California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is working to burnish his green legacy in the Golden State. But one of his latest moves to lift a hold on air pollution permit applications is not likely to make environmentalists happy.

The governor signed a bill late Sunday that allows the agency regulating air pollution along California’s southern coast to start issuing more than 1,200 applications frozen by a state court decision in 2008.

Schwarzenegger signed the bill the same day he approved two measures benefiting the state’s solar power industry.

Environmentalists may call the governor’s actions two steps forward, one step back.

But the region’s business community cheered the move on air quality permits. The bill’s author says it will create 60,000 jobs and $4 billion in economic activity in Southern California. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates Orange County and parts of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, believes that the governor’s approval will jump-start the region’s economy.

We wanted to know what readers think about the lifting of the ban and Schwarzenegger’s moves to boost the use of energy from renewable resources. What grade would you put on the governor’s environmental report card?

Photo:Traffic passes downtown Los Angeles on the Interstate-10 freeway. Photo credit: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

California’s already in the vanguard on U.S. carbon reduction (well, planning so far), and now Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to be ready for rising sea levels.

 On Friday he ordered the state to study how high waters could rise and what to do about it, in an executive order which could be seen as the Cliffs Notes of why climate change is a big deal financially.

(PHOTO: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni)

California environmentalists are in tizzy this week, accusing Republican Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of telling their governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, how to do his job.

At issue is a letter Palin sent to Schwarzenegger last month, asking him to veto a bill that would raise shipping container fees to pay for pollution-reduction programs at three major California ports.

The letter, which Palin sent to Schwarzenegger a day before she was announced as John McCain’s running mate, began circling on the Web on Thursday.

In it, Palin argues that the fees would hurt Alaskans, who rely heavily on marine cargo to receive goods.

“Shipping costs have increased significantly with the rising price of fuel and these higher costs are quickly passed on to Alaskans,” Palin wrote. “This tax makes the situation worse.”

Palin also argued that the $30 fee per 20-foot container would “harm California by driving port business away.”

California’s three biggest ports — Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland — are responsible for nearly half of the nation’s imports.

“Gov. Palin needs to visit Southern California and understand that we are the tailpipe of the nation, ” said the bill’s author, California State Senator Alan Lowenthal. “By getting cheap goods from Asia to Alaska, we are subsidizing Alaskans with our health.” 

Environmentalists also countered the letter swiftly, saying the bill was critical to reducing the number of pollution-related deaths in California.

“We’re counting on the governor to stand up for California and not out-of-state interests,” Martin Schlageter, campaign director for California air quality group the Coalition for Clean Air, said of the letter.

The bill has received the approval of the California legislature, but the Governor himself has yet to sign it or comment on his plans.

McCain, whose presidential bid Schwarzenegger has endorsed, toured the Los Angeles port area with the California Governor in February of last year. At the time, he called for a nationwide roll-out of California’s low carbon fuel standard.