Oil refiners and truckers target California's global warming initiative

First the auto companies took on California's landmark 2002 law to slash the greenhouse gases spewing from vehicle tailpipes. They lost in court, and today California's rules to make cars and trucks more fuel efficient are being incorporated into a national standard.

Now oil refiners, petrochemical companies and trucking companies are attacking another key element in the state's effort to control its impact on global warming: the world's first standard to control the carbon intensity of vehicle fuels. Industry trade associations filed suit in U.S. District Court in Fresno Tuesday to void the state's low-carbon fuel initiative, aimed at slashing by 10% greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline and diesel sold in the nation’s largest transportation market. The standard, which took effect last month, is designed to spur the development of alternative fuels and technology.

"Auto companies spent five years on a lawsuit and in denial that they could meet California standards," said Roland Hwang, a transportation specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "That was money, energy, and time that would have been much better spent figuring out how to make clean cars rather than fighting our laws. When price spikes and the Great Recession hit, Detroit especially was unprepared. If they had more fuel-efficient, clean cars in their lineup, they may have staved off bankruptcy.

"The oil industry needs to prepare for the day when they'll have real competition," he added. "California's low carbon fuel standard gives them a clear road map to the future, but they apparently would rather be looking in their rear-view mirror."

The lawsuit portrays the rules as discriminating “against transportation fuels and fuel feed stocks imported from outside of California with the intended effect of promoting in-state production of transportation fuels and keeping consumer dollars local...” Thus, it contends, the rules are an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce. The California fuel standard, said Michael Whatley, vice-president of the industry group Consumer Energy Alliance, one of the plaintiffs, "is an example of parochial protectionism run amok."

Under the rules, the California Air Resources board compares the amount of greenhouse gas produced by fuels from numerous sources. They assign a high carbon content to Canadian fuel extracted from tar sands, an energy-intensive process. And they attribute a high content to Midwestern ethanol produced from corn, calculating that planting corn for energy would displace crops and result in emissions from land-use changes.

Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Assn., another plaintiff, said that displacing those fuels, "would ... increase our reliance on energy from less stable parts of the world, and weaken our national security.”  In December, the ethanol industry filed suit against the regulations using similar arguments.

More than a dozen states and the federal government are also considering low-carbon fuel initiatives.
Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the state’s Air Resources Board called the lawsuit “shameful,” adding that the carbon standard will “help us break our dependence on fossil fuels. It will protect us from volatile oil prices.... Instead of fighting us in court, they should be working to provide consumers with the next generation of cleaner fuels.”

Bonnie Holmes-Gen, policy director for the American Lung Assn. of California, said the low-carbon fuel standard “is good for public health” because it seeks to replace high-polluting gasoline and diesel, which are linked to cancer, heart and lung diseases. "This regulation is the pathway to promoting alternative and zero-emission fuels including hydrogen, electriicty produced from renewable resources and advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol--not corn-based ethanol," she said. 

Air board officials said they do not expect the court to delay the implementation of the low-carbon rules while the suit continues.

-- Margot Roosevelt

Photo: William A. Farone, left, of Applied Power Concepts and Arnold Klann of BlueFire Ethanol Fuels pose with fuel-conversion equipment in Anaheim. BlueFire is one of scores of advanced fuel firms seeking to capitalize on California's market for low-carbon fuel. Credit: Christine Cotter / L.A. Times

Comments

[I Elizabeth]

This California Global Warming Intiative destroys businesses, in particular small trucking companies that employ independent owner operators (truckers). It works to create a monopoly among big companies that can afford upgrading their fleets. Less competition among businesses is exactly the goal of these initiatives as it allows government more control of the market.

[Jerri Areielzo]

The have found a new fuel made from Algae (pond scum) that has little effect if any on the environment . It has been tested in Trucks, Autos, even 747 jetliners.
After researchers developed a not quite cost effective fuel, it's plentiful easy to make and creating Green Jobs everywhere, This is what we need is environment friendly fuel made here in the US ! Exxon is developing an algae based fuel also.
We will no longer need Climate Warming bill costing tax payers billions and we can develop a fuel produced here in this country.

[Lornaj]

The tuckers have said they are making any money with their trucks, and cannot bring them up to code. Why are they still driving trucks when they are not making money?

[Paul Taylor Examiner]

What is clear in California, and globally, given recent climate frauds, is that partisan ideologies and cultish environmentalism have replaced prudent science and economic realities in climate policy. What is also clear is that environmentalism no longer offers any product or service in support of our future security and prosperity. Militant environmentalism and green-obsessed bureaucrats have become an “axis of antagonism” that we can no longer afford.

[AdoptiveFather, Los Angeles CA]

Consider this. If Mr Market really thinks global warming really will melt all the glaciers and flood the coastline..........

.....why are beach homes still selling for millions of $$$?

Any way US refining is doomed with costs skyrocketing, new foreign competition coming on stream and US crude production falling.

Just ask Valero how fun the refining business is. They just closed 220,000 barrel per day Delaware refinery costing 500 HIGH PAYING jobs.

[Mark Smith]

The Gaian Warmer nutter religion... destroying jobs in a state near you. The same fraud being perpetrated by the IPCC has trickled down to the CARB. Not surprisingly, there has been little to no coverage on the fraud that went on with diesel particulate emission findings on the part of the latter. Fiscal insolvency of the state government is the only solution.

[Its real]

here come the "jobs" (i.e. not my pocket) group to come out. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see for yourself what will happen if we don't deal with greenhouse gasses. But the money crowd, the short-sighted group, will fill the air with lies about how man-made global warming has been repudiated as a hoax with bogus data. That lie, itself, has been repudiated.

[eric of Reseda]

The idiots that cling SO hard to recent disclosures of cracks in the "warming" argument miss the obvious validity of the argument as a whole: mankind cannot continue to dump the amount of pollutants and heat into the atmosphere he has grown accustomed to as a result of out-of-control, government and merchant-driven consumerism. The evidence of warming is indisputable. Period. The man-made element of that is indisputable as well. The future may be in dispute, but it's not a case of "if", it's a case of "when", as in, when will we finally tip the scales toward truly cataclysmic consequences to our foolish behavior. "John" below calls people like me "Marxist". What a putz. Wonder if John has kids, and whether he gives a darn about their future.

[David Pettit]

The industry plaintiffs in this case are using the same arguments that the auto industry ran with and lost in the Pavley Act cases that challenged the California and Vermont tailpipe laws. Too bad they want to waste money on lawyers rather than use it to fight climate change.

[dhwj]

Californians can easily afford more expensive fuel to go with their higher real estate prices and higher taxes. Just don't ask the rest of us to bail you out!!!!

[John]

This is just another attempt by the "statists" and Marxists to control everything. First of all man-made global warming has been repudiated as a hoax with bogus data." The embattled chief of the UN's climate change body has hit out at his critics and refused to resign or apologise for a ­damaging mistake in a landmark 2007 report on global warming." In other words the laws and mandates by this so called "California Air Resources board " are based on faulty data and BAD SCIENCE! It's time to dismantle this job killing bunch of idiots once and for all!