Pollution Control

Jason Burnett has made a lot of news lately, criticizing the Bush administration for rejecting California's request for a federal waiver that would have allowed the state to enforce greenhouse gas restrictions. Burnett, until recently the associate deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, testified last month before a congressional panel about the possible White House role in overruling the EPA staff's recommendation of the waiver.

California regulators adopted the world's toughest pollution rules for oceangoing vessels Thursday, vowing to improve the health of coastal residents and opening a new front in a long battle with the international shipping industry. The rules, which take effect in 2009, would require ships within 24 nautical miles of California to burn low-sulfur diesel instead of the tar-like sludge known as bunker fuel.

Despite removing 1.5 million cars from the roads, shutting down hundreds of factories and construction sites and bringing much of the city's economic life to a standstill, Beijing remains stubbornly shrouded in a persistent, gray haze on the eve of the Summer Olympics. The poor air quality just 11 days before the opening ceremonies has left Chinese government officials scrambling for explanations that include statistical anomalies and the 90-plus-degree heat.

Will Californians drive less to reduce global warming? Maybe not on our own -- but state officials are ready to nudge us. The Legislature is on the verge of adopting the nation's first law to control planet-warming gases by curbing sprawl. The bill, sponsored by incoming state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), is expected to pass the Assembly today and the Senate on Friday. Gov.

Port of Long Beach officials came under boisterous criticism Friday from about 60 truckers at the grand opening of a Clean Trucks Center where big-riggers can apply for financial assistance to replace their diesel vehicles with new, cleaner models. A crowd of protesters assembled about 20 yards from a stage where Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster praised the Terminal Island center as a "first step toward a much cleaner Long Beach of the future."

The Environmental Protection Agency is obliged by the Clean Water Act to protect the nation's waterways, beaches and drinking water from pollution caused by real estate development and should set standards for limiting construction runoff by the end of next year, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The ruling from the U.S.

It's a vacant lot now, but Los Angeles officials hope to turn the former brownfield site downtown into a cluster of "green" manufacturing businesses to meet the region's growing demand for solar and wind power and other clean technologies. The proposed CleanTech Manufacturing Center would be established on a city-owned 20-acre parcel in an industrial area near the intersection of 15th Street and Santa Fe Avenue, south of the 10 Freeway and west of the Los Angeles River.

California on Monday launched the most comprehensive program of any state to regulate chemicals that have been linked to cancer, hormone disruption and other deadly effects on human health. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two broad laws that shift the state away from a scattershot approach in which bills targeting individual chemicals and products have passed or failed depending on the intensity of the lobbying and media attention.

The 55 Long Beach residents who gathered to pore over city maps weren't engineers or oceanographers, but they had plenty of questions -- and plenty to say -- about a proposal that would radically change beach life in their city. The proposal calls for moving or reconfiguring the 2.2-mile eastern portion of the 8.4-mile San Pedro Bay breakwater. Shielded by the breakwater, Long Beach receives puny waves.

In a campaign appearance in Marietta, Ohio, Sarah Palin criticized comments made early this year by Barack Obama -- which surfaced Sunday in an audiotape posted on YouTube -- in which the Democratic presidential candidate discusses how his proposed emissions policy would affect the coal industry. "He said that, sure, if the industry wants to build new coal-fired plants, then they can go ahead and try . . .