One day after being applauded at a climate change summit in posh Beverly Hills, California officials faced a different kind of reception during a Sacramento public hearing on the state's monumental greenhouse gas reduction plan. A standing room only crowd of Latino farm workers, inner city residents, dozens of cities and air district officials, small businesses and major manufacturers gave the air resources board an earful about the plan.
By far the loudest complaints at the marathon Sacramento hearing were about the use of cap and trade to reduce some emissions, rather than tough, mandatory regulations applied to refineries, power plants and others. Under such trading programs, polluters' greenhouse gas emissions are capped at a certain amount, but the companies are allowed to pay for reductions elsewhere, possibly in other states and countries, and continue to spew out high levels of both greenhouse gases and traditional air pollution locally.
California's proposal would allow such market-based reductions by refineries and power plants. Residents of poor, highly polluted communities say that will leave them eating dust once again.
"No to cap and trade! There is a better way," said Ray Leone, who said he was raised in a migrant worker community in the state's smoggy Central Valley, and now heads a Fresno-based environmental policy institute. He said a similar pollution credit program had already allowed a sooty power plant to be shut down in wealthy Kern County, while allowing large new plant to built in a dirt-poor Fresno area.
"This is a terrible foreshadow of what will come with cap and trade," testified Leone. "It's really a terrible step."
The vocal opposition to California's plan suggests that a nearly identical proposal by President-elect Barack Obama will face big political hurdles when it comes up for debate. In a videotaped message to the Beverly Hills climate confab on Tuesday, Obama vowed to "set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020." Obama also said, "That will start with a federal cap-and-trade system."
At Thursday's hearing, representatives of municipal utilities, nurses and other public health professionals, public policy researchers and the board's own environmental justice committee all joined the chorus in speaking out against market based mechanisms, charging they would harm the state's poorest communities. Several said those communities already have higher asthma rates among children, increased respiratory problems and other illness linked to air pollution. Some noted that large utilities had reaped windfall billions in profits under a similar cap-and-trade program in Europe.
Representatives of private power companies, and some academics and environmentalists, said the use of strictly controlled trading was a must, however. Among other arguments, they said excessive regulatory costs could drive electric bills sky high, further harming consumers and struggling businesses.
The California air board, chaired by Mary Nichols, is scheduled to vote next month on how to roll back annual greenhouse gas emission levels to 1990 levels by 2020 (Nichols is seen as a possible pick by Obama for a top environmental post).
Like the translators on hand earlier in the week for the Beverly Hills event, who conveyed praise for California's far reaching plan from Mexican, Brazilian and Chinese officials, translators were at the microphone at Thursday's marathon air board meeting, deciphering at times tearful pleas from crop pickers in particular. The Central Valley, along with Los Angeles, still has the worst smog in the country despite decades of control efforts.
"We just want you to see us, and realize that we are the living example of the impacts that all these not-so-good laws have," said Inez Rojas, from Fresno. "We're suffering from different respiratory diseases and asthma ... without access to health care, this community is going to suffer more from the global warming. So please don't forget us, and please recognize us in the changes with the contamination and the pollution."
The omission of California's powerful agricultural industry from any required greenhouse reductions was also harshly criticized. State officials said they were testing dairy methane digesters and other technologies, and might impose requirements down the road.
Maria Ibarra, from the small farming community of Limon, said that was not enough.
"I can tell you that Limon is completely and really contaminated, because my husband got the diagnosis, only five years on his life left. He used to work in the fields, and his lungs are so little now, and they're supposed to be big. So we are the ones that suffer. He got only five years left, so I beg you to pay attention to us," she said.
After waiting unsuccessfully for hours to testify, about 50 farm workers wearing green t-shirts stood and raised their hands when asked who was against cap and trade. As they filed out, they shouted, "No Justice, No Peace," and loudly chanted. "Si Se Puede, Si Se Puede" -- a pointed translation of Obama's campaign slogan, "Yes We Can, Yes We Can."
But despite the turned up volume, their complaints may fall on deaf ears at both the state and federal level. Obama made clear in his taped message that cap and trade would be part of his plan.
In Sacramento, as the hearing stretched into its eleventh hour on Thursday, the board members indicated they might consider some amendments before they vote on Dec. 11. Nichols said the omission of the agriculture industry from any regulation "kind of sticks out like a sore thumb."
But she continued to talk about offsets as an important tool, and expressed frustration and disappointment that members of the public didn't understand that as long-time air regulators, they never would cause additional harm. After the hearing concluded Friday, board climate change spokesman Stanley Young said that under the California emissions law (AB 32), overall levels of ozone smog and soot pollutants are not allowed to rise as greenhouse gas levels fall. In heavily polluted areas, he said separate proposed regulations of diesel truck exhaust and other sources would mean cleaner air. As for greenhouse gases, though, refineries, power plants and other large facilities probably will be allowed to buy credits.
Young said, "The proposed scoping plan is abundantly clear ... cap and trade is one of the mechanisms which will be used to achieve the state's required reductions."
Janet Wilson is a veteran environmental journalist based in southern California. She can be reached at janetwilson66 AT gmail DOT com.
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Comments
View as Flat
Delay And Deny Posted 3:04 am
22 Nov 2008
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/36758
US firm unveils plans for mini nuclear reactors
Now, however, Hyperion Power Generation -- a US company based in New Mexico -- has brought the dream of tiny nuclear reactors one step closer with its Power Module. This nuclear reactor -- or "battery" as the firm calls it -- is not much larger than a hot-tub and could supply thermal energy at a rate of about 70 MW. That could be converted into about 27 MW of electricity, which would be enough to supply about 20,000 US households.
Unlike conventional nuclear power plants, Hyperion's reactor uses uranium hydride, which is essentially enriched uranium metal that has absorbed a large amount of hydrogen.
This is the perfect technology for Agraria.
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Pangolin Posted 9:50 am
22 Nov 2008
If cap-and-trade doesn't fit that description nothing does.
Put the Carbon Back
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bigTom Posted 11:33 am
22 Nov 2008
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human power Posted 1:53 pm
22 Nov 2008
Since the wealthiest 20% of the population are directly or indirectly responsible for well over 40% of our GHG emissions and they are insensitive to the price associated with those emissions, neither state or federal cap and trade (emissions can still be produced off-shore while the benefits are realized at home) nor carbon taxes will cause adequate emissions reductions.
There seems to be only one way to get out of this mess: personal GHG-emissions quotas. The advantages are several: 1.) we're all in it together. 2.) It can be implemented immediately with quotas on liquid fuels and grid power. 3.) It undoes globalization.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:06 pm
22 Nov 2008
Only "free" markets unfettered by government regulation can work. The same old talking point. Enron used it to conceive this bastard child, cap and trade.
Only government leadership can address this economic and climate emergency. We have seen what unregulated "free" markets have produced. Corruption amd manipulation by insiders that has caused this economic crisis.
Insist on direct subsidy diversion from the oil and fossil fuel industry to specific renewable/conservation technology and contracts from government particularly with auto makers, that specify the production of plugin hybrids in return for bail out money.
There are enough renewable/conservation energy devices that have already been developed, only waiting for mass production, to compete on a pure cost basis with fossil and nuclear power. Government action needs to be focused on this mass production effort, not on boondoggle corruption friendly schemes like cap and trade, auctioned GHG permits, or offset plans.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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vakibs Posted 9:03 pm
22 Nov 2008
There are local pollutants and global pollutants ?
Here I am thinking that the globe is one single connected component with its ecosystem under a sensitive balance.
Pollution is bad, wherever that is.
Sinking water tables are bad, wherever that is.
Extinction of biodiversity is bad, wherever that is.
In order to prevent catastrophes like global warming.. we need to .. yes. "Think globally, act locally". Cap & Trade, my ass.
Here's me rooting for you Californians, you can do that :) Death to all those chimneys.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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Jonas Posted 5:19 am
23 Nov 2008
CO2 is a global problem. It doesn't matter where the reductions are made - in California or in Congo.
Now I understand the poor in California, but they are "wealthy poor". They should understand that their are also the "real poor", people who make less than $0.3 a day.
If the cap-and-trade shifts money to the "really poor", so that they can get access to low-cost renewable energy, or so that they don't have to burn down forests, then we all benefit.
Maybe it's cruel to make a distinction between the "well off poor" and the "real poor", but the distinction is there, and a cap-and-trade with export of money to the real poor, can help close this wealth gap.
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vakibs Posted 6:46 am
23 Nov 2008
It is plain silly to think that extreme poverty can be eliminated by buying raw materials from a third world country. When cornered into a situation where they have no other option, most third world countries (atleast their governing classes) will welcome an opportunity to sell their raw materials - such as iron ore, gasolene or biomass. But this will do nothing to improve the economic situation of the general population.
The economic wellbeing of a country is directly related to how much the country is industrialized. When most of the menial work is automated, people will not have to work on back-breaking work just to have a meal.
The quality of exports that are beneficial to the economic growth of a country, in the long run are in the increasing order, as follows
raw materials and biomass
agricultural products
manufactured goods
services
The task of development economics is to steer a country forward in this pecking order of world trade. This process has to be done in a clinical fashion, similar to the manner a doctor treats a patient : the book by Dr Jeffrey Sachs (the end of poverty) is a great introduction. The first thing we need to do to eliminate poverty is strict commitment to the millenium development goals of the UNO.
Cap & Trade has no relation to the third world poverty. It is just masquerading as being so. In reality, it is a crime against the world's poor where the rich continue to pollute and put the planet in peril.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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Glenn Hurowitz Posted 10:27 am
23 Nov 2008
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tboggia Posted 6:53 am
24 Nov 2008
<quote> As they filed out, they shouted, [...] "Si Se Puede, Si Se Puede" -- a pointed translation of Obama's campaign slogan, "Yes We Can, Yes We Can."</quote>
Are you kidding me? I hate to pick at straws here, but "Si se puede" is the landmark chant of the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez's movement.
Obama is the one that pointedly translated the slogan. If I was a mexican farmworker I'd be pretty pissed. Being an Italian immigrant, I can only stand in solidarity.
Great article by the way.
www.campusprogress.org
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wesrolley Posted 2:25 pm
24 Nov 2008
A recent press release from the Green Party of California called on Schwarzenegger to fire Nichols. When working at EPA, she ignored all enforcement obligations and pushed for a pollution credit scheme that failed miserably. PEER has a report the pretty well documented both failures.
Now, she is repeating the same thing in California. Those who don't recognize their mistakes can never learn from them.
Wes Rolley
CoChair - EcoAction Committee
Green Party US
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Jessm Posted 11:49 pm
24 Nov 2008
I can't even express my disgust at the ignorance of this statement. Anyone who has ever worked at all with the Latino movements will know this chant begun long before Obama. You do know what the UFW is, right? I bet somewhere Delores Huerta is giving this "Veteran Environmental Journalist" a dirty look.
If we can't begin to understand the at-risk constituencies we are supposedly fighting for, we can not win the battle against climate change. Solidarity the best way to advance our goals---but with ignorance like this, I assume "blowing off steam" and fighting amongst ourselves will be hindering us for a long time.
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