[Source: Los Angeles Times] Mayor Eric Garcetti on Tuesday announced the appointment of an advisory panel tasked with reducing air pollution from the Port of Los Angeles by expanding the use of zero-emissions technology. The 10-member Sustainable Freight Advisory Board, made up of representatives from industry, environmental groups, labor, and air quality agencies, will advise the city-owned Read More…
Tag: air pollution
Southern California doesn’t have the money to buy its way to clean air
[Source: Los Angeles Times Editorial] The Southern California agency responsible for cleaning up the region’s smoggy air has a new strategy to cut pollution: Hope and plead for money to buy cleaner cars and trucks. To comply with federal law, the South Coast Air Quality Management District issued a blueprint last week outlining the rules, policies and Read More…
California’s low carbon fuel standard compliance rate is 98 percent
[Source: California Air Resources Board] The California Air Resources Board’s report on the state of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program for the compliance year 2015 indicates a compliance rate of 98 percent, with a total of 5.49 million credits generated in the year. These credits are roughly the same as removing 1 million Read More…
How good environmental legislation goes wrong
[Source: Los Angels Times Op-Ed] The California Environmental Quality Act is a valuable protector of this state’s resources. It guides planning by forcing agencies to consider the environmental implications of proposed projects. CEQA is also a woefully blunt instrument that thwarts economic growth and, perversely, can actually harm the environment. That’s exactly what’s happening with Read More…
Don’t put AQMD under CARB’s thumb
[Source: Orange County Register] A 20-year study released last week by the USC Environmental Health Centers found “that millennial children in Southern California breathe easier than ones who came of age in the ’90s, for a reason as clear as the air in Los Angeles today,” in the school’s summary. It’s a major achievement for Read More…
Can fresh air blow away the case against Obama’s climate policy?
[Source: Bloomberg] The U.S. has already broken the link between emissions and economic growth. Any regulation proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency follows a decades-long pattern. The activists squabble with the industrialists, pitting questions of business health against questions of public health. The squabbling plays out in newspapers and private lobbying meetings while the rules are drafted, and then it continues in court until Read More…
AQMD board narrowly approves restart of refinery in Torrance
[Source: Los Angeles Daily News] ExxonMobil’s Torrance refinery was given regulatory approval Saturday to produce emissions that violate clean air standards as it restarts the plant for gasoline manufacturing more than a year after it was crippled in an explosion. Approval was granted on a narrow 3-2 vote by the South Coast Air Quality Management Read More…
Air quality district picks former EPA administrator as chief amid protests
[Source: San Gabriel Valley Tribune] Environmental activists interrupted a four-hour meeting of the South Coast Air Quality Management District governing board Friday, accusing the district of bowing to petroleum industry interests as it voted for a new executive officer. The protesters, dressed as clowns and representing the Sierra Club’s My Generation Campaign, added to the Read More…
EPA rejects Southern California smog-fighting program as ineffective
[Source: Los Angeles Times] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has rejected part of a smog-reduction plan by Southern California air quality regulators, saying it has failed to cut pollution from oil refineries and other big emissions sources as required by federal law. The EPA says an emissions-trading program administered by the South Coast Air Quality Read More…