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Apr 22, 2008 9:13 pm US/Mountain
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Ritter Orders Reports Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
DENVER (AP) ―
Gov. Bill Ritter wants to force big polluters to report their greenhouse gas emissions and draw up a plan to reduce emissions from cars to meet his goal of cutting the state's overall emissions by 20 percent by 2020.
Ritter signed an executive order Tuesday directing the state health department to start drafting the regulations in the next 24 months, one of three orders he issued fleshing out the climate change plan he released last fall. The order also says that the state needs to evaluate whether the state should allow any new conventional coal-fired power plants to be built and asks the department to make recommendations on alternatives within the next year.
Ritter is also setting up a program to allow farmers and ranchers to earn money for practices that help keep carbon compounds in ground and reduce fertilizer and methane emissions. He also established a 30-member panel to advise him on climate change.
Ritter said climate change stands to hurt the state's economy, including tourism, but that Colorado has an opportunity to be a leader in coming up with solutions because of its abundance of sun and wind but also brain power. He cited the 43 Colorado scientists who shared in the Nobel Prize with former Vice President Al Gore for their work on global warming.
"It's incumbent upon us in the West to show leadership," Ritter said a ceremony in the garden outside the Governor's Residence timed to coincide with Earth Day. Packages of insulation were lined up before the podium to help promote new rebates for people who insulate their homes.
Ritter acknowledged that the Bush administration has blocked California from imposing its own more restrictive auto emissions but said Colorado should still look at creating a proposal of its own to reduce tailpipe emissions. In coming up with the proposal, the order requires the health department to consider vehicle costs, high altitude driving conditions, and the potential short and long-term cost savings for consumers.
Ritter said he couldn't provide any details about how such a plan could potentially affect drivers because the plan hasn't been drafted yet.
Tim Jackson of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association said his group has talked to the Ritter administration about the idea but wants one national standard regulating emissions on new cars instead. He said the state would be better off focusing on getting the worst polluters, cars from the 1980s and 70s, off the road. His trade group is setting up a foundation to dispose of old cars and allow the owners to get a tax deduction for giving up their old cars.
"This will have a much more definitive impact than anything the state can do on new cars," Jackson said.
So far state government and 12 Colorado companies have volunteered to share their emissions with The Climate Registry, a group composed of 38 states as well as some Canadian provinces and Mexican states who want to track emissions. Colorado's members include two of its largest utilities, Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation & Transmission, as well as two large energy companies, Shell and Suncor Energy, which owns an oil refinery in Denver.
Colorado's 12 member companies means the state is second to California in participation in the registry, said Heidi Vangenderen, Ritter's senior adviser on climate change and energy. She said negotiations continue with other companies but she declined to disclose which ones. Other oil and gas companies and large manufacturers could be among the "major sources" of pollution the Department of Public Health and Environment has been ordered to draw up reporting requirements from, she said.
Dan Grossman, the regional director of Environmental Defense, praised Ritter for taking steps to fight global warming but said that many of his initiatives won't have a real impact until there's a national cap on carbon emissions, which would force polluters to trade credits to offset their emissions, such as from farmers.
"The real work is in front of us. Some of it will be here and some of it will be in Washington and some of it is international," said Grossman, a former state senator from Denver.
Bush Admin To Unveil New Fuel Economy Standards The nation's fleet of new cars and trucks will be required to achieve 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015, The Associated Press has learned.
Transportation Department Secretary Mary Peters was outlining the plan on Earth Day, setting a schedule that was more aggressive than initially expected by industry officials.
The plan responds to a new energy law pushed by Congress and signed by President Bush that requires the fleetwide average of new cars and trucks to meet 35 mpg by 2020.
New cars and trucks will have to meet a fleetwide average of 31.6 mpg by 2015, said a government official familiar with the proposal. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was not authorized to speak about the plan, which will set standards from 2011 to 2015.
Under the plan, the fleet of new vehicles will be required to achieve 27.8 mpg by 2011, with passenger cars achieving 31.2 mpg and pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans reaching 25 mpg by that year. By 2015, the efficiency of cars will be required to meet 35.7 mpg while the fleet of trucks would need to achieve 28.6 mpg.
The plan is expected to save $54.7 billion gallons of oil over the life of the new vehicles built between 2011-2015. It will add an average cost of $650 per passenger car and $979 per truck by 2015, the official said.
Transportation Department officials declined to comment on the proposal, which is expected to be finalized by the end of the Bush administration.
Automakers opposed increases to the regulations in previous years, but supported a compromise version of the legislation in Congress amid rising gasoline prices and concerns about global warming.
The regulations would require the industry to implement more than half of the fuel-efficiency requirements by 2015 and push them to build more gas-electric hybrid cars, diesel-powered trucks and SUVs and advances such as plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.
"These numbers are very challenging. They will stretch the industry to innovate in ways they haven't had to do in the past and will continue to set us on a course to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new autos," said Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co. and others.
Amid rising gasoline prices and concerns of global warming, Congress sought the tougher standards, requiring the nation's fleet of new vehicles to increase its efficiency by 10 mpg from its current average of 25 mpg, or a 40 percent increase.
The new law represented the first major changes to the auto mileage rules in three decades.
The fleet of new passenger cars is currently required to meet a 27.5 mpg average, while sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks and vans must hit a target of 22.5 mpg.
Members of Congress and environmental groups have pushed for higher standards, arguing that requiring vehicles to become more efficient would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the nation's dependence upon imported oil.
Democrats have said the fuel economy requirements will save motorists $700 to $1,000 a year in fuel costs and reduce oil demand by 1.1 million barrels a day when the more fuel-efficient vehicles are in wide use on the road.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)