The City Council approves a bio-diesel study, turns down a bunker fuel tax

It was 12:45 p.m. yesterday, a day which turned out to be all about diesel.

First District Councilwoman Bonnie Lowenthal had 15 minutes before her next meeting and she was hungry, so we went to Smooth’s Bar and Grill–but not to eat.

Lowenthal had three-day custody of a bio-diesel Volkswagen Beetle–courtesy of the League of Conservation Voters and the folks at bio-beetle.com–and she wanted to show it to Smooth’s owner John Morris.

“This is fabulous,” exclaimed the councilwoman, as we left underground City Hall parking in her green machine. Really–it was painted green.

Lowenthal was testing the car to warm up for a proposal she’d put on the night’s City Council agenda to study converting the city’s diesel vehicles to B20 bio-diesel, which is roughly 20 percent bio-diesel.

It would pass with an 8-1 vote–coming after the council torpedoed a proposal from Fifth District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske to re-apply sales tax to the high-polluting bunker fuel that many ships use in port, and use that money to fight health problems associated with the fuel. (But more on that in a minute.)

“This is a similar feel to the roominess of the Prius,” said the councilwoman, a Toyota Prius owner, as she aimed the new Beetle at Smooth’s. The valet didn’t seem to recognize her, but he let Lowenthal park in the red on Pine Avenue–behind a Bentley outside the restaurant. We found Morris dining al fresco with a crowd on the patio, and he was happy to inspect the soybean oil-powered planet-saver.

“That’s it? The Bentley?” Morris asked, making a joke. The Beetle has huge vinyl signs on its doors trumpeting its all-around lovability.

The real funny was the hulking, gas-powered Bentley, which belonged to John Zar: CEO of General Petroleum, large distributor of bio-diesel–and of marine diesel to thirsty ships. Zar was noshing with Morris.

Marine diesel, it should be noted, burns cleaner than the muchly-hated bunker fuel. According to the Press-Telegram’s Paul Eakins, the petro-diesel you put in your Dodge diesel Ram has about 15 parts of sulfur per million, while the crude diesel bunker fuel–which the Council apparently liked enough to not tax–has 27,000 parts sulfur per million.

And bio-diesel? It’s sulfur-free–though containing dangerously high levels of image-enhancing byproducts. And that’s whether you’re talking about the pure soy oil in Lowenthal’s Beetle, or the B20 bio-diesel they’re considering using in the city’s fleet.

That’s not to say it’s entirely non-polluting, as Seventh District Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga reminded the Council. (Like Bonnie Lowenthal, Reyes Uranga is considering a run for Assemblywoman Betty Karnette’s seat, if the assemblywoman gets termed out.)

Bio-diesel-fueled vehicles don’t give off carbon monoxide like their gas-powered brethren–but they do emit enough nitrous oxides to have the Air Quality Management District concerned.

“We do not need to add to that problem,” Reyes Uranga said before casting the lone dissenting vote on the item. She also wondered if the city’s money wouldn’t be better spent elsewhere. “I think it’s a good idea,” Reyes Uranga said. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to do this fresh study when there are some other priorities.”

City Manager Pat West quickly assured her that, using recent bio-diesel studies by Long Beach Transit and the Port of Long Beach, the city could probably examine the issue for free.

And what of bunker fuel? Reinstating the bunker fuel sales tax, Lowenthal explained this morning, would just prompt ships to buy it somewhere else tax-free–jeopardizing the job of every local whose career intersects the oily troublemaker.

“The state would lose significant monies, the air would be not be any cleaner and it could negatively impact pending federal legislation” on bunker fuel, said the councilwoman–who’d been part of the anti-Schipske voting bloc hours earlier.

“I certainly didn’t want to muddy the waters by potentially impacting our suport of federal legislation that would change [bunker fuel] guidelines for all ships entering U.S. waters,” she said, pausing mid-sentence to acknowledge the pun.

Then, Lowenthal said: “I really look foward to cleaner air.”

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