Thread: CALIFORNIA : YES ON PROP 23 , NOVEMBER 2, 2010

CALIFORNIA : YES ON PROP 23 , NOVEMBER 2, 2010


YES on Prop 23!

Make your voice heard! Take action! Fight to suspend AB 32—“The Global Warming Final Solutions Act!â€

Overestimate fueled state's landmark diesel law

Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

San Francisco Chronicle
October 8, 2010


(10-0 04:00 PDT Sacramento - --

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 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 this year while officials decided whether to weaken the rule.

Proposal announced
On Thursday, after months of work, the air board and construction industry officials announced a proposal that includes delaying the start of the requirements until 2014 and exempting more vehicles from the rule. It would be a major scaling back of the rule if the air board approves it in a vote scheduled for December. The announcement was made as The Chronicle was preparing to publish this report, which had been in the works for several weeks.

The setbacks in the air board's research - and the proposed softening of a landmark regulation - raise questions about the performance of the agency as it is in the midst of implementing the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 - or AB32 as it is commonly called, one of the state's and the nation's most ambitious environmental policies to date.

AB32, which aims to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020, has come under intense political attack this year as the state prepares to elect a new governor. Critics cast the law as a jobs killer because of the expenses to industry and businesses in conforming to new pollution regulations. Supporters say it will reinvigorate the state's economy and create thousands of new jobs in the emerging green sector.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has promised to suspend the law for at least a year, while Democrat Jerry Brown supports the law. California voters, meanwhile, will vote on Proposition 23, a November initiative to suspend AB32 until the unemployment rate - now at 12.4 percent in California - falls to 5.5 percent or less for a year.

No answers
Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, offered no explanation when The Chronicle questioned her about the diesel emissions miscalculation. She was recently asked why the air board estimate of a nitrous oxide source was off by at least a factor of two - air board scientists have since revised their numbers, and data show the estimate was off by 340 percent. Nichols' response: "I can't answer that for you."

Nichols was emphatic, though, when asked whether she has concerns about other scientific calculations made by air board scientists.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no and no," she said.

Members of Nichols' board don't have an answer for the overestimate either, said Ron Roberts, an air board member who is a Republican supervisor in San Diego County and who voted in favor of the diesel regulation.

"One of the hardest things about being on the board is separating fact from political fancy," Roberts said.




SFGATE.COM

CARB under Attack: Scandal, Economy, Data Challenges,
Reputation for Arrogance Take Toll on Clean Air Clout

10/03/2010


By George Cunningham

The California Air Resources Board, an agency used to getting its own way, is facing tough questions about the way it does business and challenges from the businesses that are being squeezed by its regulations. Some of it is just economics. Red ink and green mandates don't really mix well. People who don't have jobs and those who are worried about losing their businesses because they can't compete are not going quietly into the night. They are fighting back against the agency they believe is working to destroy them.

Voters in November will be voting on Proposition 23, which would put CARB's controversial climate change program on hold until the state's unemployment rate drops to below 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters.

The governor last week signed Senate Bill 1402, which will require CARB to explain the process and cite the specific code violation when it fines a company for a clean air violation. Schwarzenegger also vetoed Assembly Bill 1405, which would have taken revenues generated by the climate change program and directed them to low-income and minority communities. In his veto message, the governor said the bill proposed spending money that did not currently exist and may never exist.

It's not all just a tough economy that's causing CARB problems. It's also the way CARB does business, the imperial attitude it often displays toward the people it regulates, and its lack of accountability. CARB hands down its regulations and the people who are impacted by those regulations are expected to jump, then pay through the nose for the privilege of being environmentally correct.

In the culture of CARB, there are the good guys - environmental groups and green industries -and the bad guys - polluters and those who oppose CARB's green agenda. But recent events have tended to erode the agency's moral authority and its reputation.

Cases in point:

There was the Hien Tran incident and subsequent cover up by CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols and other CARB officials.

Tran was a CARB staffer who authored a report used to justify costly clean truck standards on California truckers. It turned out that he had a phony doctorate that he bought from a diploma mill for $1,000.

The fact that CARB executives had not checked Tran's credentials and had allowed him to take the lead on a study that was the basis for a California state regulation that would cost the trucking industry billions of dollars, was a little scandal. The big scandal was that Nichols and others knew about Tran's deception before the vote on the tough new truck regulations, but decided to keep it to themselves. When it finally came out, almost a year later, they treated it like it was no big deal.

Tran was demoted, but not fired, and the report he wrote was defended by Nichols and others. Only after board member John Telles found out about the Tran cover-up, said that CARB's credibility was at stake, and demanded that the Tran's report be redone, did Nichols and others reluctantly relent. A new report is currently in progress.

Then there was the James Enstrom incident.

James Enstrom is an outspoken researcher from UCLA, who openly questioned the science CARB relies on to make its decisions. He was the one who blew the whistle on Tran and his phony degree. And he was among the folks who questioned the makeup of the state Scientific Review Panel, which advises CARB on science issues.

State law mandates that members of the board be appointed to three-year terms, but it turned out that many have served well beyond that time. In fact one member, John Froines, an environmental activist, had been on the Scientific Review Panel since it was established 26 years before.

After the pro-business Pacific Legal Foundation sued, Froines was forced to step down from the Scientific Review Panel post that he had held for so long so that somebody new could be appointed.

Within weeks of Froines removal from the Panel, UCLA decided to end Enstrom's 34-year employment, claiming his research at the UCLA School of Public Health was "not in line with the academic mission of the department."

John Froines is on the faculty at UCLA and was one of the people who voted to let Enstrom go. Mary Nichols, before she became CARB chairwoman, was head of the UCLA Institute of the Environment, where she is still listed as a professor in residence. Froines is also on the Institute faculty.

Although both CARB and UCLA were roundly criticized for the affair, they denied it was in retaliation for Enstrom's scientific observations or outspoken opinions. Many in both the business community and academia challenged that.

In a scathing letter to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block last August, a group of eight business and trade association executives outlined the facts surrounding Enstrom's termination and rejected university attempts to deny that it was retaliation.

"Please be mindful that we are men of experience and we know retaliation when we see it," the letter stated.

Meanwhile Enstrom has appealed his dismissal under the UCLA Whistle Blowers Protection Program and is still on the job, at least for now.

Then there is the roll back of the CARB pollution death count. Last month, after recalculating its numbers, CARB issued a statement saying that using a new methodology, about 9,200 Californians die prematurely each year because of exposure to PM 2.5 - ultra-fine diesel particulate. While that sounds terrible, until that time, CARB had maintained that about 18,000 Californians died prematurely each year from the diesel particulate.

The issue is not whether the annual death count is 9,000 or 18,000 - both of them are bad. The issue is that the CARB pollution death count is a theoretical number, which CARB and its allies in the environmental community consistently use as a real number to promote legislation, win cases in court, establish costly programs, and rally support for their cause.

The problem is that when people use inflated numbers again and again to make their case, then the governing authority suddenly cuts that number in half, reasonable people begin to think that it's just a lot of smoke and mirrors. And that undermines the credibility of the agency and officials that have been swearing by the numbers as though they were more than a scientific educated guess.

The fact is that pollution is not good for you, but there is not one real case of anybody dying from it. That does not mean pollution is not a contributing factor in some deaths, but there are no death certificates that list pollution as a cause of death.

The fact that CARB is drawing fire is not surprising. It is a powerful agency and its decisions are as wide-ranging as are its actions. And once it starts down a road, it is hard to change direction.

As an example, take the trucking community at the Port of Oakland. The Bay Area Air Quality Control District, CARB, the EPA and the port put aside $22 million to help truckers buy newer trucks or retrofit their engines in order to meet CARB standards. Truckers who did not retrofit to meet the standards would not be able to continue servicing port terminals after Jan. 1, 2010. But the $22 million only subsidized the purchase of 200 new trucks and 800 retrofits, leaving 1,300 truckers out in the cold.

Then CARB, under pressure from Bay Area politicians, found another $11 million for the program and extended the deadline for cleaning up trucks to April 30, 2010. But that also resulted in not all truckers being treated equally. The 1,000 truckers who invested in a clean truck or retrofit in 2009 were suddenly competing with 786 truckers who had yet to make the investment. However, the truckers in the second round of grants only got about a quarter of the subsidy amount than the truckers in the first round got. And when the April deadline arrived, there was a backlog of equipment available and many truckers still waiting for their retrofit to be installed.

A similar situation existed when CARB rolled back deadlines for non-drayage truckers because of the business downturn. There were some businesses that made the investment despite the down economy because they felt it would provide them a competitive advantage. And there were retrofit equipment manufacturers, who were counting on the new law to bring them business.

When CARB introduces uncertainty into the business equation, it does little to gain support for the agency's agenda.

But it's perhaps CARB's climate change program that has drawn the most fire. The anti-global warming program is touted by the agency as the gateway to thousands of green jobs. But it also will probably mean the end to a lot of well-paying brown jobs. And all those brown-job industries and brown-job people are beginning to feel the pain.

CARB steadfastly claims that the program - part of Assembly Bill 32 passed by the legislature and signed by the governor in 2008 - will not negatively impact the economy. But that view is widely disputed by many in the business community, who point out that even if the program was successful, it would do little to slow down the worldwide emissions of greenhouse gas into the air.

Does all that mean that CARB is pushing up against the limits of its political power to restructure the state's economy into a new green model? Perhaps. But the California desire to be green is still alive and healthy. It may just be time to review the path from here to there.

-- The Cunningham Report

It's the economy, stupid - Yes on 23
Posted: 10/09/2010 01:00:00 AM PDT


In 2006, Democrats in the state legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger passed Assem-bly Bill 32 over the objections of Republicans and business leaders.

The concern then was that AB 32 would destroy jobs in California, while supporters argued that while it could harm some, the green economy would replace those jobs. Now, in 2010, Proposition 23 would suspend implementation of AB 32 until the state unemployment rate falls to 5.5 percent or lower for four consecutive quarters. This low a rate of unemployment has only happened three times since 1980, so that appears to be a pretty big mountain to climb.

We think a more realistic requirement would be one year with an average unemployment of 5.5 - which California has met six times since 1999. However, that requirement bothers us less than California's current economic condition. Jobs are scarce, as the state's unemployment rate lingers at 12.4 percent (down from a 12.6 rate in March - the highest rate in state history).

The state's unemployment rate has been in double digits since February 2009 - that's 19 straight months, nearly five consecutive quarters - and hasn't been below 12 percent since July 2009. The federal government announced Friday that the national rate remains at 9.6 percent - a record of 14 straight months above 9.5 percent.

With that as a backdrop, Prop. 23 supporters are pushing a bill that would suspend existing and proposed regulations, which some deem radical, until the economic conditions improve.


While it is regrettable that big oil has donated money to the Yes on Prop. 23 campaign, AB 32 won't really hurt those corporations. Big business can sustain new, costly regulations because it has access to the capital to pay up front for retrofits until it can pass those costs onto consumers, or cut labor costs to offset new government-imposed regulations.

Small business is the rub. Local construction firms, for instance, say AB 32 will cost them thousands of dollars in engine upgrades to their fleets. One local company says it will cost $10,000 to upgrade each engine on its trucks. Think about a small company with eight construction trucks - $80,000 is a lot of money and would cost jobs.

So, some firms may have to invest in their current equipment just to be street legal, instead of buying new equipment. This year, Dan Wentland Construction is holding off on purchasing because it is unsure what AB 32 would bring. Wentland says that had AB 32 gone into effect in 2006, during a strong economy, he would have been able to absorb the cost. Now, in 2010, it discourages investment and kills jobs.

The opposition argues that Prop. 23 will harm a growing green market. We wonder why, if it's such a lucrative market, is it dependent on the destruction of other businesses?

How sustainable is a green economy if it is reliant on the government's ability to tax or regulate its competition out of business? Or force businesses to buy products from green businesses? Promoting clean technologies and getting to them to the market to compete with so-called dirty energy technologies is the best method - but why can't we accomplish that without killing other businesses along the way?

Gov. Schwarzenegger signed SB 71 from Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) this year, exempting all clean-technology manufacturing equipment from sales tax. That's a great example of what government should be doing, instead of creating regulations that hurt farmers, truckers, construction firms and real estate companies.

Economic considerations are why the Post encourages a Yes vote on Proposition 23.

http://www.paradisepost.com/opinion/ci_16292591

TODAY'S NEWS

New film reveals the hypocrisy of celebrity director/environmentalist James Cameron

James Cameron is still hiding and refusing to debate Global warming.

But that doesn't stop him from wanting to tell the rest of what to do.

Last March Cameron said he wanted to call the "deniers" out to a high noon debate and he even invited me to a debate in Aspen. Cameron kept putting barriers in the way, but even when I agreed to all his conditions he bailed out at the last minute.

He may be scared to debate, but he is not scared to spend money so that others can hear about his opinions. And he is not afraid to spend money to tell the rest of us we have to live with less…


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKZ4RolQ ... r_embedded

CALIFORNIA Prop 23 Update:
Be aware fake Republican Voters Guide in your mail

October 13, 2010
Prop 23 Update: Be aware fake Republican Voters Guide in your mail
Russ Steele

In The Mailbox, Voter Guides-Beware of strange bedfellows

by Doug LaMalfa - North California

10-13-2010 12:02 pm

CA Voter Guide in today's mailbox, has a "Voting Guide For Republicans" that lists several NON-Republican recommendations to watch out for. Top of the list is State Treasurer which lists BILL LOCKYER for treasurer over our own Senator Mimi Walters...how is this a guide for Republicans?

On the Propositions, it recommends the Democrat backed gerrymandering return that Prop 27 advocates, [basically repealing Prop 11], and seeks a NO on 20 which adds the Congressional seats to Prop 11's redistricting responsibities. [The panel to do the work of Prop 11 is in the process of being seated right now. Prop 27 seeks to toss out the voters will before it's even tried once]

CA Voter Guide asks Republicans to vote for a park tax on DMV fees via Prop 21, which is also against the state CA Republican Party endorsement.

It is also against Prop 23 which the Party is for, setting aside the AB 32 Global Warming Act until jobs and the economy can recover.

In summary, Doug's Voting Guide For Republicans says:

Mimi Walters, not Bill Lockyer for Treasurer.

YES on 20
NO on 21
YES on 23
NO on 27

Do not be fooled by this fake voting guide. REPUBLICANS ARE FOR PROP 23 - YES ON 23.