Pacific coast states, British Columbia agree on climate change cooperation

The three mainland Pacific coast states and the Canadian province of British Columbia have agreed on a framework for cooperative efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

The deal, which was signed Monday in San Francisco, is not binding and does not commit California, Oregon, Washington, or British Columbia to spend any public money in attempts to limit emissions of pollutants that warm the atmosphere.

Labeled the Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy, the agreement covers three policy priorities: leading the U.S. and international responses to climate change, transition the signatory states and B.C. to transportation systems that rely on cleaner forms of energy, and invest in renewable energy infrastructure.

"California isn't waiting for the rest of the world before it takes action on climate change,” the Golden State's governor, Edmund G. Brown, said. “Today, California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia are all joining together to reduce greenhouse gases.”

The particular steps the parties agreed to undertake are wide-ranging. For example, the first policy commitment is to "account for the costs of carbon pollution in each jurisdiction." The agreement says that Oregon will continue its effort to impose a price on carbon emissions, while Washington will "set binding limits on carbon emissions and deploy market mechanisms to meet those limits." Thus, the language seems to indicate that Oregon will begin to collect a carbon tax, while Washington will install a cap-and-trade system of greenhouse gas regulation, as California has done.

California and British Columbia agreed to continue their existing programs aimed at forcing polluters to internalize the social costs of carbon pollution.

The agreement also contemplates that the parties will link their carbon emission pricing programs: "Where possible, California, British Columbia, Oregon and Washington will link programs for consistency and predictability and to expand opportunities to grow the region's low-carbon economy."

Brown, Oregon Gov. John A. Kitzhaber, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, and British Columbia premier Christy Clark also agreed to "[h]armonize 2050 targets for greenhouse gas reductions."

Washington already has GHG emission targets for the years 2035 and 2050. The 2008 statute that set them does not include specific programs to be used in the Evergreen State as tools for reaching the targets.

The agreement goes on to include a commitment of each state and province to implement low-carbon fuel standards, expand the use of zero-emission vehicles, and build high-speed rail systems. The parties also committed to a consistent system of appliance energy standards and integrate electricity distribution grids.

The PCACE follows an earlier attempt to coordinate policy responses to climate change among a greater number of western states and Canadian provinces. In 2007 the Western Climate Initiative, which eventually included California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington, along with British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, was formed. That cooperative effort has struggled to achieve consensus among its parties, with some dropping out in following years.

Together, the three U.S. states and the Canadian province that signed the PCACE have a population of 53 million people and an economy with a yearly GDP of $2.8 trillion.

Implementation of at least some of the specific steps called for in the agreement will require enactment of legislation by each of the parties' legislatures.

That will not likely pose much of a problem in California, where Democrats dominate both chambers of the state's General Assembly. However, in the Pacific Northwest there may be political obstacles to full execution of the agreement.

In Oregon, the state senate recently blocked a bill to extend the sunset date on a low-carbon fuel standard authorized in 2009. That program is set to expire in 2015, even though it has not yet been implemented. Two Democrats, including one who represents Portland, joined with the chamber's 14 Republicans to kill the measure that would have extended the sunset date.

In Washington, at least until another election affords the possibility of change, implementation bills could be held up in the state senate, which is controlled by a coalition of a few Democrats and the chamber's Republican members.

Kerry McHugh, a spokesperson for Washington Environmental Council, said that a bipartisan advisory panel required by the 2008 law that set the state's GHG emission targets is examining ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Inslee, along with four legislators, comprise the Climate Legislative and Executive Workgroup.

California bill banning bobcat trapping signed into law

Trapping of bobcats will soon be illegal in areas of California near federal and state preserves, including Joshua Tree National Park.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 1213 on Friday. The measure also takes away state subsidies for bobcat trapping and forbids the practice on private land without the owner's permission.

The legislation was a response to a significant increase in bobcat kills throughout the state, but especially in the area near Joshua Tree National Park. Trappers have gone so far as to place the devices around the boundaries of that preserve, catching and killing the animals if they wander beyond the imaginary lines that set it off on maps from other properties.

A 2012 report from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife documented a 51 percent increase between 2010-2011, while the previous year's report showed a 57 percent increase from 2009-2010.

The increase has been driven by demand for pelts from foreign nations, especially China and Russia.

California last updated its count of the number of bobcats within its borders in the early 1980s. AT that time it was estimated that 70,000 of the animals roamed the state.

Brown wrote a signing statement in connection with AB 1213 that asked the legislature to fund a census.

California's bobcat subspecies (Lynx rufus californicus and Lynx rufus mohavensis) are not included on the state's list of threatened and endangered species. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature considers bobcats to be a species of least concern.

Photo by Annica Kreuter, courtesy Center for Biological Diversity

Ninth Circuit gives green light to California low carbon fuel regulation

A federal appeals court has rejected arguments that California's pioneering low-carbon fuel standard violates the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against out-of-state ethanol and crude oil producers.

In a decision released Sept. 18 the court held that the LCFS does not transgress the Commerc Clause. Two judges on a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel found that California law may treat fuels with different levels of carbon intensity differently because the benefits obtained for the environment outweighs that discrimination. 

"This is a great day for public health and the economy of California," Tim O'Connor, an attorney at Environmental Defense Fund and director of that organization's California Climate Initiatives, said. "The court clearly upheld a groundbreaking policy that will protect consumers and the environment by diversifying our fuel mix and providing more choices for a clean energy future."

The court's holding specifically sanctioned California's effort to take into account the greenhouse gas emission caused at all stages of a fuel's production, transportation, and distribution.

“If California is to successfully promote low carbon-intensity fuels, countering a trend towards increased [greenhouse gas] output and rising world temperatures, it cannot ignore the real factors behind GHG emissions,” the majority opinion by Judge Ronald M. Gould said.

Another noteworthy aspect of the Ninth Circuit's opinion is a recognition that states may formulate regulations that recognize the greenhouse gas emission implications of  fuel producers' entire operations:

With its long coastlines vulnerable to rising waters, large population that needs food and water, sizable deserts that can expand with sustained increased heat, and vast forests that may become tinderboxes with too little rain, California is uniquely vulnerable to the perils of global warming. The California legislature determined that [greenhouse gas] emissions from the production and distribution of transportation fuels contribute to this risk, and that those emissions are caused by the in-state consumption of fuels. Whether or not one agrees with the science underlying those views, those determinations are permissible ones for the legislature to make, and the Supreme Court has recognized that these risks constitute local threats.

The opinion also rejected a claim that the California LCFS is preempted by the federal Clean Air Act.

One of the three judges on the panel, Mary Murguia, dissented.

The LCFS is one aspect of California's multi-pronged efforts, based on the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. It forces producers and distributors of fuels used in transportation systems, especially motor vehicles, to meet a gradually more rigorous schedule of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The regulation does this by mandating a focus on the "carbon intensity" of the fuels. That term refers  to the amount of atmosphere-warming compounds produced at each stage of the process of extracting, refining, distributing, and burning the fuel.

The case is Rocky Mountain Farmers Union v. Corey, No. 12-15131.

California legislator proposes bill to ban bobcat trapping

California legislators are considering a proposal to prohibit the commercial trapping of bobcats.

The bill was introduced by a Los Angeles-area state assemblyman in response to protests against traps set near Joshua Tree National Park.

The Los Angeles Times has the story.

California holds first U.S. auction of carbon dioxide emission rights

California took another step forward in its innovative program to mitigate emission of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere earlier this month as it held the first-ever sale of carbon dioxide pollution permits in the nation.

The auction, which occurred Nov. 14 in Sacramento, resulted in a modest price for the right to pollute the air.

According to data released by the state's Air Resources Board, bidders will pay $10.09 for each metric ton of the greenhouse gas they emit. The minimum bid was $10.

California's leading air pollution regulator said she is pleased with the results, notwithstanding the relatively low price paid by the 71 participants.

"The auction was a success and an important milestone for California as a leader in the global clean tech market," Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the agency, said in a statement. "By putting a price on carbon, we can break our unhealthy dependence on fossil fuels and move at full speed toward a clean energy future. That means new jobs, cleaner water and air - and a working model for other states, and the nation, to use as we gear up to fight climate change and make our economy more competitive and resilient."

The sale of the carbon allowances for 2013 generated only a little more than $233 million and not much of that money will be kept by the state.

"Some of the allowances are consigned with us from the utilities," Dave Clegern, a spokesperson for the agency, said. "The money that comes from that goes back to the utilities, in a form worked out by the [Public Utilities Commission], as a buffer for ratepayers. The rest goes into the California Air Pollution Reduction Fund."

The California Legislative Analyst's Office has said that it expects state coffers to swell by an average of billions of dollars per year as the auction program reaches more and more of the polluters in the nation's most populous state.

Whether or not that estimate is accurate, it is likely that the price of the required pollution permit will rise as the state's groundbreaking AB 32, a wide-ranging 2006 law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the nation's most populous state, ratchets down the ceiling on facility emissions.

The likely downward impact on California's future accumulation of greenhouse gases excites the environmental advocacy community, notwithstanding the financial return the first effort generated.

"We had the benefit of learning from others like the European Union and have been able to put together a really great program that creates a market incentive for innovation and reducing carbon," Emily Rayna, a spokesperson for Environmental Defense Fund, said. "This is an exciting time in California."

The state's business community does not seem to be so thrilled. The California Chamber of Commerce sued the state on the day before the auction in an effort to prevent repetitions of the event. The litigation did not seek to enjoin the Nov. 14 auction but does argue that requiring companies who must comply with air pollution limits to pay for permission to pollute is an unauthorized tax or an illegal fee.

Rayna said that environmental advocacy organizations are not worried about the Chamber of Commerce's move.

"We don't anticipate that further auctions will be stopped because of this lawsuit," she said.

Those future auctions will occur on a regular basis during the next eight years. The next one is scheduled for Feb. 2013.

Report: Texas-based refiners to spend millions on effort to convince voters to kill California global warming law

Texas-based oil interests will spend millions of dollars to gather signatures on petitions aimed at giving voters in California a chance to repeal the Golden State's groundbreaking effort to lower the greenhouse gas impact of fuels burned there.

The Los Angeles Times has a report on the infusion of money by two companies, Tesoro Corp. and Valero Energy Corp., this morning.

Signature-gathering started this week on the petition, which would subject AB 32 to a referendum this November if enough signatures to qualify it for the ballot are gathered.

More than 400,000 valid signatures would have to be obtained by April 24 to get the measure before California voters in the autumn.

Proponents of the referendum want the emission-limiting provisions of AB 32 suspended until the state's unemployment rate drops to 5.5 percent. Right now it exceeds 12 percent.

A recent report concludes that California is likely to experience rising sea levels, higher temperatures, loss of snow accumulation in the Sierra Nevada mountains and more frequent wild fires as global warming proceeds.