Los Angeles – At a hearing in
Los Angeles today, the California Air Resources
Board chose three “early action” measures as the first step in implementing California’s historic
statewide cap on global warming pollution that will reduce statewide global
warming emissions by over 25 percent by 2020.
“The three measures the state picked today will certainly reduce
global warming pollution,” said Global Warming Advocate Jason Barbose. “Unfortunately, the Board left a few good
measures on the table.”
Last
year, California
adopted the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32,
Núñez/Pavley), which commits the state to an economy-wide reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The law assigns primary
responsibility for meeting the statewide cap to CARB.
Under
statutory requirement CARB is required to establish a list of “early action"
measures by June 30, 2007 that can be implemented before the state designs and
adopts a comprehensive plan to ensure the 2020 emissions reduction target is
met.
CARB chose three measures for the early action list at
today’s hearing:
- Low
Carbon Fuel Standard to require fuel providers to ensure the mix of fuels
sold in California
meets a declining standard for greenhouse has emissions that result from
the use of transportation fuel;
- Restrictions
on High Global Warming Potential refrigerants for non-professional
recharging of leaky automotive air conditioning systems; and
- Statewide
standards for the installation and performance of active gas
collection/control systems at municipal solid waste landfills.
Combined the three measures are estimated to fulfill eight
percent of the total emission reduction necessary by 2020. “We urged the Board to adopt additional early
action measures beyond the three that CARB staff originally proposed in order
to front-load more of the reductions needed by 2020 and implement AB 32 as the
Legislature envisioned,” said Barbose.
Environment California
urged the state to adopt additional measures including:
- Heavy-duty
truck efficiency improvements
- Cement
manufacturing energy efficiency requirements
- Port
electrification
However, even without adding "early action" measures, CARB can
expedite adoption of additional measures to reduce global warming
pollution. “The good news is that today’s
action is the first of many,” concluded Barbose.
