New proposal would require climate change warning labels at city gas stations

Berkeley commissioners are working to bring climate change awareness right to the gas pump in a proposal that would place warning labels on fuel nozzles.

The city’s Community Environmental Advisory Commission voted Thursday to move forward with a plan that would mandate such labels to be placed in Berkeley gas stations. The signs would state that gasoline consumption releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

Max Gomberg, chair of the commission, said the label would be a reminder to customers that the gas in their cars has a direct effect on the environment.

“We already require cigarette packs to include warning labels,” said Matthew Lewis, a UC Berkeley sophomore and co-chair of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability, in an email. “Requiring labels at gas pumps would similarly keep the harm of burning gasoline fresh in people’s minds.”

The plan, which was originally proposed about six months ago to the city by environmental advocacy group 350 Bay Area, has generated backlash from the Western States Petroleum Association, an entity representing petroleum-producing companies.

On Wednesday, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the petroleum association, sent a letter to the commission stating that the plan would violate gas station owners’ First Amendment rights. Citing various court cases, she wrote that a governing body cannot compel a business to state information unless doing so would “prevent consumer deception.” Reheis-Boyd also questioned if climate change was a serious threat to California’s resources.

“Though the proposed ordinance calls these messages ‘warnings,’ they are, in reality, forced reproductions of the state’s and city’s policy opinions,” Reheis-Boyd wrote. “But the messages are not ‘purely factual and uncontroversial information’ – they touch on issues that represent some of the most contentious issues in existence today.”

Still, Tupper Hull, spokesperson for the petroleum association, said he did not doubt the scientific evidence of climate change’s negative effects. Instead, he was concerned with the way the proposal would only affect gasoline distributors.

“To single out one source to the exclusion of others is where we have a strong objection,” Hull said. “I am not aware that they have proposed placing warnings on your vehicles, your stoves and your household furnaces, all of which produce carbon dioxide emissions.”

To assert the veracity of the claim that climate change presents a risk to California, commissioners are planning to cite the California Global Warming Solutions Act, according to Commissioner Andrew Torkelson. The law, which was passed in 2006, contains provisions aimed at lowering the levels of greenhouse gasses and requires certain industries to disclose their emission levels.

Gomberg said City Council is expected to vote on the plan in six to eight weeks.

via: http://www.dailycal.org/2014/06/16/new-proposal-require-climate-change-warning-labels-city-gas-stations/

World's 5th Largest Economy Takes on Climate Change

It's rare to be in the midst of an experience and realize that that very moment is history in the making. I just experienced such a moment.

I was a participant at a gathering in San Francisco where the Governors of California, Oregon, Washington and the Premier of British Columbia made a commitment to work as a region to combat global climate change. With passion and courage these four leaders boldly went where very few politicians have been willing to go.

By signing the Pacific Coast Action Plan On Climate and Energy, the four jurisdictions agreed to an ambitious agenda including putting a price on carbon in Washington and Oregon that will complement B.C.'s carbon tax and California's cap and trade programs. In effect this would establish a carbon market in the world's fifth largest economy.

The standing room only crowd consisted largely of business representatives. B.C. Minister of the Environment Mary Polak, said, "Leadership in climate action is good for your economy." She noted that due to the B.C. carbon tax the province's economy and population has grown while their fossil fuel consumption has dropped. Steve Clem, of Skansa, one of the world's largest construction companies, said they were in support of this action plan on climate and energy because it was good for their business, "We are growing as a company because of sustainable building practices not despite it."

Another unprecedented occurrence on a day filled with them was the participation by representatives of the West Coast's multi-million dollar shellfish industry. Their livelihoods are in grave danger as a result of carbon emissions. Oceans act like a massive sponge absorbing airborne carbon. This is changing the chemistry of the oceans, causing them to become more acidic. In fact ocean acidity has risen 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution. Due to its unique system of currents and upwelling events the Pacific Northwest is being impacted harder and sooner than any other place on the globe. Acidity levels in some places are already so high that oyster larvae cannot survive. Some shellfish growers have left the region; others have installed expensive monitoring equipment and shut down operations when ocean acidity is dangerously high.

Coupled with discussion of the compelling economic opportunities was a strong sense of urgency and moral imperative. Washington Governor Jay Inslee said, "We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change and the last to be able to do anything about it." Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber stated that climate change was the greatest challenge we will face in the decades to come.

The West Coast region is not waiting for the federal government to take action. As Congress remains gridlocked and climate deniers wield bizarre, scientifically-baseless power in DC, West Coast leadership is stepping up to the most pressing global issue facing humanity.

As we headed back to Oregon our plane passed snow-covered Mt. Shasta glistening in the sun. I realized this was what was at stake, at the heart of the remarkable step the governors and premier had just taken. If we want our children's children to be able to experience awe at the beauty of a magnificent snow-covered mountain we must act.

It reminded me of the Wallace Stegner quote Governor Kitzhaber had used to close his speech:

"One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery."

I am a bit more hopeful today that might actually create such a society.

via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cylvia-hayes/worlds-fifth-largest-economy_b_4182921.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics

Gov. Jerry Brown signs clean energy pact with two states, Canadian province

SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new pact Monday to formally align California's clean energy policies with those of Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia.

The agreement commits all four governments to work toward ways to put a price on carbon pollution, require the use of lower-carbon gasoline and set goals for reducing greenhouse gases across the region.

The nonbinding blueprint also sets new targets for electric vehicles — aiming for 10% of all new cars and trucks in the region to be emission-free by 2016 — and calls for the construction of a bullet-train system from Canada to California.

"These are modest steps," Brown told about 100 people at the San Francisco offices of computer hardware maker Cisco Systems, with sweeping views of the bay behind him. "We have to take action."

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat elected last year after 12 years in Congress, said he hoped the accord would send a message to the nation's capital, where Democrats and Republicans have been unable to agree on sweeping environmental legislation.

"Congress has ground to a halt because of climate deniers," he said. "I hope this can restart a national conversation, and hopefully action, on climate change."

This is not the first time California has sought cooperation with regional governments on environmental policy. All four participants in the new pact were members of the Western Climate Initiative, a 2007 regional accord intended to create a joint carbon-trading market.

Efforts to establish that market, which would have set a common levy on carbon emissions and established regional pollution caps, stalled in the Oregon and Washington legislatures.

Monday's agreement could face similar obstacles, but it gives the states more leeway to devise their own ways of charging polluters.

California has a carbon market that allows large polluters to buy the right to emit greenhouse gases. British Columbia has had a carbon-pollution tax since 2008. Either method would be permissible under the new blueprint.

Oregon Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber said his state has not yet decided which policy to pursue.

In California, business groups that have voiced opposition to the state's emission targets said Monday's announcement was a positive step.

"We have always believed that we need a broad market that includes not only other states but other countries, in order for it to function efficiently," said Shelly Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the AB 32 Implementation Group, a business organization that has opposed state pollution controls.

The group is named for the 2006 law requiring California to reduce its greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

"We have long argued that a state-only approach would crush the state economy," Sullivan said.

Brown has made climate change policy a centerpiece of his administration, vowing not to wait for it to come from Washington, D.C., where President Obama's plans to tighten controls on pollution have been stuck in a deadlocked Congress.

Earlier this year, Brown traveled to China and has signed agreements with that country to work toward slowing pollution that leads to global warming.

California has taken a leading role in efforts to cut carbon emissions. It has established a market to set a price that companies must pay to pollute. The state plans to link its market with one in the Canadian province of Quebec next year.

Although the agreement signed Monday is not legally binding, environmentalists in California are hopeful that it could serve as a road map for the next wave of state policy.

"It sends a signal to the Legislature," said Dan Jacobson, legislative director for Environment California, an advocacy organization, "to start introducing the bills to put these goals into law."

anthony.york@latimes.com

via http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-brown-climate-20131029,0,140122.story#axzz2j3QS5Rql

SB 605 California Global Warming Solutions Act

Fact Sheet:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4ULUyNhb1Pacy04dEdWLVhLQzA/edit