CA LIFORNIA Legislature Moves On Global Warming

[papau]

increasing renewable energy supply to 33 percent by 2020
creating new energy efficiency performance standards
cleaning up motor vehicle emissions
using more ‘biofuels' made from agricultural products
improving transit alternatives
bolstering water conservation measures in order to reduce the energy needed for water transport and treatment.


http://www.environmentaldefense.org/pressrelease.cfm?ContentID=5308

CA Legislature Moves On Global Warming

Senate Environmental Quality Committee Votes On Historic Legislation

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (June 27, 2006) -- <snip>AB 32 is the first statewide effort to cap greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of California's economy. It would set a firm cap that would ensure that California's greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 25% by the year 2020, putting teeth in Governor Schwarzenegger's goal to reduce California's emissions. AB 32 is another milestone in state efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollutants. On July 22, 2002, Assembly Bill (AB) 1493 was signed into law, requiring California to develop and adopt the nation's first greenhouse gas emission standards for automobiles.

<snip>The scientific community continues to urge immediate action to reduce global warming pollution. Just last week the National Academy of Sciences issued a report confirming a dramatic rise in the world's temperature over the last 400 years. At the same time, the Southwest U.S. is suffering under extreme drought, and there are new scientific reports documenting accelerated melting of major ice sheets that will lead to destructive sea level rise. Evidence continues to build that hurricanes are growing more intense as a result of rising temperatures.

Global warming threatens California's economy, environment and way of life, leading scientists say. According to recent studies published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, rising temperatures will shrink the Sierra snow pack, the largest source of California's drinking and irrigation water, by 30 to 90 percent. In a warmer climate, sea levels are expected to rise and heat waves, smoggy days and wildfires will become more common, while demand for electricity soars during peak summer demand.

"Global warming is not only a scientific problem – but the most important moral issue of our time," said Reverend Sally Bingham of the Episcopal Diocese of California. "It directly affects the survival of future generations." <snip>

The emissions reductions can be achieved with strategies such as increasing California's renewable energy supply to 33 percent by 2020; creating new energy efficiency performance standards; cleaning up motor vehicle emissions; and using more ‘biofuels' made from agricultural products. Other strategies include improving transit alternatives and bolstering water conservation measures in order to reduce the energy needed for water transport and treatment.

The California Climate Change Center at the University of California at Berkeley found that California could achieve almost half of the governor's 2020 targets while increasing Gross State Product by about $60 billion and creating more than 20,000 new jobs.

"The Global Warming Solutions Act will draw the investment capital, companies and jobs needed to establish California as a leader in the competitive clean technology market," said Bob Epstein, co-founder of Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) and a trustee of NRDC.

More information about The Global Warming Solutions Act and global warming impacts on California is available online at: http://www.solutionsforglobalwarming.com

Send an email using the link below, or even better, call the Governor's staff at 916-445-2841 (you can use the letter below as your talking points). You can also send a personal letter via U.S. postal mail to:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

The consequences of failing to immediately and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions are unacceptable. One-third of all living creatures on earth could be committed to extinction by the year 2050. Average temperatures and the incidence of heat waves, wildfires and droughts would continue to increase in California, while snow pack and water availability would decrease. The impacts on California's public health, environment and economy would be devastating.

As the world’s sixth largest economy and 12th largest source of greenhouse gas pollution, California has a special responsibility and opportunity to lead the way in greenhouse gas reductions. The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) would do just that. Significantly, the bill would:

- Institute a cap on greenhouse gas emissions in California to provide certainty in achieving emission reductions;

- Increase investments in clean fuels and energy, energy efficiency, and new technology to secure a leadership role in the world's emerging clean energy market;

- Institute a mandatory and enforceable tracking and reporting system for greenhouse gas emissions;

- Protect entities that have purposefully reduced their greenhouse gases prior to regulatory mandates; and

- Complement and put into statute the Governor's executive order on climate change signed last year.

Please help make this important bill a reality!

http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/stop_global_warming_now

http://www.winebusiness.com/news/DailyNewsArticle.cfm?dataid=44098
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AND FROM THE OPPOSITION

California Poised to Debate Global Warming Solutions Act
From Daily News Links, 08/09/2006
<snip>The legislation under consideration would be "the environmental bill of the decade," and "equivalent to California having its own Kyoto protocols," said Karen Ross, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers.

Assembly Bill 32-The Global Warming Solutions Act-by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblymember Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) would require a 25 percent reduction in global warming pollution by the year 2020 compared to business as usual. It would require state agencies to coordinate investments and programs to reduce global warming pollution, and "promote economic growth" by encouraging the deployment of emissions reduction technologies. <snip>

Falasco said any such legislation must balance the health of the economy against the benefits to the environment and energy reliability. "One thing that neither the governor's version or AB 32 provide for-and it should be a given-is that the CO2 produced from photosynthetic sources ought to be completely exempted from regulation," he said. "For wineries, 100 percent of the CO2 produced from fermentation is scientifically proven to be absorbed by vines and the cover crop." <snip>

AB 32 is part of a package of bills that will reduce global warming pollution. Other bills introduced in the Legislature include: Senate Bill 1368 (Perata), which will require any new commitments to electric generation serving California to meet a minimum standard in terms of global warming emission levels; SB 1250 (Perata) to authorize continuing state investments in renewable energy, and research and development; and AB 2021 (Levine) to ensure electric utilities maximize cost-effective energy efficiency.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and California Governor Schwarzenegger have announced that they plan to lay the groundwork for a new trans-Atlantic market in carbon dioxide emissions. President George Bush has rejected the idea of ordering such cuts. Blair and Schwarzenegger announced their collaboration this week in Los Angeles. The world's only mandatory carbon trading program is in Europe. Created in conjunction with the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international treaty that took effect last year, it caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from power plants and factories in more than two-dozen countries.

[tinrobot]

1. Did Schwarzenegger get rid of his Hummers yet?

Until he does, his role in this debate will be political hypocrite.

[NNadir]

2. In 1990, the California legislature required 2% of vehicles sold in 2000

to be "ZEV's," Zero emissions vehicles.

In California all one has to do is make a promise with the responsibility for fulfilling the promise to fall on a future generation.

The legislature also ordained that the number should rise to 10% by 2003, or was that 20003? If the latter number is true, there is still almost 18,000 years to go on promise fulfillment.

How many street legal renewable energy, ZEV's, exactly are there in California these days?

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/cars_pickups_suvs/californias-zero-emission-vehicle-zev-program.html

[Oerdin]

3. They over promised.

The requirement to make 2% of all cars in the state electric cars was both stupid and wrong headed. Not only was the state of electric cars not up to consumer demands but even after a decade of trying the costs were easily double a standard internal combustion engine car. What's worse is the state's dedication to burning fossil fuels in power plants meant those "zero emissions vehicles" actually resulted in an aweful lot of emissions. It was unrealistic for both economic and practical reasons.

The state's current policies are much, much better. Currently 20% of total state electrical production must be "alternative" (which is a flimsy word full of weasal room I know) sources by 2010 and the state is on track to meet that requirement. This new law boosts the requirement to 1/3 by 2020. That's good but it needs to specify that the "alternative energy" sources need to be nongreen house gas generating sources and that we are not counting the burning of garbage as an "alternative energy source". Arnie's push for GHG caps is good, even if some people question the reasons he is doing it, and it is in the long term interests of our state. I would prefer a national solution to damping the job loses in California but since the Feds have made it clear they will fiddle while Rome burns I will take the job loses and be happy that at least the state is taking action.

The big missing part of the equation so far is mass transit. There have been gains in recent years with the building of a limited but fully modern and nice subway system in LA along with the expansion of light rail lines in places like San Diego and Sacramento but neither the state nor local governments have money to do more expansions any time soon. We're going to need Federal help if we want to get modern mass transit in place and really reduce the amount of GHGs people produce just getting around each day.