Environmentalists, labor union members and liberal activists across Southern California are mounting a protest Sunday in Rancho Mirage against billionaire "tea party" funders Charles and David Koch and their semiannual confab of conservative activists.

The brothers, who own oil refineries across the U.S., helped fund last November's Proposition 23, the failed ballot initiative to delay California's landmark global warming law, AB 32. They are major backers of groups that seek to refute scientific evidence of global climate change.

The Kochs' regular gatherings attract several hundred Republican officials and wealthy business executives to raise money for conservative causes. In the past, the Koch-sponsored conferences have attracted such luminaries as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas along with GOP members of Congress.

The counter-meeting, dubbed "Uncloaking the Kochs," will feature former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Oakland green energy activist Van Jones, and constitutional scholar Edwin Chemerinsky at a panel discussion at the Hilton Rancho Mirage, two blocks from where the Koch group is meeting. Protesters will rally afterward on the street.

"The Kochs will be able to see the protesters from their resort," said Derek Cressman, a spokesman for Common Cause, the nonprofit group that is organizing the event. More than 500 people have signed up so far to take buses leaving from Culver City, Los Angeles' Koreatown, the San Fernando Valley, Riverside, Whittier, San Bernardino and the San Diego area, organizers said.

In a conference call today, Reich said the Koch brothers' financing of Citizens United, a group that led the Supreme Court to lift restrictions on corporate funding of political campaigns, has "opened the floodgates" to wealthy contributors, widened the gap between rich and poor and enabled "billionaires entering the political fray big time."

De Ann McEwan, co-president of the California Nurses Assn., said her union and others were joining the protest because of the Koch brothers' opposition to Social Security and Medicare, which they have cloaked behind "Astroturf front groups."

RELATED: Billionaire Koch brothers back Prop 23

—Margot Roosevelt

Photo: Protesters in Wilmington picketed against Proposition 23 last fall. The  ballot initiative to delay California's greenhouse gas law was funded mainly by oil refiners including Valero Energy Corp., Tesoro Inc. and Koch Industries, the nation's second largest private company. Credit: Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times

Democratic senators from the California, Oregon and Washington state launched a new drive Tuesday to ban drilling off the Pacific coast but face long odds of getting the bill past the House’s new Republican majority, especially at a time of high gasoline prices.

The bill’s sponsors cited the economic and environmental risks of offshore drilling highlighted by last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill. “One of the lessons learned from the disastrous BP oil spill is that without a fundamental transformation of the oil industry, another spill is possible, even likely," said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), one of the sponsors.

A long-standing congressional ban on new Pacific offshore oil drilling expired in late 2008 as high gasoline prices became a hot political issue. Currently, the Pacific Coast is only protected by President Obama’s pledge that there will be no new offshore drilling, Cantwell said. The legislation, she said, would enact a permanent moratorium into law that could not be overturned at the whim of a future administration.

The bill could become part of an effort to pass new environmental safeguards for offshore drilling, a higher liability cap for spill damages and other measures in response to last year's spill. But even that effort has faced strong resistance in Congress from pro-production lawmakers who say it would increase U.S. dependence on foreign oil and threaten jobs.

Cantwell said, however: "More offshore drilling will not lower gasoline prices or reduce our nation’s dangerous overreliance on foreign oil, which is why we should be focusing on the promising clean energy alternatives that are better for consumers and can provide long-term sustainable solutions to America’s energy needs.”

“We cannot afford to put California’s coastal economy at risk by drilling offshore," Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said in a statement.  

-- Richard Simon, in Washington

Photo: A Plains Exploration & Production Co. platform off California's shores. Credit: Chip Chipman / Bloomberg

California and federal regulators will buddy-up when they release new clean car standards this fall, three state and national agencies said Monday.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation will coordinate with the California Air Resources Board when they simultaneously release proposed rules for vehicle fuel economy and carbon emissions on Sept. 1.

California has long been an early adopter of similar guidelines and is known for regulations that are often the strictest in the country. By agreeing to reschedule its announcement from the original March date, the state could be hoping to influence how the federal standards are developed, industry experts suggested.

“The vehicle manufacturers would certainly prefer a single national standard,” said John Boesel, chief executive of Calstart, a clean-transportation technology trade group based in Pasadena. “The California policymakers, if they agree to a single standard, would want to ensure it’s demanding enough to address the state's very serious air pollution challenges.”

A suggestion floated this fall from the Obama administration that new cars be required to reach 62 miles per gallon by 2025 met with backlash from the auto industry.

The EPA and the DOT had originally aimed for Sept. 30 to release their proposals, which will affect cars and light trucks in the 2017 to 2025 model years. The federal agencies say that the current standards for the 2012 to 2016 model years, adopted in April, will eventually save 1.8 billion barrels of oil and avert 960 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

A final set of rules will be approved by 2012. Automakers cheered the partnership between the agencies while urging them not to rush into any decisions about miles-per-gallon and emissions targets.

“The current process is still in the early stages, with much analysis needed on critical issues such as the costs of advanced vehicle technologies and potential impacts on vehicle safety and jobs," said Gloria Berquist, vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers in a statement.

RELATED:

EPA fuel economy labeling: Is there a better metric than MPG or MPGe?

Sales of electric cars might lack juice

-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo: Heavy rush hour traffic stands stationary on Interstate 10 in Los Angeles on Friday. Credit: Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg

Chinese turbines are now harnessing more wind power than machines installed in the U.S., according to a trade group Monday.

For the first time ever, the Asian giant’s capacity –- the amount of electricity that can be generated using wind –- blew past the U.S. to soar 62% to 41,800 megawatts. American-based turbines can produce up to 40,180 megawatts, a 15% jump from the beginning of 2010, according to a report from the American Wind Energy Assn.

The U.S. wind market had a rough year overall, ending 2010 with 5,115 megawatts of new installations –- just half of the record amount put up in 2009. The fourth quarter saw just 3,195 megawatts erected, a slide from the 4,113 installed in the same period in 2009.

The association blamed short-lived government subsidies.

But after a key incentive, the 1603 federal Treasury grant program, was extended for a year in December, the wind industry began to perk up. As 2011 begins, roughly 5,600 megawatts of wind power capacity is under construction, the trade group said.

Some new projects being hammered out include electricity prices set at 5 cents or 6 cents per kilowatt hour, which would make wind power competitive with natural gas, the association said.

“Our industry continues to endure a boom-bust cycle because of the lack of long-term, predictable federal policies, in contrast to the permanent entitlements that fossil fuels have enjoyed for 90 years or more,” said Denise Bode, the group’s chief executive, in a statement.

Companies have built utility-scale wind projects in 38 states so far. Texas leads the pack with 10,085 total megawatts of capacity, followed by Iowa with 3,675 megawatts.

California, which features the windy Altamont Pass and Tehachapi regions, lags in third place with 3,177 megawatts installed.

RELATED:

Congress extends federal Treasury grant program for renewable energy projects

U.S. has highest cumulative wind power capacity, China has most new capacity

Wind farm 'mega-project' underway in Mojave Desert

-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo: A China Resources New Energy Group Co. Ltd. employee stands on a wind turbine maintenance platform in Shantou, Guangdong province, China. Credit: Forbes Conrad/Bloomberg

 
A proposal from the wife of Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens to create a sanctuary in Nevada for wild horses removed from public rangeland around the West has been rejected, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Friday.

Madeleine Pickens' plan wouldn't save taxpayers' money and doesn't include enough water and forage for the mustangs, agency Director Bob Abbey told The Associated Press. He said the BLM spent considerable time with Pickens on her proposal, and is committed to pursuing public-private partnerships to improve its management of the symbols of the West.

“However, despite numerous requests from the BLM, (her) foundation has not provided a formal and detailed proposal so that the BLM can properly analyze and determine its feasibility,” Abbey said.

Pickens said the BLM failed to clarify what details it wanted, but she was not giving up. She bought two ranches in northeastern Nevada last year to serve as a sanctuary for mustangs captured from the range, instead of in government-funded holding facilities.

“I'm going to keep working with the BLM,” she told the AP. “It's like your children. You just have to keep working with them until they get it right. To me, it's sad we don't have the leadership to fix the issue of these poor American mustangs.”

Pickens first proposed establishing the sanctuary in 2008 after the BLM said it was considering euthanasia as a way to stem escalating costs of keeping animals gathered from the open range.The BLM rejected her initial proposal, saying it involved the use of public land where wild horses did not exist when the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was enacted in 1971.

Bloom Energy on Thursday announced a new financing program that cuts out the upfront cost of purchasing, installing and maintaining one of the company’s fuel cells and instead allows customers to buy only the clean electricity produced.

Chief Executive K.R. Sridhar touted the power purchase arrangement at an event at the California Institute of Technology that drew Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission regulatory body. See the full story here.

Also present: Arun Majumdar, director of the new federal Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, saying that the country is “in a Sputnik-like moment because business like usual is no longer an option.”

American-style energy consumption is no longer sustainable, he said, and “speed is of the essence” in ensuring that U.S. companies don’t miss out on alternative energy innovation taking place in other countries.

“We missed the IT boom, we missed the biotech boom and we’re not going to miss this one,” he said. 

A common assumption in models that game out what a warming planet will mean for plants and trees presumes they would migrate upward toward cooler mountain temperatures, such as the snowy peaks of California's Sierra Nevada. That has sparked concern that some species may die off when they cannot migrate higher.

It turns out that decades of old and new data show that many Sierra species have tended to migrate downhill over many decades, largely because of higher precipitation levels in central and northern California. It's unclear whether that wetter trend is part of a natural cycle or itself a result of a slowly warming planet. Some models predict parts of California will get wetter as the atmosphere warms because of the accumulation of greenhouse gases from human activity.

Times Staff Writer Bettina Boxall highlights the findings, part of a study appearing in the Jan. 21 issue of Science.

Read more on California climate change.

Related:

Three California ecosystems in danger, report finds

California climate disruption costs: billions and trillions?

-- Geoff Mohan

Photo: Early 20th Century image taken as part of a U.S. Forest Service survey of California flora. Credit: The Wieslander Vegetation Type Mapping Collection, courtesy of the
Marian Koshland Bioscience on Natural Resources Library, UC Berkeley.

"Parking management is a critical and often overlooked tool for achieving a variety of social goals," according to a new study released Wednesday by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in New York.

The study cited improved air quality, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced traffic congestion, improved road safety and revitalized city centers as the key benefits of parking reform.

Those benefits have been achieved in various European cities through a mixture of public policies, regulatory tools and physical design attributes, the study found. In Amsterdam and certain boroughs of London, for example, drivers pay more to park cars that emit higher levels of carbon dioxide. In Hamburg and Zurich, every new off-street parking space that is built is matched with the removal of one on-street space.

In Madrid, physical barriers are used to prevent parking in pedestrian pathways. In Copenhagen, parking spaces have been eliminated and repurposed into bike paths.

Other tools in use across Europe include increased parking fees to reduce parking space occupancy and the need for cars to cruise around searching for spaces; taxes on employers for each parking space available to employees; and limiting the number of parking spaces developers are allowed to build.

"What’s happening in China and India and many other rapidly urbanizing places is they are simply copying the model of the U.S. that has dominated urban development for the last 60 years," said Michael Kodransky, global research manager for the nonprofit group and co-author of its report, "Europe's Parking U-Turn: From Accommodation to Regulation." 

"What we found through this work is that Europe was on a very similar trajectory, but it started to shift away from just catering to increased demand. For a long time there was a connection between economic prosperity and motorization, and in Europe there's been a shift. Cities that are doing quite well are moving away from just catering to car access."

-- Susan Carpenter

Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Just 30% of Americans use white pages phone books to look up telephone numbers and addresses. Even fewer Americans (22%) recycle them, according to a study released Wednesday.

"If so few people use the phone book and recycle the phone book, we have an issue on our hands. That begs the question: What can we do about it?" said Alex Algard, chief executive of WhitePages.com, an online people and business search service that conducted the survey with the market research firm, Harris Interactive.

"One simple remedy here is to make the white pages phone book available only on an opt-in basis," Algard said.

White pages phone books have been around as long as the telephone -- since 1887, according to Algard.  About 70% of U.S. states require telephone companies to make and distribute phone books to their landline customers.

Burdened by the cost obligations, telecarriers such as AT&T and Verizon have been working with regulators in recent years to stop the automatic delivery of residential white pages. Florida, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are among the states that have granted Verizon permission to stop automatic delivery. AT&T has had similar success in certain counties in Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.

Eighty-seven percent of Americans favor an opt-in program for printed white pages, according to the survey. About 5 million trees are pulped and printed into white pages each year. And 165,000 tons of those phone books are put in landfills each year.  

-- Susan Carpenter

Photo: WhitePages.com

Green jobs at clean-tech or alternative-energy companies are flourishing in California, with nearly a quarter of them based in Los Angeles, a study has found.

Employers offering jobs in fields such as solar power generation, electric vehicle development, environmental consultation and more added 5,000 jobs in 2008. About 174,000 Californians were working in eco-friendly fields by early 2009, compared with 111,000 in 1995, said nonprofit research group Next 10.

The report, released late Tuesday, looks at the most recent data available, Next 10 said.

The so-called green workforce expanded 3% from January 2008 to January 2009 -– three times the growth of overall employment around the state. Standouts include the energy-generation sector, which includes renewable-energy efforts such as wind and hydropower.

"There's very few business sectors that can employ people across every region, especially in a state as big as California," said entrepreneur F. Noel Perry, who founded Next 10. "Green is providing a very solid foundation for future growth."

Perry credited state policies -- such as renewable-energy mandates and incentives for energy efficiency -- for supporting the "green economy."

The Bay Area grew the most, with an 8% jump in 2008. The region now represents 28% of green jobs and 26% of companies offering the positions.

San Diego saw a 7% increase as the local energy-generation industry –- primarily solar and wind companies -- beefed up hiring by 39% in 2008 compared with the year before.

In Orange County, which also did well, workers were hired to support the burgeoning fuel cell market, anchored by the National Fuel Cell Research Center at UC Irvine. Employment in clean transportation also jumped as newcomers such as hybrid electric vehicle maker Fisker Automotive moved in and employers drew from the region's strong auto heritage.

But green hiring is down slightly in both the Los Angeles area and the Inland Empire, where the impact of the economic downturn on the construction industry trickled into energy-efficiency retrofit companies. Green transportation companies buoyed the green economy there, developing battery technologies and alternative fuels such as algae.

RELATED:

'Green' growth is key to state, report shows

Job growth in California is going green

California climate disruption costs: billions and trillions?

-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo: Workers perform maintenance on equipment used to produce solar cell modules at the Solyndra Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif. Credit: Ken James/Bloomberg

Plug-in electric cars have been headline news for the better part of a year, with the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt finally entering the market as production cars. It's an unfortunate reality  that mass-produced plug-in electric motorcycles, which have been available to the public for almost three years, haven't been received with nearly as much mainstream-media fanfare.

Take the Zero Motorcycles DS, the third battery-electric model from the Santa Cruz, Calif., manufacturer. Priced at $9,995 (before applying a 10% federal tax credit) and costing less than one penny per mile to operate, Zero's DS is a more affordable commuter vehicle than a pure-electric car. If you're a motorcyclist, it's also a lot more fun to ride. 

Yet the DS is burdened with multiple barriers to entry, most significantly a price tag that is too high for what it is. Zero says the DS is capable of traveling a maximum of 50 miles per charge; however, riders who accelerate aggressively or who ride for sustained periods at the bike's 67 mph limit will find that range significantly compromised. Real-world riding yields 25 to 30 miles per charge.

Zero was kind enough to let me borrow a DS for a weeklong loan so I could see how it lives in the real world. The DS is Zero's dual sport model, capable of motoring on and off road. But despite its copious amounts of suspension travel (9 inches rear, 10 inches front), I was only able to test the DS on pavement because I live in the urban sprawl of L.A.. The bike's restrictive range prevented me from being able to get to any dirt without draining its 4-kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery pack. Popping a curb would have required me to first find an outlet, then wait four hours for the DS to recharge.

Considering its limited range, Zero would be better off reducing its off-road capability and dropping the saddle, which is 35.5 inches tall. The bike is lightweight (270 lbs.) and the saddle narrow enough that I was able to balance the bike, when stopped, on the balls of my feet. Still, in a time when most mainstream motorcycle manufacturers are dropping their saddles to lure the vertically challenged and literally lower the bar to help wannabe riders enter the sport -- trying to boost sales that have been in continuous decline for two solid years -- Zero's decision to outfit its DS with an NBA-style seat merely creates an additional barrier to entry for a bike that's already saddled with challenges.

The dramatic shrinking of Arctic sea ice and the Northern Hemisphere's glaciers and snowfields has reduced the radiation of sunlight back into space more than scientists previously predicted, according to a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience.

As a result, the ocean and land mass exposed by the melting ice and snow have absorbed more heat, contributing to global warming.

The "albedo" effect, in which the blinding white cover reflects sunshine, has been calculated in numerous computer-generated climate models. But the new study goes beyond those theoretical calculations. Using field measurements and satellite observations, a team led by University of Michigan researcher Mark Flanner found that the warming effect of the loss of snow and ice is "substantially larger" than was predicted in the estimates of 18 climate models.

On average, Earth's temperature has risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution, driven by the increase in heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other gases released by the burning of coal and oil. But the warming effect is uneven, with polar regions heating up much more than the lower latitudes.

Global warming skeptics have often claimed that climate models exaggerate ongoing climate change. But the new study of Arctic sea ice and snow on land documented the opposite: Climate models, in this important area, underestimate the effects. The findings add urgency to demands that the U.S., China and other major greenhouse gas polluters curb their emissions and switch to cleaner fuels.

Flanner and his colleagues measured ice and snow between 1979 and 2008. They found that ice and snow in the Northern Hemisphere are now reflecting on average 3.3 watts of solar energy per square meter back to space, a reduction of 0.45 watts per square meter over three decades.

In snow- and ice-covered regions, Flanner said, "observations show a stronger response to recent warming than anticipated." But he noted that the Arctic melting is just one of the major factors that will influence the future climate. "Changes in atmospheric water and clouds are the two other big players," he said.

RELATED:

The World in 2050: The Arctic and everything below

Obama faces a tricky decision on the polar bear

Global Warming: A rise in river flows

--Margot Roosevelt

Photo: Icebergs float in a bay off Ammassalik Island, Greenland. Summer sea ice in Arctic regions has shrunk dramatically over the past decade. Credit: John McConnico /Associated Press