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The Tire Pressure Strategy was identified as one of these Early Actions. While current Federal law requires auto manufactures to install tire pressure monitoring systems in all new vehicles beginning September 1, 2007, owners of older vehicles will lack this important tool to help them reduce their climate change emissions. ARB staff is currently investigating various options to ensure that tire pressures in older vehicles are also properly maintained.

SACRAMENTO – California is on the verge of initiating a historic rewrite of local planning laws, fusing for the first time the issues of urban growth and global warming. Unprecedented nationally, the complex legislation would steer communities toward land-use policies to contain sprawl, using as much as $12 billion a year in state-controlled transportation funds as an incentive. “This bill will change the way California grows,” said state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, its author. Under the measure, the state Air Resources Board would establish targets for 17 regions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of a broader campaign to...

A publicly funded, world-class research institute that would develop answers to the threat posed by climate-changing greenhouse gases is being crafted in the Legislature, and is among the last-minute proposals expected to come before the Legislature in the closing days of this year's legislative session. The plan differs sharply from the original blueprint proposed by California's top utilities regulator, state Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey. Legislation encompassing the new, estimated $87 million-a-year plan is likely to be completed within a few days. At time when public attention is focused on California's $15.2 billion budget shortage, the proposed California Institute...

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO: The California Air Resources Board will hold a public meeting Friday in San Diego to discuss the state's plan to combat global warming. The meeting will run from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the chambers of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, 1600 Pacific Highway, in downtown San Diego. The board's staff will explain a draft proposal released in late June that is expected to guide policies for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change. Staff members also are prepared to receive several hours of public comment on the plan, which is...

SAN FRANCISCO -- California's effort to limit vehicle emissions of gases that contribute to global warming hit a snag Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that the state and environmental groups acted too early when they sued the Bush administration in January for blocking the law. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit filed by California, 15 other states and five environmental groups over the Environmental Protection Agency's refusal to let the state enforce its limits on greenhouse gas fumes from new cars and trucks. The court said the Jan. 2 suit was...

One year after California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols decided to sell off some energy stocks that showed a potential conflict of interest with her role as a state regulator, records show her diverse investment portfolio still contains many energy interests. Nichols also sold stock in a company that stands to profit from new diesel regulations that the ARB is set to adopt this fall, and other companies that have business before the board, according to financial disclosure documents filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission. But FPPC records show that she and her husband, attorney John Duam, sold...

Wood fires in fireplaces and stoves in the Bay Area will be banned on bad air nights in winter to protect public health from soot, the region's air pollution board ruled today. Adopting its first rule to regulate indoor wood burning, the nine-county Bay Area Air Quality Management District Board said that even EPA-approved wood burning stoves cannot legally burn on Spare the Air nights. Violators will get written warning for their first offense, and can be issued $100 tickets for repeat offenses. The air board also adopted year-round visibility limits on chimney smoke in an effort to stop people...

Given California's infinite diversity and its maddeningly diffused governmental apparatus, it's rare for the state's politicians to undertake a comprehensive and expansive change of public policy. The decades-long stalemate on water, the state's perpetual budget crisis and the failure of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care plan are merely three examples of the political system's chronic inability to act decisively and effectively. And even on those rare occasions when major new policies are adopted, they tend to fall well short of their purported benefits, a sterling example being the unanimous approval of electric energy "deregulation" in 1996 that became a colossal...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California on Thursday took a major step forward on its global warming fight by unveiling an ambitious plan for clean cars, renewable energy and stringent caps on big polluting industries. The plan, which aims to reduce pollutants by 10 percent from current levels by 2020 while driving investment in new energy technologies that will benefit the state's economy, is the most comprehensive yet by any U.S. state. It could serve as a blueprint not only for the rest of the United States, ... "This is of tremendous importance, not only for California," Mary Nichols, chairman of...

SACRAMENTO – California's top air-quality agency for the first time on Thursday will reveal a long-awaited strategy for how it expects business and the public to respond to the challenge of dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and cars. By itself, the draft plan before the Air Resources Board will not impose specific regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Instead, the plan is widely expected to set the course for establishing state policies that will redefine energy use in California. No sector will be excused. The proposal will lay out blueprints for refineries,...

First the cars and trucks, then the factories, trains and earth movers. Now, the ships at sea: Air Resources Board is entering new waters. The ARB is going after ocean-going vessels, especially those container ships that ply the coast of California and belch soot from huge engines that burn pollutant-rich form of diesel oil called bunker fuel. State enforcers say the new regulation—it’s all but certain to be approved next month—will be the first in the world to crack down on soot over the ocean. It’s part of a larger plan approved in 2000 to cut diesel pollution and, as...

For hundreds of California school districts already facing profound budget problems, the proposed diesel-soot regulations from the Air Resources Board couldn’t come at a worse time: The ARB is pondering a new rule that would require schools to buy new buses—they average about $150,000 each--or retrofit older ones at $20,000 or more per vehicle. The strapped districts also are crying foul over what they see as a betrayal by the ARB. The original diesel rule excluded school buses; the latest version of the rule includes them. The ARB, conducting hearings around the state, is expected to make a final decision...

Thus far, California’s landmark law to cut greenhouse gases from its factories and businesses—a law that has given Gov. Schwarzenegger an international image of environmental activist—has been mostly talk and little action. Rules covering perhaps 60 percent of the reductions needed to meet the targets are already in place or soon will be, the result of other laws, covering such things as renewable energy standards, energy efficiency, clean-car rules, low-carbon fuel standards and others. One key component, to cut greenhouse gases from car tailpipes, is stalled pending a federal waiver, although that permission is all but certain after President Bush...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's near-and-dear fight to make the state greener is adding a lot of new jobs to the state's already-in-the-red payroll. The governor's latest budget proposal calls for no fewer than 211 greenhouse-gas busters to be sprinkled throughout state government, at an annual cost of $55.4 million. That's 77 more greenies than are on the payroll this year. The new jobs range from $36,000-a-year accounting technicians to $102,000-a-year attorneys to draft and enforce green regulations. Fully half the money and three-fourths of the jobs would go to the California Air Resources Board, the agency charged with monitoring pollution and...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California regulators have drastically cut the number of zero-emission vehicles required to be sold in the state by 2014, a decision that frustrated environmentalists but came as a relief to auto manufacturers. The rules adopted Thursday put the number of electric and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles that automakers sell in California by 2014 at 7,500 — a 70 percent reduction from the 2003 target.(snip) Auto manufacturers said they could not meet the California standard and needed more time to make affordable hydrogen and battery-powered cars.(snip) The decision is expected to affect 12 other states that had adopted California's...

The governor has appointed Berkeley resident Dr. John Balmes to the California Air Resources Board. Balmes, 57, a Democrat, has been a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, since 2002 and has been a professor of medicine at UCSF since 1986. His appointment requires Senate confirmation. Compensation for the position is $39,332 annually.

Air board sets down emission rules for restaurants cooking large amounts of beef -The Bay Area's clean air board is breaking new ground in the growing effort to cut restaurant charbroiler smoke out of American's diet of air pollution. In a decision opposed by many restaurant owners, the board agreed Wednesday to require emission controls on open-grill restaurant charbroilers -- such those in larger dining establishments like Black Angus and Applebee's -- that cook high volumes of steaks, hamburgers and other beef. Clean air agencies elsewhere are watching the rule -- the first of its kind in the nation by...

California air quality chief Mary Nichols and state Energy Commissioner James Boyd have joined environmental groups in touting a new report that holds California up as a national leader in clean energy policy. They're calling on California's congressional delegation to follow the state's lead in pushing similar energy-saving initiatives as Congress is poised to vote on a federal energy bill. "The next step is for federal policy to match what states are doing," said Nichols, the California Air Resources Board chairwoman appointed by .. Schwarzenegger. The report by clean energy advocacy group Environment America lauds the Golden State for mandating...

Speech was given on October 12, 2007 in Newport Beach. You have extended me a very dangerous invitation tonight – to speak to a gathering of political conservatives on the day that Al Gore has received the Nobel Peace Prize for discovering that the earth’s climate is changing. I’ve heard that he’s going to contribute half of his prize money to environmental causes and use the other half to pay his electricity bill. And anything left over will come in handy to help pay for the fleet of private jets that allow him to travel around the world to tell...

When Californians take their vehicles in for a tune up, smog check or oil change, the job should include fully inflating their tires. That one simple step could prevent an estimated 200,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases a year from going into the air, according to a new proposal that state air regulators are weighing to help California meet its global warming goals. Making tire inflation a mandatory regulation is among five new early action measures that would take effect by Jan. 1 2010 to help California reduce greenhouse gases by an estimated 25 percent by the year 2020. "There...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic legislators and the media roasted Republican senators for holding up passage of the state budget on issues that had nothing to do with the budget, such as their demands to restrict lawsuits over greenhouse gas emissions. "A whole lot of stuff was brought up at the end that was never brought up before," Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata complained at one point. It's a valid point, even though Republicans countered that they had to use the budget on other issues because the Democrats otherwise ignored them. But Republicans weren't the only ones leveraging the budget...

Dr. Henry Gong, a prominent pulmonary physician and a member of the California Air Resources Board, has died. Board chairwoman Mary Nichols said Monday that Gong died from heart failure Aug. 16 at his home in Pacific Palisades, surrounded by his family. He was 60. "Dr. Gong brought a unique, invaluable perspective to air issues as a physician specializing in pulmonary health," Nichols said in a statement. "All of us who breathe California's air owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. Gong as one of the state's true clean air champions. We will miss him." Gong, one of 11 air...

California’s Global Warming Watchdog Owns Oil, Coal and Utility Stocks By Noel Sheppard | August 18, 2007 - 18:26 ET Here's a headline you'd never expect to see: Global Warming Watchdog Invests in Oil, Coal, Utilities Think I'm kidding? Well, check the link. Making the issue that much more delicious, it was the leading front-page story in Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle (emphasis added throughout): The new chair of the California Air Resources Board owns stocks in several oil, coal and utility firms, some of which are likely to be affected by rules the agency implements as part of the state's...

SACRAMENTO – During the 2003 recall that thrust him into office, Arnold Schwarzenegger accused then-Gov. Gray Davis of mismanagement and hinted that he was corrupt. But when his administration has needed expertise or become embroiled in political trouble, Schwarzenegger hasn't hesitated to hire top officials who worked for Davis, a Democrat. Last week the Republican governor selected Mary Nichols, a former chief environmental aide to Davis, as chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board to try to calm the controversy over his firing of the state's top air-quality regulator. Nichols is one of at least six key players in the...

The new chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board owns stocks in several oil, coal and utility firms, some of which are likely to be affected by rules the agency implements as part of the state's groundbreaking law to fight global warming, The Chronicle has learned. Mary Nichols' stock holdings include shares in oil giants Chevron Corp., BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell, as well as a stake in a Bermuda tanker company that transports crude oil, according to economic interest statements she filed this week. She also owns stock in the world's largest coal company, Peabody Energy Corp., along...

SACRAMENTO As California begins mapping out its strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions, how industries will be forced to comply is emerging as one of the most complex aspects of the debate. A key component of the state's plan to implement last year's far-reaching global warming law was submitted Friday to California air regulators. The state Air Resources Board received a 107-page report commissioned last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that endorses a market-trading program. Under such a program, power plants, refineries, cement plants and other industries that produce greenhouse gases can buy and sell credits for their emissions. That...

California air quality regulators on Thursday considered what would be the nation's toughest emission standards for diesel-powered vehicles such as bulldozers, airport baggage trucks and ski resort snowcats. If adopted, the rules would force the oldest and most polluting pieces of equipment out of service and require construction firms and other companies to spend billions on new vehicles or engine retrofits. The clean-air proposal came under immediate criticism from industry representatives. They said it asked too much of contractors and equipment retailers in too little time. "Our industry has done nothing wrong," said Gordon Downs, owner of Downs Equipment Rental...

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger portrays himself as a global environmental leader, but that image was tarnished Friday as two former state air pollution officials testified about an administration they said is working to weaken global warming initiatives. Schwarzenegger's top aides have meddled in the day-to-day affairs of the state Air Resources Board, compromising its independence and integrity even as the Republican governor was traveling the world promoting the state's landmark global warming law, according to its former chairman, Robert Sawyer, and past executive director Catherine Witherspoon. "To say it was schizophrenic is to be kind. It was absolutely appalling,"...

About six weeks ago, I published a column ["Arnold can't give us 'green' cement," also at FR] in a number of newspapers warning that the governor’s dueling promises to radically reduce carbon dioxide emissions while delivering a new era of public works comprised a public policy charade of breathtaking mendacity. Highways, dams and aqueducts require heavy construction equipment and prodigious amounts of concrete that in turn produce enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. I wrote: “The governor is now on the horns of a dilemma of his own making. He must either confront the fact that AB 32 was an intellectually...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday turned to a former top environmental official for Democratic Govs. Jerry Brown and Gray Davis to replace the ousted chairman of the state Air Resources Board. Schwarzenegger's decision to hire Mary Nichols, director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment, comes after he fired the former board chairman, Robert Sawyer. At the time, Schwarzenegger was irked that Sawyer backed the Air Resources Board's June 14 vote to support a waiver giving San Joaquin Valley polluters until 2024 to comply with federal Clean Air Act restrictions. Sawyer's firing prompted the ARB's executive director, Catherine Witherspoon, to...

The chairman of the California Air Resources Board, Robert F. Sawyer, was fired by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week amid mounting criticism of the agency's leadership on global warming and air pollution policies. Sawyer and the governor's office gave sharply differing accounts of why he was let go after 18 months at the helm of what has long been described as the world's most influential air pollution regulatory agency. "I was fired, I did not resign…. The entire issue is the independence of the board, and that's why I got fired," Sawyer . . . Sawyer said he had declined...

A classic dispute before the Air Resources Board, pitting environmentalists against builders over a multibillion-dollar plan to cut diesel pollution, has gone beyond the confines of the ARB and is spilling over into the state budget and the highest levels of the Schwarzenegger administration. Environmentalists have successfully pushed into the 2007-08 Senate budget version a provision that requires builders, with some exceptions, who win new infrastructure-construction contracts to use specially approved exhaust filters to block harmful diesel emissions. The language could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars--directly from the pockets of equipment owners. "The point here is to make...

It may be the most important action taken by state pollution regulators all year--as important as the implementation of last year's landmark greenhouse-gas legislation. The vote carries a potential price tag being measured in billions, and yet the state Air Resources Board's upcoming vote has gone virtually unnoticed by all but industry insiders. California's air pollution regulators are poised to vote on new rules to curb emissions from some 180,000 unregistered diesel machines--the earth movers, backhoes, tractors, scrapers and other heavy equipment used to build highways, dams, housing developments, skyscrapers and other big projects, public and private. The state ARB...

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday said his administration will sue the Environmental Protection Agency if it fails to act more quickly on California's request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. Schwarzenegger said he called EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson on Wednesday and told him his agency was moving too slowly on California's 2005 request for a waiver to the federal Clean Air Act. The waiver, if granted by the EPA, would allow California to more aggressively regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants. “If we don't see quick action from the government, we will sue the U.S. EPA,” Schwarzenegger...

Thanks to AB 32, the new powerbrokers in California are not Hollywood studio chiefs or Silicon Valley venture capitalists, but rather the officials in an obscure state bureaucracy called the California Air Resources Board (CARB). These bureaucrats now have a broad mandate to develop the regulatory framework to force compliance with the new emissions restrictions. California's population was 29.7 million people in 1990, and is expected to grow to 42.2 million by 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. These new residents will create a staggering 41% gap between projected emissions and the limits set by AB 32. How can...

California lawmakers expressed skepticism Monday about how the Schwarzenegger administration plans to reduce greenhouse gases, illustrating the difficulty in implementing the state's much publicized global warming law. Democrats questioned why the state planned to spend millions of dollars on mechanisms that have yet be evaluated or clearly defined. "A lot of the language we're using here is very fuzzy," said Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, chair of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. "I think we really need to develop something that all of the public understands." The committee held the Legislature's first public hearing on how to implement the greenhouse gas...

SANTA BARBARA, California (Reuters) - Hoping to get a head start for the day when accounting for carbon and other greenhouse gases becomes mandatory, companies, cities and other organizations flocked to the California Climate Action Registry in overflow numbers this week. The annual event used to be a cozy gathering of a few pioneers, but that was before landmark legislation, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, mandated a cut to 1990 emission levels by 2020 -- a cut of 25 percent. Part of the new law requires greenhouse gas rules and may create a market for trading carbon and...

State regulators are exploring whether to ask the federal government for a waiver that would allow California more time to meet air quality standards in heavily polluted areas. At issue is a federal requirement that the California Air Resources Board reduce tiny particles of pollution by the year 2015. The microscopic specs, known as PM 2.5, come primarily from diesel engine exhaust and can lodge in the lungs. Studies have linked the particles to lung disease and heart problems. In a March 12 letter that was made public Monday, board executive director Catherine Witherspoon suggested that the San Joaquin Valley...

Californians are at risk of losing their right to work on their own vehicle air conditioner, as a proposed law to ban the sale of 134a refrigerant is moving through the state bureaucracy and may become law soon. The consumer ban, being proposed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), targets the very people who can least afford to have this service performed at a repair shop and places an economic burden upwards of $167 million on fixed and lower income Californians. To stop this proposed law, a coalition has formed -- “Stay Cool California” -- to protect Californians' ability...

Only three hours before addressing California's semiannual state Republican convention, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the appointment of two Democrats to the state Air Resources Board. Environmentalists and Democrats cheered the appointees to the commission given the task of overseeing the implementation of last year's landmark global warming agreement. The new members of the air board are Jerry Hill, 59, a member of the San Mateo County Utility Sustainability Task Force and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and Daniel Sperling, 55, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. "These are great appointments. These...

It's The Nation's First Statewide Ban Of The Chemical (AP) SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California regulators on Thursday enacted the nation's first statewide ban on the most common chemical used by dry cleaners, pleasing environmentalists but worrying some small businesses. By 2023, no more dry-cleaning machines that use the toxic solvent perchloroethylene, a potential carcinogen, will be permitted in the state. The regulation by the California Air Resources Board will phase out the fluid next year, banning dry cleaners from buying machines that rely on the solvent. The state's 3,400 dry cleaners who now use it must get rid of machines...

Uncertainty over how California will implement new regulations seeking to cut greenhouse gas emissions could delay business investments and force companies to cut jobs, industry leaders told state regulators Monday. The uncertainty stems from the broad mandate in the state's new global warming law. The law, which passed with great fanfare last year and took effect Jan. 1, imposes an economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions but leaves open how much individual companies, industries and sectors must reduce their emissions. Developing regulations to implement the law by the state Air Resources Board could take three years or longer. That's too...

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order on Thursday to reduce carbon emissions from transportation fuels, a move intended to widen the development and use of alternative vehicle fuels in the nation's biggest state. The order, the first of its kind in the United States, sets a standard to cut carbon levels in vehicle fuels by at least 10 percent by 2020. It also will implement a state law adopted last summer that mandates state emissions caps to reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming by 25 percent by 2020. In a signing ceremony outside...

SACRAMENTO - Pushing an aggressive agenda for his second term, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday called for a first-in-the-nation standard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicle fuels and also proposed even more borrowing ... In his annual State of the State address, delivered to a joint session of the Legislature, the Republican governor continued to buck the GOP establishment with his efforts to combat global warming and his pledge to provide health insurance for all Californians by placing new burdens on employers and insurers. --snip-- Continuing last year's $42-billion borrowing binge, Schwarzenegger said he'll seek authorization for another...

Sacramento -- California will create the world's first global warming pollution standard for transportation fuels, ratcheting down fuel carbon content 10 percent by 2020 under a plan put forward by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Tuesday in his State of the State address. The new standard could have implications for the auto industry and change the way gasoline is produced around the globe. Environmentalists hailed it as a way to reduce one of the state's chief sources of greenhouse gas emissions and kick-start fledgling alternative fuel technologies. "This is a big deal. This policy will be noticed worldwide," said Eric Heitz, president...

SACRAMENTO — Escalating California's battle against global warming, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to announce today that he will order a 10% cut in motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide. Under the proposal, petroleum refiners and gasoline sellers would be ordered to reduce the carbon content of their fuels over the next 13 years. The order could also usher in a new generation of alternative fuels in California, experts say, as refiners consider adding ethanol or other biofuels into gasoline blends. It could also mean a shift of part of the state's auto fleet to hydrogen or...

State Moves Forward on Implementing Landmark Global Warming Law Market Advisory Committee Members Chosen, Early Action Workshop Scheduled SACRAMENTO – Today, Linda Adams, Secretary for Environmental Protection, announced a 14-member Market Advisory Committee to support the implementation of the state’s first-in-the-nation comprehensive greenhouse gas reduction program. The Committee was formed according to the Governor’s Executive Order S-20-06. The Committee will make recommendations by June 30, 2007, to the state Air Resources Board on the design of a market-based compliance program. “California is showing tremendous leadership on climate change. In my talks with national and international climate leaders, the progress we’re...

The leader of the state Senate on Monday accused Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of overstepping his authority in implementing California's pioneering plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The governor's office fired back, saying he would not deviate from a market-based approach he believes would reach emission targets without disrupting California's economy. Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata sent a letter to Schwarzenegger pointing out differences between the governor's executive order and the global warming bill negotiated with Democrats in the state Legislature in late August. The executive order directs the Air Resources Board to develop a market-based compliance program at the...

10/16/2006         GAAS:760:06           FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Gov. Schwarzenegger Announces Executive Order to Begin Implementation of Landmark Greenhouse Gas Legislation; Focuses on Developing Market-Based Solutions In conjunction with his meetings with New York Gov. Pataki and New York Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Schwarzenegger announced an executive order that directs state agencies to begin implementation of AB 32, California's landmark global greenhouse legislation signed last month. Some of the highlights of the executive order include: • The Secretary for Environmental Protection shall be the statewide leader for California's greenhouse gas emission reduction programs for state...

SACRAMENTO Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will announce an executive order Monday in New York that joins California's landmark global warming law with the Northeast's program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The executive order is the first step in creating a system that helps California's biggest manufacturers to comply with stricter environmental regulations, a Schwarzenegger administration official said. Industrial corporations and utility companies must cut their greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 25 percent by 2020. "Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to build a large, robust carbon trading market that will dramatically reduce emissions," said Schwarzenegger communications director Adam Mendelson. "The more robust the market,...