Ow, that’s gotta hurt. CA’s 2006 Global Warming law – denied.
Federal judge blocks California low-carbon fuels rule
Chico Enterprise Record
FRESNO — A federal judge moved today to block California from enforcing its first-in-the-nation mandate for cleaner, low-carbon fuels, saying the rules favor biofuels produced in the state.
The lawsuit challenging the state regulations, which were adopted as part of the state’s landmark 2006 global warming law, was filed in federal court last year by a coalition including the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association and the Consumer Energy Alliance.
Fresno-based U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence O’Neill’s written ruling Thursday said the low-carbon fuel rules violated the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause by discriminating against crude oil and biofuels producers located outside California.
Out-of-state fuels producers hailed the decision as a win for California drivers.
Full story at Chico Enterprise Record
The decision is not a victory for ‘big oil’ or even a victory for common sense. It is simply a decision by Fresno-based U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence O’Neill who has applied the law.
Judge Lawrence O’Neill has simply done his job… expertly and professionally… without fear or favour. And thank God for that!
Pasqetty says:
December 29, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Without a doubt you are right. And you will proudly advance the proletariat in the next “Great Leap Forward” by moving to a collective farm where you will grow food for yourself and your comrades.
Doug Danhoff says:
“The most efficient pac[k]aging of solar energy is fossil fuel. It is natures gift”. What a beautiful idea. So how wicked of the warmists to demonize coal which has delivered prosperity to so many people.
In Australia the idiotic Greens actually want to shut down coal-fired power stations, even though Australia has centuries worth of high quality black coal.
Sounds like some common sense peeking over the battlements. Let’s hope it prevails.
While this represents a moment of good news, the news out of the UK is not so good for consumers. as those who suckle on the govt teats have, for the moment, beat back an attempt to cut subsidies to users of solar … see:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/30/solar_court/
Random question – how did California manage to pass its “California Emissions” law on new in state vehicle sales several decades ago? That seems to me to run afoul of the interstate commerce clause too. Did auto manufacturers just figure Californians would still buy cars, that perhaps Detroit could get a jump on the imports for a while, and therefore didn’t fight the law? Or perhaps they figured the California standard would become nationwide and that California would be a decent testbed.
I can see the steam vents coming from EnRomm.
alGore desired a carbon free world and offered a target date. There is no way to build wind turbines without burning massive amounts of coal and petrol in building the towers. All this ideology will never work out in reality.
Just remember, most Californians don’t understand carbon. Organic food means carbon based. Next up inorganic diet? Also these greenies voted for Nanny Pelosi who stated natural Gas is NOT a fossil fuel.
We, the members of the Illinois corn cartel, applaud this wise judicial move. We grow corn, not jobs!
It is time to recall that Jerry Brown’s monicker, some decades ago, was Jerry ‘Medfly’ Brown’out’.
The original intent of the Commerce Claus applied. I’m stunned.
[quote]Jake says:
December 29, 2011 at 9:33 pm
What was this judge’s reasoning regarding the commerce clause? Is the idea that since the federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce, the states do not?[/quote]
That is the usual interpretation. The clause came about due to states regulating interstate commerce for their own benefit.
Cows eat grain and grass, right? Steaks and fossil fuels are both forms of concentrated biomass energy.
~More Soylent Green!
E. M. Smith says…. “At some point I fully expect our Loons in California to ban Diesel and Gasoline entirely.”
They even have data to justify taking your and my older Diesel MB off the road: From the 2010 CARB timeline- http://www.arb.ca.gov/html/brochure/history.htm
“Based on a new U.S. EPA methodology, ARB determines that 9,000 people die annually due to the amount of fine particle pollution in California’s air. The new methodology established that fine PM has a causal link to premature mortality.”
Back in 1998 “ARB identified diesel particulate emissions a a toxic air contaminant.”
The start of the process to make it harder to have an older diesel was put in place was last year. Diesels manufactured in 1998 and after are now included in the biannual smog check evaluations.
I have very bad memories of MTBE.
1) My mileage (miles per gallon of fuel) went down something like 10% with the MTBE blends and my cost for a gallon of fuel went up 10 to 20%. Given that I had to run 10% more fuel through my engine the stated benefit of reducing pollution was offset my by using more fuel to travel the same distance.
2) My fuel line seals in my older vehicle started breaking down. No fire in my vehicle as I caught the unintended consequence of MTBE before the leak caused a major problem. Others weren’t so lucky. “MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) was supposed to help clear air pollution by making gasoline burn cleaner. But as the I-Team showed you in the mid-90s, it ate away rubber fuel lines in cars, leading to fires and recalls. But, MTBE was not banned until the suspected carcinogen started showing up in drinking water.
“It is simply unacceptable to clean the air by polluting our groundwater,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in 1999.” http://www.cacoastkeeper.org/news/years-later-mtbe-still-a-danger-to-water-supply
Interesting side note:
“Today, we look at the ruling’s impact.
Over the past several months, the Digest and other media noted that California was importing ethanol from Brazil, a 6000 mile, diesel-churning tanker haul.
Now, before the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard was put into place, California would have sourced its ethanol needs from, say, Nebraska, some 1200 miles to the east.
The 6000-mile trek was justified, said the authors of the low-carbon standard, on the basis that Brazilian ethanol was produced with a much lower carbon intensity than the aforementioned Nebraskan ethanol.
So, what was happening to the offending gallons from the Nebraska? Were they no longer produced at all?
Actually, they were being exported via a 6000 mile, diesel-sucking tanker haul to Brazil, to make up for the shortfall in the Brazilian market.
Same ethanol molecule, same emissions when burned.
12,000 miles of hauling, instead of 2,400, to burn the same tankfuls of molecules. All in the name of reducing carbon emissions.”- http://biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2011/12/30/us-federal-court-issues-injunction-against-california-low-carbon-fuel-standard/
So who is really making the money here? Years ago when Oil prices were regulated by the government they found that domestic produced oil had to be sold at a set by the government price, but imported oil was at market value……. so to get around the regulation the domestic oil on paper was exported then an equal amount crude oil was then imported at market value all the time the oil never left the storage tanks. So the question becomes did the tax payer subsidized bio fuel actually leave the country?
Presumably in the judge’s written ruling he has declared *why* the law is unconstitutional. In order to reverse that ruling the 9th Circus Court will have to *prove* why the law is *not* unconstitutional. As any mathematician or physical scientist can attest, proving something is *not* such-and-such is a far more difficult task.
’81 – ’85 Mercs here run on straight veggio oil (properly filtered, allowing solids to settle out, etc) during warmers months of June, July, August into Sept. in Texas … blended with diesel Oct. into Nov. when by the end of that month its back to straight diesel for the cold winter weather ’til it warms back up in March …
’81 300TD (a ‘wagon’ with a 3-liter, turbocharged inline 5-cylinder engine for those not familiar) driver here more on account of its nonexistent EMI/RFI signature (makes working 160 meters thru UHF a dream sans the usual ‘spark’ ignition noise most ops have to put up with on a gasoline car) on account of the mechanical fuel injection system.
.
And this is a State that already cannot provide for its energy needs, the highest in the nation, in any category.
It could. But it chooses not to.
This will certainly affect a further decline of US Toyota Prius sales despite the Green hype and the Toyota promotion:
US Toyota Prius Sales
2007 – 181,200
2008 – 158,600
2009 – 139,700
2010 – 140,900 (Thro’ Sept – 103,300)
2011 Thro’ Sept – 93,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius
http://business.financialpost.com/2011/11/18/toyota-expects-prius-sales-to-jump-as-oil-prices-climb/
As well as gas prices, no doubt Prius Sales are affected by many other factors such as by belief in AGW (perhaps they match global temperature) so 2012 sales should be worth watching.
Out-of-state fuels producers hailed the decision as a win for California drivers.
———-
Yeah sure. What’s the likelihood that they would publically hail the decision as a win for themselves. Even though that would be the honest response.
Mexico, South America, Europe, and most of Asia (China, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.) use MTBE with no problems. It is a growing market now, years after California banned it. Japan uses ETBE, which is very similar to MTBE. The US and Brazil are essentially the only places where it is not used, due to abundance of ethanol as means to add oxygen to fuel. Also, it would have helped to implement the underground storage tank regulations BEFORE introducing MTBE into the gas pool, like every other nation did. It has been proven that adding oxygen in the fuel reduces air pollution (CO, VOC, etc.). So, the oxygen has to come from somewhere. Also, MTBE is a great way to get methanol (from natural gas production) into the gas pool (key molecule of MTBE). MTBE is 10 times the blend component as ethanol for many reasons (vapor pressure, can be pipelined, etc.).
Finally, for you California nuts, MTBE is not a proven carcinogen, but Ethanol is. Somehow it is okay to put ethanol in the gas pool, but not MTBE.
Oxygenates used to reduce CO when a significant fraction of the automobile fleet lacked modern emission controls. Today they only reduce mileage. Energenically, it is better to get the oxygen from air rather than the fuel..
VOCs are largely due to vapor pressure and a properly formulated hydrocarbon fuel is just as good as that containing MTBE.
“What was this judge’s reasoning regarding the commerce clause? Is the idea that since the federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce, the states do not?”
— To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
If any state can dictate the terms of commerce with another state, then the federal government isn’t regulating it at all…. the state has siezed that power for itself. While CA might not have banned energy importation from TX, it’s the same principle that’s being laid out.
— The significance of the Commerce Clause is described in the Supreme Court’s opinion in Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005):[3][4]
— “The Commerce Clause emerged as the Framers’ response to the central problem giving rise to the Constitution itself: the absence of any federal commerce power under the Articles of Confederation. For the first century of our history, the primary use of the Clause was to preclude the kind of discriminatory state legislation that had once been permissible. Then, in response to rapid industrial development and an increasingly interdependent national economy, Congress “ushered in a new era of federal regulation under the commerce power,” beginning with the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887 and the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890.
When you combine that with the 14th ammendment….
— No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
A fuel station owner is being prohibited from his choice of vendors due to a state law. The citizens of california are prohibited from equal access to markets, etc. Interstate commerce without undo barriers is a privilege of the citizens of the United States.
Note that I haven’t read the judges actual ruling, but this is how I see it.
“Random question – how did California manage to pass its “California Emissions” law on new in state vehicle sales several decades ago? That seems to me to run afoul of the interstate commerce clause too. Did auto manufacturers just figure Californians would still buy cars, that perhaps Detroit could get a jump on the imports for a while, and therefore didn’t fight the law?”
There’s a difference… California passed a law which made it illegal for people to buy vehicles which didn’t conform to a certain specification. Car manufacturers in detroit, Japan, Korea, etc, can build cars according to those specifications and sell the cars to Californians.
In this case, it appears that the law says that Biofuels from Iowa are not being treated the same as Biofuels from California, EVEN WHEN THEY’RE IDENTICAL PRODUCTS. That’s why the judge struck it down. If california had just favored biofuels over fossil, they’d probably be ok legally (it’s stupid, but probably legal.)
LazyTeenager:
Regular readers of this blog know you are unaware of what honesty is and, therefore, your comment at December 30, 2011 at 3:19 pm has no meaning and no value.
Richard
R. Shearer says:
I disagree with this assertion.
I had tuned my last car to properly use Ethanol blended fuel. I was easily able to exceed 40MPG on the highway, often approaching 45. It was also capable of 12-second quarter mile times (I love turbos…)
My current car, which I cannot tune (stupid security crap all over the engine controller) is lucky to hit 25MPG on the highway with factory tuning.
I’d say your assertion is missing a few words, to wit: “With today’s poor engine controller firmware and incorrect fueling calculations, oxygenates in fuel reduce mileage, in spite of the potential for the opposite.”
By the way, my last car was a 2800lb 1987 Daytona Shelby Z, with a completely reprogrammed ECM. My current car is almost structurally identical, a 3200lb 2008 Caliber SRT4. The slight difference in displacement, mass, and frontal area does not account for the dramatic decrease in mileage.