From: "Tom xxx" Subject: Re: Netcast of Dec 5/6 CARB Workshop ?
> Hello again, > We are planning to broadcast via the internet. Check with me for details the > week of the workshop if you have any questions related to this. Thanks. The upcoming CARB workshop looks like it will be netcast. We will try to provide a link on evworld.com if possible. To the biofuelers: I am not sure this particular CARB meeting would be the appropriate forum for a biofuel advocate to make an out-of-nowhere stance, though it might not be inappropriate and in any case some of the CARB meetings would be. One thing is to subscribe to their notices, and then you can be the judge. Now, if anyone does present to Dr. Lloyd and others at such a meeting, I have a few further points to suggest as you are composing your thoughts: Remember that CARB's mission is *not* higher mileage nor to cure all environmental ills, etc. It is the California *AIR* Resources Board, and their mission seems to be centered on cleaner Air, which means cleaner emissions. I don't care that this also arguably means better mileage, because that argument has run them afoul recently of the Federales who have I think sued them or something. California has some sort of dispensation under Federal Law to establish emissions regulations different than other states, but I think the Feds said that since CARB's attempts at mandates seemed to have gone over into mileage, this then rendered their mandate attempts illegal or something. I don't know... very hard to follow, though obviously the Bush administration's main goal is simply to stop mandate attempts and have the Automakers left alone regardless. Also note that some of the finer points of better-emissions-vs.-higher-mileage have also played into the hands of GM and other auto makers who have spent their time suing CARB recently rather than attempting to make cleaner better EVs and other cars. I take it for granted, by the way, for the sake of discussion, that the ZEV mandate could in fact be done-for. The automakers and other opponents have lobbied zealously against it and have done an effective job. EV and other low-emission progressive-technology advocates were clearly too anxious to declare victory, when they thought they'd gained it. In my view, this played into the hands of the lawer-wealthy strategists. One biofuel point that I think needs to be made very badly, to CARB and others, is if we are seeing further instances of tax laws being used as a pretext to shut down smaller-company and home production and sales of biofuels. I am referring to the recent instances, in the United States and Britain, of tax collectors shutting down biofuel production on the reasoning that traditional fuel taxes were not being paid, largely because of the home-made nature of some of the biofuel companies, where somehow the traditional tax process was not in place. This stopping of biofuel efforts, it seems to me, is arguably a construct of the established Fuel Major Companies to stop a nascent effort to compete with them, and the more news and information and personal annecdotes we can get out there, the more someone like CARB can go to the Governor and make hard recommendations as to protecting nascent biofuel efforts from suffering this problem. I do not suggest that biofuelers deserve special treatment as against their competition, but use of tax laws as a pretext to stifle competition is unethical and we cannot take it for granted that it will stop unless something is done.
