The reality of AB 32 is an investment in stabilizing California’s future
Nancy Floyd, Susan Frank. Capitol Weekly | 10/20/11
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once noted that “innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” We could not agree more. California is a leader in the area of clean energy and energy efficiency technology because we are innovators — when it comes to research and development, patents, and policy. Without good, smart policy, would California still innovate? Yes. But our clean energy economy and the jobs it supports would grow at a slower, less transformative pace....
EPA: Forest group fears 'policy bias' in scientific panel to assess GHGs of biomass
Tiffany Stecker, E&E reporter, ClimateWire, October 20, 2011,
The National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) voiced concern yesterday that U.S. EPA is inserting a policy slant in a scientific inquiry to assess the carbon emissions of plants that burn wood and other biomass to create energy. NAFO submitted comments to the agency in response to efforts to establish rules around the monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions from the growing biomass energy sector. Next week, an independent scientific advisory board will meet for three days to offer a peer review of EPA's methods on the issue. "It's an approach that seems to presume what the policy is," said David Tenny, CEO of NAFO. "We think that's putting the cart before the horse."
USFS program boosts community forest efforts
Land Letter, Thursday, October 20, 2011,
The development and expansion of small, community-based public forests received a boost this week as a 3-year-old Forest Service grant program got off the ground. The Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program will funnel money to local governments, American Indian tribes and nonprofit groups to create and maintain community forests. The spaces must be open to the public and provide economic and other benefits to local people.
The Federal Register published implementation rules today for the program, which was initially authorized in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008. The program already has $1.5 million in its coffers from fiscal 2010 and 2011 appropriations. The Obama administration has requested $5 million for fiscal 2012.
Economic development officials in Arcata, Calif., hope to increase ecotourism revenue from the city's community forest. Arcata plans to apply to a Forest Service grant program to expand the space. Photo courtesy of the city of Arcata....
Air board faces decision day on carbon trading
Sacramento Bee Editorial, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2011,
The California Air Resources Board today is expected to approve the most disputed and litigated element of California's climate crusade – a cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gases.
With this action, California will be the first state in the nation to limit emissions linked to global warming that spring from electric utilities, the transportation sector, major manufacturers and other industries. It also will be the first to establish a trading system so businesses can consider what options are most cost-effective in reducing emissions....
Utilities press EPA for 'flexible' greenhouse gas rule
Jean Chemnick, E&E reporter, Greenwire, October 19, 2011
Electric utilities waiting for U.S. EPA to propose a new greenhouse gas standard for power plants find themselves in an awkward position. The sector has been holding stakeholder meetings with EPA trying to shape the agency's regulation of carbon dioxide emissions; meanwhile, many coal-fired utilities are battling the agency in court and on Capitol Hill, contesting its authority to curb heat-trapping gases.
EPA hasn't said yet when it will propose new source performance standards (NSPS) for greenhouse gases from new and existing power plants, but many in the power sector hope it will be something other than a simple "command and control" regulation....
California moves ahead with eminent domain for Delta water project soil testing
By Matt Weiser, Sacramento Bee, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011
State officials are moving ahead with plans to condemn private land in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for surveys related to a controversial water-diversion canal or tunnel. Delta residents have recently been served with a new round of legal notices as part of this process. In most cases, the state Department of Water Resources seeks temporary easements to conduct surveys, and full ownership of 16 square feet of land to drill for soil samples.
State and federal agencies are proposing a giant canal or tunnel to divert a portion of the Sacramento River's flow out of the Delta, carrying the water directly to export pumps already running near Tracy. The thinking behind this concept is that diverting the water from farther north than Tracy would both restore a natural salinity balance to the estuary and protect the diverted water from floods and earthquakes.
But it remains unclear whether a more northerly diversion point is safer for fish, and Delta residents fear the project will damage the region's farm economy. Estimated to cost about $13 billion, the project is key to the proposed Bay Delta Conservation Plan. The plan remains unfunded and far from approval....
County faces suit over plastic bag ban; group claims basis for law is flawed
Santa Cruz Sentinel, 10/19/2011
SANTA CRUZ -- A pro-plastic bag group has made Santa Cruz the latest target in an ongoing campaign against local plastic bag bans, filing suit against the county Tuesday over a law not slated to go into effect until spring. The suit focuses on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors' environmental underpinnings for passing the ban, which is aimed at getting shoppers to switch to reusable bags. It also takes aim at a portion of the law that extends the bag ban to restaurants, a step which made the local law one of the most aggressive in the state.
Stephen Joseph, a San Francisco-based lawyer for the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, said the county passed the law -- slated to go into effect March 20 -- based on dubious claims about the threat plastic poses to the environment and marine life....
Court decision upholds marine protected areas, DEBORAH SULLIVAN BRENNAN, North County Times, Oct, 18, 2011
A San Diego Superior Court judge has rejected a challenge to recently established Marine Protected Areas, upholding the network of conservation areas along the Northern California coast. The decision, announced Monday by Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager, overruled complaints by a coalition of sportfishing groups that the California Fish and Game Commission failed to follow state law when it created the Marine Protected Areas in Northern California. While the decision doesn't address similar, anticipated challenges to marine areas in Southern California, conservation groups said it sets a precedent for those complaints...
By Damon Arthur, Redding Record Searchlight, October 18, 2011,
A cogeneration plant proposed in Anderson would not have a significant impact on the environment, even though it will produce 330,000 tons of greenhouse gases annually from burning wood, according to a report on the project. A draft environmental impact report written last year said the greenhouse gases from the Sierra Pacific Industries plant would have a significant impact on the environment....
Congressmen blast fish habitat plan
JANET ZIMMERMAN, Riverside Press Enterprise, 18 October 2011
The Santa Ana sucker took one on the chin Tuesday during a congressional subcommittee hearing in Highland in which lawmakers fretted over the economic fallout of proposed habitat protections for the fish and questioned the motives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The two-hour hearing grew tense at times, with Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Roseville, accusing Fish and Wildlife officials of using “junk science to support political objectives” when they designated 9,331 acres in San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles counties as critical habitat for the sucker....
California's green tax breaks in question Judy Lin and Brooke Donald, San Jose Mercury News, 10/18/2011
SACRAMENTO -- In just a year, a little-noticed state panel created with bipartisan legislative support worked briskly to authorize $104 million in tax breaks to help "green" companies in California buy equipment and add jobs. But the program was halted last month after the bankruptcy of Solyndra, the Fremont solar company that received $25 million in state tax breaks and, more notoriously, a $528 million federal loan guarantee despite its precarious financial state. The Solyndra debacle is being investigated by Congress...
Federal court: No CO2 regulation under the Endangered Species Act
by Steve Milloy Junk Science.com, October 17, 2011
A federal judge today ruled against an effort by environmentalists to force the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service regulate greenhouse gases under the Endangered Species Act. Disturbingly, it’s not that the Court didn’t want to accomodate the enviros — it did — but that darned thing called the law got it the way:
Although the Court is sensitive to plaintiffs’ arguments for a strong mechanism to combat the effects of global climate change, the Court finds that the agency’s conclusion was not arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law. The Court is therefore prohibited from substituting either the plaintiffs’ or its own judgment for that of the agency...
Salmon-Killing Virus Seen for First Time in the Wild on the Pacific Coast CORNELIA DEAN and RACHEL NUWER, New York Times, October 17, 2011
A lethal and highly contagious marine virus has been detected for the first time in wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest, researchers in British Columbia said on Monday, stirring concern that it could spread there, as it has in Chile, Scotland and elsewhere. Farms hit by the virus, infectious salmon anemia, have lost 70 percent or more of their fish in recent decades. But until now, the virus, which does not affect humans, had never been confirmed on the West Coast of North America....
Redding City Council ready for talks with forest agencies
Scott Mobley, Redding Record Searchlight, October 17, 2011,
Redding is a midget compared to the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, whose 2.1 million acres is 55 times the land inside city limits. But the federal government will have to negotiate with Redding as an equal when it proposes closing forest service roads or some other policy change, should the City Council "invoke coordination" with the agency this evening.
The council is almost certain to take that step toward planning parity with the Forest Service and other federal agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. All five council members strongly supported the idea after an hourlong discussion during a regular meeting Sept. 20....
Federal judge orders more review on polar bears
By MATTHEW DALY, San Francisco Chronicle, October 17, 2011,
A federal judge has thrown out a key section of an Interior Department rule concerning the threat to polar bears posed by global warming. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled Monday that the Bush administration did not complete a required environmental review when it said the bear's designation as threatened in 2008 could not be used as a backdoor way to control greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
The Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration a year later, saying that activities outside of the bear's habitat such as emissions from a power plant could not be controlled using the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that filed a lawsuit over the 2008 rule, said the decision puts the fate of the polar bear back in the hands of the Obama administration and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar....
Closed since 2009, $15M investment brings in 100 jobs
By Dana M. Nichols, Sonora Union Democrat, October 16, 2011,
SONORA - You can buy a lot of laser beams, computers and band saw blades for $15 million. And those devices were essential to retooling the 110-year-old mill in Sonora, making it more efficient and allowing it to reopen this year after having been closed since 2009. But it still takes human hands and eyes to transform trees into lumber. That's where Brian Marquette comes in.
"You see the good wood," Marquette said, perched in the head rig control room at the Sierra Pacific Industries mill, his eyes on a 3,000-pound log visible through plate-glass windows. Every few seconds, Marquette decides how best to slice a log. His left hand moves a lever. The log spins to just the right position. And then log meets blade, sawdust flies and slabs of fresh raw wood move deeper into the mill...
Restoration of forests: Collaboration lifts rural areas
Susan Jane Brown and Mark Webb, The Oregonian, October 15, 2011
State Rep. Dennis Richardson raised some important considerations in his recent opinion piece, "Ending federal timber payments to Oregon: Rural economic collapse will harm metro area, too" (Oct. 9). Unfortunately, rather than focusing on solutions to the problems he identified, Richardson only engages in the blame game and perpetuates the myth of the urban/rural divide that no longer represents contemporary Oregon.
Richardson notes that poverty and unemployment in rural Oregon are on the rise and are a scourge in our state. In that, he couldn't be more right. But where Richardson goes awry is in the blame he places on urban "eco-elites" for this situation. Whereas environmental litigation did, in fact, characterize the public lands forest management debate in the early 1990s, something much more transformative has begun to take hold in rural communities in Oregon and throughout the region....
Senate, EPA poised to take center stage on boiler rule
Jean Chemnick, E&E Daily, October 13, 2011
The House is expected to approve a bill tonight that would prevent U.S. EPA from regulating mercury and other air toxics from industrial boilers and incinerators until at least 2018. With the House vote a foregone conclusion, the debate now turns to the Senate, and to EPA itself, which has delayed implementation of the so-called Boiler MACT rule it finalized in February in order to allow for additional review and possible adjustments to it....
Forest management prescriptions have little effect on altered streamflows – study
April Reese, E&E reporter, Land Letter, October 13, 2011
A new study by Forest Service scientists in North Carolina suggests that managing forests to offset the effects of climate change on streamflow is not a viable solution to protect water supplies from drought or flooding as temperatures rise.
Drawing on precipitation data and streamflow records from the Forest Service's Coweeta Hydrological Laboratory, a 5,600-acre research facility and experimental forest in western North Carolina, researchers used computer models to simulate how different forest management prescriptions -- including clearcutting, converting one forest type to another and no management -- would affect streamflows as precipitation patterns change due to climate change....
Dignitaries tour newer SPI mill
Ryan Campbell, Sonora Union Democrat, October 13, 2011
Lumber Grader Christian Gibbons sorts planks at the SPI?lumber mill in Standard. Amy Alonzo Rozak/Union Democrat, copyright 2011The Sonora sawmill was running at full steam Wednesday when Sierra Pacific Industries offered dignitaries a rare look inside the century-old plant that has undergone a $15 million facelift.
With saw blades buzzing and the smell of freshly cut ponderosa pine filling the air, workers were busily tending to heavy machinery and shepherding lumber as it snaked briskly along a chain of endlessly cycling conveyor belts.....
Is California Still Cutting Down Redwood Trees?
Jamie Henn, Huffington Post, 10/12/11
I'd driven through California's Redwood State Park a number of times, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago when I rode through the trees on my bicycle that I truly appreciated them. Spinning down the Avenue of the Giants and then southward on Highway 101, it was hard to keep my eyes on the road. With no roof overhead or windshield filtering the view, I could just tilt my head back and peer higher and higher into the canopy. Towering on all sides, the trees seemed like something from another age, silent giants oblivious to the cars and trucks rushing underneath them.
Oblivious or not, right now, the redwoods are threatened by the vehicles careening around their trunks. The California transportation agency, CalTrans, has begun planning to widen Highway 101 through Richardson Grove, a state park just south of the Avenue of the Giants, to accommodate larger commercial trucks. In order to expand the highway, CalTrans would "remove" 54 trees from the park and excavate the shallow roots of 66 additional trees.....