Industrial Emissions

Southern California air regulators on Friday charged a Riverside County cement plant with violating dust-control statutes, days after revelations that the site was believed to be emitting high levels of carcinogenic hexavalent chromium. The South Coast Air Quality Management District also demanded that officials from TXI Riverside Cement Co. in Rubidoux hand over up to two years' worth of maintenance and equipment records and perform an updated health-risk assessment within 150 days.

Dangerous levels of toxic lead were emitted by a Southern California battery recycling facility for months, until regulators ordered the facility to cut production by almost half, officials said. An Exide Technologies facility in Vernon, one of just two such battery recycling facilities west of the Rockies, was emitting lead at levels nearly twice the allowable federal limits from December to April, according to South Coast Air Quality Management District staff.

California forged ahead Wednesday in its bold attempt to turn back the clock of climate change, issuing its final draft of an economywide plan to slash the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels.

Carbon-trading market developers hope that a potential billion-dollar U.S. market will move closer to reality now that major companies are urging legislation to set mandatory curbs on the gases linked to global warming. "We are ready to jump into the U.S. with both feet," said Richard Rosenzweig, chief operating officer at New York-based carbon asset management company Natsource. Ten major U.S. corporations, including Aloca Inc., DuPont Co. and General Electric Co.

California utility regulators are poised to take a major step toward curbing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission is expected to approve rules that would require all investor-owned utilities to make sure that the power they generate or purchase is at least as clean as that produced by the latest generation of natural-gas-fired turbines.

California companies are rushing to voluntarily register their greenhouse gases before the launch of a major statewide program this year to address global warming. A total of 116 companies registered their emissions with the California Climate Action Registry in December -- more than doubling the number of companies enrolled to 221.

ConocoPhillips on Wednesday became the first major U.S. oil company to join a corporate/environmental coalition urging Congress to require limits on greenhouse gases tied to global warming. The decision could give the Houston-based company an important voice in helping to guide legislation that might alter the way the industry produces fuel -- and almost certainly make that production more costly, analysts say. ConocoPhillips became the newest member of the U.S.

Led by California, 31 states representing more than 70% of the U.S. population announced Tuesday that they would measure and jointly track greenhouse gas emissions by major industries. The newly formed Climate Registry is the latest example of states going further than the federal government in taking steps to combat global warming.

Angel Jesus Pacotaype is a child of lead, one of hundreds of youngsters in this Andean town suffering from what a U.S. health study has labeled an "epidemic" of exposure to the toxic metal. The 3-year-old is lethargic and exhibits signs of sluggish development, classic symptoms of lead poisoning. "We are desperate," said Luisa Pacotaype, 39, a mother of five who lives with her family in an adobe house in the old part of town, La Oroya Antigua. "We don't know who to turn to."

It was only three months ago that international energy officials revised a prediction that China would surpass the United States as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases by 2009 or 2010. It could happen, they warned, as early as the end of this year. That may have been conservative.