Environment Takes Center Stage As LNG Critics Vie for Equal Time
photo credit, Frank LamoneaPENMANSHIP—Governor Schwarzenegger engages in the symbolic signing of AB 32 at Pepperdine, giving out pens to commemorate the event. Among the recipients, the bill’s sponsor, local representative Fran Pavley (second from left).
photo, frank lamonea
LNG OPPOSITION—Gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides rouses local anti-LNG rally participants with a pledge to veto the Cabrillo Port terminal if he is elected.
photo, hanz laetz
PROTEST—An Angelides campaign worker dressed in an Arnold Schwarzenegger mask lets a plainclothes officer check out his Hummer. Sheriff’s deputies (inset) then handcuffed the man driving one of a fleet of Hummers with a sign proclaiming “Gas Guzzlers 4 Arnold” that showed up uninvited at the governor’s highly orchestrated greenhouse gas signing ceremony last week at Pepperdine University.
California’s major gubernatorial candidates both appeared in Malibu last week to take environmental stands, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger using the local coast as a backdrop for a bill signing photo opportunity, and challenger Phil Angelides promising to veto the local LNG terminal, if elected.
Schwarzenegger attracted a dozen TV cameras and live nationwide cable news coverage when he appeared at Pepperdine University to, for a second time in the day, sign Assembly Bill 32. The anti-greenhouse gas bill aims to place this state at the worldwide forefront of the fight against global warming.
“When I campaigned for governor three years ago, I said I wanted to make California number one in the fight against global warming,” the governor said. “This is something we owe our children and our grandchildren.”
The new law, the governor said, will shift California away from heavily-polluting fuels. “Using market-based incentives, we will reduce carbon-based emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020,” he said.
Angelides appeared at Bluffs Park two days later, to blast BHP Billiton’s Cabrillo Port LNG terminal, which critics say will increase California’s greenhouse emissions by five percent the day it is turned on. “I promise you that when I am governor I will veto this plant,” said Angelides, who is behind Schwarzenegger by 17 points in the latest Los Angeles Times poll.
“This would be a Hindenburg on steroids, and it doesn’t belong on this coast,” Angelides said, as about a quarter as many journalists looked on.
Malibu leaders were sent scurrying early in the week, when they learned that Malibu would be used as a prop in the governor’s sophisticated dual signing ceremonies, here and earlier in the day in San Francisco. On Monday, Councilmember Sharon Barovsky asked Malibu residents via an anti-LNG mailing list to assemble at Bluffs Park before the governor arrived, to give TV cameras a view of local LNG opposition.
“The governor is going to sign a bill to limit greenhouse gases, but it just doesn’t make sense when he is supporting a large industrial barge sitting in the middle of the ocean, spewing out greenhouse gases,” said Malibu Mayor Ken Kearsley at the Wednesday rally.
But up the hill, the governor did not endorse LNG as an ingredient in making AB 32 work, and ignored a reporter’s shouted question about Cabrillo Port. His aides, however, hastened to make it clear that the governor has not made a decision, and would not let his advisors’ business arrangements affect his judgment.
Two years ago, the governor said he supported the concept of Cabrillo Port, and several of his key aids and advisors have accepted million dollar contracts to lobby on behalf of LNG imports in general, and BHP Billiton in particular.
Former Schwarzenegger spok-esman Rob Stutzman and recall election advisor Mike Murphy work for a firm that has accepted a $1 million LNG lobbying contract. And Schwarzenegger confidante George David Kieffer, who is Maria Shriver’s personal attorney, heads a legal and lobbying effort for Cabrillo Port that has been funded by nearly $1 million from BHP Billiton.
“Absolutely not,” emphasized Adam Mendelsohn, one of several staffers who surrounded the local reporter after his shouted question interrupted the scripted signing ceremony. “Every decision the governor makes is based on the merits of the issue. Any suggestion otherwise is false.”
But Mendelsohn stressed that no decision has been made. “The environmental permits are still being negotiated and, until those steps are taken, the governor’s office is reviewing the entirety of the issue.”
Although AB 32 is billed as a greenhouse gas reduction tool, it really only sets up a goal for the California Air Resources Board to use market mechanisms, and government regulations, to force change, said Cheryl Carter who, as western director of the Natural Resource Defense Council, represented environmentalists over AB 32 negotiations.
Carter said she does not know if AB 32 will make it harder, or easier, for LNG imports to be piped ashore at Malibu, Oxnard or other locations. “We don’t see it as favoring one technology over another,” Carter said after the Pepperdine ceremony.
A major target for AB 32 is coal-fired electrical generation, and California utilities will probably have to switch to cleaner technologies. One of those technologies is increased natural gas electrical generation, which would require more imports.
Although major coal power companies said the bill won’t affect them, AB 32 was opposed by the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, and the state Chamber of Com-merce, both staunch LNG supporters. The business groups fear increased energy costs could drive companies out of California.
Last week, the Air Resources Board objected to some aspects of BHP Billiton’s proposed Malibu operation, including the fact that foreign gas, due to differing impurities, burns hotter than domestic natural gas.
Although LNG advocates claim that Australian natural gas is identical to American gas, air quality officials in several California cities say smog will be significantly worsened if “hot” foreign gas is imported into the state.
And the absence of trace amounts of two petrochemicals in regasified foreign LNG was blamed for a rash of gas leaks in suburban Maryland that resulted in one exploded house and $144 million in gas pipe damages last year, the Washington Post has reported.
Angelides, trailing Schwarzenegger badly with five weeks to the election, said he doesn’t think his opposition to Cabrillo Port has interjected partisan politics into the Cabrillo Port decision-making process. “I hope I forced the governor’s hand to do the right thing,” he said in an interview after Friday’s Bluffs Park rally. “This coast is a haven, a magnificent asset. Why would you risk this valuable asset?”
PROTEST—An Angelides campaign worker dressed in an Arnold Schwarzenegger mask lets a plainclothes officer check out his Hummer. Sheriff’s deputies (inset) then handcuffed the man driving one of a fleet of Hummers with a sign proclaiming “Gas Guzzlers 4 Arnold” that showed up uninvited at the governor’s highly orchestrated greenhouse gas signing ceremony last week at Pepperdine University.
• Gubernatorial Candidates Square Off over Pollution
BY HANS LAETZ
BY HANS LAETZ
California’s major gubernatorial candidates both appeared in Malibu last week to take environmental stands, with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger using the local coast as a backdrop for a bill signing photo opportunity, and challenger Phil Angelides promising to veto the local LNG terminal, if elected.
Schwarzenegger attracted a dozen TV cameras and live nationwide cable news coverage when he appeared at Pepperdine University to, for a second time in the day, sign Assembly Bill 32. The anti-greenhouse gas bill aims to place this state at the worldwide forefront of the fight against global warming.
“When I campaigned for governor three years ago, I said I wanted to make California number one in the fight against global warming,” the governor said. “This is something we owe our children and our grandchildren.”
The new law, the governor said, will shift California away from heavily-polluting fuels. “Using market-based incentives, we will reduce carbon-based emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020,” he said.
Angelides appeared at Bluffs Park two days later, to blast BHP Billiton’s Cabrillo Port LNG terminal, which critics say will increase California’s greenhouse emissions by five percent the day it is turned on. “I promise you that when I am governor I will veto this plant,” said Angelides, who is behind Schwarzenegger by 17 points in the latest Los Angeles Times poll.
“This would be a Hindenburg on steroids, and it doesn’t belong on this coast,” Angelides said, as about a quarter as many journalists looked on.
Malibu leaders were sent scurrying early in the week, when they learned that Malibu would be used as a prop in the governor’s sophisticated dual signing ceremonies, here and earlier in the day in San Francisco. On Monday, Councilmember Sharon Barovsky asked Malibu residents via an anti-LNG mailing list to assemble at Bluffs Park before the governor arrived, to give TV cameras a view of local LNG opposition.
“The governor is going to sign a bill to limit greenhouse gases, but it just doesn’t make sense when he is supporting a large industrial barge sitting in the middle of the ocean, spewing out greenhouse gases,” said Malibu Mayor Ken Kearsley at the Wednesday rally.
But up the hill, the governor did not endorse LNG as an ingredient in making AB 32 work, and ignored a reporter’s shouted question about Cabrillo Port. His aides, however, hastened to make it clear that the governor has not made a decision, and would not let his advisors’ business arrangements affect his judgment.
Two years ago, the governor said he supported the concept of Cabrillo Port, and several of his key aids and advisors have accepted million dollar contracts to lobby on behalf of LNG imports in general, and BHP Billiton in particular.
Former Schwarzenegger spok-esman Rob Stutzman and recall election advisor Mike Murphy work for a firm that has accepted a $1 million LNG lobbying contract. And Schwarzenegger confidante George David Kieffer, who is Maria Shriver’s personal attorney, heads a legal and lobbying effort for Cabrillo Port that has been funded by nearly $1 million from BHP Billiton.
“Absolutely not,” emphasized Adam Mendelsohn, one of several staffers who surrounded the local reporter after his shouted question interrupted the scripted signing ceremony. “Every decision the governor makes is based on the merits of the issue. Any suggestion otherwise is false.”
But Mendelsohn stressed that no decision has been made. “The environmental permits are still being negotiated and, until those steps are taken, the governor’s office is reviewing the entirety of the issue.”
Although AB 32 is billed as a greenhouse gas reduction tool, it really only sets up a goal for the California Air Resources Board to use market mechanisms, and government regulations, to force change, said Cheryl Carter who, as western director of the Natural Resource Defense Council, represented environmentalists over AB 32 negotiations.
Carter said she does not know if AB 32 will make it harder, or easier, for LNG imports to be piped ashore at Malibu, Oxnard or other locations. “We don’t see it as favoring one technology over another,” Carter said after the Pepperdine ceremony.
A major target for AB 32 is coal-fired electrical generation, and California utilities will probably have to switch to cleaner technologies. One of those technologies is increased natural gas electrical generation, which would require more imports.
Although major coal power companies said the bill won’t affect them, AB 32 was opposed by the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, and the state Chamber of Com-merce, both staunch LNG supporters. The business groups fear increased energy costs could drive companies out of California.
Last week, the Air Resources Board objected to some aspects of BHP Billiton’s proposed Malibu operation, including the fact that foreign gas, due to differing impurities, burns hotter than domestic natural gas.
Although LNG advocates claim that Australian natural gas is identical to American gas, air quality officials in several California cities say smog will be significantly worsened if “hot” foreign gas is imported into the state.
And the absence of trace amounts of two petrochemicals in regasified foreign LNG was blamed for a rash of gas leaks in suburban Maryland that resulted in one exploded house and $144 million in gas pipe damages last year, the Washington Post has reported.
Angelides, trailing Schwarzenegger badly with five weeks to the election, said he doesn’t think his opposition to Cabrillo Port has interjected partisan politics into the Cabrillo Port decision-making process. “I hope I forced the governor’s hand to do the right thing,” he said in an interview after Friday’s Bluffs Park rally. “This coast is a haven, a magnificent asset. Why would you risk this valuable asset?”
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