Both efforts are designed to reduce global warming and the U.S.'s reliance on imported oil, but they also could raise consumer prices for food and fuel. The initiatives also signal the increasing urgency of climate change as an issue both in state capitals and in Washington.
President Bush is expected to express more support for domestically produced ethanol when he gives his State of the Union address later this month. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders in Congress are talking up the need for alternative fuels and national emissions controls.
Announcing his carbon-reduction order in remarks prepared for delivery in his State of the State address Tuesday, Gov. Schwarzenegger said, "California has the muscle to bring about such change."
While the details of the proposal have yet to be worked out, California officials explained that the program would leave it up to oil suppliers in the state to figure out how to reduce carbon content, but that using more ethanol, which contains less carbon, would be the most likely way. The move, they estimated, would triple the size of the state's market for ethanol and other renewable fuels.
Gov. Schwarzenegger said his order would be the first standard in the world that would diminish the use of fossil fuels, which come from deposits that have been buried in the ground for millions of years, and which release carbon into the air when burned. The regulation, which the governor ordered completed by 2008, would also include incentives for more electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles. The governor acted under his state's recently passed law to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions.
Meanwhile, the 37 governors today will propose a new federal standard that would mandate substantially higher use of ethanol fuel and offer new tax incentives for the production of cellulosic ethanol, which can be made from farm wastes and wood chips, and doesn't rely on corn, the feedstock typically used by current ethanol producers.
