Governor says goal is to remove 15,000 polluting vehicles from road (Silly Schwarzenegger Again!!!)

Stockton Record ^ | 3/17/05 | Hank Shaw

[SierraWasp]

Pollution plan proposed
Governor says goal is to remove 15,000 polluting vehicles from road

By Hank Shaw Capitol Bureau Chief Published Thursday, March 17, 2005

RANCHO CORDOVA -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to scrap one polluting car for every California kid hospitalized with asthma.

Schwarzenegger on Wednesday proposed to nearly quadruple the state fund for retiring or repairing "gross polluting vehicles," a move he hopes will go a long way toward cleaning up the state's air.

California's air quality is fragile, and the San Joaquin Valley suffers particularly because smog and other pollutants get trapped in the low-lying region and cannot easily be blown away by the wind.

Experts say pollution in the Valley contributes to more than 1,000 deaths a year

State officials say air pollution also contributes to asthma suffered by roughly 15,000 children who spend time in California hospitals each year. Schwarzenegger says his goal is to retire that many polluting vehicles annually.

To do this, he plans to spend $16.3 million in the next fiscal year for the Consumer Assistance Program, up from $4.5 million this year. The program, which began in 1998, was suspended for two years beginning in 2002 due to budget cuts.

Anyone with a car or truck that fails a smog check can apply to the state for grant of up to $1,000 to scrap the jalopy, or as much as $500 to get it up to code.

Most such vehicles are at least 15 years old and emit at least twice as much pollution as allowed under the law. According to the state Bureau of Automotive Repair, a car built in 1980 belches about 30 times as much pollution as one built today.

Schwarzenegger showcased his proposal Wednesday by crushing a 1987 Chrysler New Yorker at the Rancho Cordova Pick-N-Pull auto yard, where old cars and trucks are crushed for scrap or laid out for parts.

"When it comes to the environment, status quo is not an option," he said. "We have to leave things better than the way we found them."

Holding up a 40-pound container of rusty dirt, Schwarzenegger said some of the worst-offending cars can throw that much particulate matter into the air every year.

"This is why we have to get rid of the dirty, polluting cars," he said.

Schwarzenegger's proposal dovetails with similar legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Dave Cogdill, a Modesto Republican whose district includes Calaveras County.

Still in its infancy, Cogdill's plan would focus on the Valley -- home of the nation's foulest air -- and confine the program to gross-polluting vehicles. Cogdill would not raise taxes or fees to fund the program. State registration fees fund the program that Schwarzenegger wants to expand.

Cogdill is toying with offering tax credits or write-offs, but his bill will probably not be ready for debate until next session. Schwarzenegger declined to give an opinion on Cogdill's proposal Wednesday.

The Legislature must agree to spend more on the Consumer Assistance Program before it can take effect, and the state budget is not due until June 30.

Meanwhile, information and applications are available on the Internet at www.smogcheck.ca.gov or by calling the Department of Consumer Affairs at (800) 952-5210.

[Carry_Okie]

Well, who are these guys at the NRDC? It’s an interesting list.

Natural Resources Defense Council Board of Trustees
Chairman	Frederick A. O. Schwartz, Jr.	Partner, Cravath Swaine & Moore; (a British Law Firm) Former New York City Corporation Counsel (under Mayor Ed Koch)
Executive Director	Frances Beinecke	Co-founder, The New York League of Conservation Voters (with RFK Jr.)
Trustee	Laurance Rockefeller	Private philanthropist; Former Chairman, Rockefeller Brothers Fund; Former chairman, Citizens Advisory Committee on Environmental Quality; Trustee, the Laurance Rockefeller Charitable Trust
Trustee	Thomas A. Troyer	Partner, Caplin & Drysdale; Former Chairman, the Foundation Lawyers’ Group; Former member of the IRS Commissioner’s Advisory Group on Tax-exempt Organizations; (no conflict of interest there?) Board member, the Carnegie Corporation of New York
Pres & Co-founder	John H. Adams	Former Assistant US Attorney (New York)
Vice Chair	Adam Albright	Board member, Redefining Progress; Board Chair, Population Communications International; Program Chair, Conservation International
Vice Chair	Alan Horn	Chairman & Chief Operating Officer, Warner Brothers
Vice Chair	Burks Lapham	Chairman, Concern Inc.; Director, Chesapeake Bay Foundation (a relatively benign group)
Vice Chair	George Woodwell	Founding Director, Woods Hole Research Center; Co-founder, Environmental Defense Fund (they banned DDT, Alar, etc.)
Co-founder & Treas	Richard E. Ayres	Partner, Howrey & Simon; Former Chairman, National Clean Air Coalition
Trustee	Patricia Bauman	Member, Pew Environmental Health Commission; Former Manager, National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences; Co-Director, The Bauman Foundation
Trustee	William Richardson	Former US Secretary of Energy; Former US Ambassador to the United Nations; Former US Congressman (D-NM)
Trustee	Michael Finnegan	Managing Partner, J.P Morgan Securities

 

Is this "Natural Resources" defense, or natural resource SUPPLIERS defense?

Now, let’s look at who gives the NRDC money, shall we?

Top Funders of NRDC
Funder	Total Donated	Comments
		Descriptions in bold are major energy investors
Pew Charitable Trusts	$11,568,000.00	Sunoco money
Blue Moon Fund	$7,818,735.00	This is W. Alton Jones Money (Citgo)
Energy Foundation	$6,965,000.00	Launched by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and The Rockefeller Foundation. The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation joined as a funding partner in 1996, and The McKnight Foundation joined in 1998. In 1999, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation joined to support two programs: the U.S. Clean Energy Program (now the Climate Program) and the China Sustainable Energy Program. In 2002, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation joined to support advanced technology transportation and clean energy for the West.
John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation	$5,636,500.00	Bankers Life and Casualty money (investment portfolio unknown)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency	$4,681,097.00	Your tax dollars at work subsidizing the interests of whom?
Turner Foundation	$3,795,167.00	CNN, and a lot more
Public Welfare Foundation	$3,500,000.00	Too confounded to determine
Joyce Foundation	$3,309,445.00	Timber Wealth
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation	$3,022,340.00	General Motors
Ford Foundation	$2,733,300.00	Ford
Beinecke Foundation	$2,150,000.00	Major player at Yale.
J. M. Kaplan Fund	$2,057,500.00
William Bingham Foundation	$1,995,000.00
Homeland Foundation	$1,733,000.00
San Francisco Foundation	$1,654,739.00
Rockefeller Brothers Fund	$1,377,510.00	Them again
McKnight Foundation	$1,365,500.00
Robert Sterling Clark Foundation	$1,310,000.00
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation	$1,310,000.00
Bauman Family Foundation	$1,226,000.00
Nathan Cummings Foundation	$1,220,000.00
Educational Foundation of America	$1,210,000.00
Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund	$1,205,000.00
Mertz Gilmore Foundation	$1,201,000.00
Carnegie Corporation of New York	$1,200,000.00
Park Foundation	$1,198,010.00
New York Community Trust	$1,186,821.00
Overbrook Foundation	$1,182,585.00
Surdna Foundation	$1,147,000.00
Bullitt Foundation	$1,122,675.00
William & Flora Hewlett Foundation	$1,075,000.00	Note also the participation with the Energy Foundation

These people are energy investors who use federal money and their own tax-exempt "charitable" donations to fund lawsuits that manipulate access to resources, control processing of energy feedstocks, and set attainment targets in a manner preferential to their own investments. ALL of the resulting capital gains in their trusts are tax-exempt. You may be surprised to find the Hewlett and Packard fortunes listed as energy investors, but they just gave over 130 million to Stanford to research extraction of methane hydrates and are directly tied in with Exxon/Mobil in that effort. Keeping it in the family they've put Lynn Orr, who is married to Susan Packard, in charge of the global energy project. The idea is that they can use the energy revenues and the carbon credits for removing a principal source of atmospheric methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. They need Kyoto or this will be a big loser of an investment. Curiously, if they disturb those nodules foolishly, they may end up releasing a great deal of methane to the surface which would release the gases into the atmosphere. You don’t think that they might need protection from the NRDC in case they screw up, do you?

Did anybody sue the NRDC for the cleanup costs of MTBE?

They can’t be sued. Clinton EO 12986 indemnified them from such lawsuits as members in good standing at the IUCN, the United Nations' equivalent of the EPA.

Using a charitable foundation, to use the law to force people to use your product, to use regulatory power to keep competitors out of the market or force them into selling or go bankrupt, and to protect you from liability for your product in order to reap a guaranteed profit is tax-exempt racketeering, and on a grand scale.

[w1andsodidwe]

If one is low income and their U.S. made car cannot pass State mandated smog checks, the State should either pay the low income person for taking their car, or help them fix it.

I believe they do have such a program. Unfortunately, the state doesn't have any money, we tax payers provide the money.

I just don't see why you think, I as a responsible hard working person who keeps my car in good condition should be required to pay to fix every junker in the state. Especially since the worst ones are often not even driven by a person legally in the US.

[Radioactive]

Does this mean AHHHNOLD is willing to get rid of his Hummer?

He has six (6) of them.

[FreedomCalls]

Like this one:

http://www.hotrodsandclassics.com/FunnyVideos/openingvideocartrailer.htm

[calcowgirl]

I think you meant to post that to someone else... right?

[ElkGroveDan]

yeah I replied to ice cold pepsi or whatever it was and added you and Sierra...let's try that again

[ElkGroveDan]

Having a vehicle...isn't a right

Let me guess then, owning a car is a privilege bestowed by government? We are so lucky to have such a nice government.

[Jokelahoma]

I'm certain this was supposed to make sense, but all I can make of it is a poorly formed, nonsensical slippery slope argument. Can you rephrase this for me so I can understand why you are against removing crappy, beat up, poorly perorming old crap cars from the road? Or if you prefer, why you support the idea of letting 35 year old oil burners on the road? Thanks!

[Jokelahoma]

It's worthy of life if it can either A) pass the same smog emmision inspection today's cars pass, or B)pass the test as it was when the car was new. If it's throwing more oil smoke than a James Bond getaway car, then keep it off the road. When I no longer have to breath your exhaust, I'll no longer have any right to bitch. You know, the old "your right to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose" kind of thing. Or does that only apply when it doesn't inconvenience you?

[SierraWasp]

Did you ever see the Al Pacino movie named "Scarface?" Do you remember the scene where that Cuban had just murdered a bunch of people and Al's character asked him why he seemed to enjoy killing so much? The Cuban killer answered, "They're Communists! I love to kill Communists because I hate them!! They're always trying to tell everybody what to do!!!"

[HP8753]

The problem isn't the new vehicles, it's the very old ones that don't have to be inspected.

Last time I was in Los Angeles,I thought it was the gas operated leaf blowers that were the "destroyers" of Our Mother the Earth??? ;-)

[SierraWasp]

"We are so lucky to have such a nice government."

I just got this animated cartoon picture running around in my head of the Simpsons sitting around the dinner table, saying grace and Homer saying, "...and thank you for our wonderful City, County, Regional, State and Federal Governments that provide our every need and is our best friend..."

[calcowgirl]

Sounds like a nightmare, SW. I think I like the Pacino plot better! :-)

[eldoradude]

An employee for the states housing, transportation and jobs department said at a smart growth conference recently that there should be no cars older that 5 years old on the road, especially if they are luxury cars. The little communist said if people can afford to buy a porsche they can afford to buy one every year. He also went on to say they should be crushed, so there isn't even a tail light left. These people run our government and they are advising the governor!!!

And what of the environmental cost to mine and process materials for the new cars? What is the cost to society for the necessary landfill acreage to store the junk?

I still use appliances manufactured in the USA in the fifties that I inherited. Better quality than the disposable junk sold by Wal-martians. What is the sense of legislating more garbage?

[Seadog Bytes]

"I would have much more respect for Arnold if he proposed removing the 2-3 million illegal immigrants (taxpayer subsidized laborers) from California. That would go a long way to solving quite a few of our problems."

"I would have much more respect for Arnold if he proposed removing the 2-3 million illegal immigrants (taxpayer subsidized laborers) from California. That would go a long way to solving quite a few of our problems."

"I would have much more respect for Arnold if he proposed removing the 2-3 million illegal immigrants (taxpayer subsidized laborers) from California. That would go a long way to solving quite a few of our problems."

"I would have much more respect for Arnold if he proposed removing the 2-3 million illegal immigrants (taxpayer subsidized laborers) from California. That would go a long way to solving quite a few of our problems."

...BUMP!

[SierraWasp]

"Wal-martians"

Hay! Purdy gud!! I like dat wun!!! (grin)

How you doin over there in the muddle of the county, dude? (oops, I meant middle)

[hedgetrimmer]

The car haters don't use sense or common sense. They just hate cars,and they don't care what it costs you or the taxpayer or how it affects our freedom.

[hedgetrimmer]

Speaking of illegals-- Mexico has a problem with illegals. Illegal cars that is:



Farmers protest with hundreds of cars outside the Treasury Department (news - web sites) building asking to register their imported vehicles Wednesday March 16, 2005, in Mexico City. Mexican President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) told auto distributors last week that his government is opposed to legalizing the status of vehicles brought illegally into the country, saying that means for legal imports exist.(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

[Seadog Bytes]

RE: "...that his government is opposed to legalizing the status of vehicles brought illegally into the country, saying that means for legal imports exist."

Now THAT is just TOO funny. What hypocrisy! ...not to mention the fact that so many of those vehicles *ACTUALLY* belong to folks on THIS side of the border. ...vehicles 'liberated' from folks in San Diego, L.A., and the like.

[hedgetrimmer]

I thought you might appreciate the irony :-)