Morning News Roundup (31 August)

Top Story: The Governator Goes Green (and Carbon)

• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders agreed Wednesday on a plan to cut by 25% the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from California electric power plants, refineries and other sources by the year 2020. It would make California the first state in the nation to fight global warming by slapping caps on carbon dioxide and other emissions.
  [...]
  Business interests, especially oil companies, were irate and said they felt abandoned by the Republican governor, who had pledged to work for a bill they could support. They accused Schwarzenegger and Democrats of cobbling together behind closed doors a haphazard bill that could create unintended economic chaos.
  [...]
  Environmental activists were satisfied with the compromise, although they had sought more stringent controls. They called the greenhouse gas reduction plan proposed for California more sweeping than a more limited effort by a group of Northeastern states to curb emissions from electric power plants.
  
  "For years, the world has been waiting for the United States to step up to the plate and do something about global warming. This bill is basically the first step," said Bernadette Del Chiaro, an advocate for Environment California. [LATimes]
  
  
• "I say the [global warming] debate is over. We know the science," Schwarzenegger declared forcefully at a recent United Nations summit. "We see the threat, and we know the time for action is now." [ABCNews]
  
  
• California has led the country in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through its renewable energy policies and a 2004 law reducing tailpipe emissions from vehicles. Ten other states are poised to enact California's auto rule, while more than 20 states have required utilities to eventually generate some power from renewable sources such as solar, wind and geothermal. [WaPo]
  
  
• In the short-to-medium term, this policy will leave California sitting pretty. The smartest first steps for combatting global warming -- ramping up conservation and efficiency, eliminating various market failures in the utility industry, and perhaps shifting taxes off of workers and onto carbon emissions -- will all be good for just about everyone involved: they'll allow consumers and businesses to lower their energy expenses or earn more money. Plus, establishing a market for carbon reductions is likely to unleash all sorts of creative solutions, from practically every sector of the state's economy -- and for a high-tech state, the spin-off benefits could be huge.
  
  Still, the state is taking a risk here. Have no doubt, someday, some energy-intensive business will announce -- with hoopla and fanfare, though perhaps a bit disingenuously -- that it's leaving California for a place where carbon emissions have no consequences. There could be -- will be -- political backlash, and a move to weaken the carbon cap.
  
  Which makes it all the more important for other states (paging Cascadia) to join in with California. If everyone's playing by roughly the same rules, there's no "race to the bottom" -- no attempt by businesses to flee to the places with the lowest standards. Expanding the carbon market beyond California's borders is the only sure way to lock in the state's gains.
  
  Plus broader carbon market would also create more options for businesses trying to comply with the law. For example, an energy intensive California business that needed to offset its carbon emissions could find low-cost opportunities in, say, Oregon, or Washington, or Idaho. And that could make carbon reductions into a profit center for an enterprising state. [Sightline's Daily Score]
  

Iran, So Far Away

• Iran's president defiantly refused to compromise as a U.N. deadline for his country to stop enriching uranium arrived Thursday, saying Tehran would not be bullied into giving up its right to nuclear technology.
  [...]
  The U.S. State Department has not said publicly what type of punishment it might seek. But U.S. and European officials have indicated they might push for travel restrictions on Iranian officials or a ban on sale of dual-use technology to Iran. The hope is to start with relatively low-level punishments in a bid to attract Russian and Chinese support, the officials have said. [WaPo]
  

• The European Union is ready to continue discussions with Iran over its nuclear programme even though a United Nations deadline for Tehran to restrict its nuclear activities expires on Thursday, diplomats have told the Financial Times.

  On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear monitor, will confirm that Tehran has refused to comply with a UN Security Council resolution that requires Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can generate both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material.

  But the report is also likely to note that Tehran has not accelerated its nuclear programme, a fact that Russia and China, both of which are resisting plans to impose sanctions on Iran, are likely to emphasise. [Financial Times]
  

• Kayhan reports that [Pers.] Ahmadinejad said, "Iran is not a threat to any country, and is not in any way a people of intimidation and aggression." He described Iranians as people of peace and civilization. He said that Iran does not even pose a threat to Israel, and wants to deal with the problem there peacefully, through elections:
  
  "Weapons research is in no way part of Iran's program. Even with regard to the Zionist regime, our path to a solution is elections."
  
  Ahmadinejad seems to be explaining what his calls for the Zionist regime to be effaced actually mean. He says he doesn't want violence against Israel, despite its own acts of enmity against Middle Eastern neighbors. I interpret his statement on Saturday to be an endorsement of the one-state solution, in which a government would be elected that all Palestinians and all Israelis would jointly vote for. The result would be a government about half made up of Israeli ministers and half of Palestinian ones. Whatever one wanted to call such an arrangement, it wouldn't exactly be a "Zionist state," which would thus have been dissolved. [Juan Cole's Informed Comment]

The Chimp in Winter

• “A crowd of thousands cheered Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson” at a protest of President Bush’s appearance in town yesterday, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Anderson called Bush a “dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights violating president.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• President Bush and his surrogates are launching a new campaign intended to rebuild support for the war in Iraq by accusing the opposition of aiming to appease terrorists and cut off funding for troops on the battlefield, charges that many Democrats say distort their stated positions.
  [...]
  Bush suggested last week that Democrats are promising voters to block additional money for continuing the war. Vice President Cheney this week said critics "claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing passivity toward Nazi Germany before World War II, said that "many have still not learned history's lessons" and "believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased."
  
  Pressed to support these allegations, the White House yesterday could cite no major Democrat who has proposed cutting off funds or suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would persuade terrorists to leave Americans alone. But White House and Republican officials said those are logical interpretations of the most common Democratic position favoring a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. [WaPo]
  
  
• Whether or not one subscribes to the geopolitical aims that motivated the Bush administration's intervention in Iraq, it is clearly invalid to assert that support for that war is the indispensable badge of one's willingness to confront terrorism. Only by adopting the techniques of the big lie can the vice president make his case that those opposed to the Iraqi war fail to understand the importance of a firm response to terrorists. In fact, given the deleterious effect it has had on our effort in Afghanistan, and the enormous boost it has given to anti-American forces around the world, the big truth is that the Iraq war has damaged our ability to fight terrorism.
  Americans were united in their response to the mass murders of 9/11. The war in Iraq has weakened the United States internationally and divided it domestically, while draining needed resources. It is precisely because the Iraq war is not defensible on any other terms that the Bush/Cheney approach uses the big lie to defend the war in Iraq on grounds that in fact describe the war in Afghanistan. [Rep. Barney Frank in an op-ed from the Boston Globe; hat tip to Steve Clemons' Washington Note]
  

Green Buildings

• Less water, less electricity, minimal construction waste and an urban location on the reclaimed grounds once home to a steel mill all helped REI’s new Pittsburgh store reduce its environmental impact. Combined with its other green efforts, the store has earned a LEED-CI (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Commercial Interiors) Silver rating from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). In 2004, REI earned LEED-CI Gold for its store in Portland, OR – the first retail store in the nation to receive that designation. Other green aspects of the store’s construction include locally manufactured and high recycled content materials, a contract to purchase electricity generated by wind power and a minimum of paints, coatings or carpets that emit chemical fumes. [Treehugger]
  
  
• Christianity Today has a feature article on considering sustainable design practices for new church architecture. LEED-accredited Douglas A. Spuler, principal at RNL Design in Denver and leader of the firm's church and parachurch market, notes, "One might argue that it can be a natural extension of the church's ministry to exercise their stewardship over God's earth." He adds that an environmentally active church can achieve a higher level of social responsibility, assume a leadership role in its community, create a healthier atmosphere for those who spend time in the church, and achieve considerable energy and other cost savings. [via my Hugg]