Streetsblog San Francisco

The Obama administration got a lot of attention earlier this year when it raised fuel efficiency rules to an average 35 miles per gallon across the nation’s fleet of automobiles that will be produced between 2012 and 2016. Now the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT), have laid out an ambitious road map [pdf] to push tougher greenhouse gas emission and fuel economy standards for passenger cars and trucks built from 2017 through 2025, standards that hypothetically could push the national fleet average up as high as 62 mpg.

“We must, and we will, keep the momentum going to make sure that all motor vehicles sold in America are realizing the best fuel economy and greenhouse gas reductions possible,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Continuing the national program would help create a more secure energy future by reducing the nation’s dependence on oil, which has been a national objective since the first oil price shocks in the 1970s.”

Today’s report provides an initial assessment for a potential national program for the 2025 model year horizon and outlines next steps for additional work the agencies will undertake to meet the yet-to-be established GHG reduction goals. Depending on the scenario eventually chosen, the industry will have to reduce CO2 production across the national car and truck fleet from a minimum 3 percent (or the equivalent of 47 mpg) up to 6 percent (or the equivalent of 62 mpg).

The report outlines the costs and benefits of several approaches for reaching the targets (technology pathways A, B, C, or D), from focusing on reducing vehicle size and advanced gasoline, to relying on gas-electric hybrids and full electric vehicles (EVs). Rule makers assert that even the 6 percent target is achievable with existing technology, though the higher benchmark would require more hybrids and EVs within a manufacturer’s fleet. Read more…

No political battle in the upcoming November election is as easy to sloganeer as the battle over Proposition 23, a measure that would suspend the state’s landmark global warming law, AB 32. Depending on your point of view, the measure is either about “jobs over the environment” or “Texas Oil Companies Meddling in California.”

Across the state, the effort to repeal AB 32 at the ballot box has been lampooned as an effort by Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro to overturn a law that would, in the long run, severely reduce their bottom lines. And what if this reducing emissions thing catches on in other states? It could be a catastrophe for the oil industry.

The only high-profile politician who supports the measure is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Carly Fiorina. Democrat Jerry Brown, who is running for governor, is against it. So is the man he wants to replace, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Republican gubernatorial nominee, Meg Whitman, claims she is against it even though she embraces the idea of delaying the law for one year. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa laughs at it, and the Los Angeles Times editorializes against it. Senators Boxer and Feinstein? They’re both against it too.

This lack of political support is reflected in a Field poll released earlier this week that showed a an 11 point gap, 45 percent to 34 percent running against passage of the proposition. The bedrock of support for the measure seems to be the uneducated. The less time you’ve spent in the classroom, the more likely you are to support Proposition 23.

Read more…

In Washington, "grassroots lobbying" is more often associated with industry-funded issue campaigns than ground-up local advocacy. But residents of Detroit's industrial southwest neighborhoods took the term back to its roots on Friday, getting a personal visit from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials after a groundswell of complaints about decaying air quality.

From the Detroit Free Press' report:

Environmental Protection Agency officials watched intently Friday as a computer that measures air pollution on the spot showed spikes around industrial plants in southwest Detroit. ...

Next to the plants in the 48217 ZIP code and nearby areas are whole neighborhoods boxed in by oil recycling plants, asphalt makers, a steel plant, a stinky composting yard, a salt factory and an expanding oil refinery.

"This is what we live with," said [Jayne] Mounce, who lives near Marathon's oil refinery and petroleum terminals.

This week, Mounce said she had taken her own air samples with the help of national environmental monitoring group Global Community Monitor and found lead-laden dust, which could come from a steel mill nearby. A few months ago, similar sampling found a dangerous chemical in the air -- methyl ethyl ketone, a gas that can cause numbness, tremors and gait problems.

The story notes that EPA officials have "fewer than 50 air monitors" in the entire state of Michigan, where the industrial base has shrunk in recent years but remains a prime economic mover -- and generator of air pollution. Nonetheless, the Detroit residents' plea for stronger air quality standards is an unusual sight compared with the more common practice of localities seeking more lax rules or more time to comply with EPA pollution limits.

Methyl ethyl ketone, the gas found in local air sampling, is commonly found in manufacturing plant emissions as well as specific products such as industrial glue and the exhaust of cars and trucks, according to the Centers for Disease Control's toxic substances registry. In 2005 it was removed from the list of hazardous air pollutants regulated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act after a federal appeals court ruling that endorsed the move.

(Editor's note: This is the first of two stories by Streetsblog LA Editor Damien Newton on efforts to delay implementation of California's groundbreaking climate legislation.)

In 2006, the California Legislature passed, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed, Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), a landmark law that requires the state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. 

The legislation was the first of its kind in the United States and set a precedent numerous states have followed subsequently. For transportation reformers and environmentalists, AB 32 is important legislation that could still be a "game changer" in the way California thinks about transportation.

Thanks to a coalition of pro-business Republicans and the oil industry, however, there is a strong push to place a measure on this fall’s ballot to postpone the implementation of AB 32 objectives. Critics of the climate bill cite the current economic crisis as a valid reason to delay trying to clean California’s air. Assuming opponents of AB 32 can gather a minimum of 433,971 valid signatures to qualify their measure for the November ballot, voters will be asked to vote to "delay" the implementation of AB 32 until the state unemployment level dips below 5.5%.

While former Gubernatorial candidate and current Congressman Tom McClintock and Assemblyman Dan Logue, the figureheads in the anti-AB 32 campaign, aren’t members of the oil lobby, a recent New York Times article revealed that oil giants Tesoro and Valero have funded the anti-AB 32 measure on the ballot. Neither firm will either confirm or deny their involvement.

Steven Maviglio, of Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs took exception to the idea that AB 32 is bad for the economy, saying the new ballot measure would be the culprit in damaging the bottom line, particularly in the clean technology field. "This initiative would destroy the clean energy economy," he said. "There's more than $5 billion in venture capital, 3,000 businesses and 45,000 people employed in Clean Tech. This would take a wrecking ball to the only flourishing part of the economy."

Read more...

With the White House's agenda crowded by high-profile debates that remain unresolved after lengthy talks with Congress -- think health care, financial regulation, even unemployment benefits -- only a handful of lawmakers are publicly engaging with the dominant issues surrounding the next long-term federal transportation bill.

Within that group of lawmakers, however, there is palpable agreement that Washington needs to look at distributing its limited supply of infrastructure money based on measurable standards which would hold states and cities accountable for their decisions. The stimulus law's elevation of "shovel-readiness" above all other criteria for funding, in other words, looks poised to give way to a more balanced method of determining which projects get funded.

Of course, adopting broad standards for federal transportation spending is far easier said than done. At a Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) event yesterday, current and former members of Congress reckoned with the challenge.

Perhaps the boldest suggestion of the day came from Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), sponsor of the so-called "CLEAN TEA" proposal to guarantee clean transport a share of revenue from cap-and-trade climate legislation. Carper wondered whether the nation's mounting deficits make the case for replacing the formula-based system of federal transport spending with a set of goals that would determine which projects get funded.

Carper's four proposed goals were congestion relief, safety, air quality, and job creation, a list that resembles the "metrics" offered by the BPC in its June framework for transportation reform.

One of Carper's GOP colleagues, Sen. George Voinovich (OH), pronounced the concept "wonderful" as the BPC audience looked on. Voinovich described the House legislation offered in June by transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) as a major step towards a more accountable system, though some reform groups have questioned that bill's decision to let states and localities set their own transportation goals -- allowing a lot of wiggle room to develop.

Read more...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced
a new "one-hour standard" aimed at limiting Americans’ short-term
exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a pollutant created by cars, power
plants, and other industrial sources.

NO2,
a main ingredient in smog, is linked to adverse
respiratory health effects such as chronic asthma. In creating a new
one-hour NO2 exposure limit of 100 parts per billion (ppb), the EPA
noted that the risk of short-term NOX exposure is particularly acute
near major highways.

As EPA chief Lisa Jackson said in a statement:

This new one-hour standard is designed to
protect the air we breathe and reduce health threats for millions of
Americans. For the first time ever, we are working to prevent
short-term exposures in high risk NO2 zones like urban communities and
areas near roadways. Improving air quality is a top priority for this
EPA. We’re moving
into the clean, sustainable economy of the 21st century, defined by
expanded innovation, stronger pollution standards and healthier
communities.

The rule will be enforced by setting up monitors near roads in areas
with more than 500,000 residents, according to the agency, with a
deadline of 2013 for the beginning of pollutant tracking. The EPA said
it plans to work directly on 40 new monitors for cities and towns with
the most significant NO2 exposure.

It’s worth noting, however, that major cities have remained out of
compliance with EPA air-quality standards for years without
losing significant amounts of federal highway money, as the federal
government often threatens. Moreover, the EPA has not changed the
current annual NO2 standard of 53 ppb.

Urbanists often find themselves falling into a pattern of thinking
that boils down to the dictum that what’s good for drivers must be bad
for walkability, and sustainability, and all the things that they prize
about well-designed cities. Drivers seem to believe this too, which is
interesting because it often isn’t true.

Take performance parking.
Both urbanists (and drivers) seem to believe that it’s good (or bad),
because it makes parking more expensive, which is bad (or good) for
drivers. But this assumes that a free parking system, where open spots
are almost never available, is desirable for drivers.

That’s
like saying that a store that gives away bread for free — and which
subsequently never has any bread — is good for people who like eating
bread.

For the most part, thinking about congestion pricing
follows this same rule. Urbanists tend to like it because it makes
driving more costly and raises revenue for transit infrastructure.
Drivers tend to oppose it, because they don’t want to pay more to
drive. In fact, congestion pricing would be good for people who really
want to drive and good for people who’d like to have an alternative to driving.

This
message has been slow to sink in, but the fact that drivers may benefit
from congestion pricing may be beginning to resonate with urbanists.
Unfortunately — and so powerful is the
what’s-bad-for-drivers-is-good-for-cities mentality — the absorption
of this message has caused some urbanists to conclude that they’ve been
wrong all along, and that congestion pricing really is bad. If drivers might benefit, it must be the case that cities, and the earth, will not.

So writes the New Yorker‘s David Owen, in an extremely misguided piece in the Wall Street Journal.

By requiring car drivers to pay a fee to drive in a city
at peak hours, congestion pricing reduces traffic and raises money that
can be used to support public transit—both worthy goals.

Yet congestion pricing has dubious environmental value. Traffic
jams, if they’re managed well, can actually be good for the
environment. They maintain a level of frustration that turns drivers
into subway riders or pedestrians.

Read more…

Ever heard an anti-idling rap? Or Seen the "Funky Pollution Dance?" Tune in to this video to see what Livable Streets Education students are up to at MS 51 in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

The first of two Mission Sunday Streets is this weekend, opening up wide swaths of car-free space away from the city’s edges and in busy neighborhood streets where businesses are excited about the prospects.

"This is a great opportunity for us to showcase the 24th Street neighborhood, its culture, restaurants, parks and murals," said Eric Arguello, director of the Lower 24th Merchant and Neighborhood Association. "In these rough economic times this event will bring in much needed economic activity to the corridor. It's also an opportunity for us to promote our community based organizations and their services, and to create activities for our youth."

The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts will be hosting various events, including Danzas Aztecas performances. "It's an opportunity for our families, the children, and the neighborhood to come out and enjoy the day, to have a safe place to have activities," said board member Eva Royale. "I know many children have bicycles  that they don't know how to ride because they never have a place to ride them, so this is an opportunity.  Bring the family and enjoy the day."

The route will connect Dolores Park with Rolph Playground via Valencia and 24th Streets, two of the most crowded and important arteries in San Francisco. With streets closed from 10 am until 2 pm, organizers anticipate drawing large crowds and more pedestrians than previous Sunday Streets.

Mayor Newsom's Climate Director Wade Crowfoot admitted that the Mission event has raised challenges that weren't present on previous routes. 

"There is a lot of through traffic that would normally cross the route," he said. "What we've tried to do is minimize the number of intermittent traffic control stops that allow traffic through to provide a good experience for the people using the route but provide enough of these intersections that allow through traffic to not inconvenience the neighborhood."

Read more...