Obama's New California-Based Climate Policy: Six Key Things To Know
President Barack Obama announced that he is making California's standard for greater vehicle fuel efficiency and reduced greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard.
When President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he is making California's standard for vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard, he accomplished a number of things.
First, he set in place a plan to dramatically cut the use of oil, much of it imported from areas of the world hostile to America.
Second, he set in place a plan to dramatically cut the emission of greenhouse gases.
Third, he dramatically reversed one of the Bush/Cheney Administration's most pernicious moves -- the blocking by all means necessary, from stealth to the political overriding of the administration's own scientists -- of California's landmark 2002 tailpipe emissions law.
Fourth, he further empowered a nascent greentech industry, including new vehicles such as the electric-powered Tesla.
Fifth, he did something quite popular, as this new Gallup Poll shows, demonstrating follow through with "new center" policies.
And sixth, he enabled California and many other states to move forward with their own omnibus climate change programs. Which will be especially helpful to Obama if climate change legislation stalls in Congress.
Obama, then a longshot presidential candidate, said that California's policies were his model on Earth Day 2007 in Iowa.
In actually doing something about energy independence and climate change, Obama's new standards cover the model years 2012-2016. They will ultimately require an average fuel economy standard of 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016 and are projected to save 1.8 billion barrels of oil. That's a fuel economy gain averaging over five percent per year. And that will lead to a reduction of approximately 900 million metric tons in greenhouse gas emissions, savings equivalent to taking 177 million of today's cars off the road. Not only is this far beyond anything the Bush/Cheney Administration, whose policies left fuel economy essentially flat, would ever do on its own, this will surpass the law passed by Congress in 2007 to require an average fuel economy of 35 miles per gallon in 2020.
Essentially, this is the California program on tailpipe emissions, writ large for the entire country, as Obama noted repeatedly in Tuesday's announcement with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on hand with others in the Rose Garden as a special guest.
Obama also enabled California and more than a dozen other states which followed California's lead in enacting state climate change control programs to follow through with those omnibus programs.
Cutting tailpipe emissions is the lynchpin to the omnibus approach. As the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, vehicle emissions at the tailpipe have to be sharply cut for a climate policy to work. And tailpipe emission legislation was preempted by federal law under the Clean Air Act. Unless California received its customary waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency for more aggressive steps to counter air pollution, as it had all the time until the advent of the Bush/Cheney Administration.
California, incidentally, will be granted the waiver on the tailpipe emissions law, with Schwarzenegger agreeing to forego the state program for the time being in lieu of the national program modeled on California's. But after 2016, California is free to move more aggressively.
Then President-elect Obama addressed Schwarzenegger's global governors' summit on climate change in LA.
This is hardly the first time that Obama has looked West, to California, for his model for national policy on climate change and energy.
In his Earth Day address last month in Iowa, he pointed to steps taken a few decades ago in California that have kept per capita energy growth flat through conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy technology, while energy usage nationally has skyrocketed.
"They put in some good policy early on that assured that they weren't wasting energy," Obama said. "Now, if California can do it, then the whole country can do it. Iowa can do it."
What happened those several decades ago is that then Governor Jerry Brown sharply shifted California's direction on energy policy, cutting California's annual rate of growth in electric power demand from 7% to 2% during his two terms as governor. In the process, California's energy policy developed a heavy focus on conservation, energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and cleaner-burning fossil fuels in the form of natural gas-fired plants as a bridge to the renewable future.
As California's governor, Schwarzenegger and, before him, Gray Davis, picked up the ball on renewable energy, and other more conservative governors kept Brown's focus on energy efficiency.
After last November's election, Obama delivered a video address to Schwarzenegger's UN-sponsored Governors' Global Climate Summit in LA. "My presidency," declared Obama, "will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process."
Obama declared that his national goal will be that already established by California under Schwarzenegger. "We'll establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020."
And when he celebrated Earth Day 2007 in Iowa City, while still an underdog candidate for the presidency, he said that he would model his approach after California's with hard targets on greenhouse gas emissions, the development of new green tech industrial sector, and a cap & trade system.
California has adopted two landmark climate change laws, in 2002 and 2006, which became models adopted by many other states. In 2002, the bill by then LA Assemblywoman, now state Senator Fran Pavley, who was also on hand Tuesday at the White House, to cut tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases, signed into law by then Governor Gray Davis. (Davis had served as Brown's gubernatorial chief of staff.) When I sounded Davis out about the bill in early 2002, he wasn't sure. But in short order, he came on board and helped foster its passage, signing it into law in defiance of a threatened statewide referendum against it sponsored by big automakers.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed California's omnibus climate change program into law in a ceremony on San Francisco's Treasure Island.
That legislation, hotly contested from the beginning, is the model for the new national standard just announced by Obama.
In 2006, after a set of executive orders by Schwarzenegger in 2005 on climate change, a bill by Fran Pavley again and then Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez established a comprehensive program for reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the board. The latter bill, AB 32, signed into law by Schwarzenegger in an elaborate ceremony on Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay -- with then Prime Minister Tony Blair beaming in by satellite from England -- incorporates the first Pavley bill, which was heavily opposed by Detroit automakers. Without it, the California program can't work.
Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, joined by Schwarzenegger, battled the Bush/Cheney Administration and auto makers in court to promote California's climate change program.
While Schwarzenegger joined with other states, encouraging them to adopt greenhouse gas reduction legislation modeled on California's, as more than a dozen have, Jerry Brown, now California's attorney general, battled the Bush/Cheney Administration and industry groups in court, organizing other states to join in the legal actions.
When the presidential candidates came to California last year, Brown, Schwarzenegger, and others pressured them to promise to give California the okay to implement its climate change program. The four finalists -- Obama (who had already given private assurances), Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee -- all publicly pledged to do so. Though McCain seemed later to backtrack on the overall issue.
As a result of Obama's moves, California's broader climate program can now go into effect, both here and in many other states. Should omnibus climate change legislation stall in Congress, it can begin to go into effect in backdoor fashion through the states due to the federal waiver allowing implementation of California's already enacted and legally tested law.
The new vehicles industry gets a big boost as well from the new national standard on vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. While the administration isn't, at this particular moment, investing directly into new car companies while the old ones -- in which it is now heavily invested -- are still in doubt, new companies have more of an opening.
Obama's new policy gives a boost to new vehicles, such as this forthcoming Tesla sedan, demonstrated at CEO Elon Musk's SpaceX facility.
Also on Tuesday, Daimler took a 10% equity stake in California-based Tesla Motors. Tesla produces the well-regarded Tesla roadster, a very fast and very expensive ($100,000) all-electric sports car, and is moving to a second model, a stylish Model S sedan for half the price. Not the easiest thing to do in the midst of a deep global recession.
So the cash infusion from Daimler is timely, and -- as Tesla board member Steve Westly, a venture capitalist and former California state controller, points out -- should lead to the first new automobile plant in California in more than 40 years.
Tesla gets a needed cash infusion and more production know-how to move forward with production of its second model. Tesla has more than a thousand orders for the new sedan, currently a prototype, which it plans to produce in 2011. And Daimler gets access to battery and charging technology for its own electric car program.
Obama's move is a big step in terms of the economy, the environment, and national security.
For all the Bush/Cheney Administration's talk of defending America as its supposedly highest priority, its energy policy only made America more dependent on foreign oil, keeping America dependent on parts of the world hostile to us. Obama's new standard will reduce the flow of money outside the country and, while slightly increasing the initial cost of a new vehicle, reduce the cost of running that vehicle.
The new policy sharply cuts greenhouse gas emissions as well as standard air pollution from vehicles, both of which went up sharply under the previous administration with its encouragement of gas guzzlers.
And it spurs the transformation of the economy. America can lead the way in greentech. It did once, but now trails. With a shift in the resource base for the world's largest market, America can lead the world in a global economic transformation that is already underway.
You can check things during the day on my blog, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.
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How many will die due to these lighter cars?
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Actual technology is readily available to achieve greater fuel efficiency.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Cars are perfect, very convenient, excellent relict of previous century. It is better to emphasize previous millenium. We need to find another solution to move billions of people.
Perhaps mass (m) of car 2,000kg, mass of driver 100kg, and speed (V) of car 65 miles per hour, or 110.5 km per hour, or 30.7 m per sec.
Kinetic energy of this car will be:
E=1/2mv2=1/2x2100x30.7x30.7=1/2x2100x942.
As you can see in this case mass of car and driver change amount of kinetic energy twice time more than speed.
If we will remember that resistance from air for every moving object increased proportionally area of it greatest section including tires we will found easily weapons to increase mileage per gallon and reduce carbon dioxide emission:
It is small (10 kg) cart for one person moving by electrical power and roads without intersection.
''We need to find another solution to move billions of people.''
say mioffe.. we could save the planet and ourselves from extinction if we
just stopped moving around so much.. ya think?
Dear fumes, if carbon dioxide is main player in Nature we must follow Al Gore recommendation. “Save energy at home, choose energy efficient lighting, appliances when making new purchases, properly operate and maintain your appliances, heat and cool your house efficiently, insulate your house, conserve hot water, improve the efficiency of your home office, switch to green power’ telecommute from home, reduce air travel, consume less, buy things that last, recycle, don’t waste paper, bag your groceries and other purchases in reusable tote, compost, carry your own refillable bottle for water and other beverages, modify your diet to reduce less meat, buy local, purchase offset to neutralize your remaining emission.”
It is always good to save as much energy as we can, but only to make our life on the same level of comfort, which we have right now. Common sense of every person needs to command him travel expenses, use of paper or reusable tote, refillable bottle, his diet.
It is laughable to ask 6 billions people in the world to follow religious dogmas, which in reality can’t change something.
Fortunately we have others possibilities and unlimited energy sources.
Obama Approves Plans for U.S.-UAE Nuclear Power Deal
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/20/obama-approves-plans-uae-nuclear-power-deal/
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Your point, aside from driving traffic to the Fox News web site?
That must be the point.
Looks like Fox is doing something right since it has a higher market share than MSNBC, CNBC and CNN combined
yep read this from your link "Under the pact, the United Arab Emirates must import, rather than produce, fuel for its nuclear reactors. It also has committed not to enrich uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel for plutonium, which is used in nuclear bombs."
Further, nuke electric plants also require decommissioning funds and long term storage of nuke used fuel rods.
It costs as much to decommission a nuke plant as it does to build it. Gee How do I know? See the Rule I wrote and was adopted by Missouri on the required "Decommissioning Trust Fund". How much will it cost to build an 1100 MW nuke plant. Try $30 billion! Add another $30 Billion to be collected over the "whole life depreciation" at 27 years and you have an uneconomic alternative. Nobody in their right mind will ever finish a nuke plant.
It was predicted that once enough states adopted California's standards, that D.C. wouldn't be able to stop implementation. In other words, if our elected officials wouldn't enact the standards we wanted from the top down, we'd do it from the bottom up.
Looks like we did.
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Correct.
While I support the new mileage targets for environmental and energy dependency reasons, there will be short term and perhaps devistating consequences for the fragile U.S. auto industry. GM, Chryler and Ford will not be cost competitive with Toyoto and Honda on fuel efficient cars like hybrids for many years, nor can they compete with the small car technologies of several European manufacturers. The initial result of this policy will be a futher loss of market share by American manufacturers. What the auto industry has learned is that lost customers are very hard to win back. Car choices are generational even life time decisions.
I guess they should have thought of that before they spent so much money and so much time and energy fighting this inevitable.
Poor planning.
Let them fail.
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Indeed.
The Ford Fusion Hybrid competes well in its segment. It is superior to the Toyota Camry Hybrid in fuel economy (per EPA), quality (per David Champion of Consumer Reports), and safety (per IIHS). Also Ford is the second largest European manufacturer and has plenty of small car technology it can bring over.
I agree Ford is best positioned to compete with foreign hybrids and small cars, but their profitability is heavily tied to trucks which will be hit hard by these rules.
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Those problems, to the extent what you say is real, have already occurred. Detroit made very bad choices, as they were warned.
Detroit will not be competitive with foreign companies if it fails to change.
That's really the point.
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That's right.
The American auto companies failed because they kept making trucks and SUVs and fell behind on cars.
You can buy a great foreign car with much better milage and styling than any Detroit product.
It's their own fault.
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That's right.
Unfortunately.
I'm just all a twitter and agog at this great, innovative approach to reducing air polution while at the same time reducing our dependence upon foriegn oil; and of course, what really thrills me is what it will do for the U.S. economy and it's society which is so deserving of the result.
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Oh, and you are just so ... sardonic.
No, that is not quite the word ...
I invite to read, what sent to me Mr. Bladernr1001
“If you want a balanced view of this try this link:
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/”
In Huffington Post we must discuss this article instead of Republicans, or Democrats policy.
“Since the Northern Hemisphere contains the greatest proportion of landmass and land heats more than oceans the Northern Hemisphere summer season causes significant increase in the global mean temperature”
Men activities changed reflection, evaporation, cloud formation, convection forces and wind direction. In these directions, NOT GHG I SEE REAL POSSIBILITIES TO MAKE differences.
“ Water vapor accounts for about 70% of the greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide somewhere between 4.2% and 8.4%.
Much of the wavelength bands where carbon dioxide is active are either at or near saturation.
Water vapor absorbs infrared over much the same range as carbon dioxide and more besides.
Clouds are not composed of greenhouse gas -- they are mostly water droplets -- but absorb about one-fifth of the longwave radiation emitted by Earth.
Clouds can briefly saturate the atmospheric radiation window (8-13µm) through which some Earth radiation passes directly to space (those hot and sticky overcast nights produce this effect - that is greenhouse but has nothing to do with carbon dioxide).
Greenhouse gases can not obstruct this window although ozone absorbs in a narrow slice at 9.6µm.
Adding more greenhouse gases which absorb in already saturated bandwidths has no net effect.
Adding them in near-saturated bands has little additional effect.”
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Sorry, nice try, though.
That's a notorious greenhouse denier site.
Oh, God, how many more times are you going to "convince" us (not) with this nonsense?
junkscience.com
Now that sounds like an unbiased, research-based website.
Not.
William Bradley: “That's a notorious greenhouse denier site.”
KillTheMessenger: Oh, God, how many more times are you going to "convince" us (not) with this nonsense? junkscience.com.
mlaiuppa: Now that sounds like an unbiased, research-based website. Not.”
I agreed with all of you about site. Please, read more carefully next:
“Since the Northern Hemisphere contains the greatest proportion of landmass and land heats more than oceans the Northern Hemisphere summer season causes significant increase in the global mean temperature”
It corelates with other fact that in summer time in Hawaii, which closer to equator temperature around 70-85F, while in Texas 85-110F’
It is not only carbon dioxide or other GHG.
It is winds and their direction, which send hot air to cloud level.
It is reflection, which send short wave back to space.
It is huge convection forces.
It is cloud formation.
It oceans streams.
It is properties of water and ice.
It is water evaporation, which take a lot of energy on the ground level and send vapor as lighter gas to cloud level, where infrared radiation escapes to space. Mankind activities changed not only carbon dioxide, which is not main player in Nature, but only tilling of land changed reflection, convection forces, evaporation and cloud formation.
Claiming only carbon dioxide will direct our activities in wrong direction.
We need to use all natural properties to reduce effect of global warming especially cooling effects of water vapor, water droplet, water, and ice.
You have posted the same thing four times.
It isn't any truer now than it was the first time.
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Hey, I allowed it.
Yeah--great. Because California's regulatory regime has been so good for its business environment.
And it's cobbled together planning has done so much to improve public education, prison-reform, traffic reduction, private industry growth, and public power generation.
I hope all you farmers and ranchers are prepared to carry livestock in the back seat of your Prius.
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The reality is that California has lost very little business due to its regulatory environment.
When Republican legislators had a press conference recently to make this claim, they had shockingly little to back it up.
Again, check your facts. We are losing and have already lost a lot of businesses especially to Nevada, conveniently right next door. Excerpt from a testimonial meeting on why business were relocating to NV "One of the most interesting speakers was Kris Holt, who is hired by businesses in Nevada to travel to California and recruit businesses to Nevada. He said that California's hostile business climate and high taxes has made his job easy. Eighty percent of the out-of-state businesses that relocate to Nevada come from California, Holt said."
"In rating taxes in California on a national level, we are ranked No. 48 in overall tax, while Nevada is ranked No. 3. California is ranked No. 45 in corporate tax, and Nevada is ranked No. 1. The list, unfortunately, goes on and on."
Here is a link to a USA Today article on businesses moving.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2003-10-01-california_x.htm
And another from the SF Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/02/24/BUGUN56L9L1.DTL
Really? Want to refute ANY of the claims I made.
Calif public schools rank 49th out of 50. Want to talk about the rates of incarceration? The political clout of the Corrections Officers union? How about rolling brownouts?
Ever tried to commute through Sacramento? East Bay, South Bay, San Jose, San Francisco--OR, tried to get decent public transportation through those areas??
Los Angeles traffic ring any bells? How about gerenal infrastructure repair?
Want to comment more extensively on your "business-friendly" tax regime? Ever try and get through the environmental review process? Ever dealt with Valley Air Quality Control Board? Worked with the Deltakeepers? Tried to order foie gras, or CA produced eggs anymore?
Methinks you doth protest too much.
50 BILLION IN DEBT AND YOU SAY BUSINESS IS GOOD.
Why would business in CA be bad? I happen to do business with a lot of places over there. The orders keep coming just fine. The state is one of our best customers.
This has what to do with energy?
>>> And it's cobbled together planning has done so much to improve public education, prison-reform, traffic reduction, private industry growth, and public power generation.
These rules were already the de-facto national standard. Car makers made their cars to comply with the strictest rules in the nation, which happened to be California, since it was more cost-effective than having a separate product line just for California.
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Would that what you are saying is true, rather than what President Obama said in the video at the top of this column.
It's actually quite false to say that this was already the de facto standard. The auto companies have fought for years against this.
You should read more clearly what I wrote, I'm afraid ...
I HOPE YOU ALL WILL ENJOY DRIVING CLOWN CARS AND THE TRAFFIC BACK UPS . I HOPE PEOPLE THAT DRIVE ELECTRIC CARS WILL CARRY EXTRA BATTERIES.
Actually, there are certain makes and models that can't be sold in California because of stricter standards.
But the Prius is doing very well.
Can't say I miss the smelly, noisy diesels at all.
I'm not too sure CA should be your shining example on energy. Every year we have multiple threats of rolling blackouts due to the LACK of energy we have. I am constantly getting mailings that are asking companies and residents to voluntarily sign up for a program that would shut down your power if peak power is surpassed. Don't forget how badly Enron scammed us too. Policies are one thing, reality is a whole other.
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That's false.
There haven't been blackouts in California since 2001. And that was when Enron and other merchant power generators manipulated the system taking plants offline for "maintenance."
Not false at all. I said we have multiple THREATS of rolling blackouts. In fact I just received a flier on Tuesday asking for volunteers again. So again I state, that we should not be the example, not now anyway.
Instead of calling something FALSE, do a little research on your own.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/california-power2.htm
That is patently untrue. There are rolling brownouts throughout the Central Valley every summer. More than half a dozen last summer alone.
High energy demand of technology married to air-conditioning loads make these commonplace.
You are correct that the summer of 2001 was the worst that I can recall.
Wait... since when is an announcement by your power company that you should save energy in summer by dialing up the temperature on your AC a "threat"? Since it's convenient to blame the cat on having kittens?
"Don't forget how badly Enron scammed us too."
The Enron effect hardly shows up on the CA energy price map. It's a totally marginal price driver. The real problem for the state are increases in population and poor sub-urban development strategies. If you want to assign blame, at least do so based on facts. CA, like every growing state in the West is hitting its limits.
Kill, you have to be kidding me. Enron SUBSTANTIALLY impacted CA financially and drove MANY business out of business. William can attest to that.
As for the threats, what I am saying is that we are not the shining example that was suggested in the article. We have a very limited supply not only because of an increase in population but also because we have not built more energy plants here to keep pace with our growth. That is a FACT. So you now have items like SDGE offering to put in wireless systems that will reduce your A/C during peak times, why, because we don't have enough energy to keep up. You can't bring in millions of more people and not increase your power production. Since Arnold was elected we have only approved 22 more plants while numerous units have been retired. We have a lot of catching up to do.
We have no blackouts in California. To suggest we do is disingenuous.
What we do have, as a result of climate change, is "heat storms" and a year-round fire season.
This is the fatal bullet in the heart of GM, Ford will be the big winner in this since they already have cars that can meet the standards plus Toyota, Honda, etc.
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GM created its own problems by producing cars that were unpopular.
GM's only hope, as a result, is the government, which has propped it up till now.
This is only partly true. They made some lousy cars, but they made some excellent trucks and SUV's. That you don't happen to like gas guzzlers--even though PLENTY of Americans do, proves neither unpopularity or bad decision making.
Small cars manufactured to bring the entire vehicle line into CAFE standards requirements is a significant part of GM's problem. Not the unpopularity of their product line.
GM hasn't made a dime on cars in ten years. That was when they could build any style bat mobile they liked. Still, they went bankrupt during that time. Sorry... not buying nonsense today.
I like the looks of that new Tesla car in the video.
Glad they're making a sedan, too, instead of just the sports car that nobody will ever afford.
Look for Phoenix Motorcars entering the electric market too.
Good for Jerry Brown keeping on keeping on for suing Bush and Cheney for their disgraceful behavior on the environment.
You can see he's still got the fire in that video.
That's quite a ceremony on that island in San Francisco Bay with Arnold signing the big climate change bill.
Tony Blair by satellite! I love it.
Were a lot of people surprised that Obama gave that speech to Schwarzenegger's conference last November?
Arnold did support McCain, after all.
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A great many people were surprised by that.
I wasn't.
Was Obama really such a longshot in that video from Iowa Earth Day in 2007?
It's hard to remember now that Hillary was supposedly the big favorite.
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Most "experts" thought Obama was a real longshot at that point.
Hillary was inevitable.
Remember that?
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