When he told federal regulators last month that he was pulling the plug on BHP Billiton's controversial plan to import liquefied natural gas through Ventura County, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cited the project's effects on air quality, marine life and other traditional topics of environmental concern.

But the governor's May 18 statement was most noteworthy for what it omitted: any discussion of the project's effect on climate.

Schwarzenegger's silence in that regard was particularly curious given the role he has adopted as a leader in the campaign to battle global warming. And it signals a looming showdown between the state's energy policy and its greenhouse gas policy.

The vast potential reach of California's effort to rein in greenhouse gas emissions had been made clear just a few weeks earlier when the Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission also rejected aspects of BHP's Cabrillo Port, a floating platform where gas supercooled into liquid form would have been pumped from ships, stored in tanks and then warmed to convert it back to gaseous form for delivery.

"We feel we have the responsibility to make this recommendation to you, not only for consistency with the Coastal Act, but for the planet," is how Executive Director Peter Douglas put it, during his presentation of the Coastal Commission staff report recommending rejection of the BHP project.

Most of the planet is, of course, outside the commission's geographic purview. But Douglas' comments, and the commission's unanimous vote, were based in part on a novel and far-reaching addition to the process of environmental review in California: evaluation of a project's potential effect on global climate.

"The proposed project, including its associated supply chain and end users, would result in emissions of several million tons annually of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide," the staff report says. "The contribution of these emissions to global warming would result in numerous adverse effects to coastal resources due to sea level rise, ocean warming, and ocean acidification, which lead to secondary effects such as loss of habitat and species, increased coastal erosion, adverse economic effects to California's ports and fisheries, and other serious impacts to the California coast."

Three days earlier, the State Lands Commission had voted 2-1 to deny BHP a lease needed to lay pipeline on the sea floor to connect the floating terminal to the onshore gas transmission and distribution system operated by Southern California Gas Co.

Although the State Lands Commission did not perform as thorough an examination of the project's carbon footprint as the Coastal Commission did, the subject was clearly on at least one commissioner's mind.

"In the future, I believe every environmental impact statement with LNG or any energy source has to and must deal with total greenhouse gas emissions, and I believe that current state law requires it," Commissioner (and Lt. Gov.) John Garamendi told a Star reporter.

The law Garamendi referred to was authored by former Assemblywoman Fran Pavley. It requires the California Air Resources Board to develop regulations and market mechanisms to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.

Signed into law last year, the Pavley bill is one of several initiatives undertaken in California to address climate change since BHP submitted its Cabrillo Port application in 2003, many of them championed by Schwarzenegger.

Among other actions, he has appointed a global warming task force, negotiated an agreement among six western states to establish a carbon registry, signed an executive order directing the state to develop a low-carbon fuel standard, and criticized the Bush administration for inaction on climate change.

But the carbon-free future is a long way off. And as Schwarzenegger noted in his letter notifying the federal government of his denial of BHP's application, California remains dependent on natural gas to generate more than 40 percent of its electricity. And because it imports 87 percent of the gas it uses, the state is vulnerable to price spikes and energy shortages. California, Schwarzenegger wrote in his letter, "needs LNG" to diversify its energy supply.

It is unclear how California can increase its reliance on imported, carbon-based energy and simultaneously reduce the emission of carbon dioxide associated with it. Apparently, the state's climate-action governor is hoping someone else will resolve that paradox.

John Krist is a senior editor and Opinion page columnist for the Star. To read previous columns, visit http://www.johnkrist.com. His e-mail address is jkrist@VenturaCountyStar.com.