California Air Resources Board

The California Air Resources Board on Thursday banned popular in-home ozone air purifiers, saying studies have found that they can worsen conditions such as asthma that marketers claim they help to prevent. The regulation, which the board said is the first of its kind in the nation, will require testing and certification of all types of air purifiers. Any that emit more than a tiny amount of ozone will have to be pulled from the California market.

General Motors Co. plans to bring a special version of the Chevrolet Volt to the California market that will qualify the plug-in hybrid sedan for a $1,500 state rebate and a coveted carpool lane sticker. The Volt, which the automaker has made the poster child for its environmental credentials, has sold more slowly in California than its all-electric rival, the Nissan Leaf, in part because it previously did not qualify as a vehicle that solo drivers could use in the state's network of time-saving carpool lanes.

Regarding "Up in Smoke" [June 14]: Modern personal watercraft are among the cleanest and quietest motorized boats on the water today. Every new PWC sold in California complies with current standards and in some instances already meets the 2008 model year emissions standards set by the California Air Resources Board. Maureen Healey Executive director, Personal Watercraft Industry Assn.

The California Air Resources Board on Thursday unanimously adopted the nation's first state-administered cap-and-trade regulations, a landmark set of air pollution controls to address climate change and help the state achieve its ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The complex market system for the first time puts a price on heat-trapping pollution by allowing California's dirtiest industries to trade carbon credits. The rules have been years in the making, overcoming legal challenges and an aggressive oil industry-sponsored ballot initiative.

Wieder on Study Tour: Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder went to Detroit on Monday with a group from the California Air Resources Board that will tour auto-emission laboratories. Wieder, who is also a member of the air resources board, will meet with officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as major automobile manufacturers. Staff aides said she will be back at the end of the week.

Yamaha Motor Corp. U.S.A. and the California Air Resources Board have settled a lawsuit involving about 400 motorcycles that were sold in California without meeting the state's emissions standards. Yamaha will buy back the motorcycles in question and either destroy them or re-sell them outside the state. It also will pay $1.2 million to the California Air Pollution Control Fund to support pollution-related research, $500,000 to a research institute and $300,000 to the state attorney general's office for legal fees.

As many as 24,000 deaths annually in California are linked to chronic exposure to fine particulate pollution, triple the previous official estimate of 8,200, according to state researchers. The revised figures are based on a review of new research across the nation about the hazards posed by microscopic particles, which sink deep into the lungs.

Chevron Corp., citing problems at a refinery, sought California Air Resources Board approval to temporarily sell gasoline that does not meet environmental standards. The sale would involve as much as 3.5 million barrels of gasoline for a maximum of 45 days. Chevron would have to pay a 15-cent surcharge for each gallon of such gasoline it sells in California, or as much as $22 million. Chevron would not say when it expects gasoline production to return to normal.

Panel to Evaluate Battery Technology: The California Air Resources Board has appointed a four-member, independent panel to evaluate the status of batteries needed to power electric vehicles. The panel, which will meet with battery and vehicle manufacturers, is to report its findings at the ARB's Oct. 11 workshop on battery technology. The panel members are Fritz Kalhammer, vice president of the Electric Power Research Institute; Akiya Kozawa, a retired Union Carbide Corp.

Unocal Files Countersuit Against Six Oil Firms: Los Angeles-based Unocal Corp. said the counterclaim filed in U.S. District Court seeks to prohibit other oil companies from violating its patents as they gear up to produce "reformulated" gasoline under a California law that goes into effect in 1996. Chevron Corp., Exxon Corp., Mobil Corp., Shell Oil Co., Texaco Inc. and Atlantic Richfield Co. sued Unocal seeking a judgment that its patents were invalid.

The California Air Resources Board voted to reaffirm its cap-and-trade plan Wednesday, a decision that puts the nation's first-ever state carbon trading program back on track, for now. The on-again, off-again rules have been years in the making and are meant to complement AB 32, California's landmark climate change law that mandates a reduction in carbon pollution to 1990 levels by 2020. The air board adopted a preliminary carbon trading plan in late 2008 but was sued by environmental justice groups in 2009.

A state agency is expected to approve regulations Thursday that could break an impasse in a long-sought goal to require utilities in California to obtain a third of their power from solar and other renewable sources by 2020. The vote by the California Air Resources Board is being watched closely by clean-tech companies, many of which have curtailed expansion of their operations in the state because of the regulatory deadlock. But critics said the regulations, which would also include a streamlined permitting process for renewable energy projects, could face an uphill battle with an unsympathetic new governor and could be overturned by a ballot initiative.

Two federal agencies, working with California, have taken the biggest step in the nation's history to reduce the United States' global warming footprint. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced specific rules that require automakers to build cars, SUVs and minivans that will average 35.5 mpg by 2016 and cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 30%, thereby saving an estimated 1.8 billion barrels of oil. It's been a long haul.

Will cutting carbon kill jobs in California? That's the premise of a November ballot initiative proposed by Republican lawmakers, whose cause got a boost this week from a report by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office that concluded the state's landmark global warming law might hurt employment. The report made headlines because it contrasts sharply with an earlier analysis by the California Air Resources Board, which concluded that the law, AB 32, would actually create 120,000 jobs by 2020.

James Hosmanek, an ex-Marine, has operated his San Bernardino Chevron station for 21 years, patiently installing equipment to control gasoline emissions, even as the region's air grew smoggier. Now he says he can't, and won't, obey the latest mandate: a state order to buy sophisticated nozzles and hoses to capture more of the vapors that cause respiratory disease and cancer. "It may be necessary to protect public health," he says. "But it's unaffordable."

Two decades ago, Rosa Vielmas, young and hopeful, moved to Riverside County for cleaner air. Goodbye to smoggy East Los Angeles. Hello to Mira Loma, an unincorporated speck of a village, and a one-story stucco bungalow with a yard. "We could see the stars," she recalled. But that was before Mira Loma became one of Southern California's "diesel death zones," as activists call the truck-choked freeways and distribution hubs that fan out from the massive ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Two decades ago, Rosa Vielmas, young and hopeful, moved to Riverside County for cleaner air. Goodbye to smoggy East Los Angeles. Hello to Mira Loma, an unincorporated speck of a village, and a one-story stucco bungalow with a yard. "We could see the stars," she recalled. But that was before Mira Loma became one of Southern California's "diesel death zones," as activists call the truck-choked freeways and distribution hubs that fan out from the massive ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Few dispute that reducing planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions is a good idea. But fewer still know how much it will cost. Wednesday, California officials served up their official economic analysis of the state's ambitious global warming plan: By 2020, it would boost the state's expected $2.6-trillion gross product by $4 billion, create 100,000 additional jobs and increase per capita income by $200, the state Air Resources Board concluded after months of complex modeling.