Free Republic

SACRAMENTO--Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez introduced legislation Monday to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, oil refineries and other industrial sources, a step he said would lead the nation in combating global warming while spurring the state's economy. "(The bill) sends a loud and clear message to ... innovators and entrepreneurs here and abroad to develop and bring clean technologies into the California marketplace," the Los Angeles Democrat said. Nunez announced the legislation on the same day Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration released a report calling for development of economic incentives that could include emission caps to cut greenhouse gases, chiefly...

As state and national pressures build to reduce diesel pollution at sea ports, the Port of San Diego has started exploring ways to slash emissions from cruise liners and other ships that call on the city. No one tracks how much air pollution the Port of San Diego creates, but it's widely agreed that having massive diesel engines from cruise liners and other ships idling for hours at the pier isn't good for air quality. The effort centers on providing dockside power so vessels can plug in and turn off their diesel engines, a process called cold ironing. A growing...

The same environmental groups that lobby and sue the government over protecting air, water and human health also are collecting federal grant money for research and technical work, documents show. More than 2,200 nonprofit groups have received grants from the Environmental Protection Agency over the past decade, including some of the Bush administration's toughest critics on environmental policy. "It may be confusing to the public that with the right hand we're accepting government money and with the left hand sometimes we're beating up the government," said Charles Miller, communications director for Environmental Defense. The group has received more than $1.8...

Three environmental groups sued the federal government Thursday, seeking to protect polar bears from extinction because of disappearing Arctic sea ice. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, demands that the government take action on a petition environmentalists filed earlier to have polar bears listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. Once a species is listed as threatened, the government is barred from doing anything to jeopardize the animal's existence or its habitat. In the case of the polar bear, the environmentalists hope to force the government to curb U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon...

As we've noted in this space before, the government's own Energy Information Administration has predicted that energy costs will continue to soar in the months ahead. The cost for people to stay warm this winter in the Northeast and the Midwest are expected to be nothing short of astronomical, a burden that falls disproportionately on the poor and middle class. Because we can see this storm cloud coming (in fact, it's already here), we just wanted to remind everyone that this country's energy policy has been held hostage for years by a small band of extreme environmentalists: -- They have...

In a burst of green penmanship, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed 29 environmental bills into law Thursday on a wide range of issues. One will require all new cars for sale in California starting in 2009 to display stickers explaining how many tons of global warming-causing gases they emit. Another, from a Palo Alto lawmaker, bans sewage dumping and garbage burning from commercial ships within three miles of the coast. Others will require a study of the aging levee system in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, prohibit the use of experimental pesticides around schools, phase out mercury in industrial switches and...

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge blocked plans to extend leases for oil and gas drilling off the Central California coast Friday, ruling that the Bush administration didn't adequately consider possible damage to the ocean and marine life. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled that the U.S. Interior Department failed to analyze the environmental impact of future oil exploration and production that would be possible under the 37 offshore leases, according to Drew Caputo, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of several groups that sued to block the leases. The ruling from the bench in Oakland's federal...

MISSOULA, Mont. — As the Bush administration prepares to remove Yellowstone's grizzly bears from the endangered-species list, a schism has emerged in the environmental movement over whether the bears remain at risk. The nation's largest environmental group, the National Wildlife Federation, supports delisting the bears, whose numbers have bounced back impressively after three decades of federal protection. But other powerful organizations, including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice, are threatening to sue the Bush administration if, as expected, it removes Yellowstone grizzlies from the list. "The recovery has been a huge success, but removing federal protection...

In a setback for one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's centerpiece environmental efforts, state lawmakers on Thursday approved barely half the money the state Environmental Protection Agency had said was needed to start building a "hydrogen highway" across California. Lawmakers hammering out the state budget in Sacramento approved $6.5 million for the system of nonpolluting hydrogen cars and fueling stations beginning Jan. 1. Some Democrats questioned the expense. They raised concerns about whether the money would be better spent on schools, and whether taxpayers or private companies will own the hydrogen fueling stations the money will help construct. Republicans also questioned...

TORRANCE -- No-pollution cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells are at least a decade away for most people -- but not one California family. In a long-term road test, John Spallino, his wife and two daughters will begin leasing a silver-and-blue, four-seat Honda FCX on Wednesday to get them to work, school and anywhere else they want to roam. The Spallinos will provide reports about the car's performance to Honda as part of the auto industry's first private test of the promising technology that produces only one byproduct -- water clean enough to drink. "Maybe this is the technology of...

WASHINGTON - Efforts since the Clinton administration to clean up the nation's biggest industrial source of air pollution reached what may be a legal dead end Wednesday. A federal appeals court ruled that power plants can throw more pollutants into the air annually when they modernize to operate for longer hours. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Duke Energy Corp. didn't need the Environmental Protection Agency's permission when it made improvements between 1988 and 2000 at eight power plants in North Carolina and South Carolina. While the modifications would allow the plants to operate more hours and,...

Gov. Schwarzenegger's new global warming initiative keeps California at the forefront of national and international efforts to fight the world's most pressing environmental problem according to NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). As part of this week's World Environment Day celebration in San Francisco, today the governor announced specific targets and timetables for reducing California's emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants. If California were a nation, it would rank among the top 10 sources of this pollution worldwide. The following statement is by Ralph Cavanagh, NRDC energy program director: "By aggressively combating global warming pollution, Governor Schwarzenegger is...

Tejon Ranch and its conservation partner, The Trust for Public Land, have figured out which 100,000 acres of the ranch's 270,000 acres will be carved out into a preserve. If the deal goes through, some of Tejon's majestic peaks and canyons in the Tehachapi Mountains could forever be saved from development. A step is being taken in that direction today, though an actual deal is much further away. The majority of the land is in the southeastern portion of the Tehachapis. There's also a swath next to Interstate 5 intended to connect the future preserve with the Wind Wolves Preserve...

Finally, more than four years after its hideous birth, the Clinton "Roadless Rule" is dead. The Bush administration and the Forest Service just announced a final rule that effectively undoes Clinton's reckless decree. Dying with the "Roadless Rule" are the following: - threats of catastrophic wildfire - threats of forest infestation and disease - lack of public access to public lands - improper resource management - unhealthy forests - top-down federal overreach Recall that Bill Clinton, just eight days before he left office, in the dark of night, penned his infamous, unilateral, executive order that locked up over 58 million...

WASHINGTON, April 3 - A remarkable thing happened here last week: the Environmental Protection Agency announced a set of guidelines, and environmental groups were largely complimentary in response. The agency's new approach to assessing chemicals that might cause cancer won praise for replacing guidelines that were nearly 20 years old and for taking into account, for the first time, the likelihood that children may be more vulnerable to exposure than adults. "These guidelines are enhanced by information that allows us to understand how a chemical is working," said Dr. William H. Farland, the agency's acting deputy assistant administrator for science....

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading critic of the Bush administration's environmental policies, is expected to tell Sacramento legislators today how federal changes in policies and laws could harm California. Kennedy is scheduled to speak this morning at a Legislature hearing by joint environmental committees dealing with the threat of pre-emption of state laws as well as with new air-quality and water-supply problems.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Southern California clean air regulators adopted a plan Friday to reduce emissions at about 300 power plants, factories and refineries by 20 percent over five years. The plan, which takes effect beginning 2007, amends a program started 10 years ago by the South Coast Air Quality Management District and seeks to reduce smog-causing emissions by a total of 7.7 tons per day over the five-year period. "We believe the changes meet state law requirements and maintain the integrity of the program, while continuing to move closer to the region's air quality goals," Barry Wallerstein, executive officer...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - An environmental group is accusing California farmers of not paying back a $1 billion interest-free loan used in the 1930s to build a large irrigation project that supports much of California's farm industry. The Natural Resources Defense Council, a congressman and others are also attacking contract renewals for the Central Valley Project, whose 20 reservoirs deliver river water to more than 3 million acres of farmland, including those in west San Joaquin Valley. The Bush Administration is attempting to push the deal through quietly and swiftly, according to the group, while millions of taxpayers' dollars used...

Taxpayers who support President Bush’s re-election may be unaware of it, but rabidly anti-Bush Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has received at least $3.5 million in taxpayer money in recent years, according to information from the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW). Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., has asked prosecutors to determine if the NRDC and similar tax-funded and/or tax-exempt groups have stepped over the line of what is allowable. Further, the Senator met with officials of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) late Wednesday to demand an accounting of "how better to disclose what grants are available and...

John Kerry is the Senate's most liberal member. But his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, looks to be even farther left, judging from her charitable giving. Over the years, she has poured nearly $6 million into the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, a kind of front philanthropy, founded by California activist Drummond Pike in 1976, that channels donations to left-wing causes in ways that make the original funders hard to trace directly. The Tides Foundation gives to causes to the left - sometimes way to the left - of the Democratic mainstream. It has been a big supporter (to the tune of...