns that the Republican governor is using the deals to predispose California to a market-based system in which companies can buy their way out of emissions reductions. Each of the...

SACRAMENTO – Business leaders have warned repeatedly that companies and consumers will pay a high price in return for lower greenhouse gas emissions. Few alarms, however, have been sounded over the potential ongoing cost to taxpayers. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has asked the Legislature to approve 126 new specialists and $36 million to ramp up California's historic campaign to slow global warming by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The size and speed of the proposed hiring surge in response to a single piece of legislation is rare, likely unrivaled since California launched its disastrous energy deregulation scheme a decade ago. Budget writers...

Thanks to AB 32, the new powerbrokers in California are not Hollywood studio chiefs or Silicon Valley venture capitalists, but rather the officials in an obscure state bureaucracy called the California Air Resources Board (CARB). These bureaucrats now have a broad mandate to develop the regulatory framework to force compliance with the new emissions restrictions. California's population was 29.7 million people in 1990, and is expected to grow to 42.2 million by 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. These new residents will create a staggering 41% gap between projected emissions and the limits set by AB 32. How can...

California lawmakers expressed skepticism Monday about how the Schwarzenegger administration plans to reduce greenhouse gases, illustrating the difficulty in implementing the state's much publicized global warming law. Democrats questioned why the state planned to spend millions of dollars on mechanisms that have yet be evaluated or clearly defined. "A lot of the language we're using here is very fuzzy," said Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, chair of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. "I think we really need to develop something that all of the public understands." The committee held the Legislature's first public hearing on how to implement the greenhouse gas...

SANTA BARBARA, California (Reuters) - Hoping to get a head start for the day when accounting for carbon and other greenhouse gases becomes mandatory, companies, cities and other organizations flocked to the California Climate Action Registry in overflow numbers this week. The annual event used to be a cozy gathering of a few pioneers, but that was before landmark legislation, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, mandated a cut to 1990 emission levels by 2020 -- a cut of 25 percent. Part of the new law requires greenhouse gas rules and may create a market for trading carbon and...

A Michigan congressman is defending the U.S. auto industry against calls for increased fuel efficiency by criticizing a famous foe of global warming: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Republican Rep. Joe Knollenberg's re-election campaign placed a billboard along a busy interstate in Detroit that reads, "Arnold to Michigan: Drop Dead!" It shows a grim-looking picture of the actor-turned-politician and draws attention to Knollenberg's Web site. "Michigan and the Big Three are being unfairly bullied by politicians who have no understanding of auto manufacturing," Knollenberg said Thursday in a statement. Knollenberg said he "picked on Schwarzenegger because he's a perfect symbol of...