Free Republic

SANTA FE – The state Environmental Improvement Board voted 5-0 Monday to repeal a controversial cap-and-trade regulation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nullifying a struggling program before it got off the ground. A partnership of seven states originally envisioned to participate in the cap-and-trade program had dwindled to two, board Chairman Deborah Peacock said. “The intent was that all these states would be doing this cap and trading, and everyone’s dropped (out) except for California and New Mexico,” she said. “That, to me, was very significant.” The ruling reversed a 2010 decision of the previous board appointed by then-Gov. Bill...

California continues its leading role as the national laughingstock of regulatory absurdity. This week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), forged another link in its unbroken chain of disastrous environmental policies. New CARB regulations reflect a decision process heavily influenced by three primary sources: Joseph Stalin, Al Gore and Pee-Wee Herman. Let's look at the latest batch of lunacy from those swell 'crats in Sacramento. As an added bonus, we read from SFGATE, the reliable Left Coast mouthpiece that happily shills for the hard left Democratic mouth breathers. ".... the California Air Resources Board unanimously approved strict vehicle emissions regulations...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- California air regulators passed Friday sweeping auto emission standards that include a mandate to have 1.4 million electric and hybrid vehicles on state roads by 2025. The California Air Resources Board unanimously approved the new rules, which require that one-in-seven of new cars sold in the state in 2025 be an electric or other zero-emission vehicle. The plan also mandated a 75-percent reduction in smog-forming pollutants by 2025, and a 34 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over roughly the same time. Automakers worked with the board and federal regulators on the greenhouse gas mandates in...

For the first time, the federal government is regulating big-rigs, RV's, and tractor-trailers in much the same way it's held car makers to rigorous fuel efficiency standards for decades. But a group of California truckers contends the regulations will drive them right out of business -- and has filed suit to block them. The Environmental Protection Agency is ordering large trucks and buses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 percent and overhaul engine design starting with models built in 2014. Most operators will need to spend thousands upgrading their rigs or buying new vehicles,

Europe pledged Wednesday to press on with new charges for airline carbon emissions across its airspace as of January 1, after scoring a key victory over US rivals in the EU's top court. The decision was welcomed as vindication by the European Union, which told US airlines to get ready to obey the law in the same way EU companies respect American regulations. But it was not without collateral damage, with industry sources fearing a possible trade war after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned of reprisals ahead of the ruling. A high-ranking source in the aviation sector told...

The Weather: Regulations finalized by the California Air Resources Board establish the nation's first state-run cap-and-trade regime. Despite Solyndra, the state will gather solar panels while it may. The 262 pages of regulations implementing California's 2006 global warming legislation, Assembly Bill 32, approved by CARB last Thursday, will probably reduce employment more than it reduces emissions. The only thing it will cap is economic growth by bleeding a patient that is already hemorrhaging red ink. Signed into law in 2006 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the cap-and-trade regulations are intended to force California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels...

California Air Resources Board due to vote on the adoption of first US mandatory cap-and-trade emissions scheme... the California Air Resources Board was due to vote on Thursday afternoon on the adoption of an emissions trading scheme. "This is the final yes: we are going to move forward with California," said Gary Gero, president of the Climate Action Reserve, a voluntary registry. The decision was seen to be significant because California accounts for about 13% of the world economy, and the state has a history of being the leader on environmental initiatives. "California can drive national action," Gero said. The...

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is one of 11 Republican governors who have signed a letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to withdraw proposed rules that would reduce toxic pollutant emissions from coal-burning power plants. In their letter Oct. 7, the governors claim long-delayed rules limiting emissions of mercury and other toxics -- originally mandated in the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 -- would cost $11 billion annually, risk millions of jobs, hurt electric power reliability and result in only marginal air quality improvements. "Any new rule must reflect information on how it will impact the economy and include...

The Obama administration is abandoning its plan to immediately tighten air-quality rules nationwide to reduce emissions of smog-causing chemicals after an intense lobbying campaign by industry, which said the new rule would cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, officials said Friday. The Environmental Protection Agency, following the recommendation of its scientific advisers, had proposed lowering the so-called ozone standard from that set by the Bush administration to a new stricter standard that would have thrown hundreds of American counties out of compliance with the Clean Air Act. It would have required a major effort by state...

The head of the Texas Public Utility Commission expressed concern Friday that a new federal air quality rule, set to take effect Jan. 1, will cause disruptions in electric service. If implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule is not delayed, "I have no doubt in my mind that this rule will result in reliability issues and rolling outages in Texas," Donna Nelson said at the start of the commission's meeting. ... The company says the industry's standard time frame for installing emission controls is several years, but the rule requires compliance in six months. So Luminant, a subsidiary of...

Bus crash victims and hero soldier tell of rescue from fire, explosions Syracuse, NY -- William and Sandy Blair worried as they sat in row 8 of the Farr’s Coach Lines Ltd. tour bus on the side of the New York State Thruway early Friday in Junius Ponds. Driver Rene Bisson had pulled the eastbound tour bus to the side of the road to reset the electronics emission control. The bus was carrying 52 passengers from London, Ontario, on their way for a three-day weekend in New York City. ... ... ... At about the same time, Army Sgt....

Explosive volcanic eruptions might be attention grabbing, but a new review of research finds that their environmental impact pales in comparison to human activities. According to the research, humans put out the same amount of carbon dioxide in three to five days that all of the volcanoes on Earth put out in one year. "Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions dwarf global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions," study researcher Terrance Gerlach, of the U.S. Geological Survey, said in a statement. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Gerlach crunched the carbon dioxide numbers from earlier studies of...

The fastest-ever rise in greenhouse gas emissions, revealed by the Guardian on Monday, is an "inconvenient truth" the world must face, the UN's climate change chief has said. But she added that the data should not lead to fatalism that the problem is impossible to tackle. The figures showing that efforts to control greenhouse gases have had little effect are likely to stretch already strained relations between developed and developing countries over climate change to breaking point in the next two weeks in rows over who is responsible for the fastest ever rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

CHURCHVILLE, VA—My colleague Bennie Peiser, of Britain’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, offers some of his latest man-made global warming news: The Sunday Times noted on May 22 that the UK government has agreed to cut its greenhouse emissions 50 percent by 2027. As a result, “Tata Steel last week announced it was cutting 1,500 jobs at its Scunthorpe and Teeside plants. The company, which employs 21,000 in Britain, has held high-level talks with government in recent weeks over its energy plans. . . . Ineos founder Jim Ratcliffe warned that he could be forced to shut the firm’s Runcorn chlorine...

NEW YORK – The city will phase out the use of polluting heavy oils to heat buildings and will begin building solar power plants on capped landfills, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday in his first update to a 4-year-old environmental plan that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2030. Under the plan, the phase-out of heavy oils from the city's boilers would start right away and be completed by the 2030 deadline. It would reduce the presence of airborne fine particulate matter, which the city says is killing 3,000 residents each year and forcing 6,000 to seek...

Weed may not be as green as you think. Indoor marijuana growing operations in the United States are massive energy hogs, consuming some $5 billion worth of electricity each year, according to a new report. That’s about 1 percent of the nation’s total power consumption. The problem, according to efficiency firm Energy Associates, is that the pot industry is almost entirely prohibited in the U.S., keeping it hidden from regulators and, by extension, efficiencies in agricultural production. Study author and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Evan Mills writes that the average grow operation approaches 200 watts per square foot —...

California Governor Jerry Brown will sign a bill today which will raise the required amount of costly renewable energy for electric generation in the Golden State to 33% while Texas Governor Rick Perry is likely grinning from ear to ear. Texas and other business-friendly Western states such as Arizona and Utah, stand to benefit from California's latest payoff to the green lobby.  The bill boosts the electric renewable energy standard from its current 20% to 33% by the year 2020, and California consumers and businesses will be stuck with the additional cost.  Businesses will have one more reason to leave...

LONDON (Reuters) – New diets for cows and sheep could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, research funded by the Department for environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) shows. Feeding the animals maize silage, naked oats and higher sugar grasses could reduce the amount of methane they produce, the study by Reading University and the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences showed. Agriculture accounts for around nine per cent of all British greenhouse gas emissions. Most of this comes from sheep, cows and goats. Farming accounts for 41 per cent of Britain's overall methane emissions, which are harmful to the...

Cars will be banned from London and all other cities across Europe under a draconian EU masterplan to cut CO2 emissions by 60 per cent over the next 40 years. The European Commission on Monday unveiled a "single European transport area" aimed at enforcing "a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers" by 2050.

The Environmental Protection Agency is about to impose regulations and taxes on carbon emissions by execu tive fiat in the name of stopping global climate change. Yet the United States has already dramatically cut its emissions and probably has already complied with the Kyoto/Copenhagen goals for reduced emissions. And we've done it without taxes, regulations or government intervention. In 2007, the US emitted 6.12 billion metric tons of carbon. In 2008, the total fell to 5.92 billion tons. In 2009, while President Obama was promising that the country would cut its emissions to 5 billion tons by 2015, the US...