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San Francisco (AP) The state with some of the nation's most ambitious clean energy standards went even further Thursday: Regulators approved new regulations requiring utilities to draw a third of their power from alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal in 10 years. California already is pushing utilities to reach a 20-percent-renewable standard by next year, which has been a struggle to accomplish. Toughening the rules could prompt regulators across the country to do the same, but some consumers fret that they will end up paying for the changes in the form of higher utility bills. . ....

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic leaders of California's state legislature told congressional lawmakers Thursday that the nation should follow California's lead in acting to curb global warming emissions. "This wasn't easy to do in California, it was tough," Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, testified before a Senate committee hearing, saying Congress shouldn't wait for other countries to act. "If we wait for them to act and don't play a central role at the global level, as a nation there's a lot to lose," said Nunez. Nunez and state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata appeared before a hearing of the...

SACRAMENTO – Targeting truckers, contractors and others, Senate Democrats on Thursday introduced legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions beyond the landmark global warming law that took effect this year. The package of bills would ban methane releases from garbage dumps, reduce exhaust emissions from trucks, construction equipment and school buses, and force utilities to increase energy from renewable sources. Other lawmakers, including some Democrats, and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately criticized the legislative package. They said it would overwhelm state regulators who are still trying to decide how to implement last year's global warming law. That law imposes the country's...

Trucking through the Green Haze in Truckee The Pasadena Pundit Curiously omitted in California’s large newspapers covering the story of the City of Truckee's decision whether to renew its contract for coal-fired power from the Intermountain Power Plant (IPP) in Utah is that the proposed plant expansion will apparently meet all air quality standards (see SFGate.com http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/10/BAGJGMSTB01.DTL and see SacBee.com http://subscriber.sacbee.com/user_registration/login/?goto=http%3A//www.sacbee.com/324/story/89876.html). According to the State of Utah Department of Environmental Quality: "The IPP will meet all primary and secondary National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The IPP will also meet Class I increments in the National Parks in southern Utah...

SACRAMENTO--A small utility near Lake Tahoe's north shore thought it had the answer to providing long-term affordable energy coal. But after an outpouring of public criticism and political pressure, the Truckee Donner Public Utility District voted to reject a 50-year contract to obtain energy from a planned coal plant in Utah. The district's vote late Wednesday night was an illustration of a larger debate within California. Over the last month, several utilities have considered renewing or negotiating new contracts for cheap power from high-polluting sources before a new state law takes effect Jan. 1. Under that law, utilities in California...

Several Southern California cities have abandoned plans to renew long-term contracts for coal-fired electricity, gambling on the availability of adequate alternative energy from cleaner sources. Local officials told Utah-based Intermountain Power Agency on Monday they wouldn't be renewing their contracts for cheap, coal-fired power, which expire in 2027, and would instead be looking for available alternatives, from wind farms to desert solar power. "It's a huge change," said Mayor Todd Campbell of Burbank, which is one of the cities that decided to not renew its contract. The others are Pasadena, Glendale, Riverside and Anaheim. They join the Los Angeles Department...

Intermountain Power Plant Expansion Threatens Tourist "Views," Not Health - Serves Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena Preface: A proposal to extend the energy contracts for Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena from 2025 to 2050 to accommodate expansion of the Intermountain Power Plant in Delta, Utah for a third coal-fired module has met with stiff resistance by the National Resources Defence Coucil (NRDC), the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations who have cited this as a "moral cause." The power plant's 710 foot stack, which is a technological marvel, removes 99.75 percent of all the particulates that would have gone into the atmosphere in...

PASADENA - Caught between carboniferous rock and a hard place, city power officials will ask Sacramento next week for compromise on a pending coal-energy ban. The negotiations come as Pasadena decides whether to extend its contracts for imported coal-generated power to 2044 - a deal that will be prohibited from Jan. 1 under state law. The issue will not be discussed as planned Monday at City Council, where it likely would have died. "My feeling is if Sid \ is with us on this issue, they're not going to get five votes to push this thing forward," said Jim Stewart...

A number of municipal utilities in Southern California, moving briskly to beat a January 1 deadline of a new state law targeting greenhouse-gas emissions, are extending long-term contracts for coal-fired energy--pacts that would be barred after California's law takes effect. The law's author, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, hopes to block the practice and intends to petition the Schwarzenegger administration to intervene. He has scheduled a November 20 meeting with utility representatives. The utilities, who opposed Perata's bill when it was in the Legislature, believe his law targets them unfairly and cripples their ability to maintain a balanced, cost-effective...

SB 1368, another environmental measure, prohibits California utilities from buying electricity from out-of-state companies unless it was generated through measures that produce no greater greenhouse gas emissions than electricity generated from natural-gas-fired power plants.

Among other things, Schwarzenegger signs into law legislation giving discounts on prescription medicines SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger trumpeted a season of legislative triumphs with a flurry of bill signings Friday, including bills that will affect everyone from low-income prescription drug consumers to hybrid drivers to television watchers to vendors who sell Vietnamese rice cakes. He signed 179 bills and vetoed 115, leaving around 175 to be signed today, the constitutional deadline to consider legislation. In total, Schwarzenegger has signed 800 bills and vetoed 189. Whether it was environmental protections, raising the minimum wage or providing discounted prescription drugs, many...

Telephone companies can dive into California's $5.3 billion-a-year cable TV industry under a law signed Friday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He said the measure, backed by millions of dollars in corporate contributions, will offer consumers better service and lower prices. Rushing to beat a midnight Saturday bill-signing deadline, the Republican governor joined with Democratic legislative leaders Friday to also back programs lowering the cost of prescription drugs for poor Californians and to test thousands of volunteers for possible toxic contamination. All three bills could serve as models for other states and the nation, supporters said. AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications...

SAN FRANCISCO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation yesterday that imposes the nation's first cap on greenhouse gas emissions and challenges Californians to temper energy consumption. The measure, aimed at curbing global warming, is expected to have political and practical implications, from increasing pressure for federal action from the Bush administration to accelerating new technologies that could deliver fuel-saving cars, power plants, refineries and factories. “It will begin a bold new era of environmental protection in California that will change the course of history,” the Republican governor said during a bill-signing ceremony in San Francisco. It was attended by a...

You're going to hear an awful lot today about Assembly Bill 32. But in my mind, the real story is elsewhere. We've known for weeks that Governor Schwarzenegger was going to sign AB 32, the landmark global warming bill authored by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-LA) and Assemblymember Fran Pavley (D-LA) which was crafted largely through a series of intense negotiations at the end of the legislative session. The legislation, designed to reduce carbon emissions, has been in the center of an international media spotlight for months. And it will get the star treatment today, too... with not one, but...

SAN FRANCISCO California will become the first state to impose a universal cap on greenhouse gas emissions Wednesday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs into law a sweeping effort to curb global warming. In a signing ceremony scheduled for San Francisco's picturesque Treasure Island, the Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers will celebrate a bill that has given the state global notoriety for taking the lead on an issue largely ignored by the federal government. "We are trying to bring other people in and inspire them and work with them," Schwarzenegger said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. California's...

Sacramento -- After cutting a deal with Democrats on historic legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faces decisions this month on two other bills that could dramatically reduce pollution from the auto and energy industries -- the state's two largest contributors to global warming. With much less fanfare than for the global warming bill, which Schwarzenegger is expected to sign next Wednesday, Democratic majorities in the state Senate and Assembly approved legislation that would require half of the cars sold in the state to run on alternative fuels by 2020 and another bill that would...

SACRAMENTO — In the Rocky Mountain States and the fast-growing desert Southwest, more than 20 power plants, designed to burn coal that is plentiful and cheap, are on the drawing boards. Much of the power, their owners expected, would be destined for the people of California. But such plants would also be among the country’s most potent producers of carbon dioxide, the king of gases linked to global warming. So California has just delivered a new message to these energy suppliers: If you cannot produce power with the lowest possible emissions of these greenhouse gases, we are not interested. California’s...

Emboldened by the success of California's anti-global-warming initiative, environmentalists are now eyeing a bevy of other green bills they believe can help save the planet. More than 20 high-priority bills are on their way to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk, including one on flex-fuel cars and one mandating cleaner power plants. There also are less-publicized bills such as one requiring most grocery stores to offer plastic bag recycling and one reducing the amount of water used in every toilet flush. Although the governor is being applauded for striking a deal with Democratic leaders ... under the Global Warming Solutions Act [AB32],...

In what could prove a disastrous move for consumers and businesses, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is poised to sign legislation imposing statutory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the state of California. The system of restrictions, which calls for a 25% cut in emissions by 2020, is to be administered by the California Air Resources Board under a so-called “cap-and-trade” system. A cap-and-trade scheme will restrict the total emissions allowed, in effect functioning as a tax on energy use throughout the state. “It is unfortunate that California’s state government would be pushing such a wrong-headed policy at a time that entrepreneurs...

SACRAMENTO Sealing a groundbreaking deal to combat global warming, California lawmakers on Thursday sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill that would make the state the first in the nation to force its major industries to cut their carbon emissions. The legislation requires California businesses to begin reporting their emissions of greenhouse gases so the state can slash their output an estimated 25 percent by 2020. Schwarzenegger has said he would sign the bill, which incorporates guidelines he outlined last year in an executive order. Lawmakers approved the bill by a 47-31 vote, a day after it passed the Senate. "We...