Posted on 10/07/2010 3:33:55 PM PDT by SmithL
California grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state's clean air standards and scientists have spent the past several months revising data and planning a significant weakening of the landmark regulation, The Chronicle has found.
The pollution estimate in question was too high - by 340 percent, according to the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with researching and adopting air quality standards. The estimate was a key part in the creation of a regulation adopted by the Air Resources Board in 2007, a rule that forces businesses to cut diesel emissions by replacing or making costly upgrades to heavy-duty, diesel-fueled off-road vehicles used in construction and other industries.
The staff of the powerful and widely respected Air Resources Board said the overestimate is largely due to the Air Board calculating emissions before the economy slumped, which halted the use of many of the 150,000 diesel-exhaust spewing vehicles in California. Independent researchers, however, found huge overestimates in the Air Board's work on diesel emissions and attributed the flawed work to a faulty method of calculation - not the economic downturn.
The overestimate, which comes after another bad calculation by the Air Board on diesel-related deaths that made headlines in 2009, prompted the board to suspend the regulation earlier this year while officials decided whether to weaken the rule.
This afternoon - after months of work - the Air Resources Board and construction industry officials announced they agreed a major scale-back of the rule -
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
So, the scientists and politicians lied to impose their control over the state’s commerce. What a surprise!
CARB is well-respected? By whom?
BWAAAHHHAAAHHHAAA!!!!!
Like you said, by whom?
...which halted the use of many of the 150,000 diesel-exhaust spewing vehicles in California...No biased reporting here...
Construction industry leaders, whose businesses have been a major target for reducing pollution, said they have long been skeptical of the board's estimates. They have eagerly awaited proposals for regulation changes and some even believe the Air Board was intentionally slowing down the changes to lay low while the debate over AB32 rages in the public forum.
"I think they're waiting till after November because they are really hoping the election goes one way that's more favorable than another and they would have a freer hand to do what they want to do," said Michael Lewis, president of the Construction Industry Air Quality Coalition, which monitors regulations affecting the industry.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/07/BAOF1FDMRV.DTL&ao=3#ixzz11iP67nnP
they conspired to allow perverted results to stand as the basis for monumental legislation and environmental policy.
as they say in the movies, or not..
she was headed for the bottom no matter what wind blew her way.
icebergs don’t just jump in front of ya.
so, go vote, ya never know, ya might see the demRats hit one dead nose on.
ironically, these airheads are appointed so ya can’t unelect them. like they need special protections in the first place to develop and institute policies.
I guess the Chronicle doesn't remember MTBE.
Or just plain old phony bologna?
Off by 340%, that’s pretty close for government work.
The ARB is a useless communist organization and needs to be abolished and its bureaucrats jailed for fraud and worse.
Greenpeace.Earth First.The Environmental Defense Fund.
California grossly miscalculated pollution levels in a scientific analysis used to toughen the state's clean air standards and scientists have spent the past several months revising data and planning a significant weakening of the landmark regulation... The pollution estimate in question was too high -- by 340 percent, according to the California Air Resources Board, the state agency charged with researching and adopting air quality standards.
...One of the major recent problems was an Air Board estimate of premature deaths caused by particulate matter spewing from diesel engines. The first calculation found 18,000 deaths a year in the state had links to particulate matter. That has been revised down by nearly half.
The revision was ordered after the board scientist who oversaw that study was outed as having faked his scientific credentials.
Roberts and other board members were not told by Nichols that the scientist, Hien Tran, lied about earning a Ph.D. from UC Davis before they voted in favor of regulations based in part on his science. That vote took place in December 2008.
Nichols, who acknowledges she knew about the falsification prior to the vote, has apologized for not sharing that information with her fellow board members.
Roberts called the spate of errors "a major black eye" for the board. He said he does not know why the process to fix them is taking longer than first expected. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/07/BAOF1FDMRV.DTL&ao=2#ixzz11jVkDIjP
When science supports a law passed for political reasons and it no longer suits the current political climate, science all of a sudden changes. That tells us that it wasn’t based on science in the first place, or that science is really politics in a white lab coat.
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