California approves carbon-based reductions in transport fuels

California becomes the first state in America to mandate carbon-based decreases in transportation fuels

McClatchy newspapers
guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 April 2009 16.02 BST

California became the first state in America yesterday to mandate carbon-based reductions in transportation fuels in an attempt to cut the state's overall greenhouse gas emissions.
The California air resources board approved a phased-in reduction starting in 2011, with a goal of shrinking carbon impacts 10% by 2020. Fuel producers can comply in different ways, such as providing a cleaner fuel portfolio, blending low-carbon ethanol with gasoline or purchasing credits from other clean-energy producers.
California's low-carbon fuel standard could lead to a national measure under Barack Obama, as well as shape how the transportation sector evolves. But businesses and oil industry critics warned that more research is necessary and that its action would lead to higher costs for consumers in a recessionary economy.
Board chairwoman Mary Nichols hailed the low-carbon fuel standard as a major step in moving the country away from oil dependence and toward alternative fuels that generate lower greenhouse gas emissions.
"By changing the way we think about fuels and requiring them all to be lower carbon, I think we are now finally creating an opportunity for other types of advanced transportation to compete on a level playing field," Nichols said.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, asked the air board in 2007 to consider a low-carbon fuel standard as way to meet the state's overall goal of cutting greenhouse gases 25% by 2020, as mandated by a 2006 law.
The air board looked at the entire carbon "intensity" of fuels, rather than the impact of emissions from use alone. That meant considering the emissions from the start of production to lasting impacts not directly related to fuel supply.
That led to some controversy over the air board's regulations dealing with corn-based ethanol producers.
A staff analysis assigned additional greenhouse-gas consequences to their fuels alone based on the potential impacts that ethanol production has on forests and green space. The theory is that increased ethanol production reduces the existing amount of farmland for food crops, which in turn leads to cultivation of untouched land that previously captured carbon.
Ethanol advocates challenged the report's findings, disputing that their corn-based production had a significant impact on greenhouse-gas increases elsewhere. But they also suggested that petroleum and other fuels were not given the same treatment.
The air board promised to work with ethanol producers to update formulas related to the indirect effects of fuels as warranted by future research. But it stood by its findings that other fuels did not have significant indirect impacts.
"The preliminary analysis is there is no other fossil fuel option that has any direct land use effect that comes anywhere near any of the biofuels," said Daniel Sperling, an air board member and a University of California-Davis transportation studies expert. "We will be looking carefully to make sure that initial assessment is correct. But I do want to make it clear there was no effort just to focus on the biofuels."