Mark Blinch / Reuters

The new fuel economy standard gives automakers credits for using electric power and cleaner air conditioning systems.

Gasoline prices hit record highs in 2011 and for the first time last year, the cost of gas equaled or exceeded even the cost of owning a vehicle: on average, the roughly $2,800 dollars that a household spent at the pump was more than a year’s worth of car payments.

Crunching the numbers on a hypothetical new car purchase 13 years from now, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) says what we’ll save in gas will more than cover the extra spent on new fuel-saving technologies — an $800 savings even at the end of a five-year loan.

What’s  different about this new fleet standard standard — 54.5 MPG by 2025, proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California’s Air Resources Board (ARB) — is what it means for the auto makers as well. Cooper says that by setting the standard far enough in the future, it gives car makers a reliable goal and enough time to work things out.

And it’s an “attribute-based” approach: it doesn’t tell carmakers to build smaller vehicles or different types of vehicles (like electric or alt-fuels), it just mandates the mileage standard itself and allows the manufacturers to come up with an individualized mix of vehicles and features to accomplish it. This is part of the reason you’re seeing more large hybrid SUV’s on the road, and why one of the most touted vehicles at the Detroit Auto Show this week was a V6 “eco-boost” Ford F-150 truck. The first five pages of this report from the Congressional Research Service has a good explanation and the back story.

The automakers get credits or allowances for attributes like electric power and cleaner air conditioning systems, so that 54.5 number works out to just under 40 MPG across a given manufacturer’s fleet. But CFA’s Cooper acknowledges that and still sees the new standard as “a landmark in U.S. Energy policy. They will be making fewer trips to the gas station when they get these vehicles,” he told reporters in a conference call today.

Now I’m just waiting to hear about the woman suing Honda in Small Claims Court down here in Torrance, California. She claims the automaker told her that the hybrid Civic she bought would get 50 miles per gallon. Not so, says the woman. An L.A. County Superior Court judge wants more info. Stay tuned.

Reed Galin / Lone Tree Productions

Updated Monday, November 28, 2011

For California Air Resources Board (ARB) chair Mary Nichols, pre-Thanksgiving prep meant responding to list of requests from Orange County Republican congressman Darrell Issa and his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

As part of its expanding probe into how the newest Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards were set, the letter asked for information about how California came up with its vehicle emissions standards and what role state officials played in developing the newly announced federal fuel economy standard.

According to documents released by the Air Board just before the holiday, Issa’s letter includes charges that the state of California is “de facto,” setting fuel economy standards, a job legally left to the feds.

In her response, Nichols twice asserts that California is not setting fuel economy standards but has set emission standards, an authority reaffirmed by federal court decisions and supported in the Clean Air Act, which allows states to seek waivers to enact its own pollution standards. “Every federal court that has heard this misguided preemption mantra has soundly dismissed it,” wrote Nichols.

Issa presses the point further by asking Nichols whether she believes that “greenhouse gas regulation is ‘related to’ fuel economy standards.” Nichols calls the claim “a legalistic contortion that defies common sense,” and counters that were that true, “states could not regulate speed limits because such are clearly closely ‘related to’ fuel economy.”

In his letter, Issa mentions that Nichols declined to appear for an October committee hearing and did not offer an alternative person.  Issa said this was “emblematic” of a concern that ARB is “unresponsive” and “unappreciative of congressional priorities,” and he was expanding his investigation because of it.

One of Issa’s 18 queries came startlingly close to the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” category. One asks, “Do you believe that a closed and secretive process is the best approach for regulating an industry that affects nearly every American?” Nichols responds that ARB’s processes are “thorough, transparent and open.” She also notes that it is “standard practice” to confer with overlapping agencies, stakeholder groups and “potentially regulated parties before launching a formal rule-making process.”

Issa mentions a New York Times article that quoted Nichols as saying, “We put nothing in writing, ever.”  The 2009 article Issa quotes is talking about the private conversations between Nichols, presidential energy advisor Carol Browner and auto industry officials. Browner set those talks in motion to work toward a compromise on a single national standard, one that was indeed announced later. Issa skipped over the rest of Nichols’ quote, which read: “…that was one of the ways we made sure that everyone’s ability to talk freely was protected.”

In response to Issa’s request for all ARB communications with federal agencies and automakers about the agency’s involvement in fuel economy standard talks for model years 2012 through 2016, Nichols writes that there were none, since ARB does not set fuel standards. At one point Nichols calls some of Issa’s requests for documentation “unduly broad and overly burdensome” and “declines to produce manufacturers’ confidential business information or other privileged information.” In addition to responses to the committee’s queries, Nichols’ staff included nearly 20 pages of supporting documentation.

Issa is on record supporting alternative fuels, saying the country should ”encourage the development of zero-emission clean energy generation, such as nuclear, hydro-electricity, wind, solar, all of which can meet our energy needs now and replace older and dirtier fossil fuel generation.” He supports increasing fuel efficiency standards and also increasing domestic fossil fuel production, including opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, the outer continental shelf and western states’ oil shale assets. He also states on his website that Congress must maintain “strong oversight” over the agencies that regulate the energy industry.

Why climate change and public health policy make good chemistry

A major study released today in Fresno details the direct link between higher levels of air pollution and asthma-related ER and hospital admissions. So, what’s that got to do with climate change? Plenty.

Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images

Tourists snap photos of a murky sunset in San Diego

“There’s a division in the public’s mind between global warming and health effects of pollution,” says Dimitri Stanich of the California Air Resources Board.

In reality, there’s significant overlap. Some components of air pollution shown to have harmful warming effects on the planet are also harming people, especially children, right now.

Let’s start with ground-level ozone. Ground-level ozone is different from the ozone layer, which lies about 15 miles above the earth (not exactly ground level). The ozone layer shields us from most of the sun’s harmful rays. Ozone is good in the atmosphere but bad, in many ways, at or near ground level.

Ground-level ozone is not part of air pollution itself. Instead, it is formed by a complex chemical reaction starting with the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) component of air pollution. That chemical reaction is especially strong when the air is calm and the sun is shining (California’s Central Valley in the summer, anyone?). This stuff is terrible for your lungs.

“Ozone has the same corrosive aspects of bleach,” explains Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior policy director for the American Lung Association in California. “When people breathe it in, it damages the lining of the lungs. It’s like getting a sunburn on the lungs. It triggers coughing, wheezing and asthma attacks,”

Ground-level ozone is also a greenhouse gas. So, while it’s harming people today, it’s simultaneously helping to warm the planet. If that’s not enough, ground-level ozone’s corrosive properties harm crops, too. The Central Valley may be the nation’s salad bowl, but it’s ground zero for ground-level ozone.

Then there’s “black carbon.” If you think that sounds ominous, you’re right.Tiny particles of black carbon can lodge deep in a person’s lungs (bad) or circulate in the air and contribute to global warming (also bad). And, in a triple whammy, if black carbon particles land on arctic snow, they can accelerate the ice melt. Scientists say black carbon is a major contributor to climate change, perhaps second only to CO2. Black carbon comes from, among other things, the burning of fossil fuels, the stuff that comes from tail pipes and smokestacks.

Sunday’s New York Times featured a depressingly detailed account of Americans’ waning interest in global warming. Climate skepticism is on the rise, at least in political circles. While skepticism about the health effects of air pollution isn’t polled as much, it seems reasonable to think there’s little argument there.

This is where we get to what policymakers call “co-benefits.” Ms. Holmes-Gen points out that ground level ozone and black carbon are both fairly short-lived in the environment. “It’s a huge bang for the buck. If we reduce air pollution, we’ll see an immediate health benefit and we get warming pollutants out of the air, too.”

Lisa Aliferis is a health news editor at KQED. The complete smog & health study referred to at the top of this post is available as a PDF download from Fresno State University.

This was posted originally by our content partners at California Watch, one day after a new report cited several Golden State cities as having with the nation’s worst air quality.

By Agustin Armendariz

Air pollution in national parks is at a three-year high, and two California parks have recorded the worst readings, according to a report by the National Parks Conservation Association.

Craig Miller

A winter day offers a break from the bad air at Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, located next to each other, exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency standard for ozone pollution 68 days so far this year, the most of any of the national parks that monitor air quality. Joshua Tree National Park came in second, with 49 days above the EPA standard.

These readings are not only high among national parks, but also for the state as a whole. According to data maintained by the California Air Resources Board for 2010, the number of days exceeding the ozone standard at Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks was equal to that of readings in Arvin, just outside of Bakersfield. Last year, both stations recorded 66 days above the ozone standard.

While high by today’s standards, the rates are lower than they were in the late 1980s, when some areas of the state logged 100 or more days with ozone above acceptable levels, according to Air Resources Board data.

“Breathing ozone, a primary component of smog, can trigger a variety of health problems, including chest pain, coughing, throat irritation and congestion,” according to the EPA.

The Air Resources Division of the National Park Service says it has air monitoring systems set up in almost 70 national parks around the country and works with other monitoring networks to gauge the air quality of the nation’s parks.

According to the park service, Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks “experience some of the worst air pollution of any national parks in the U.S.,” since they are “downwind of many air pollution sources, including agriculture, industry, major highways, and urban pollutants from as far away as the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Although far out in the eastern desert, Joshua Tree “is affected by air pollution generated in the Los Angeles air basin that moves inland with the predominant westerly winds,” according to the park service.

National Park Service

Map shows national parks where ozone levels have spiked

The National Parks Conservation Association report called attention to two legislative measures moving through Congress that would weaken the EPA’s air quality regulations.

“National park visitors should not have to worry about having an asthma attack while hiking in American treasures like the Grand Canyon and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks,” Mark Wenzler, the association’s vice president for climate and air quality programs, stated in the report.

California may have great weather but also some of the nation’s worst air. The advocacy group Environment California has issued a report ranking the nation’s worst metropolitan areas for air quality. The five worst are in California, as are six of the top ten.

Craig Miller

Smog in the Los Angeles Basin

Based on data from 2010, the report’s “Top Smoggiest Areas in the US” were:

1. Riverside-San Bernardino

2. Visalia-Tulare-Porterville

3. Bakersfield (tie)

3. Los Angeles-Long Beach (tie)

5. Fresno

The report tallies 110 “smog days” for worst-ranked Riverside-San Bernardino:

“…meaning that the area, home to more than 3 million residents, had unhealthy air on one out of three days in 2010. Twenty-four of those days were categorized as “red-alert days,” meaning that air quality was so poor that anyone could experience adverse health effects…”

This is a bit like golf. In this contest, a high score is not good. Among other California contenders in the top 20, Sacramento checked in at tenth (tied with St. Louis and Knoxville, TN; and San Luis Obispo-Atascadero-Paso Robles at 17th (tied with cities in New Jersey and the Carolinas). In a separate ranking of only “large metroplitan areas,” San Diego also makes the list, and the group’s ranking of “small” metro areas includes such geographically diverse California towns as Merced (tied for 2nd) and Chico-Paradise (tied for 16th), which is tucked into the foothills of the northern Sierra.

The 61-page report uses as its benchmark the (still in place) 2008 federal ozone standard for counting “smog days.” The information is parsed and sorted into several more lists by geography, metro area size, and time frame.

One of the main constituents of smog, nitrous oxide, is also a potent greenhouse gas, which contributes to global warming.

Reed Galin

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released an interactive tool today that maps climate-related health risks across the country, including extreme heat, poor air quality, drought, flooding, and infectious diseases. The maps present a snapshot of current health vulnerabilities using recent data at the state and county levels.

“If we stay on our present course, we can expect these health vulnerabilities from climate change to accelerate” said NRDC Senior Scientist Kim Knowlton on a conference call with reporters. “We need to prepare for the worst in extreme events and the health vulnerabilities that will result.”

According to the NRDC, one of the main health impacts Californians are facing with climate change is air pollution.  A recent report from the Public Policy Institute of California finds that two-thirds of Californians already see air pollution as a big problem.  The NRDC tool asserts that 90% of Californians live in areas that violate air quality standards, and that climate change will worsen this by bringing smoggier and hotter days.

Highlighted in red are California counties experiencing several unhealthy ozone days. Map: NRDC

The tool illustrates that the Central Valley and Southern California regions already experience several more extreme heat days each year “than expected,” and asserts that more are on the way, according to climate projections. It also plots out the state’s water crunch, which some California cities are already grappling with.

In addition to laying out the challenge, the tool also links to recommendations for adapting to increased health risks from climate change, including a section on California’s Climate Adaptation Strategy.

“We hope that our national maps will be used as a provocation for people to look and say, ‘Gee, we really need to dig in deeper,’” said Knowlton.

The tool’s data comes from a variety of sources, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the American Lung Association.

Photo: Craig Miller

California is likely to suffer more than any other state from worsening air pollution due to climate change by the end of the decade, according to a new study from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

The report finds that in 2020, “climate change-induced ozone increases” could result in nearly half a million additional cases of “serious respiratory illnesses” and add more than $729 million to the state’s health care costs.

The report also singles out Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, but California tops the list because of the large populations living in areas of the state already subject to poor air quality: the San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles area.

“California already has a big challenge in meeting air quality standards,” said UCS senior engineer Don Anair.  “The fact that the temperature is rising is going to make it even harder to meet those standards.”

Ground-level ozone, the primary component of smog, is formed when heat and sunlight interact with emissions from burning fossil fuels. Warmer temperatures, Anair said, will make this worse.  According to the report, U.S. temperatures have increased more than 2 degrees F during the past century and are projected to rise another 3-5.5 degrees F by 2050.

“Studies have shown dangerous side effects of ozone, which is why we have these protective health standards in place throughout the country,” said Anair. “Breathing this pollution has an impact on our lungs and our body and can result in exacerbating asthma attacks and respiratory illness.”

But all the news isn’t bad. Anair said that California’s new Renewables Portfolio Standard, which mandates that the state get 33% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 will help cut emissions that contribute to both climate change and ozone pollution.  The next step, he said, is increasing fuel efficiency in cars.

The California Air Resources Board is currently working with the Obama Administration to develop new standards for new cars and trucks that hit the road between 2017 and 2025.  Scenarios being considered would increase average fleet fuel efficiency to between 47 and 62 miles per gallon.

(Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

By Andrew Freedman

Pollution reduction measures that were aimed primarily at reducing California’s notorious smog problem and improving public health, also helped cut emissions of black carbon — a key global warming agent — according to a new study published Tuesday.

Black carbon, more commonly referred to as soot, is an atmospheric particulate that scientists have shown to be a significant contributor to global warming. It is an attractive target for emissions reductions because relatively cost effective technologies to reduce it already exist, such as diesel particulate filters for trucks, and because unlike carbon dioxide (CO2), which stays in the air for decades to millennia, black carbon only remains airborne for days to weeks.

According to the study, published in the journal Atmospheric Environment, scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Argonne National Laboratories found that in California, statewide annual average black carbon concentrations declined by nearly 50 percent between 1989 and 2008. These reductions occurred in direct proportion to a decline in fossil fuel emissions, mainly from diesel engines, during that period. The researchers say the reductions were largely the result of laws enacted to reduce diesel pollution, instituted to benefit public health and alleviate California’s smog.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, coauthor V. Ramanathan, distinguished professor at Scripps and a prominent figure in black carbon research, said the California emissions reductions offer a demonstration of how reducing black carbon emissions can influence the climate on a regional level. “For a scientist it’s a spectacular experiment, because we can see the result of [mitigation] policies,” he said.

One of the complications facing scientists and policy makers seeking to address black carbon is that many of the processes that emit black carbon also emit other particulates, such as sulfate aerosols, that can help cool the climate. So ideally, policies aimed at reducing global warming would selectively cut the warming agents without taking away the cooling influences. Otherwise, they may cause a warming rebound.

However, hard data about what would happen if only the heat-trapping aerosols were slashed, without reducing the cooling agents, has until now been in short supply. This study, Ramanathan said, changes that. The study estimates that the decrease in black carbon led to a cooling of 1.4 watts per square meter, which it states is “sufficiently large to have had an impact on regional heat and water budget[s]” in California.

Ramanathan said this study demonstrates that black carbon emissions can be tackled state by state or country by country, rather than trying to get the entire world agree to an agreement which, as seen by the case of CO2, can be a nearly impossible task. “The whole world need not agree [to black carbon reductions],” Ramanathan said. “Local benefits nicely interface with global goods.”

The study was funded in part by the California Air Resources Board (ARB), which regulates California’s air quality in conjunction with the U.S. EPA. “This study demonstrates that ARB’s efforts to cut air pollution, whether by promoting cleaner cars or controlling agricultural burning, have significantly reduced threats to public health while also helping address climate change,” said ARB chairwoman Mary Nichols in a press release.

Ramanathan’s daughter Nithya, an assistant research professor of computer science at UCLA, has also been working to develop cellphone-based technology to monitor concentrations of black carbon. Such observations could be used to verify the effects of emissions reduction measures, among other uses, they said.

Cows at Fiscalini Farms in Modesto, California. (Photo: Sheraz Sadiq)

Last year, as part of a radio series on methane, I drove down to visit John Fiscalini, who was building a huge methane “digester” to convert his cows’ “byproducts” into clean energy, and reduce the carbon footprint of his sizable dairy farm and cheese factory outside Modesto.  After millions of dollars in design and construction costs, Fiscalini was fed up with state air and water regulators, who he felt were pulling him in different directions. A year later, have things improved? Not so much, as Quest’s Lauren Sommer found out, when she returned to the San Joaquin Valley for an update. — Craig Miller

Three years ago, KQED’s QUEST visited a Central Valley dairy that was taking an innovative approach to its waste problem. Instead of collecting thousands of pounds of cow manure in open holding ponds, Joseph Gallo Farms uses it in a renewable energy technology known as a methane digester.

Methane gas is a natural byproduct of cow digestion. It’s produced as bacteria inside their stomaches break down food. That process continues on the back end (so to speak) as cow manure decomposes.

Methane is also a powerful contributor to climate change – about 21 times stronger than carbon dioxide. The UN has estimated that 18 percent of greenhouse gases worldwide come from livestock.  (Last year, Climate Watch reported on methane and it sources in this two-part radio series.)

By capturing methane, dairy digesters keep it out of the atmosphere. But they also create a source of renewable energy. Methane is a natural gas — it can be burned just like propane. So, Gallo Farms pipes the methane over to a generator, which produces enough electricity to run the farm and their cheese plant.

Since our visit, the story has taken an interesting turn. Both Gallo Farms and another dairy with a digester, Fiscalini Farms, are located in the San Joaquin Valley, an area with some of the worst air quality the country. The air district is consistently considered in “non-attainment,” which means they aren’t meeting the federal limits on air pollution.

While both dairies’ digesters are reducing one kind of pollution, greenhouse gases, they’re actually adding to another kind. Generators, like any other combustion engine, produce nitrous oxide pollution – or NOx – which is a component of smog. Given the smog problem in the valley, the local air district decided to put a pollution limit on the dairy digester generators.

Since then, both dairies have struggled to meet to the limits. Unlike pipeline-quality natural gas, the methane (or biogas) that comes from a digester varies in quality, which affects how much pollution is produced in the generator’s exhaust. John Fiscalini of Fiscalini Farms has spent $200,000 on a pollution control device that reduces NOx pollution. But he says it’s been a challenging process and he’s concerned that other dairies have been discouraged by his experience with regulators.

For more on Fiscalini’s story and more about the challenges facing dairy digesters, check out this week’s QUEST radio story.