Air Resources Board

News reports say federal officials are to negotiate auto emission and fuel-efficiency standards with California. But the state's air regulators haven't heard from Washington yet.

A court ruled today that the Environmental Protection Agency must identify regions of the country that exceed federal smog levels, giving another win to California and other states that have sued to compel the regulator to enforce the Clean Air Act.

Normally upbeat officials are guarded about the prospects for success.

Last year’s drop in California emissions came not through drastic pollution reductions from oil refineries nor the state’s lauded cap-and-trade program. It was the rain.

The underbelly of cap and trade: Letting industries buy carbon credits or offsets, rather than modernize old equipment, means pollution in many poor communities could get worse.

As the quieter ‘companion bill’ to Monday’s cap-and-trade extension legislation, Assembly Bill 617 sought to placate environmental justice advocates who have increasingly complained that the state’s globally ambitious climate policy overlooks a local problem: poor California communities living in the shadow of polluters. The bill, sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia of Bell Gardens, was […]

A new generation of legislators and the growing clout of eco-advocates from urban communities is changing the focus of environmental debates in California. Once sidelined as a fringe voice of activism, the “environmental justice” perspective—focused on how environmental decisions impact poor communities and people of color—is now at the center of high-profile deliberations.