SMOGTOWN

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in this press release that Anne Sholtz, a then-high-flying entrepreneuer instrumental in creation of the planet’s first smog cap-and-trade, had admitted to defrauding an obscure New York-based energy trader called AG Clean Air. Sholtz’s little-noticed plea and corporate bankrutpcies ignited a mess that still has many smarting and confused, while giving global warming skeptics such as Texas Rep. Joe Barton ammunition to question the prudence of Pres. Obama’s hope for a greenhouse gas market. Oh yeah, there’s also this issue of whether Sholtz, a former Caltech economist and owner of a resplendent mansion, perpetrated an earlier fraud –with the supposed help of ex-CIA and military operatives — that never went investigated or flagged by authorities. See my story about her and “Operation Bald Headed Eagle” for the particulars.

Now, lookie here. The apparent parent company of AG Clean Air,  is one of the creditors of the Tribune Corp. bankruptcy. For those who don’t know, Tribune owns the Los Angeles Times, our hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune and other media assets. As this story shows, former Disney chief executive Michael Eisner is bidding to become Tribune’s post-bankruptcy chairman.

Here’s a crucial passage: “… Tribune and its creditors are still struggling to negotiate a settlement around charges that (Sam) Zell’s 2007 leveraged buyout was a case of “fraudulent conveyance,” meaning the transaction rendered the company insolvent from Day One. That settlement would serve as the basis for a plan of reorganization, but depending on how negotiations go, it could be months in coming or the case could easily devolve into litigation.

Nobody in the case doubts that senior creditors led by money center bank JPMorgan Chase and two hedge funds, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and Oaktree Capital Management, will end up owning Tribune by virtue of their $8.6 billion in claims …”

In a earlier article, the L.A. Times depicted Angelo, Gordon & Co. as a “distressed-debt hedge fund.” Here’s the company’s website, so judge for yourself.

When I contacted the company for comment about my last story on Shotz last summer, the PR flack initially denied there was a connection between AG Clean Air (which apparently stood for Angelo, Gordon Clear Air) and Angelo, Gordon & Co. until I disputed otherwise and said the court documents show the exact same New York address for both entities: 245 Park Ave., 26th floor, New York, NY 10167.

Coincidene? I think not.

Whether AG Clean Air still exists is not clear. That the parent is the same one entangled in the debacle that Sam Zell created with his highly leveraged Tribune purchase some years back seems undeniable.

How Sholtz and AG fit into the L.A. air-pollution saga is detailed and contexualized in our book, Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles.

* The law of unintended geology – how the Haitain quake will reverse ecological repair. From the Newsweek story

” … Since the earthquake decimated Haiti’s capital city, much has been said about the country’s dire poverty. But Haiti is not only the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere; it’s also the most environmentally degraded. Less than 1 percent of its original forest cover remains, and 6 percent of the land has virtually no soil left. Both are due to a vicious cycle of overpopulation, poverty, and natural disasters. Each increases susceptibility to the other and as time wears on, it’s evident that to be effective, all problems must be attacked at once. For what some say was the first time, scientists were trying to do just that—Levy and Fischer’s work was among the first steps toward a more integrated development program addressing both economic and environmental concerns. Now that work has been put on hold …”

* Here come the fast-talking men from L.A. again – interesting piece on turning pillaged Owens Valley into a giant solar energy farm. From the L.A. Times story:

“First it was silver ore that streamed to Los Angeles from the rim of the Owens Valley, then the water from the valley floor.

Now, L.A. has come back for the sunshine.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the agency responsible for turning Owens Lake into a dusty salt flat and snatching up nearly every acre from Lone Pine to Bishop, has its sights on transforming the Owens Valley into one of largest sources of solar power in America …”

* Erin, where art thou? An update on the legal career of activist Erin Brockovich. Los Angeles Business Journal story

* Pretty good story from the L.A. Weekly about the health effects of living near freeways. Their toxic, as if we didn’t know that. Some relatively new studies here and a rambling search for City Hall accountability. Link

* Steak AND Smog: the cows of the Central Valley and the greenhouse- methane problem. L.A. Timesstory

* A potential game changing way to produce electricity at home with a fuel cell that combiones air and different fuels without combustion. Think of the countless benefits. L.A. Times link:

From the story titled, Electrical pollution from cell phones and WiFi may be hazardous

“In 1990, the city of La Quinta, CA, proudly opened the doors of its sparkling new middle school. Gayle Cohen, then a sixth-grade teacher, recalls the sense of excitement everyone felt: “We had been in temporary facilities for 2 years, and the change was exhilarating.”

But the glow soon dimmed.

One teacher developed vague symptoms — weakness, dizziness — and didn’t return after the Christmas break. A couple of years later, another developed cancer and died; the teacher who took over his classroom was later diagnosed with throat cancer. More instructors continued to fall ill, and then, in 2003, on her 50th birthday, Cohen received her own bad news: breast cancer … ”

This one falls under the environmental “Duh” category. Can you believe that Chinese smog drifts over the Pacific Ocean, adding to the West Coast’s pollution problem. It’s only a phenomenon that’s been heavily reported for years, and makes it way into our book, Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution In Los Angeles based on a 2005 Wall Street Journal story. Well, the L.A. Times is catching up. Hooray. They can use a “recent study” to explain why they’re just awakening to a seriously scary pattern of atmospheric assault. Story link.

“Ozone from Asia is wafting across the Pacific on springtime winds and boosting the amount of the smog-producing chemical found in the skies above the Western United States, researchers said in a study released Wednesday.

The study, published in the journal Nature, probes a phenomenon that has puzzled scientists in the last decade: Ground-level ozone has dropped in cities thanks to tighter pollution controls, but it has risen in rural areas in the Western U.S., where there is little industry or automobile traffic.

The study, led by Owen R. Cooper, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado, examined nearly 100,000 observations in the free troposphere — the region two to five miles above ground — gathered from aircraft, balloons and ground-based lasers.

It found that baseline ozone — the amount of gas not produced by local vehicles and industries — has increased in springtime months by 29% since 1984. The study has important implications both for the curbing of conventional pollution that damages human health and for controls on greenhouse gases that are changing the planet’s climate, experts said.”

Finally, Bill gets a little digital ink in the Huffington Post with a book review about the Southwest’s perennial drought. That silky prose dances on the page.

From the Los Angeles Times story:

“The Environmental Protection Agency proposed the nation’s strictest-ever smog limits this morning, a move that could put large parts of the country in violation of federal air quality regulations.

The EPA proposed allowing a ground-level ozone concentration of between 60 and 70 parts per billion, down from the 75-ppb standard adopted under President George W. Bush in 2008.

That means cracking down even further on the emissions from power plants, factories, landfills and motor vehicles which bake in sunlight and form smog.

Obama administration officials and environmental groups say the new standards align with the levels scientists say are needed to safeguard against increased respiratory diseases, particularly in children, and that they could save $100 billion in heath costs over time. The EPA also said compliance costs could total up to $90 billion nationwide.

A 65-ppb standard — the middle of the proposed range — would avert between 1,700 and 5,100 premature deaths nationwide in 2020, compared to the 75-ppb standard, the EPA estimates. The agency projects the stricter standard would also prevent an additional 26,000 cases of aggravated asthma, compared to the Bush-era standard, and more than a million days when people miss work or school …”

If you read our book, Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, you’d know ozone sounds whimsical but is pretty deadly.

Can the GM Volt really get 230 MPG? Story

If you’re skeptical about that, how do you feel about carbon sequestration. Count us as skeptics here, until that “ah-ha” moment of truth in science and consensus in D.C. Link.

The public’s de-prioritizing environmental cleanup during hard economic times is both common sense and old hat in Los Angeles, where anti-smog campaigns often were killed, delayed or made all marshmellow-like whe those jobless numbers went up and the booster types snarled that detoxifying the air was polluting the California business cliimate. Read our book Smogtown for a stroll down memory lane. This latest poll is pretty insightful about the American mind right now.

Idealab and solar power. What a marriage! Story.

Of all the recent enviro stories, this one from the New York Times about how climate change may wind up being a national security threat might be the most important.