Clearing air isn't all about global warming

California is leading the nation in legislation to regulate greenhouse gas pollutants, which has some industries in the state - including agriculture - nervous. It could also be a sign of things to come for the rest of the West Coast and the nation.Some are touting the bill to impose a cap on carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, and reduce them 25 percent by 2020, as an effort to counter global warming.Critics, like Alan Caruba, of the Caruba Organization in South Orange, N.J., say it will be bad for business in California and is unnecessary because global warming is not actually happening."California is about to commit eco-suicide and wants the rest of the nation to join it," Caruba writes in a Sept. 4 column on AXcessNews.com. "The business and industry that will flee the Golden State is incalculable. The danger of these anti-energy policies to the future of the nation is beyond comprehension."Caruba goes on to say that the claims, like those made by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, that there is scientific consensus that global warming is happening now is "a very big lie."Caruba says: "Far from any consensus, there is a growing body of scientific evidence that utterly disputes and debunks the claims made for global warming."He also says: "There is no need for the control of greenhouse gas emissions."What Caruba seems to ignore is that California has some serious air quality problems across wide swaths of the state, including the Los Angeles Basin, Inland Empire and San Joaquin Valley and Bay Area.Even if Caruba and other global warming skeptics are correct, the fact remains that conditions in California are ideal to create smog in California. Abundant sunshine reacts with particles in the air to form smog that gets trapped in the valleys nestled between large mountain ranges. Global warming or not, California's air is all-too-often unhealthy in far too many parts of the state.Fortunately for California agriculture and industry, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to negotiate some safety valves in the legislation. It includes a provision for trading emissions credits that will allow producers of greenhouse gases - who are also producers of energy, products and jobs that help fuel the state economy - to continue to do business. That option could also provide a valuable incentive for business to reduce emissions to benefit their companies economically.Caruba is correct to be concerned that this legislation is just a first successful volley in a fight to pass similar legislation at the federal level. As Caruba noted, Feinstein recently touted a plan to fight global warming with legislation she says she will introduce in the next Congressional session that has similarities to the California legislation.It would also not be surprising to see other states, like Washington and Oregon, where the climate change mantra is also resonating to follow California's lead to control emissions even further.California has the political clout, and population numbers, to make automakers pay heed to emissions restrictions on cars that smaller states can't pull off alone.As to whether the new emission standards will do anything to slow climate change, that's a question still open to debate. But this will clear the air a bit more in smog-prone areas of the state.