Category Archives: California Air Resources Board

iePolitics: It’s time for John and Ken to get back into action

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Barbara Cram Riordan

Earlier this year popular KFI 640 radio talk show hosts John and Ken focused a number of shows on the California Air Resources Board (CARB), detailing the facts that show the agency is out of control.  The upcoming implementation of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, only makes this very powerful agency all the more dangerous to the teetering economy of California.

John and Ken primarily focused their attention on Mary D. Nichols, who is the chairperson for CARB.  Nichols was first appointed to the CARB in 1978 by then-Governor Jerry Brown.   She served under Brown until 1983.  She was reappointed as chairman in 2007 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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Senator Robert Dutton: CARB

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Senator Dutton's Banner

For Immediate Release
Contact: Larry Venus
March 4, 2010
916–651–4031

Dutton Calls on Air Board to Freeze Anti–
Warming Measures Until Jobs Impact
Report is Complete
Air Board has missed its own deadline, refused
to set completion date

SACRAMENTO–Senate Republican Leader–elect Bob Dutton (R–Rancho Cucamonga) has sent a letter to California Air Resources Board (CARB) Chairwoman Mary Nichols calling on her to suspend implementation of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, until a “valid, peer–reviewed economic analysis has been completed.”

Senator Dutton sent the letter to Mary Nichols after learning that CARB has yet to redo its initial flawed economic analysis by a promised Dec. 31, 2009 deadline. Last week CARB staff acknowledged that the new economic analysis has yet to be completed. Further, staff said they didn’t know when it would be done. (View my letter)

“Mary Nichols and CARB continue to drag their feet on what should be priority number one–the potential impact their actions will have on jobs,” Senator Dutton said. “So while CARB barrels forward to implement anti–global warming measures, they do so completely ignorant of the true economic impact their actions will have on Californians’ jobs and our economy.”

A key study from Sacramento State University economists estimates that the cost of AB 32 could be as high as 1.1 million lost jobs and a 10% reduction in the state’s economy.

Senator Dutton introduced legislation last year, SB 295 that would have required CARB to redo its flawed economic analysis. The bill was killed by Democrats in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee after Mary Nichols assured the majority party that SB 295 was unnecessary because the new economic analysis would be completed by Dec. 31, 2009.

“Mary Nichols and CARB should be held to the same standard they expect California businesses to follow,” Senator Dutton said. “We can do that by immediately suspending implementation of AB 32 until the revised economic analysis is complete.”

iePolitics: What is PM2.5?

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For those interested in the technical side of this issue, here is some additional information.

The research involves Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5).  Particulate Matter is the solids or liquids emitted into the air. The 2.5 represents 2.5 microns in diameter or less.  A micron (or micrometer) is a millionth of a meter.

Here is an interesting article that discusses the science behind the new rule:


SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS TO PROPOSED REGULATIONS FOR IN-USE ON-ROAD DIESEL VEHICLES
Dr. Matthew Malkan. Professor of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA,  Dec. 10, 2008

CARB, like any powerful autonomous government agency, needs to follow this guiding principle:

The more costly the proposed regulations, the higher the degree of scientific certainty required to justify them.

CARB’s proposed new regulations on diesel exhaust go far beyond what any of the other 49 states, or the federal government has adopted.  The claimed toxic effects of diesel particulate matter (roughly described as “PM2.5”) are hundreds of times smaller than, for example, the increased risk of lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking.  These possible effects are so small, the actual exposure levels of human subjects are so difficult to estimate, and there are so many confounding health factors that are impossible to control, that the entire question needs to be broadly re-assessed before adopting a radical crash program of harsh new regulations on diesel trucks.

I’ve tried to take an objective look at the scientific question: Is fine particulate matter in diesel exhaust causing cancer and premature deaths of a measurable number of Californians?  The short answer is that we do not yet know.  But whichever way it eventually turns out will have no effect whatever on my career, or my grant funding.  I’m just a 30-year L.A. resident looking for a clear answer, but I do use the statistical tools of epidemiologists (e.g., Cox Proportional Hazard tests) in my own astrophysics research.

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