UC Davis researchers have been assigned a leading role in Gov. Schwarzenegger's "green" agenda for 2007-08.

The assignment is to draft a groundbreaking air-quality standard to reduce carbon emissions from transportation fuels. In a news release, the governor's office said the new policy would be "the world's first greenhouse gas standard for transportation fuels" and said it would "spark research in alternatives to oil, boost clean technology industry in California and reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

The release also stated: "By 2020 the standard will reduce the carbon intensity of California's passenger vehicle fuels by at least 10 percent ... as part of California's overall strategy to fight global warming."

Professor Dan Sperling, director of UC Davis' Institute of Transportation Studies, will co-direct the writing and analysis project with UC Berkeley Professor Alex Farrell. The other authors are UC Davis professors Bryan Jenkins, leader of the Bioenergy Research Group, and Joan Ogden, co-director of the ITS-Davis Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways Program.

Sperling said: "This very innovative and very important new policy will be a model for the rest of the world. It will help the state reduce oil imports, reduce greenhouse gases, and boost investments in alternative fuels. It will steer energy policy and investments for many years."

The governor's "green" agenda also includes these proposals in his draft budget:

• $30 million in lease revenue bonds for the Helios Project, an initiative by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to create sustainable, carbon-neutral sources of energy.
• $40 million in lease revenue bonds for UC Berkeley or UC San Diego, in the event that either wins a global competition to house the British Petroleum Energy Biosciences Institute, which will focus on the development of alternative fuels.