[OT] Air Pollution

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California Air Resources Board cap and trade program circumvents state open meeting laws with a Moonbeam assist Posted on July 14, 2012 by Anthony Watts

Strong headline, I know, but I didn?t believe this was true until I researched it myself. First some background; I once served as an elected official on my local school board. During orientation and virtually every annual CSBA meeting after that, along with numerous public meetings and letters to the editor where people constantly reminded us of the Brown Act, it loomed large as the most important law that we had to follow.

We were constantly reminded that if we did not follow the letter of the law and provide full and open access to all meetings (the exception being employee management) we would be guilty of breaking the open meeting law and subject to severe penalties. If our local school board in our small town ever tried to hold a closed-door meeting without the knowledge of the public, not only we would we be excoriated in the press and public discourse, but we would also have people filing for our election recall.

So, it was with shock and surprise that I learned today that the California Air Resources Board declared the method by which they could circumvent the public meet On the afternoon the state budget was signed into law last Wednesday I received an email from a local activist informing me that hidden in a trailer bill titled SB 1018 was a provision exempting the upcoming cap and trade auction from open meeting rules.

CARB formed a company called Western Climate Initiative Inc. (WCI), to manage its upcoming cap and trade auction. This shadowy corporation, registered in Delaware, will be responsible for imposing billions in hidden energy taxes on California ratepayers and small businesses without public scrutiny or accountability.

SB 1018 was a ?gut and amend? bill, with over 100 pages inserted the day before the bill was signed into law along with the state budget. This legislation did not go through one committee hearing and most legislators probably never had a chance to read it. But buried in this bill in Section 12894(b)(2) is a line exempting WCI from a critical provision of the California Constitution, known as the Bagley-Keene Act, which provides meetings be open to public scrutiny.

Small business owners and citizen energy consumers care about protecting the environment, but CARB continually behaves as if it has something to hide.

When I first read that I really could not believe it. I could not believe that a state agency who is beholden to the same sorts of Chapter 5. Greenhouse Gas Market-Based Compliance Mechanisms and Linkages to the State

12894. (a) (1) The Legislature finds and declares that the establishment of nongovernmental entities, such as the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, and linkages with other states and countries by the State Air Resources Board or other state agencies for the purposes of implementing Division 25.5 (commencing with Section 38500) of the Health and Safety Code, should be done transparently and should be independently reviewed by the Attorney General for consistency with all applicable laws.

(2) The purpose of this section is to establish new oversight and transparency over any such linkages and related activities undertaken in relation to Division 25.5 (commencing with Section

38500) of the Health and Safety Code by the executive agencies in order to ensure consistency with applicable laws.

(b) (1) The California membership of the board of directors of the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, shall be modified as follows:

(A) One appointee or his or her designee who shall serve as an ex officio nonvoting member shall be appointed by the Senate Committee on Rules. (B) One appointee or his or her designee who shall serve as an ex officio nonvoting member shall be appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly.

(C) The Chairperson of the State Air Resources Board or her or his designee. (D) The Secretary for Environmental Protection or his or her designee. (2) Sections 11120 through 11132 do not apply to the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, or to appointees specified in subparagraphs (C) and (D) of paragraph (1) when performing their duties under this section. (c) The State Air Resources Board shall provide notice to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, consistent with that required for Department of Finance augmentation or reduction authorizations pursuant to subdivision (e) of Section 28.00 of the annual Budget Act, of any funds over one hundred fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) provided to the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, or its derivatives or subcontractors no later than 30 days prior to transfer or expenditure of these funds.

Did you catch it? Most people wouldn?t as it is a very short sentence written in gov-speak with redirected references to other laws. I only caught it because I was familiar with the sections pertaining to the state open meeting laws.

Here?s the relevant section:

(2) Sections 11120 through 11132 do not apply to the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, or to appointees specified in subparagraphs (C) and (D) of paragraph (1) when performing their duties under this section.

Still don?t see it? It is about sections 11120 through 11132 of The California Code.

What are Sections 11120 through 11132? Wikipedia has a good summary:

The Bagley-Keene Act of 1967, officially known as the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, implements a provision of the California Constitution which declares that ?the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public scrutiny?, and explicitly mandates open meetings for California State agencies, boards, and commissions. The act facilitates accountability and transparency of government activities and protects the rights of citizens to participate in State government deliberations. Similarly, California?s Brown Act of 1953 protects citizen rights with regard to open meetings at the county and local government level.

The act also reaffirms, ?The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.?

Here?s the relevant section of the code, section 11121, which says private corporations setup to do state business are not exempt: As used in this article, ?state body? means each of the following: (a) Every state board, or commission, or similar multimember body of the state that is created by statute or required by law to conduct official meetings and every commission created by executive order. (b) A board, commission, committee, or similar multimember body that exercises any authority of a state body delegated to it by that state body. (c) An advisory board, advisory commission, advisory committee, advisory subcommittee, or similar multimember advisory body of a state body, if created by formal action of the state body or of any member of the state body, and if the advisory body so created consists of three or more persons. (d) A board, commission, committee, or similar multimember body on which a member of a body that is a state body pursuant to this section serves in his or her official capacity as a representative of that state body and that is supported, in whole or in part, by funds provided by the state body, whether the multimember body is organized and operated by the state body or by a private corporation.

Section 11122.5 reads: (a) As used in this article, ?meeting? includes any congregation of a majority of the members of a state body at the same time and place to hear, discuss, or deliberate upon any item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the state body to which it pertains. (b) (1) A majority of the members of a state body shall not, outside of a meeting authorized by this chapter, use a series of communications of any kind, directly or through intermediaries, to discuss, deliberate, or take action on any item of business that is within the subject matter of the state body. (2) Paragraph (1) shall not be construed to prevent an employee or official of a state agency from engaging in separate conversations or communications outside of a meeting authorized by this chapter with members of a legislative body in order to answer questions or provide information regarding a matter that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the state agency, if that person does not communicate to members of the legislative body the comments or position of any other member or members of the legislative body.

There are some exceptions listed in 11122.5, such as for conversations in open air public meetings and gatherings, but nothing like the blanket exception written in for WCI in SB1018.

Consider this a minute. CARB sets up a private corporation, Western Climate Initiative Inc. to manage the cap and trade program, doesn?t even bother to put the corporation in California, and opts for Delaware and the advantages that brings over California incorporation. Delaware is well known as a corporate haven, and that alone suggests they want it out of the prying eyes of California taxpayers.

But that wasn?t good enough, they take the extraordinary step of writing in an exemption to prevent public scrutiny, and then hide it as a rider in the 100+ pages inserted the day before the bill was signed into law along with the state budget, effectively preventing any scrutiny.

What is CARB intent on hiding in WCI? Now, with a secret meetings get out of jail free card signed by Govenor Moonbeam, We may never know. Just like with the publicly funded Michael Mann fighting tooth and nail to prevent his emails from seeing sunshine, so it seems CARB has taken a cue from the behavior of climate science in general, and in a wave of the hand brushed aside the directive Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, deciding they know what is best for the people:

The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know.

Mary Nichols ? leader of a a criminal agency?

In my opinion, this flagrant and orchestrated criminal disregard of the California open meetings law is the epitome of unmitigated gall on the part of CARB, and specifically CARB director Mary Nichols who has made it clear she doesn?t give a rats ass about what the people of California have to say about her empire and how it operates.

At this point, when they decide they can hold themselves above the law that every other town board, council, and agency has to follow, I?m ready to declare CARB as an enemy of the people of California.

If you are a resident of California, complain loudly to your elected representatives and write your newspapers. The only way to fight this is with more sunshine.

One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure

- and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

- Jeff Cooper

Reply to
Gunner
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At the same time, skyrocketing HVAC costs have people buttoning up their homes and the stuffiness/chemical mishmash inside is causing more asthma than cars and factories combined. Does "a major cause" mean it's in the top three, top ten, or top 1,000?

Consider this. When factory smog devices fail, they upgrade to newer (if not the newest) technology which works much, much better than the one-or-more-generation older tech. Over a period of five years, perhaps half the old smokers (both vehicles and air-quality-reducing factory chimney devices) were being retired. Peter Huber pointed this out in _Hard Green_ if you wish to further research it.

Right, it doesn't usually happen that way, but lots of long-shots happen when you research things properly. Consider the Julian Simon/John Ehrlich bet. Ehrlich and Holdren (who is now Obama's science GOTO guy. =:0 ) wrote _The Population Bomb_. Their flawed "science" continues to haunt us in the shadows of the AGWK camp.

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While I'm entirely happy at the outcome (cleaner air), I prefer to go after the worst offenders rather than the next tenth of a billionth of a percent reduction of any given pollutant, as the EPA is wont to do.

And while we're on the enviro bandwagon, for members of our CONgress to -waive- the Clean Water Act, etc., for the farkin' frackers is outright treason against the country and its people. I believe heads should roll for that one. We have a limited supply of fresh water on Earth and it's already endangered both here and abroad.

-- Make awkward sexual advances, not war.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

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"the Gilroy Foods plant east of Highway 101 generates a garlicky odor that can spread all the way to the southern suburbs of San Jose, about 20 miles north."

Apparently the plant is open 7 months out of the year dicing, drying, packaging garlic and onion.

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There is even this site:

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bad they do not have a chart of past ratings.

Reply to
anorton

(...)

Ah! That could explain it. Thank you, Anorton!

Right now the air outside smells quite normal. Not 'Palo Alto' by a long shot but not garlic-y in the least. The stenchometer in your final cite is almost pegged but I see the wind direction is directly away from me. This is good.

Thanks again!

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

(...)

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Holy Crap!

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

What, precisely, are you "holy crapping" about?

According to the guy who did research for the movie GASLAND, there are over 500 nastyass (16 syllable) chemicals injected into the well bores and anywhere from 50 to 90% of them are recovered. Each well takes several million gallons of hydraulic fluids, so you can imagine why I'm really, really concerned about fracking. Please watch the movie and harass your CONgresscritters about the data. (It's available on Netflix for instant viewing if you have Netflix. It will literally scare the shit out of you, I guarantee, even if you believe only 5% of the info provided.)

I will never travel to Nawlins after seeing that movie. Consider that all the evaporation pools were washed into the lands on the coast of the Southern states during Katrina. 100,000+ wells with each of their several-million-gallon pools of chemicals washed into the soil there. FTN. I won't be visiting there _ever_, even if I wanted to. I'm wondering how the cancer/disease/death stats are ramping up even now...

-- Make awkward sexual advances, not war.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Same things that you are shuddering about. :) That our friends in the 'energy industry' are immune from prosecution for polluting ground water with the fracking process.

It's all the more tragic because we can divert existing abundant methane supplies for energy use without causing all that destruction.

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Holy Crap!

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

I got to the 3rd paragraph before it moved me to the home page. It appears that you have to sign in to stay and read that article.

Something smells funny (no pun intended, much) when they want $45k to convert a boiler from natgas to methane. Isn't that simply an orifice change, as they do for propane? The used appliance store did it for me for $25 in the old house. I miss that stove. DeVille, with 4 gas burners (one thermostat controlled), huge chrome griddle in the middle for pancakes, separate broiler with sliding scissor adjustable height mechanism. I'm on a nice, sedate glasstop electric now and things are a bit cleaner but considerably slower.

-- All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough. -- Anna Quindlen

Reply to
Larry Jaques

It doesn't really matter. Point is, methane is released as a waste product when bacteria digest biological matter. This fuel from our landfills and sewage treatment plants will float up into the atmosphere anyway. We might as well convert it to process heat and more benign CO2 on the way. For virtually free, why not? There are various small - scale point-of-use digester demo plants dotted about but AFAIK no large-scale conversion plants in place. That's unfortunate.

If it is really 'methane' then no change should be necessary. (Natural gas is mostly methane.) If it is 'biogas' then the CO2 really should be scrubbed from it to boost it's energy value before combustion. Else, I imagine a stove would require about double the flow rate to burn the stuff.

I *like* my natural gas stove.

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

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