1. New York Times, “Nuclear Waste is Allowed Above Ground Indefinitely”
August 29, 2014
By Matthew L. Wald
As the country struggles to find a place to bury spent nuclear fuel, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided that nuclear waste from power plants can be stored above ground in containers that can be maintained and guarded indefinitely.
The decision, in a unanimous vote of the commission on Tuesday, means that new nuclear plants can be built and old ones can expand their operations despite the lack of a long-term plan for disposing of the waste.
The chairwoman of the commission, who voted with the majority but dissented on certain aspects, said Friday that the vote risked allowing Congress to ignore the long-term problem.
“If you make the assumption that there will be some kind of institution that will exist, like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that will assure material stays safe for hundreds or thousands of years, there’s not much impetus for Congress to want to deal with this issue,” the chairwoman, Allison M. Macfarlane, said Friday. “Personally, I think that we can’t say with any certainty what the future will look like. We’re pretty damned poor at predicting the future.”
In the 1980s, Congress picked Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas, as the prime location for a burial site, but that consensus fell apart in the face of sharp opposition from Nevada and a changing political balance. The Energy Department is now saying that a burial site will be established by 2048, but the agency has no method for finding one.
The commission approved a generic environmental impact statement, under which nuclear activities can continue, but did not address the impact to the environment if the stored nuclear waste were abandoned, which would leave it vulnerable to attack or allow the containers to break down.
Ms. Macfarlane said it was wrong to predict institutional control indefinitely. “Best not to say anything about something so uncertain,” she said, “and just to work with what we can know for sure.”
For decades the commission has allowed nuclear plants to operate under what it called its waste confidence rule, which said that although there was no repository, there would most likely be one by the time it was needed, and in the interim, the storage of the highly radioactive waste in spent fuel pools or in dry casks would suffice. But in June 2012, a court ruled that the commission had not done its homework in studying whether the waste could be stored on an interim basis. As a result, the commission froze much of its licensing activity two years ago.
On Tuesday, however, the commission approved a finding by its staff that waste could be stored — as opposed to disposed of — indefinitely. The vote was 4-0.
Some nuclear opponents say the issue is certain to wind up back in court. As the Natural Resources Defense Council, Geoffrey H. Fettus, the lead lawyer in the original case, said in a statement: “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to analyze the long-term environmental consequences of indefinite storage of highly toxic and radioactive nuclear waste; the risks of which are apparent to any observer of history over the past 50 years. The commission failed to follow the express directions of the court.”
The action, though, allows the commission to extend the licenses of two reactors in Pennsylvania, Limerick 1 and 2, and to extend the license for storage casks holding spent fuel at another two-unit plant, Calvert Cliffs, in Maryland.
Several other license renewals would have had to have been denied had the new policy not been put in place, including Indian Point 2 and 3, in Buchanan, N.Y., but those license applications still have other unresolved issues. Likewise, several applications to build reactors would eventually have been blocked, except that those plants were not very likely to be built in the near future.
In coming years the agency will need to reconfigure its staff to handle a different problem: an increased number of plants shutting down and entering the decommissioning process, Ms. MacFarlane said. And, she said, the commission needs to rewrite its rules for decommissioning plants. For example, she said, once the nuclear fuel has been removed from a reactor core, the security requirements at the plants should probably be relaxed because the risk is reduced.
2. Associated Press, “Illinois Issues Long-Awaited Fracking Rules For Oil and Gas Companies”
August 29, 2014
August 29, 2014
By Kerry Lester
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Stricter requirements for disclosing the use of chemicals are part of new proposed rules issued by the state Friday as part of the process of regulating fracking, the high-volume oil and gas drilling method that proponents hope will bring a surge of jobs to Illinois.
The highly anticipated rules, released by the state Department of Natural Resources, come after months of complaints about delays from industry officials anxious to begin hydraulic fracturing in what they say are southern Illinois’ rich deposits of natural gas. The state was hailed last year for legislation seen as a model of compromise on how to regulate the drilling practice, but that cooperation broke down when draft rules were criticized by both industry and environmental activists.
State officials expressed confidence that the new rules would address all the concerns raised in 30,000 comments they received in response to those initial rules. DNR director Marc Miller said his staff had done “a thorough and thoughtful job” in crafting a balanced, 150-page report delivered to an administrative oversight committee tasked with reviewing them over the next 45 days before they can take effect.
But both environmentalists and industry officials also were poring over the report Friday, and some indicated that the battle over the regulations may not be over. Mark Denzler, chief operating officer of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, said hopeful drillers were not happy with the requirement for more detailed disclosure of specific chemicals, which he said could threaten “trade secret protections.”
“From a cursory review, there are concerns that the new rules exceed the scope of the legislation,” Denzler said.
The department also clarified rules to ensure that wastewater would not be stored in open pits for more than a week at a time, which environmentalists had said would lead to contamination. And it stipulated that public hearings for fracking permits should not be held further than 30 miles from where a well site would be located.
Some environmentalists offered tepid praise for the department’s attention to their concerns, while saying they would be pouring over the new rules over the next few days.
“The agency clearly paid attention to some of the public comments that were out there, but given the technical nature of things it remains to be seen if those issues are fixed,” said Josh Mogerman, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Hydraulic fracturing uses a mixture of water, chemicals and sand to crack open rock formations thousands of feet underground to release trapped oil and gas. Opponents fear it will pollute and deplete groundwater or cause health problems, while the industry insists the method is safe and will cause the same economic boom seen in other states such as North Dakota. They warned that Illinois risked losing out on a bonanza as the months went by while the DNR crafted the rules.
Miller, the DNR director, said he was “optimistic” the state could now meet a Nov. 15 deadline for the rules to be in place. He noted that the agency has hired 24 of 53 employees it needs to issue permits, inspect wells and perform other tasks associated with the anticipated influx of drilling activity. The Associated Press reported last month the agency had hired only four workers at that time.
The bipartisan panel reviewing the rules has 45 days to sign off on the suggested rules, change them or block them. It also can ask for a 45-day extension in making recommendations.
If the committee signs off on the plan, Miller said drillers could begin applying for permits later this fall. Permits, according to the rules, must be approved within 60 days.
If the panel rejects the rules, Miller said, the department would begin another lengthy hearing process.
3. NBC Los Angeles, “California Drought Threatens Nation’s Most Productive Farming Valley”
September 1, 2014
By Patrick Healy
[Watch Monty Schmitt and Kate Poole’s video appearances here]
In the rich farmland of the San Joaquin Valley it’s summertime — peak growing season for many crops. But every sunbaked, scorching day brings another test of water reserves in a region running on empty.
The dearth of irrigation water from rivers or reservoirs has forced growers in the valley 80 miles north of Los Angeles to rely almost entirely on water pumped from wells.
“I’m worried from a couple of standpoints,” said grower Stuart Woolf, as he stood in a field of tomatoes at harvest time. “One, I’m worried that we just flat run out of groundwater.”
Some growers have already taken draconian steps to deal with the reality that they don’t have enough water for all their crops. Near Fresno, Shawn Stevenson bulldozed a third of his orange grove.
“When these trees are gone they’re not going to use any more water so I can put that water on another crop,” Stevenson said.
In this third year of record drought, other growers have idled acreage for annual row crops.
“If this was a regular year, this would have been re-planted either to corn or to sorghum,” said Tipton farmer Tom Barcellos, as he showed a reporter a field he’s fallowed “either one of them would have been about 10 feet tall right at this point so we’d been walking here and you’d never see us.”
Not far away, Vince and Pam Sola watched their almonds being harvested next door to a field they’ve left unplanted. Permanent tree crops are different. If you can’t water them, you not only lose that year’s income; you lose your investment.
“It’s sad to see this land just lay there vacant,” said Pam Sola, shrugging her shoulders as her husband finished her thought.
“Without surface water, we decided we had to leave some land idle and divert the water to less acres,” said Vince Sola.
It is a summer of crisis for the Solas, Barcellos, and Woolf, but the crisis is hardly unique to them, with the drought stressing agriculture in virtually the entire San Joaquin Valley.
Its farming region stretches from the Tehachapi Mountains to Stockton, bounded by the Coast Range to the west and the Sierra Nevada to the east. Blessed with rich soil, an abundance of sun, but minimal rainfall even apart from drought years, the valley has relied for half a century on water imported from Northern California to become the nation’s most productive growing region, known for its citrus and grapes and increasingly for specialty tree crops such as almonds and pistachios, walnuts and cherries.
“This is an impact across the country,” warned Barcellos. “You look at the number of nuts and grapes — everything that’s on somebody’s table sometime of the day comes from this valley.”
Barcellos is primarily a dairyman in a corner of Tulare County that produces 12 percent of the nation’s milk. He worries about cows that need water every three hours, and rely on misters to avoid overheating in triple-digit temperatures.
“There is no surface water to buy here for this district,” Barcellos laments, as he shows a reporter a bone-dry and dusty irrigation ditch that had been serving his farm for decades. He wistfully recalls playing in the ditch water as a teenager, even water skiing as a buddy pulled him along with a tractor. No more.
Since shortly after World War II, and with rare exceptions, the region farmed by Barcellos and the Solas has been able to rely on irrigation water from the federal Central Valley Project. The Bureau of Reclamation dammed the San Joaquin River, and diverted almost its entire flow into two irrigation canals for the eastside growers. A third canal, from the San Francisco Bay Delta to Mendota, was built for growers with rights to the San Joaquin River to replace the water no longer flowing downstream. Surplus water from the Delta Mendota Canal became available for growers including the Woolf Farm on the west side of the valley, and the region flourished, despite nagging concerns that in dry years, relying on junior rights, it would be the first to be cut off.
Statewide, agriculture takes an estimated three-quarters of the water California consumes. Farming is by far the state’s largest single water user, dwarfing the amount city-dwellers use to boil their potatoes, brush their teeth, wash their clothes and water their yards.
Over the decades, periodic droughts have reduced or even interrupted deliveries, but nothing like this past year of drought, when only the holders of original, so-called “riparian” rights to the San Joaquin River received surface water; for other growers, the federal allocation was reduced to zero, leaving them almost entirely dependent on groundwater.
Not every farm has sufficient well capacity to serve all of its needs. In some cases, wells have gone dry as the water table is drawn down. Even farms with adequate well water see profits decimated by the cost of purchasing the electrical power needed to pump deep-lying groundwater hundreds of feet to the surface.
This past week, the California state legislature took initial steps toward tracking and eventually regulating groundwater withdrawals, a level of regulation to which some farmers are resistant, but others are resigned.
“We have to be saved from ourselves,” said Vince Sola. “Otherwise we’re just going to pump, pump, pump, and it will be all gone.”
Using satellite technology, a new study by UC San Diego found 63 trillion gallons have been lost from the groundwater reserves of the western U.S. That’s enough to cover all the land west of the Rockies in four inches of water, the authors noted. As reserves drop, wells go dry, and drillers cannot keep up with the demand for drilling deeper.
“We’re 12-13 months behind,” said Steve Arthur of Arthur & Orum Well Drilling, as he watched his crew go down 600 feet for a new well to supply an almond grove outside Caruthers. In another area to the north of Fresno, another grower had Arthur dig down 2,000 feet. The water table is not yet that low, Arthur explained, but the grower wants reserve room as the groundwater is drawn down further.
Wells that deep cost as much as $750,000, Arthur said, not including the pump and other expenses before the well becomes operational.
It’s deja vu.
Before the Central Valley Project and California’s State Water Project, San Joaquin Valley growers relied almost exclusively on groundwater. So much was pumped out, that the floor of the valley began dropping, or “subsiding,” as the weight of the ground above crushed the waterless Earth below. By 1977, the ground near Mendota had subsided some 30 feet, according to a study by the U.S. Geological Survey.
That subsidence has again reared its head is not disputed by growers.
“In some regions you can actually see the ground around the well site — it looks like the well is growing — it’s coming out of the ground,” said Woolf, explaining that in reality, the ground is dropping around the wellhead, exposing more of it.
To stetch their water, growers have been switching to more efficient irrigation techniques, including expensive drip systems.
Running Dry
It has also lead to unintended consequences. Drip means that the mineral contaminants in groundwater are concentrated at the seed row. Avoiding overwater also limits the water that in the past would have percolated through the soil to replenish the underground water table.
Drought Threatens California Farming Valley
Where the drought is reducing crop yields may lead to higher prices — but not necessarily for crops in competition with other regions, and the California drought impact at the grocery checkout stand so far has been minimal.
“If all you know is you go to the store and the food is there and it doesn’t cost any more, then you don’t seen the impact,” Pam Sola said.
Growers hope it does not get to that point before they get assistance. They are calling for the government water projects to build additional storage, so that more of the snowmelt and river runoff during wet years can be saved for drought years.
Some $2.7 billion would be dedicated to new storage if California voters approve the water bond that the legislature has placed on the November ballot. Many growers think it should be more.
In addition, growers bristle at environmental conservation rulings and decisions that have placed limits on the amount of river water that can be withdrawn and delivered by the water projects for irrigation.
Some characterize the dispute as Farmer vs. Fish.
Of particular concern are the salmon that swim through the vast Delta where the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers reach the San Francisco Bay. Salmon still spawn upstream in the Sacramento Rivers. Federal rulings have effectively placed limits on water releases from upstream dams in order to insure that river temperatures remain cool enough for salmon to spawn.
Under a separate agreement to restore the salmon runs in the San Joaquin River, 17 percent of the average flow long diverted to irrigation canals will be again sent downstream for the fish.
The agreement does recognize the impact of periodic droughts. This year, no water is being released into the San Joaquin River for restoration, according to Monty Schmitt of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
That is not the only impact of the drought on environmental restoration. It has also limited the amount of water for the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge in an area that once was periodically flooded by the San Joaquin River and was a natural wetland. That ended when 19th century ranchers established grazing fields and built levees to protect them.
The value of maintaining wetlands and native grasslands became a goal of the US Dept. of the Interior after it became apparent that one of the worst natural disasters of the 20th century, the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, was enabled by the removal of native grasslands for farm crops that could not be sustained during a drought.
Since the 1960’s, some of the water delivered by the Delta Mendota Canal has gone to flooding the Refuge every September. This drought year, the allocation has been reduced to 65 percent of normal, according to Karl Stromayer, Refuge Asst. Manager, and that will affect the habitat in this portion of what is known as the Pacific Flyway.
“When migratory birds get here, we have less food for them,” Stromayer said.
Ironically, during this drought summer there is now more water in the San Joaquin than there has been for decades, because it is being released to satisfy the riparian rights of downstream properties that for decades until this year had been served by the Delta Mendota Canal.
That water is being released from Friant Dam, rather than being diverted into the Friant-Kern canal, is the reason Barcellos and his fellow Tulare County growers are not receiving any Central Valley project water this year.
Growers acknowledge the need to protect habitat, but challenged the benefits of how it has played out. A longtime sore point for growers is a ruling that effectively limits how much freshwater can be withdrawn from the Delta in order to protect a finger-size fish known as the Delta Smelt, an endangered, and therefore protected, species.
Woolf observed the hand-wringing in Los Angeles in July when a water main failure sent 20 million gallons of water through the UCLA campus en route to storm sewers.
“Here this season over one 60 day period we sent 260 million gallons under the Golden Gate Bridge for a benefit nobody knows what it was,” complained Woolf.
Environmental activists contend there are tangible benefits.
“It’s very shortsighted to wipe out fisheries to get a little water now that does not benefit us in the longrun,” said Kate Poole, senior attorney with the NRDC.
Regardless, the battle will continue to be fought in court.
The environmental issues have had less impact on farming regions in the Delta, and to the north in the Sacramento Valley, where growers rely on water districts with riparian rights to the Sacramento River, which delivers are more than the San Joaquin. Growers in California’s next largest agricultural region, the Imperial Valley near the Mexican border, import their water from the Colorado River, which has been less affected by the California drought.
All with stakes in California’s water supply worry about the effect of climate change adding to unpredictability. But as it is, California’s surface water resource has been frustratingly unpredictable since epic flooding overwhelmed the San Joaquin Valley’s first generation of farmers back in the 19th Century after the Gold Rush.
It’s been four decades since a drought as severe as the current one, but since 1977, not a decade has passed without a drought, and the one just 5 years ago triggered conservation responses still in place in many areas, including Los Angeles.
By the same token, every 4 years on average there is a rainy season wet enough to produce flooding. The last one occurred in the winter of 2011, when reservoirs ran out of capacity and instead of banking water for summer during winter and spring, had to release it.
“We never get an average amount of water,” Schmitt said. “It’s always too much or too little. The key is: how do we manage it so we will have vibrant agriculture industry, while also having a healthy river and community resource.”
4. Sacramento Bee, “Conservation Conundrum: Water Use Varies Greatly Across California”
August 31, 2014
By Matt Weiser
Drive across city limits in virtually any part of California, and you will also cross another kind of frontier, one gaining more attention during the worst drought in a generation: The borders between cities also define different ideas about water. One city may have gutters coursing with wasted water, while its neighbor lives by the highest conservation standards.
The differences can be glaring, according to a Bee review of data submitted by water agencies, and they highlight some of the challenges in achieving broad conservation goals during the ongoing drought. In a hypothetical tour of the state, according to the data, the well-informed traveler would encounter the following disparities:
• In the tony hillside mansions of Los Altos, residents in 2012 consumed an average of 197 gallons of water per person each day. Step across the city limits into Mountain View, and consumption drops to 139 gallons per day.
• In Anaheim, the home of Disneyland, per capita consumption is 163 gallons per day. Next door in Garden Grove, the average is only 128 gallons each per day.
• In the state capital’s metro region, Folsom residents consume 329 gallons each per day. Their neighbors in adjacent Orangevale consume significantly less, 225 gallons per day.
Water consumption varies enormously across California, and the reasons are not easy to pin down. But it is an issue of growing importance as the state struggles to contain water demand.
In the most recent report to the State Water Resources Control Board, a survey of water agencies showed that Californians in May failed to achieve the 20 percent conservation goal sought by Gov. Jerry Brown in his emergency drought proclamation. They failed to get even close: Consumption actually increased by 1 percent compared with the prior year.
“Most people haven’t been cutting back,” said Dale Creasey, 81, a resident of Orangevale. He reduced his most recent water bill by 43 percent, despite growing more than 1,300 pounds of zucchini that he donated to charity. His personal goal is 50 percent. “I believe in God, I attend church, and I feel that you’re supposed to help take care of your fellow man. When there’s a water shortage, you cut back so everybody can have some.”
Tracy Quinn, a policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council who specializes in California water issues, said residents can save more. “We live in a state that’s susceptible to epic drought,” Quinn said. “It’s up to all of us to do our part to save in good times and in bad.”
Where water runs high
Expecting every resident of the state to use the same amount of water, or even adopt the same conservation measures, seems like a reasonable expectation on the surface. But California’s geographic and socio-economic diversity make this difficult, if not unreasonable, said Gregory Weber, executive director of the California Urban Water Conservation Council. The council collects consumption data from many water agencies as part of an agreement with the state.
“It’s hard to tell a single story about why people across the state have such differences,” said Weber. “Every water agency out there is going to claim they have unique circumstances, and to a large extent it’s true.”
Weber and other water experts say California’s many unique microclimates are one explanation for the wide differences in water consumption. For example, residential properties in Sacramento and Berkeley, all else being equal, will consume very different amounts of water simply because the former experiences hotter temperatures much of the year.
“Everything we do in Sacramento to try and survive the hot summers uses more water than some parts of the state,” said John Woodling, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Water Authority.
But beyond climate, other factors come into play, especially when comparing neighboring communities that experience similar weather. Household size, property size and income level also have a role.
For example, Los Altos consists of 84 percent owner-occupied homes, vs. 64 percent in neighboring Mountain View, according to U.S. census data. Also, median household income in Los Altos, at $140,000 per year, is 53 percent greater than in Mountain View.
“If you don’t mind paying a large water bill – if that’s a small proportion of your income – there really is less of an incentive to save,” said Quinn.
That would seem to be the case in places like Rancho Santa Fe. The community near San Diego is considered one of the wealthiest in America, with a median household income of $173,000 annually. It also has one of the highest rates of water consumption in the state: Within the Santa Fe Irrigation District, which serves Rancho Santa Fe and several nearby communities, per capita water consumption in 2012 was 485 gallons per day.
In comparison, consumption in neighboring San Diego was just 128 gallons per person per day.
Rancho Santa Fe was also one of the communities that caused California as a whole to miss the 20 percent water conservation target in May: Water use in Rancho Santa Fe actually increased 23 percent in May compared with the prior three years. The area gets about 65 percent of its water from imported supplies, including the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Jessica Parks, a spokeswoman for the district, said most residential properties in the area are large – 1 to 3 acres in size – and have small orchards of lemon, orange or avocado trees that demand water.
“We are an irrigation district,” Parks said. “However, it’s pretty much transformed over time to being an urban water provider now. We have large lots that need irrigation. So when one person is living on a 3-acre lot, it does look like they’re using a lot of water.”
The district has had conservation programs in place for many years, including rebates on some water-saving technologies that are not offered in the Sacramento area, such as weather-sensitive irrigation timers, soil-moisture sensors and rain-collection barrels.
But until recently, it had only voluntary watering restrictions in place, despite the governor’s emergency drought proclamation in January. On Aug. 21, the district’s board of directors adopted mandatory watering restrictions that limit outdoor irrigation to certain days of the week based on address, and only in the morning and evening hours.
Unlike many other areas of the state, there will be no “water cops” roaming the avenues of Rancho Santa Fe to look for violations.
“We don’t have the staff resources for that,” said Parks. “We can’t be everywhere, so we’re hoping our customers can also help us in finding that water waste.”
Where water runs low
Far to the north in Sonoma County, the culture of conservation is very different. In Santa Rosa, the region’s largest city and the county seat, residents consume an average of just 106 gallons per person each day, one of the lowest rates in the state.
Santa Rosa depends on the Russian River for more than 90 percent of its water supply. It’s a a tempestuous source: The river can cause floods in winter, then dry up the following year. It is also home to imperiled salmon and steelhead runs, a reality that many residents connect with their own water consumption.
“We have a lot of really concerned and active and engaged citizens in Santa Rosa,” said Kimberly Zunino, the city’s water resources sustainability manager. “We find, in Santa Rosa, it’s not always about money. They want to do their part.”
The city is rolling out a new program to replace older water-saving toilets with even more miserly ultra-high efficiency toilets that use only 0.8 gallons per flush. It is not a rebate program, but rather a package deal in which customers pay $375 for a toilet and the services of a contractor to install it. The package also includes a water-saving showerhead and faucet aerators for kitchen and bathroom.
Customers can pay for the toilet-replacement package with a $7 monthly charge on their water bills. In the long run, Zunino estimates, many customers will end up saving money on their water bills because the new toilets are so efficient.
The city has also hired consultants to find water savings in the commercial sector, a conservation opportunity that is largely untapped in many communities. For example, it paid a consultant $14,000 to help city staffers understand the food industry to work more effectively with Amy’s Kitchen. The organic food processor has a packaging plant in Santa Rosa and is one of the city’s largest water users.
The resulting water savings will save the company money, and Zunino said the city also expects to recover the consultant’s cost through savings in city operations.
She said other communities should make a similar effort.
“There are things, I think, that every agency and municipality can do,” Zunino said. “If we can teach all of our residents and customers to actually change their behavior, we can reduce water use everywhere. It’s getting out there and talking to those customers and trying to get people to realize that water is not an endless supply.”
5. Inside Climate News, “Keystone Ads Mislead on Canada’s Deep Cuts to Environmental Monitoring”
September 2, 2014
By Mike De Souza
The ads were hard to miss for anyone taking the subway in Washington, D.C.—particularly someone working at the White House, the State Department or Congress.
They included images of children waving the American and Canadian flags, a green mountain with a river running through it, and construction workers building a new pipeline in Texas.
The ads in some of the capital’s busiest Metro stations are but a small part of an aggressive, ongoing campaign that targets the most powerful people in Washington. The goal: President Obama’s approval for the Keystone XL pipeline, a major expansion project that could bring more of Canada’s carbon-intensive tar sands oil into the United States.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has set aside $22.7 million for an advertising blitz this year to promote oil and Canada’s other natural resources in the United States, Europe and Asia. But scientists and environmental groups say the advertising message is misleading its target audience about the Canadian government’s failure to clean up the oil sands, Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Those [advertising] messages aren’t accompanied by any changes in policy—they’re basically defending Canada’s current record, which we know to be quite poor when it comes to climate,” said Danielle Droitsch, the Canada project director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. environmental group that has criticized the Keystone pipeline project and the expansion of Canada’s oil sands industry.
Environment Canada, the Canadian counterpart to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, recently issued a report that projected a 42 percent cut in its pollution management and mitigation programs before the 2016-17 fiscal year. A labor union representing federal scientists, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, has estimated the Canadian government is in the middle of a three-year purge, cutting nearly $3 billion in spending and up to 5,000 jobs from its science-based departments.
Meanwhile, Canada’s advertising campaign—which includes the pro-oil sands government website gowithcanada.ca—touts Canada as a reliable partner and a “world environmental leader in the oil and gas sector.” It also boasts of a new oil sands monitoring system “founded on science and transparency.”
Harper’s government defends the campaign, saying it wants to ensure that other countries get all the facts. But one fact the ads don’t mention is that the oil sands industry’s rising carbon footprint is projected to wipe out reductions elsewhere in Canada’s economy, putting Harper’s commitment to reduce annual emissions to about 3 percent above 1990 levels by 2020 out of reach.
Promise vs. Performance
Environment Canada estimates that greenhouse gases from the oil sands industry grew by 62 percent from 2005-2011. They are projected to grow a further 84 percent by 2020.
Harper has repeatedly pledged, but delayed, introducing rules to reduce those greenhouse gases. At the same time, his government dismantled a team of seven specialists who helped design the oil sands monitoring program. They also had the expertise to draft credible tests and regulations for air pollution and greenhouse gases in the oil sands. The government eliminated their jobs, forcing some into early retirement or transfers.
It has also apparently prevented the remaining three members from using all their skills to tackle the environmental challenges in the oil sands. An internal email, distributed within Environment Canada’s Emissions Research and Measurement Section (ERMS), revealed that the section’s manager couldn’t find any work for the specialists in the new federal and provincial Joint Oil Sands Monitoring (JOSM) initiative that the government promotes in its advertising campaign.
“All of the staff are affected by the fact that there is no oil sands work…as a result of the changes,” wrote the manager, Fred Hendren, in the leaked email sent on April 14. “The intent is to find permanent duties for all of the staff.”
Environment Canada confirmed that the joint monitoring plan won’t be testing stack emissions directly from the source. Instead, the plan will test ambient air “at some distance from sources.”
Former members of the emissions research team, speaking through their union, have urged the government to allow them to measure emissions directly from stacks, in order to establish baseline data on mercury and other substances. The union said that would also allow the government to collect other information it needs to draw up credible regulations to reduce air pollution, water pollution and greenhouse gases.
Department spokesman Mark Johnson said the work done under the joint monitoring plan was meant to complement Alberta’s existing regulatory approach, which uses emissions data reported by oil companies.
But the union representing the scientists said the absence of independent data will compromise the credibility of any new regulations.
With the internal team disbanded, the department now hires consultants when it needs emissions research.
“When you cut an entire group and then simply farm it out to an outside contractor that really isn’t even qualified to do that work, that to me smacks of incompetence,” said local union president Stephen Vanneste. “But it’s also pretty mean-spirited. There’s no good intention there.”
The union said it is looking into possible grievances but needs one of the government scientists or engineers to make a formal complaint.
“People are very reluctant to stick their neck out because they are very much afraid—and justifiably so—that they’re going to get their heads cut off,” Vanneste said.
Peers, Papers and Potatoes
The Canadian government’s advertising also fails to mention some of the new peer-reviewed research emerging from the oil sands as part of the new monitoring program.
Those include studies that have documented rising toxic pollution such as mercury and cancer-linked compounds around oil sands production. But in most cases, the government scientists that have produced this research were unavailable for interviews, feeding into criticism that Harper is muzzling scientists who produce inconvenient research for industry. The allegations prompted a probe launched last year by a federal watchdog.
An industry spokesman told InsideClimate News that he wasn’t aware of recent cases of alleged muzzling of scientists. He said the industry supports transparency and wants scientists to provide context about their research and data, which is featured on the monitoring plan’s online public website.
“That’s really the foundation that we’ve been [doing by] trying to increase the level of transparency of all of the monitoring in that region,” said Greg Stringham, vice president of oil sands and markets at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
The oil sands are natural deposits of bitumen—a tar-like heavy oil—mixed with sand under forests in northern Alberta. It takes massive amounts of water and energy to extract and process the oil, leaving a significant footprint on the surrounding water, air, wildlife and climate.
The process is more expensive than conventional oil production, but the industry has historically received billions of dollars in subsidies or tax incentives. It has also created tens of thousands of jobs while generating billions of dollars in tax revenues for both Alberta and Canada.
Stephane McLachlan, a professor of environmental science at the University of Manitoba, has praised his peers in government for doing credible research but he is concerned that the joint monitoring plan fails to examine human health impacts.
“It’s the hot potato that no one wants to hold,” said McLachlan.
He said his own research, examining consumption habits of local aboriginal communities and their traditional sources of food, found additional evidence of toxins accumulating in ducks, fish and some mammals that are putting human health at risk.
McLachlan said he felt compelled to release the data prior to peer review because of those risks.
The federal Canadian Health Department downplayed McLachlan’s findings, saying he hadn’t showed “conclusive” evidence linking the oil sands activities to human health problems.
It declined a request for an interview with one of its experts.
Environment Canada has also declined interviews with scientists who published recent peer-reviewed papers on mercury contamination. It didn’t provide an explanation for the lack of media access but instead provided written statements that downplay some aspects of the evidence.
The Harper government previously spent at least $9 million on a domestic ad campaign in 2012 to convince Canadians it was promoting economic growth while “maintaining high environmental protection standards.” These ads followed a first round of budget cuts to environmental monitoring programs, combined with new laws that reduced federal oversight.
Meantime, there’s no sign that public relations and marketing efforts are slowing down. The Harper government is paying international public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard at least $5 million to plan and manage the campaign. It recently renewed the firm’s contract until 2015, which could mean more ads are on the way.
“Often when we talk with decision makers on Capitol Hill, they also have observed that there really isn’t a difference between the government of Canada and the tar sands industry,” said Droitsch, the NRDC Canada project director. “I think that for those members of Congress who are concerned about the tar sands issue, it hasn’t helped Canada [and the industry] to be so closely aligned.”
6. Missoulian, “Columbia Falls Sawmill Announces Layoffs, Cites Timber Blocked by Litigation”
August 29, 2014
By Vince Devlin
COLUMBIA FALLS – F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber on Thursday announced it will curtail production at its sawmill here by the end of September, and lay off nine to 10 of its 120 employees.
In a written statement, company officials appeared to lay much of the blame on a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy last week that blocked a plan to build new logging roads into 36,700 acres of grizzly bear habitat in the Stillwater State Forest near Olney.
But Stoltze resource manager Paul McKenzie said the Stillwater Forest case was just a small part of a larger picture in which he says 200 million board feet of timber in western Montana is tied up in litigation.
“What (Molloy’s) decision did to us was make it critical we do it (lay off the 9 to 10 employees) right away,” McKenzie said.
Molloy concluded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by approving a state plan to issue a permit to the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation to “take” grizzly bears (i.e., harm their habitat) in the state forest.
“It is with extreme frustration that we announce this curtailment,” Stoltze Vice President Chuck Roady said in the news release. “At a time when lumber markets are rebounding, we are faced with having to reduce production due to lack of access to the raw material.”
Timothy Preso, the attorney who represented conservation organizations in the Stillwater case, questioned whether Molloy’s decision – cited in the first sentence of Stoltze’s press release – was the real reason.
“The area affected has been off-limits to logging for decades,” Preso said, adding that approximately two-thirds of the Stillwater Forest’s nearly 100,000 acres are not affected by Molloy’s ruling and remain available to logging.
Preso said Roady, who was not available for comment Thursday afternoon, “acknowledged they were faced with the need for layoffs anyway.”
Roady was quoted in the Flathead Beacon Thursday as saying, “We were facing this anyway. But the (Molloy decision) was the final jab in the gut.”
“He’s right,” McKenzie said of Preso. “Judge Molloy was not the deciding factor. Log supply has been the issue for a long time.”
But Molloy’s decision did trigger the company’s decision to reduce production hours from 80 to 60 a week, and lay off approximately 8 percent of its sawmill workforce, next month, McKenzie said.
The cuts are scheduled to take place Sept. 29. Stoltze has been operating for 102 years, and is the oldest family-owned sawmill in Montana.
“As a forester, it is disheartening to be surrounded by highly productive forests that could benefit from active management, yet still not have access to sufficient log supply to meet the production needs of our sawmill,” McKenzie said in the press release.
It is “extra frustrating,” McKenzie told the Missoulian later, that just as the economy is recovering from the worst markets he’s seen, a lack of supply has forced Stoltze’s hand.
“The Kootenai National Forest alone has a target of harvesting 50 million board feet, and we have a hard time getting to half that,” McKenzie said. “The primary reason is litigation.”
Representatives of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Montana Environmental Information Center and Friends of the Wild Swan, plaintiffs in the Stillwater lawsuit, hailed Molloy’s ruling as critical for the protection of grizzly bears.
Grizzlies are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
The judge found that Fish and Wildlife Service officials lacked a rational scientific basis when they approved new road construction in what is known as the “Stillwater Core.” The permit to “take” grizzly bears – again, “take” refers to habitat destruction that drives grizzlies out of their territory and leads to reduced reproduction – would have lasted for 50 years.
Earthjustice, the environmental law firm Preso works for that represented the conservation organizations involved in the lawsuit, said the state’s plan to log the Stillwater Core would have eliminated the last non-road grizzly habitat on state lands in Montana.
State land managers said impacts to grizzlies would be minimized by imposing seasonal restrictions on road use and logging.
“This is incredibly important to grizzly bears in the Stillwater State Forest,” Arlene Montgomery, program director for Friends of the Wild Swan, said. “Bears don’t use calendars to know when an area is safe to raise their young and avoid conflicts with people. The court’s ruling ensures that bears get a fair shake.”
Matt Skoglund, director of the Northern Rockies office of the National Resources Defense Council, agreed.
“Fifty years is a long time, especially with the sobering reality of the impact of climate change in the Northern Rockies,” he said. “Building new roads in secure grizzly habitat is a dangerous road to go down.”
Preso said female grizzlies need areas like the Stillwater Core to raise their cubs, and that “Federal officials played fast and loose with the science in claiming otherwise. Fortunately we have courts in this country that require federal officials to make rational decisions and follow the rule of law.”
7. Greenwire, “Power Use by TV, Broadband Boxes Down 5% Under Voluntary Agreement – Report”
August 28, 2014
By Katherine Ling
Cable, satellite and broadband boxes last year saved consumers $168 million and enough electricity to power Pittsburgh homes for one year, as part of a voluntary energy efficiency agreement that industry hopes can pave the way for similar standards for other home gadgets.
The almost 5 percent drop last year in electricity consumption by digital video recorders (DVRs) and cable boxes found in 92 million homes across the nation was unveiled today in the 2013 progress report on the “set-top box” agreement between the pay TV industry and energy efficiency advocates.
Under a business-as-usual scenario without the voluntary agreement, set-top boxes would have cost consumers almost $350 million more in energy bills and emitted nearly 1.75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the output of a 500-megawatt power plant, according to the study.
Set-top boxes consume the second-greatest amount of power in a home among consumer electronics — 18 percent — trailing behind televisions, which consume the most, at about 33 percent, according to a recent study from the Consumer Electronics Association (Greenwire, June 24).
The set-top box progress report — prepared by efficiency analysis firm D&R International Ltd. on behalf of the voluntary agreement steering committee — is the first annual report based on data provided by the service providers as required under the unusual collaborative approach agreement.
“The voluntary agreement is off to a great start,” Noah Horowitz, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a lead negotiator of the agreement, said in a statement. “The savings that were achieved this year will grow dramatically over the next few years as the older less efficient models are eventually retired and replaced by new and improved models in the future.”
First signed in 2012 and expanded in 2013, the voluntary agreement aims to improve the efficiency of set-top boxes by up to 45 percent — saving an amount of energy equivalent to the output of three new power plants — cut consumers electric bills by $1 billion annually, and cut 5 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year through 2017.
The Energy Department and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) praised the final agreement, signed six months ago, applauding the persistence and cooperation of signatories include NRDC, the CEA, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Comcast, DIRECTV, DISH Network, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Verizon, Cox Communications, and manufacturers Cisco and EchoStar Technologies (E&ENews PM, Dec. 23, 2013).
The CEA cites the voluntary agreement as a model for future energy efficiency standards for consumer electronics, as DOE has turned its attention to the swiftly increasing battery chargers, computers and other gadgets becoming an integral part of everyday life and energy consumption. The CEA is critical of DOE’s regulatory process as inflexible and even counterproductive for the innovation and quick evolution in the consumer electronics industry.
CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro said the report “provides transparency, public accountability and a progress check on this non-regulatory initiative designed to deliver comprehensive energy and related cost savings for consumers and the country, while also protecting innovation and competition within our industry.”
Many in the pay TV industry found energy savings for set-top boxes while improving functionality and providing a better user experience by introducing the “whole-home” DVR — removing the need for a full box in every household room with a television and replacing it with a simpler, less power-hungry “thin client,” according to the report.
Companies also were able to include automatic power-down in at least 90 percent of the set-top boxes, and on average, new cable boxes used 14 percent less energy than those installed in 2012, the report says. The industry also made energy efficiency information on set-top boxes purchased after Jan. 1, 2014, readily accessible to consumers, in accordance with the agreement.
An independent auditor will verify the reported savings data from the services providers this fall, under the terms of the agreement, and a random audit of one of the service providers is currently ongoing, the study says.
Still, NRDC’s Horowitz said, the industry must still tackle the largest waste of energy: the sleep mode.
“In order to dramatically bring down national set-top box energy use and consumer utility bills, the pay TV industry and their suppliers must find a way to reduce the roughly $2 billion per year worth of electricity that existing set-top boxes consume when they are not being used,” Horowitz said. “We know the industry is hard at work to develop much more efficient models and are hopeful they are able to incorporate some of the energy-sipping technology currently used in smartphones and tablets.”
Service providers deployed software updates and equipped new equipment with “light sleep” mode, but at least one provider found that it “degraded the consumer experience” and is still working to find a solution, according to the report.
Also, the better capabilities of high-definition and advanced video processing increased the power consumption of devices that enable digital services on analog televisions, known as digital transport adapters (DTAs), although they still met basic energy efficiency requirements, the report says.
Under the agreement, service providers are set to test a “deep sleep” option this year.
8. WyoFile, “Yellowstone Grizzly Bears Remain Genetically Isolated”
September 2, 2014
By Kelsey Dayton
In 2005 a grizzly bear from the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem was found dead southwest of Anaconda, Montana. Frank van Manen, team leader of the interagency grizzly bear study team, didn’t know the cause of death, but the sub-adult male was found about half way between the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem — home of the Glacier National Park grizzlies — and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It was the closest attempt at the two populations mingling that biologists know of in recent history.
As wildlife managers consider removing Yellowstone grizzly bears from the endangered species list this year, the animals remain genetically isolated, a fact that worries some biologists while others say it isn’t an issue.
Genetic diversity helps animal populations thrive and also survive unforeseen challenges like disease or climate change, said Christine Wilcox, a biologist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Linkage is one of the top concerns among conservations groups when it comes to survival of the Yellowstone grizzly, she said. The bear population might be healthy now, but the species could find itself in trouble in the future without more genetic diversity. Wilcox said that by the time a problem is detected, it will be too late to protect linkage areas, which could be lost to development, and it will be even harder for the populations to naturally connect.
Grizzlies used to occupy so much territory, including the space between the Northern Continental Divide and the Greater Yellowstone ecosystems, it was common for bear populations to mingle. Today the two populations are separated by about 150 miles. Bears have been known to travel 100 miles in a season, so they could potentially still meet, but it’s a dangerous journey.
“Right now it’s a gauntlet run,” Wilcox said. “Yes they can make it. But the chance of a conflict, which leads to mortality, is really high.”
That will likely only get worse when the bears are delisted and protections in the linkage zones disappear. Some separation between the populations is fine, but total isolation isn’t good for either population, Wilcox said.
The Yellowstone bear’s genetic diversity is considered “moderate,” van Manen said. There are populations, such as in coastal Alaska, that have much lower diversity than the Yellowstone bears, and those animals are still healthy and vigorous, he said.
There also hasn’t been a decline in genetic diversity in the Yellowstone population. The inner agency grizzly bear study team monitors the genetic diversity of the bear population using DNA collected each time biologists capture bears. That genetic information tells scientists the age of the animal, and also provides data on the overall genetic diversity of the population, van Manen said. The monitoring would show if an animal from another ecosystem traveled into the Yellowstone, which hasn’t yet happened, but van Manen said he isn’t worried.
“It’s always desirable to have genetic exchange among populations,” van Manen said. “That allows populations to have that genetic diversity that allows the population to adapt to new circumstances. However, if you ask me if it’s essential, or a big concern for the greater Yellowstone, my answer is ‘no.’ We don’t see anything in our data that shows that would create a concern.”
Genetic issues don’t manifest unless population numbers are really low. It’s rare for wildlife populations to cross that threshold where the animals start inbreeding and it causes survival issues, van Manen said. If the bears were delisted and there were signs of genetic diversity declining in the Yellowstone bears, there’s protocol built into the conservation strategy including transplanting bears from other populations if necessary.
Genetic changes can take a long time to detect and often by the time there are obvious changes, the population is in serious trouble, said Erin Edge, Rockies and Plains representative with Defenders of Wildlife.
“Long-term connectivity is really important for resiliency of the population and long-term genetic health,” she said.
It’s particularly important in the Yellowstone population which, with an estimated 741 bears, has less genetic diversity than the Northern Continental Divide bears, which has a population estimated at about 1,000 bears and also could be delisted soon.
How the bears might naturally meet is unknown.
“It’s still kind of a best guess as to where and how the bears will connect, and none of it will matter if they get into trouble along the way,” Wilcox said. “In the end the grizzly bears will tell us where and how they’ll move.”
As that happens it’s important to educate people about living in what is again becoming bear country, Edge said.
Bears in both populations are expanding their range beyond the core areas into places they haven’t habituated for decades. The best way to encourage genetic health of the populations is to allow the bears to mingle and that means bear mortalities need to be minimized in the linkage areas, Edge said. Much of the land between the two ecosystems is private land and people who own it aren’t used to seeing bears.
The important thing is working on preventing human-bear conflicts by educating people about securing their property and attractants, like garbage, bird feeders and pet food. People must also become familiar with resources and strategies such as electric fences to protect livestock and orchards, Edge said.
Delisting the bears removes protections that help ensure safety as the bears move into new areas, but connectivity is still possible in a delisting world, she said.
How delisting the Yellowstone bears from the endangered species list, expected to happen this year, will impact that expansion is unknown. “It’s hard to predict how the states will manage the bears,” said van Manen.
The further bears move away from the core area, the higher the mortality rates as they encounter more roads and unsuitable habitat. In Yellowstone the bears are expanding their range further south and east more so than moving northwest toward the Northern Continental Divide population. But van Manen said he believes that eventually some bears, likely from the larger Northern Continental Divide population, will move into new genetic territory.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some genetic exchange within the next 10 years or so,” he said.
The study team and van Manen plan to present population and mortality numbers for the bears for the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee of the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee at its next meeting of wildlife managers and agencies on October 28 in Bozeman, Montana. A decision on whether or not to delist grizzly bears is expected by the end of the year.
1. Regulate Canadian, Nit American Metals Mine, Murkowski Says”
August 14, 2014
By Alan Neuhauser
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has called for greater oversight of a Canadian metals mine – even as she lambastes federal regulation of a similar proposed mining project in Alaska.
“It’s an irony, because the risks associated with Pebble Mine are precisely those that we have seen unfolding before our eyes over the past week in British Columbia,” says Joel Reynolds, western director and senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “That is to say, a major containment dam failure resulting in significant off-site contamination in salmon habitats.”
Last week, a dam containing the wastewater pond for Canada’s open-pit Mount Polley mine ruptured, sending millions of gallons of potentially contaminated water spilling into a river along the Alaska border (Canadian officials lifted a ban on drinking tap water Tuesday). Later that week, Murkowski dashed off a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, urging him to impress upon Canadian leaders “the potential impacts that large-scale mining in Canada could hold” for the state’s fishing and tourism industries, as well as its indigenous population.
“The tailings pond breach at Mount Polley on August 4 has renewed the specter of environmental impacts from large-scale hardrock mineral developments in Canada that are located near transboundary rivers,” Murkowski wrote. “I therefore urge you to accelerate your work with your Canadian counterparts to confirm that new mining activities are subject to proper review and continued oversight.”
Just three weeks earlier, however the senator was railing against federal environmental oversight of the controversial proposed Pebble Mine, a strikingly similar waterfront open-pit metals mining operation – but instead on the Alaskan side of the border.
“There’s a pretty obvious disconnect between her position as far as Canada goes, and her position as far as Alaska goes,” Reynolds says. “On the one hand, she is encouraging federal oversight of mining in Canada; on the other hand, she has been consistently opposing federal oversight of mining in Alaska.”
Murkowski was unavailable for comment Wednesday. Yet in a statement last month, the senator declared that “the EPA is setting a precedent that strips Alaska and all Alaskans of the ability to make decisions on how to develop a healthy economy on their lands. This is a blueprint that will be used across the country to stop economic development.”
Murkowski, like many of her Republican colleagues, has regularly opposed certain EPA environmental protections. In June, she asserted that the agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan – the first federal action to limit carbon emissions from existing power plants – would threaten the reliability of the energy grid. In fact, in 2010, she sought a rare Congressional “disapproval resolution” to oppose another EPA clean air action.
“If you got a political institution such as the EPA coming out with restrictions that inhibit the freedom of your mining industry, it’s difficult,” says Jerry McBeath, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alaska and, in the 1980s, a staffer for the senator’s father, Sen. Frank Murkowski. “She will go and criticize the EPA for ‘imperial overreach.’”
However, he adds, there’s also intense local opposition to the proposed mine, meaning the EPA’s “intentions in this particular case happen to side with the interests of more of her constituents than otherwise would be the case…. There may be a fine line there that she’s trying to stay on.”
Lindsey Bloom agrees. A commercial fisherman and fisheries consultant in Juneau, Bloom contends that the senator’s positions on Pebble Mine and Mount Polley are not necessarily incompatible.
“It is important to distinguish that she has not come out in support of Pebble,” Bloom writes in an email to U.S. News. “Sen. Murkowski has family in the fishing industry and a real understanding of the importance of robust wild salmon fisheries and intact habitat to our fishing families, jobs and economy in Alaska.”
With the rupture at Mount Polley, Bloom adds, “you have a foreign country where there was just a huge dam breach and environmental disaster on Canada’s largest salmon system. They don’t have the same environmental safeguards that we do such as the Clean Water Act.”
Reynolds, however, is not convinced. The tailings pond dam that ruptured at Mount Polley, he points out, was designed by the very same consulting firm retained to draw-up a similar dam for Pebble Mine – an ominous omen for the proposed project, he says.
“The parallels with Pebble are pretty obvious here. And I think that magnifies the irony of Sen. Murkowski’s position,” Reynolds says. “I don’t take issue with her letter to Sec. Kerry, I take issue with the blind spot she seems to have with respect to the risks posed to Bristol Bay by the Pebble Mine.”
2. “A $Billion Bet on Clean Energy”
August 14, 2014
By Brian Dumaine
With its new “Green Bank”, New York aims to boost solar, wind, and smart-grid technology.
The solution to global warming is obvious—reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Accomplishing that goal, however, requires radical action. Few understand that better than Richard Kauffman, an ex–Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley banker whom New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed last year as the state’s first energy czar. Kauffman has visions of New York as a 21st-century clean-tech powerhouse. But for now, he admits, it remains more of a 20th-century energy dinosaur.
“We’re not on a sustainable path either environmentally or economically,” says Kauffman of his state. “We’re not installing enough renewables, and we’re not getting the economic-development boost that a transition to a new-energy economy can provide. We need to rethink what we do.”
To kick-start that process of reinvention, Kauffman has taken some radical actions of his own: Earlier this year he rolled out a state-owned financing startup with $1 billion in assets called N.Y. Green Bank. The hope is that, through strategic lending, the state can give the private sector the incentive to help transform New York State’s power system. If it works, the project could provide a template for other states to follow. According to the OECD, N.Y. Green Bank is only the second state-run institution of its kind in the U.S. Connecticut launched a green bank in 2011 but on a smaller scale, with $117 million in net assets.
New York’s list of energy challenges is long. It lags behind California and other big states in the adoption of renewables. Last year, for instance, the Golden State installed 2,621 megawatts of solar energy, compared with New York’s paltry 69 megawatts. New Yorkers pay some of the highest electrical rates in the nation. At the same time, the state’s utilities are struggling. Electricity demand is weak, and the cost to maintain an aging grid is rising. The price tag simply to keep New York’s antiquated grid running over the next decade is an estimated $30 billion.
Gov. Cuomo has given Kauffman the clout to make big changes. As New York’s chairman of energy and finance, he has the sway and the budget to push for change in almost every aspect of the state’s energy system. He has already launched a multi-front offensive. Kauffman is pushing for regulatory reform that would encourage the state’s utilities to run more energy-efficiency programs and make smart-grid investments to reduce load and the need to maintain expensive backup power plants. He’s also pushing for utilities to invest more in clean, distributed energy.
Other states have tried such measures with only moderate success. Although wind and solar power are growing quickly, their share of the nation’s total power generation is only about 4%. Kauffman is hoping the Green Bank can push New York way past that level in coming years. The bank, funded by a surcharge paid by utility customers, aims to help finance clean-energy projects throughout the state. The Green Bank plans to announce its first investments this fall.
When he took the energy czar job, Kauffman, 59, brought with him a strong belief that the government was lousy at picking winners and losers. (Consider the Energy Department’s disastrous $535 million investment in solar-panel maker Solyndra.) He began searching for private sector solutions to the state’s energy problems. “It’s going to be the markets that will give customers what they want,” says Kauffman. “I have no idea what new energy systems are best. Apple, for example, allows outside programmers to make apps for its products because that’s the way innovation happens—you open up competition.”
So the Green Bank will not dole out grants or fund risky clean-tech startups. Rather, it will offer “gap” financing. That means providing loans, debt guarantees, and other financial products to help private sector bankers fund more clean-tech deals—whether for solar, wind, smart-grid technology, battery storage, or energy-efficient buildings. Says Douglas Sims, the director of strategy and finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council and an adviser on the project: “They will provide comfort to private lenders who want to employ capital in this space. They’re enablers. To me, that’s the most radical thing about it.”
While large-scale wind and solar projects can typically get financing, Kauffman says that there are many smaller clean-tech projects that are viable but just can’t find the right debt structure. For example, universities, hospitals, and municipalities that want to install solar systems or energy-efficiency technology often have good credit ratings but don’t have the upfront capital. A bank might be willing to offer a 10-year loan, but the organizations might need a 15-year loan to make the debt service more affordable. So the Green Bank could step in and provide the financing for years 11 through 15. Another area where it could help is in solar installation. Companies such as SolarCity, Sunrun, and Sungevity have little trouble raising financing for residential customers who have top credit scores of around 700, but they find it much harder to raise money for leases or loans for those with scores of 650—even though these customers are considered creditworthy. The Green Bank could guarantee the financing on those deals.
Perhaps the biggest impact the Green Bank could make is in securitization. (Think mortgage-backed securities with better due diligence.) So far the bond market has been largely absent when it comes to financing renewables. Why? Big banks don’t like to dabble in small loans. The Green Bank plans to securitize clean-energy projects—bundling 40 or 50 solar loans, each worth about $1 million, into one security and then selling the $50 million bond to institutional investors. That would open an entirely new source of capital for the sector and spur growth, Kauffman believes.
As promising as the Green Bank sounds, some in the environmental community worry that even $1 billion in capitalization won’t be enough to turn New York green. After all, energy is an extremely capital-intensive industry.
But Kauffman believes that the first step is for the Green Bank to show that it can make money. If the bank is profitable, it will be self-sustaining, he argues. And it can leverage that $1 billion in a way that would have a significant, long-term impact on the clean-tech industry. “We want to get a market rate of return and then step out of the way,” says the energy czar. “We want to be on the frontier of new markets, providing the necessary support to get the private sector fully engaged.” And if that happens, Kauffman’s radical plan might make a real impact.
3. “California Lawmakers Negotiate Exempting Tesla Battery Plant from Environmental Review”
August 14, 2014
Two powerful Sacramento lawmakers are proposing that a battery plant for “green” auto manufacturer Tesla be partially exempted from California Environmental Quality Act regulations, as reported by the L.A. Times.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Senator Ted Gaines (R-Northern California) are working on a package of incentives to lure Tesla’s plant along with its 6,500 new jobs and $5 billion in spending. Environmental advocates says CEQA does not apply differently to different companies.
What are the environmental risks associated with a battery plant? Are those risks balanced by the zero-emissions cars manufactured by Tesla? What about the pioneering research? Is this move really an attempt to reform CEQA by lawmakers who in the past have sought changes to the landmark law?
Guests:
Marc Lifsher, business reporter in Sacramento for the L.A. Times
Jennifer Hernandez, attorney with Holland & Knight law firm; Hernandez specializes in CEQA on behalf of developers; she co-chairs Holland & Knight’s National Environmental Team and leads the West Coast Land Use and Environment Practice Group for the San Francisco firm
David Pettit, senior attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council and director of NRDC’s Southern California Air Program
Click here for AirTalk audio download
4. “Can Conan Convince Californian’s to Save Water?”
August 14, 2014
Alexis Petru
California’s historic drought is no laughing matter. But the state of California and the Natural Resources Defense Council are trying to inject some humor into their efforts to encourage Californians to conserve water, teaming up with Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter on a series of public service announcement (PSA) videos that feature water-saving tips.
Part of California’s “Save Our Water” drought awareness campaign, the new PSAs cover topics from car washing (you can save 60 gallons of water by taking your car to a carwash rather than washing it by hand – and you can bathe your kids there, too, Richter points out) to pool covers (swimming pools evaporate up to 40,000 gallons of water a year; even if you don’t have a pool, you can buy a pool cover to impress people and make them think you have one, the funnymen say).
The comedians even poke fun at the idea that saving water takes too much work; there are many “lazy” ways to conserve water, they say: running dishes through a dishwasher instead of washing them yourself, using a carwash rather than hand-washing your car and their more tongue-in-cheek suggestion of skipping showers.
2013 was the driest year on record in many parts of California, leading Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency in January. In addition to directing state agencies to expedite farmers’ access to water, safeguard drinking water and prepare for an extreme fire season, Brown also called on his fellow Californians to reduce their water use by 20 percent. The “Save Our Water” campaign, a partnership between the Association of California Water Agencies and the California Department of Water Resources, aims to meet the governor’s target, promoting simple water-conserving tips through lawn signs, social media campaigns, billboards and radio ads.
The partnership with O’Brien and Richter isn’t the first time that the “Save Our Water” project has recruited celebrities or come up with creative marketing campaigns: It has already featured PSAs from Lady Gaga and Sammy Hagar and included the clever “Brown is the New Green” slogan to urge Californians to let their lawns go brown by watering only twice a month.
California’s education campaign may be light-hearted and silly, but the Golden State is starting to get serious about restricting water use. Most communities across the state have been relying on voluntary water restrictions to motivate residents to do their part during the record-breaking drought. But in mid-July, the State Water Resources Control Board adopted regulations that allow municipalities to impose fines of up to $500 a day for water-wasting activities such as runoff from outdoor sprinklers and hosing down driveways and sidewalks.
Will O’Brien and Richter’s comedic PSAs help the convince Californians to cut their water use by 20 percent? The results of celebrity social and environmental awareness campaigns have historically been mixed – from “We Are The World” and Farm Aid to the campaign to end genocide in Darfur. Whether or not “Team Coco” can lend its star power to the cause of water conservation, social marketing studies have shown that positive campaigns like this one, highlighting simple ways individuals can make a difference, are much more effective than negative ones that focus on doom and gloom. While the water-conservation jokes may not be as funny as O’Brien and Richter’s standard material, these PSAs are certainly more upbeat than Keep America Beautiful’s iconic “crying Indian” commercial from the ‘70s and don’t reprimand individuals for eco-unfriendly lifestyles, like the Californians publicly “drought shaming” their water-wasting neighbors on Twitter.
5. “Proposed Law Aims to Restrict Antibiotic Use on Farms”
August 13, 2014
By Kerry Grens
California lawmakers this week (August 11) approved a bill restricting the use of antibiotics in farm animals to cases substantiated by prescriptions and requiring that drugmakers label antibiotics as prescription-only. Although federal guidelines request similar practices, if enacted, this would be the first instance of such restrictions becoming law.
The rule is intended to curb the practice of using antibiotics to beef up livestock, a tactic that has been fingered as augmenting antibiotic-resistance in humans. Yet, environmental advocates are disappointed.
The bill “would prohibit drug manufacturers from selling antibiotics for ‘growth promotion’ uses, but would allow the very same drugs to be used routinely to help animals survive unhealthy living conditions,” Jonathan Kaplan, the director of the National Resources Defense Council’s Food and Agriculture program, wrote on his staff’s blog. “It’s a gigantic loophole that we fear will do little to change actual drug use.”
The bill’s author, Senator Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), responded to critics in July, writing in the Sacramento Bee that “preventative use can be judicious. . . Just as humans are given prophylactic antibiotics when a doctor deems it necessary, there are situations in which a veterinarian may determine that livestock need prophylactic antibiotics.”
In June, the US Food and Drug Administration reported that all 26 antibiotics producers have signed on to the voluntary guidelines for phasing out the use of their drugs for food production.
6. “Five Ways to tame ‘Accidental’ Data Centers”
August 14, 2014
The best-laid plans for green office buildings are meaningless if the occupants ignore them. Remember the flap last August over how much power the Platinum LEED Bank of America tower in New York was using? Suffice it to say, way more than anticipated.
Few things can skew energy usage more insidiously than the energy for running and cooling random computer servers, storage arrays and network gear shoved into closets or conference rooms originally intended for other purposes. Unfortunately, outside of big Fortune 500 companies that can for data center gurus, this practice is apparently pretty common: the Natural Resources Defense Council figures that at least half of U.S. servers are unmanaged, accounting for between 30 percent and 50 percent of all the electricity being used in small and midsize offices.
“Whether it’s accidental or not, it starts with one or two servers, which isn’t necessarily a big deal. But all of a sudden, you have a small server room that is far less efficient that what you might find in a big data center or colocation facility,” said Pierre Delforge, director for high-tech sector energy efficiency for NRDC.
“For perspective, the amount of power we’re talking about is equivalent to approximately 20 500-megawatt, coal-fired power plants.”
The fact that this is a surprise to many facilities or office managers is one reason it keeps happening. “Every company is vulnerable to this. Large companies usually have the resources to address the problem, but smaller ones might not have the wherewithal or the motivation to do so,” said Allison Bard, associate with sustainability business consulting firm Cadmus Group.
The reality is leases and space constraints might force small or midsize businesses to get creative about how they accommodate on-premises IT equipment. “Even a one-floor office can need a data center or computer room that requires support and cooling, backup power, the standard features you would expect in a big one,” said John Weale, associate with Integral Group.
The good news is it doesn’t take much effort to rectify the situation. Here are five best practices for businesses not quite big enough to have a dedicated data center, but growing fast enough to require sophisticated computing infrastructure.
1. Assess the magnitude of the issue
Cadmus classifies unplanned computing real estate in the following way: localized data centers with 1,000 square feet of “white space,” server rooms smaller than 500 square feet and server closets less than 200 square feet. The tipping point seems to be when a business is running more than 10 servers, according to experts. “These small spaces are pretty ubiquitous,” noted Robert Huang, senior associated with Cadmus.
Short of walking around to peek into all the nooks and crannies of an office space, analyzing submeter data can help your organization gauge if it has a problem. If the amount of electricity used outside business hours is almost the same as when employees are around, there’s cause for concern.
“If the difference is relatively low, it means that something pretty large is running 24×7,” Delforge said. That’s simply because unmanaged or outdated IT equipment uses roughly the same amount of power when it’s idle as when it’s fully used.
2. Invest in outside expertise
Most U.S. utilities have a vested interest in helping businesses reduce power consumption, and some even offer incentives for moving on-premises equipment to off-site data centers optimized for energy efficiency. Increasingly, they are focusing attention on smaller spaces, Huang said.
The challenge is assigning someone to be accountable. “Quite often, the person paying the bill isn’t accountable for this,” Bard said. “So, maybe you should hire an outside expert to help you understand the potential impact of certain actions.
3. Consolidate the equipment
Instead of buying a new server every time your organization adopts a new application, use virtualization technologies to add them to existing equipment.
According to the figures you cite, anywhere from 8 percent to 10 percent of the servers in use today are running for no apparent reason and it would be relatively easy to decommission them, or shut them off. Others could serve as the foundation layer for consolidation projects. “You don’t necessarily need to eliminate them, but you need to be aware of them,” Weale said.
4. Organize the space thoughtfully, and don’t fret so much about the heat
Instead of randomly sticking IT equipment based solely on where there’s space available, smaller organizations can address this issue more strategically by putting the gear in space where the plug loads can be managed centrally and where there’s already a concentration of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment that can help control humidity and cooling.
Finding a way to bring in outside air for cooling, and organizing the servers so heat is dispersed more efficiently can help, Huang said. Speaking of heat, the latest ASHRAE standards allow temperatures of up to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, something many facilities managers don’t realize.
“Actually design a room to support the equipment you’re putting into it,” Weale said. Figure out what you need, and then design to support that without erring on the side of overkill.”
5. Consider the cloud instead
One option increasingly to smaller companies are cloud infrastructure-as-a-service or software-as-a-service offerings that allow them to adopt new applications or services without having to invest in on-site servers. Even though, however, this might mean supporting a deeper onsite investment in networking gear and switches to optimize connection speeds. “People are sometimes hesitant because of bandwidth, speed considerations or colocation costs, but it’s something more organizations should take time to consider,” Bard said.
7. “No Million by 2015, But Electric Vehicles are Surging”
August 14, 2014
By Pete Danko
Quiz time. Which of the following two statements is true:
Electric vehicle sales in the United States are growing at a remarkably fast rate.
Electric vehicle sales are a small fraction of what many advocates had been hoping for just a few short years ago.
OK, maybe you sniffed out the gambit – both are true.
The EV-promoting Electric Drive Transportation Association reported this week that the number of plug-in electric vehicles on U.S. roads nearly doubled in the past year – from 119,404 in July 2013 to 234,023 at last month.
And yet even with that 96 percent surge, plug-ins are on track to fall far short of the one million goal announced by President Obama in his State of the Union address in 2011 (a goal that, admittedly, the administration began backing away from in early 2013).
In a way, plug-in electrics are experiencing the fate of any paradigm-shifting, energy-related technology. Look at solar power. It’s growing at breakneck speed – in the 18 months up to April 1, cumulative PV capacity more than doubled in the United States, rising from 5,999 megawatts to 13,395 MW – yet solar remained a bit player in the electricity market, struggling to account for even 1 percent of total generation.
Plug-ins, even with their high rate of growth, account for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the253 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads. But advocates for electric vehicles are hardly daunted.
“I come from a perspective that we’ve been doing things the same way for 100 years,” Luke Tonachel, senior analyst and director for vehicles and fuels at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview. “Against that reality, we’re on the right road.”
Tonachel said consumers are beginning to understand what electric vehicles have to offer – more virtuous driving, sure, but cheaper driving as well.
Congressional Budget Office analysts last year reported that “at current vehicle and energy prices, the lifetime costs to consumers of an electric vehicle are generally higher than those of a conventional vehicle of similar size and performance, even with the [federal] tax credits, which can be as much as $7,500 per vehicle.” But Tonachel said that with high gasoline prices and additional incentives from all but a couple of states, the picture is shifting.
Plus, manufacturers are offering their own incentives to make electrics more competitive than earlier analysis might suggest. Tesla got the ball rolling with its free, proprietary Supercharger network, up to 104 stations in the United States. And now Nissan is offering two years of free charging with new Leaf purchases or leases through its “No Charge to Charge” promotion.
“Consumers are beginning to see the benefits that electric vehicles can offer – they want to take advantage of the cost savings,” Tonachel said.
There is some evidence that EVs are performing better than might reasonably have been expected. A May 2014 report from IHS noted that electrics are doing better at a comparable stage of their development than hybrids were. The firm said the Toyota Prius had cumulative sales of 52,000 in its fourth year, while the all-electric Leaf – aided of course, by government incentives that the Prius didn’t enjoy – was near 100,000 last year, its fourth year since introduction.
“With EV adoption exceeding the historical precedent of hybrids, this means that the trend toward EVs is still progressing,” IHS analyst Ben Scott said when the report was released, “although at a slower rate than many had expected.”
Slower than President Obama expected – yet Tonachel said setting that lofty goal still served a purpose. He noted that when Obama began talking about getting 1 million EVs on the road by 2015, there were only two EVs for sale in the U.S. market. Now the field is nearing 20. “That shows how targets can help spark ingenuity and innovation,” Tonachel said.
1. Times-Picayune “What Environmental Groups Are Saying About EPA’s Proposed Carbon Pollution Limits For Power Plants”
June 2, 2014
By Mark Schleifstein
National and state environmental groups Monday largely welcomed the EPA’s proposed guidelines requiring 30 percent cuts in carbon emissions below 2005 levels by power plants nationwide by the year 2030, in an effort to reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The proposal, however, drew quick opposition from Louisiana’s congressional delegation. (Read a story on the political reaction.)
The rules would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 500 million metric tons a year by 2030.
The proposed rules also would result in reductions in particle pollutions, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide by more than 25 percent, which EPA officials say would result in 6,600 fewer premature deaths and 150,000 asthma attacks by children a year, when fully implemented. The health improvements also would result in the avoidance of 490,000 missed work or school days, which EPA says represents savings of $93 billion a year.
EPA also says that because the rules will require increased use of energy efficiency and reduction of demand for electricity, nationwide, electric bills would shrink by 8 percent.
The rules have been criticized by electric utilities that predominantly use coal and the coal industry as too expensive. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity contends the rules will stress state-based power grids, increase electric bills and increase the risk of rolling blackouts.
Here’s what some environmental leaders are saying:
Marylee Orr, executive director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, which includes more than 50 local environmental organizations among its members, said the new program is long overdue.
“We are at a time in the history of our country and our world where we must no longer talk about the impact of climate change, but take concrete actions to reduce greenhouse emissions to help the health and the economy of our state, nation and world,” Orr said.
“The Clean Power Plan is very important because it reduces carbon pollution from existing power plants,” she said. “There are four carbon/lignite powered plants in Louisiana. This plan will go along way to reduce greenhouse gasses and help public health. Natural gas powered plants will also reduce emissions.”
Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, which tracks environmental issues involving oil refineries, said she expects Gov. Bobby Jindal and the state’s congressional delegation to oppose the proposed rules.
“Here in Louisiana we should celebrate these new rules, for our state is the state most vulnerable to climate change,” Rolfes said, pointing to the contribution that rising sea levels caused by global warming has on the loss of the state’s coastline and its increased vulnerability to hurricane storm surges.
“Our congressional delegation and senators will decry this rule, but they should be celebrating it and asking the EPA to do more,” she said. “Our leadership instead suffers from a lack of imagination and creativity regarding job creation. What about investing intensely in renewable energy? We don’t need any more dirty jobs.”
“The bottom line is that it’s unfortunate that our state will fight these rules when we should be a leader in implementing them, given our vulnerability to climate change,” she said. Instead, she said, it’s time for the state to set similar rules for other major carbon-producing industries in the state, including refineries and chemical plants.
“Many of the facilities in Louisiana are now producing chemicals and energy for export. Do we really want to ruin Louisiana so that people on the other side of the globe can consume more? We have become a colony. It is unacceptable,” Rolfes said.
“The first project that should be stopped because of this is the Sasol facility near Lake Charles,” she said. “It will add an unbelievable amount of greenhouse gases to the air. It is a devastating project for Louisiana, one that provides temporary jobs and long-term sickness.”
Sasol’s proposed $16 billion to $21 billion natural gas to liquids refinery would also produce 10.7 million tons of carbon gases a year, according to its permit requests.
America’s WETLAND Foundation sees the legislation’s “cap and trade” provisions, which allow industries to to pay for credits generated by carbon storage projects, including the creation of wetlands, as a potential benefit for the state.
“We view the President’s plan as having strong potential for coastal sustainability, if state plans along the Gulf Coast will allow restoration as one of the tools to meet their targets,” said a statement by the foundation’s managing director, Valsin Marmillion. “Particularly in Louisiana and Texas, where sea level rise adds to the loss of critical wetlands and coastal landscapes at alarming rates daily, our states can ensure that coastal restoration qualifies under any guidelines created.
“This action supports public sentiment from America’s WETLAND Foundation polling, where seventy-one percent of voters support building wetland as carbon sinks and 72 percent feel that sea level rise is a serious problem tied to climate change,” Marmillion said.
The American Lung Association focused on the proposal’s health benefits in a statement of support.
“Power plant pollution makes people sick and cuts short lives,” said Harold Wimmer, national president of the American Lung Association. He said that when completely adopted in 2030, the new rules will prevent up to 6,600 premature deaths and 150,000 asthma attacks a year.
“Cleaning up carbon pollution will have an immediate, positive impact on public health; particularly for those who suffer from chronic diseases like asthma, heart disease or diabetes,” Wimmer said. “Steps to clean up carbon pollution can reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, both poisonous emissions from coal-fired power plants that are also major precursors to lethal ozone and particulate matter pollution.”
The Sierra Club also supports the proposal.
“Climate disruption is the greatest challenge facing our generation,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club in a statement. “Until now, power plants have been allowed to dump unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into our air, driving dangerous climate disruption, and fueling severe drought, wildfires, heat waves and superstorms. Extreme weather, and the costs to Americans’ health and wallets, will only worsen unless we act.”
Also supportive was the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“The EPA’s proposal to limit carbon pollution from power plants for the first time ever is a giant leap forward in protecting the health of all Americans and future generations,” said Frances Beinecke, NRDC president, who also served on the President’s Commission on the BP Deepwater Oil Spill.
“It sets fair targets for each state and empowers the states with the flexibility to craft the best local solutions, using an array of compliance tools,” Beinecke said. “And if states embrace the huge energy efficiency opportunities, consumers will save on their electric bills and see hundreds of thousands of jobs created across the country.”
Earthjustice, a non-profit public interest law organization that has represented environmental groups in lawsuits attempting to strengthen EPA regulation of emissions, also praised the new rules.
“There is no graver challenge facing humanity right now than reducing emissions of greenhouse gasses,” said Earthjustice president Trip Van Noppen. “And there is no better place to start than the aging power plants currently pumping out 40 percent of the nation’s carbon pollution. The substantial reduction in greenhouse gasses achieved by these safeguards will help avert or mitigate the ongoing disaster of climate change and the widespread effects it will have on public health.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists praised the new policy and said its own recent study indicates that even larger, cost effective carbon emission reductions are possible beyond the 30 percent goal set by EPA.
“With the flexibility to include renewable energy and energy efficiency in state plans to meet these new standards, the proposal presents a significant opportunity for states to make meaningful reductions in their emissions,” said UCS President Ken Kimmell, former commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and former Board Chair of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, in a news release.
The new UCS analysis concluded that combining more aggressive power plant standards with strong renewable and efficiency policies could cut power sector carbon emissions by 40 percent below 2013 levels by 2020 and by more than 50 percent by 2030.
“While the power plant carbon standard is a tremendous step forward, ultimately we will need to make much deeper cuts in emissions to help limit worsening climate impacts, something the administration cannot do alone,” said Rachel Cleetus, senior climate economist with UCS and a co-author of the report. “Congress must step up and enact legislation that will lead to deep cuts in emissions throughout the economy.”
Meanwhile, two environmental organizations said the proposal doesn’t go far enough in regulating greenhouse gases.
“We applaud the President for using the tools he has available, with a Congress that refuses to act and for setting hard targets for emissions reductions,” said a joint statement by Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, and Janet Redman, program director for the Institute for Policy Studies Climate Policy Program. “However, the targets don’t make the U.S. a leader in seeking emissions reduction.
“Because this rule applies to only one segment of our economy, existing coal-fired power plants, the reduction targets fall far short of the IPCC’s goals for developed countries of economy-wide reductions of 15 to 40 percent below 1990 emission by 2020,” Hauter and Redman said. “With these targets, U.S. economy-wide emissions would still be above 1990 levels in 2030.”
Opposing the legislation is American’s for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group supported by the energy industry’s Koch brothers that was formed to fight big government and spending.
“Once again the Obama Administration is putting its own global-warming ideology ahead of the interests of hardworking taxpayers,” said AFP president Tim Phillips. “These proposed EPA rules will lead to higher energy bills for families, lost jobs, and diminished economic growth. Even worse, this proposal comes just days after it was revealed that last quarter the U.S. economy actually shrank for the first time in three years.
“The tragedy is that while the new EPA regulations will hit taxpayers square in the pocketbook, even the administration admits they are ‘unlikely’ to have any meaningful impact on the environment,” Phillips said in a news release after McCarthy’s announcement.
2. WBUR, Here & Now, “EPA Sets New Rules On Power Plant Emissions”
June 2, 2014
[Listen to the Interview]
The U.S. Environmental Protect Agency today announced new regulations that will limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants by nearly a third over the next 15 years.
Power plants are the single largest source of carbon emissions in the United States, and scientists say CO2 is the main cause of climate change.
Environmentalists are applauding the move, which is the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate plan. But the coal industry and members of Congress from coal-producing states say the measure will kill jobs and raise electricity costs.
Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson speaks with Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association.
Guest
Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He tweets @p_lehner.
Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association.
3. Wall Street Journal, “Emissions Cap Is A Relief For Some Power Plants, Coal Firms”
June 2, 2014
June 2, 2014
By Alicia Mundy and John W. Miller
The coal industry quickly and loudly criticized proposed new U.S. emissions rules for power plants, saying that the proposal was tougher than expected and posed a threat to the industry.
But behind the scenes, some people in the industry said were relieved.
“This is a vast overreach,” said Vic Svec, director of investor relations for coal miner Peabody Energy Corp. BTU -0.31% “It’s being billed as a coal measure, but when you hit coal, you hit the American consumer hard.”
National Mining Association President Hal Quinn called the new Environmental Protection Agency draft “a major gamble that America cannot afford to make.”
The coal and utility industries had been hoping that the agency would apply emission-reduction standards from a baseline of 2005, since emissions from electric plants have dropped since then. Yet despite rounds of increasingly intense phone calls and meetings between energy lobbyists and the administration, the White House had taken 2005 “off the table,” a lawyer for coal interests said Friday. The coal industry feared that the EPA draft would use a more recent, and thus tougher-to-meet baseline, for example, 2012, he said.
By Sunday, though, word was spreading in Washington that the administration had decided on 2005, after all.
“We aren’t sure how that happened, but it’s a big relief,” a coal-industry lobbyist said Monday.
Scott Segal of law firm Bracewell & Giuliani LLC in Washington, who works with coal-fired power plants expressed a similar view. “This rule could have been a whole lot worse. But as it is, it will still inflict considerable economic harm for little or no benefit,” said Mr. Segal, who is director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which lobbies for coal-fired utilities.
The EPA said 2005 is an international benchmark year in comparing pollution across countries.
David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council environmental advocacy group said that states that already have developed strong programs to reduce power-plant emissions had wanted the White House and the EPA to include 2005 for state planning because after that, their emissions began to fall.
Coal-fired power plants won’t have much difficulty meeting the EPA’s mandate for a 30% reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030, a lobbyist for the industry said; carbon emissions from coal plants have dropped 14% since 2005. Also, many coal-fueled electric plants already are scheduled to be retired over the next several years because of regulations involving mercury emissions and because a glut of lower-emission natural gas has lowered prices for that fuel.
Coal companies and electric plants still are concerned about an earlier deadline to reduce emissions 25% by 2020, since that means finding ways to cut 11% in relatively short order.
“People thought these would be watered down, and this is not watered down,” said Matt Preston, an analyst with consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. “This is pretty dramatic. The 2020 limits are pretty aggressive.”
Beyond electric plants, other big consumers of power said they, too, could have a tough time with the new rules.
The rules “could severely harm the international competitiveness of energy-intensive, trade-exposed U.S. industries like steel,” said the America Iron and Steel Institute trade group. “Energy—in particular electricity—is one of the most significant cost drivers for the production of steel,” said institute President Thomas Gibson. “This proposal may adversely impact the affordability and reliability of electricity supply to major industrial consumers, which will harm workers, jobs and further impede the postrecession growth of American manufacturing.”
4. Chicago Tribune, “With Carbon Rule, Illinois Power Struggle Begins”
June 3, 2014
By Julie Wernau
June 3, 2014
By Julie Wernau
President Barack Obama’s announcement Monday that it will be up to states to decide how to enforce his vision for a low-carbon future portends a battle among Illinois’ power giants, with Exelon in a great bargaining position.
“I expect a pretty big fight within all the competing interests,” said Jane Montgomery, a specialist in environmental law at Schiff Hardin LLP in Chicago.
With a power mix that’s split mostly between carbon-heavy coal-fired power plants and carbon-free nuclear power, Illinois is also home to the corporate headquarters of more than a dozen wind companies. Still, none is better positioned under the new rule than Chicago-based Exelon Corp., parent company of Commonwealth Edison. Exelon owns six nuclear plants in Illinois and has threatened to close plants if energy policies don’t go its way.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s aggressive goals of 30 percent greenhouse gas reductions from 2005 levels by 2030 give Exelon a strong hand if the company demands rules that reward its nuclear plants. Closing just one of those plants would set the state back in its goals because the formula that the EPA proposes to calculate state-by-state emissions rates gives the state credit for its nuclear plants.
On Thursday, Exelon Chief Executive Chris Crane said he was looking for a “clean energy standard that would compensate or have some clean energy credits for generation that is carbon free.” He called the market-based system a “probable path in some of the states, including Illinois.”
The company generates 175 million megawatt-hours nationally, on an annual basis, of carbon-free electricity, mostly from nuclear plants, Crane said. In Illinois, a $1-per-megawatt-hour price on carbon would add $100 million to the company’s gross margins, he said.
As a result of competition from lower-priced forms of power, Exelon’s earnings have suffered, and it has said at least three plants in the state could be forced to close.
According to the draft rule, the EPA believes that about 6 percent of nuclear generation in the United States is at risk for retirement absent the rule.
Robert McCullough, managing partner at McCullough Research in Portland, Ore., said a carbon rule won’t solve all of Exelon’s problems.
“The downward pressure on prices comes from inexpensive natural gas and zero marginal cost renewables,” McCullough said.
In what the White House is calling a “flexible” approach, states can choose from a menu of measures to reach targets.
Rebecca Stanfield, deputy director for policy in the Midwest for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Illinois already has energy-efficiency goals on the books, as well as goals for renewable energy that, if met, will get the state most of the way toward its targets.
“We know that Exelon would really like it if their nuclear fleet was part of the state standards as well; there’s going to be competition for that space,” she said. “We should compare the cost of keeping those plants open with the cost of replacing those plants with something that’s cleaner and cheaper like renewables.”
Exelon officials said they needed time to read the more than 600-page climate rule document.
Changes afoot for Illinois’ coal plants could also help the state meet carbon targets.
Even before the carbon rule was announced, Houston-based Dynegy, owner of nine Illinois coal plants, signaled that it might shut some of them.
New Jersey-based NRG Energy Inc., which recently bought four Illinois coal plants, has talked about converting coal plants to natural gas, a fuel that emits half the carbon of coal.
“If you repower with gas, you’re replacing half right there,” said Howard Learner, executive director of the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center. He called the flexibility of the draft rules a “pragmatic attempt to get us on a path to significant carbon reductions by 2030.”
NRG on Monday said it endorses a policy that gives it time to shift to a more clean, tech-focused business model. The company has been investing significantly in solar power but has said the market will continue to need coal plants in the near term.
NRG said it has concerns that the EPA’s “dramatically varying state emission targets” could adversely affect electricity reliability and create legal uncertainty.
Bob Flexon, chief executive of Dynegy Inc., said the devil will be in the details. For instance, the company has talked about ways it could sell fly ash to reduce carbon, but it’s not sure if that will count under the new rules.
“It’s safe to assume that we’re more impacted in the state of Illinois than any other generator,” Flexon said. “We would advocate for a number of things we would work on that create carbon offsets, and we want to make sure things of that nature are reflected in the state plan.”
Flexon said consumers can expect to pay more for electricity as a result of the rule as major power producers charge more as costs increase. He said the company has been preparing for a carbon rule for some time.
“I think if you sit there and do nothing or sit there and try to fight it, you could find yourself in a difficult place,” Flexon said.
Since 2005, Illinois has achieved 8 percent of the EPA goals, according to an analysis by Georgetown Law. But a glitch in the state’s renewable energy law has held up wind and solar build-outs. Attempts to fix the law haven’t passed muster in Springfield. Advocates of renewable energy are hoping that a carbon standard will force a legislative fix to move forward.
“If you’re looking for the easiest, most rapidly scalable, cheap forms of emissions reductions, we’ve got one,” said Kevin Borgia, public policy manager for Wind on the Wires in Illinois. “And that’s wind power. We can do it in communities in rural Illinois right now.”
But critics said it would take an area the size of Rhode Island to replace a nuclear plant with enough wind power to produce a similar amount of energy. Critics also said the wind power would not be dispatchable unless the wind was blowing.
5. KBIA, “New Carbon Dioxide Limits Could Bring Changes For Coal-Powered States Like Missouri”
June 3, 2014
By Véronique LaCapra
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed the first-ever rules to cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.
The new regulations would set different emissions targets for each state, and would leave it up to the states to figure out how to meet them over the next 15 years. David Weiskopf is with the Midwest office of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He says Missouri’s target rate for 2030 is higher than what many states are emitting now. “I think what this rule is reflecting is an acknowledgement that Missouri is heavily reliant on power plants that are fueled by coal. And it’s not asking anybody to shut them all down and replace them with cleaner power plants immediately.” Weiskopf says Missouri should be able to meet its reduction targets by continuing to invest in renewable energy and increasing its energy efficiency. Ameren says it’s already making those investments. The company says the EPA’s proposed emission reductions are unrealistic and would result in higher electricity rates for consumers.
6. The Desert Sun, “California Is OK With Obama Climate Goal”
June 2, 2014
By Raju Chebium
California should have little trouble meeting the Obama administration’s new pollution-reduction goals for the nation’s existing power plants, officials said Monday.
California has long been cleaning up its air and increasing energy efficiency, well ahead of Uncle Sam, said Stanley Young, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board.
“We believe that the proposed regulation supports and confirms the programs that we already have in place. We feel that we are ahead of the curve as we usually are, and we will continue on our trajectory,” he said in a telephone interview. “We are very confident that we will be able to meet this.”
Environmentalists also weren’t worried about California doing its part to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed emissions reductions of 30 percent from existing power plants nationwide by 2030 as compared to 2005 levels. It would be up to states to figure out how to meet the pollution targets.
“We are well on our way, but we’re going to have to continue to make the steady progress we already have,” said Ann Notthoff, California advocacy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. “California’s program is a good example of how you can cut pollution and have strong economic growth at the same time.”
The EPA said California power plants in 2012 emitted 698 pounds of carbon per megawatt-hour — a commonly used measurement in the electricity industry. If Monday’s regulations are finalized as written, power plants currently in use would have to cut that to 537 pounds per megawatt-hour.
Some steps the California State Legislature has taken in recent years:
• Capping emissions and lowering the caps every year through 2020.
• Requiring 33 percent of the electricity used statewide to come from wind, solar, geothermal or some other renewable resource, also by 2020.
• Enacting a tough “cap-and-trade” system to discourage utilities from buying power from polluted sources.
• Passing a law in 2006 barring utilities from signing long-term contracts with power plants that spew more pollution than a typical natural gas facility.
California also has no coal-burning power plants, which spew the most pollution. There are 895 power plants in the state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
California Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has long urged the EPA to regulate emissions from existing power plants. New power plants are already required to be cleaner.
On Monday, she praised the proposal, saying it would improve public health, save lives and create jobs.
“America will finally lead on a path to averting the most calamitous impacts of climate change — such as sea level rise, dangerous heat waves and economic disruption,” she said.
Read the first part of The Desert Sun’s three-part series about climate change in the Southwest, including Joshua Tree National Park
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., encouraged other states to follow California’s lead. Existing power plants, she said, “account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. emissions and need to be regulated.”
Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, welcomed the possibility for greater regional cooperation and noted that last year’s climate agreement between California, Oregon, Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia would complement the federal effort. The Pacific Coast Climate and Energy agreement calls on the four jurisdictions to coordinate their climate and energy policies and come up with ways to increase the use of clean energy throughout the region.
Complying with the regulations would be harder for many Midwestern and Southern states, which have a number of coal-burning plants.
The rule, which will likely spark legal challenges, isn’t scheduled to take effect for at least two more years.
Republicans and powerful business groups such as the U.S. Chambers of Commerce blasted the proposal.
“The president’s plan is nuts,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “Americans are still asking, ‘Where are the jobs?’ and here he is proposing rules to ship jobs overseas for years to come. Americans are already paying more for everything, and here he is condemning them to higher bills and lower incomes long after he leaves office.”
USA Today contributed to this report.
Scorched Earth
Read the first part of The Desert Sun’s three-part series about climate change in the Southwest, including Joshua Tree National Park, at DesertSun.com/climatechange, where you’ll find an in-depth story, interactive maps, videos and photo galleries.
Learn more about the EPA’s new emission-cutting proposals in today’s USA Today section in The Desert Sun.
Carbon emission cuts could shift energy mix.
7. New York Times, “A Role For G-7 In Global Warming Battle”
June 2, 2014
By David Jolly
PARIS — When the leaders of the Group of 7 meet this week in Brussels, they will have plenty on their plates, not least the crisis in Ukraine and the energy security issues it raises. If history is any guide, they will pay little more than lip service to a subject where international leadership is needed: climate change.
Cooperation on halting rising global temperatures has been scant since the 2009 debacle at the Copenhagen climate conference, and time is short if the next big meeting, in the autumn of 2015 in Paris, is to have a chance for success. Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, is so concerned that he has asked world leaders to a climate summit meeting this September.
“The G-7 should be in the lead,” said Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the main international body for addressing the problem.
“They should be familiarizing themselves with the long-term challenge that science is calling on us to face,” Ms. Figueres added, namely holding the rise in global temperatures below the benchmark target of 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
“The fact that the United Nations climate conference has been making so little progress suggests that it makes sense to consider other institutions,” said Robert N. Stavins, director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.
The G-7 countries contribute a significant percentage of global emissions, Mr. Stavins noted, and it would be “a lot easier to work out a deal” with a handful of nations than with around 180 countries of the United Nations convention.
There have been steps at the level of individual nations. On Monday, the Obama administration was to announce it was going over the head of a reluctant Congress to require carbon emissions cuts from America’s 600 coal-fired power plants. China said last week that it would take more than five million of the worst polluting cars off its streets.
Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning economist, said the best thing the leaders could do this week would be to cut emissions through a carbon tax or the cap-and-trade system, but that doing so was not politically feasible.
“There’s nothing the G-7 can do to affect the domestic U.S. climate deniers or the carbon-intensive industry lobby,” said Mr. Stiglitz, who served as a lead author for the International Panel for Climate Control’s 1995 report.
Congress, fearing a loss of competitiveness for American corporations, has been unwilling to back any agreement that doesn’t require all nations to shoulder an equal burden, he said. But China and many developing nations argue that the countries that have produced most of the man-made greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere should bear most of the cost.
Considering the stalemate, he said, it would be a major step forward if the G-7 could agree on the necessity of enforcement action for whatever deal is finally reached, through trade sanctions against countries that fail to meet the limits: “They’d be saying that this is a global problem and there won’t be any global free riders.”
Jo Leinen, a German member of the European Parliament’s climate committee, said the biggest priority for the G-7 should be to provide promised financing for the Green Climate Fund, agreed on at Copenhagen, to help poor countries embrace low-carbon energy and adapt to a warming climate. That fund was supposed to have gotten off to a quick start, with $10 billion annually to operate from 2010 to 2012. “It’s an empty box now,” Mr. Leinen, a Social Democrat, said. “There’s no money in it.”
Mohamed Adow, climate policy adviser for Christian Aid, a nonprofit development organization, said the G-7 could give the global climate negotiations “a dramatic boost by living up to the spirit of the climate convention.”
The group combines most of the countries “with the greatest emissions and the greatest wealth,” he said. “If they raised their pledges for emissions cuts and finance for helping the poor who desperately need it to survive, that would provide a huge injection of trust into the negotiations.”
Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the most important thing the G-7 could do would be “to give a clear signal” that they planned to put serious emissions cuts on the table next year in Paris.
“If the G-7 don’t do it, how can you ask China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Korea to come forward with targets for the next round?” he asked.
Scott Barrett, a professor of natural resource economics at Columbia University, said another approach would be to act on a relatively modest objective to demonstrate that global leaders actually can cooperate on global warming.
One candidate, he said, would be to strongly back a proposal, championed by the United States and others, to assign a type of refrigerant known as hydrofluorocarbons — among the most potent of the man-made greenhouse gases — to the Montreal Protocol, the agreement that was created to end the use of gases that deplete the ozone layer.
In contrast to the failed Kyoto Protocol for combating climate change, the Montreal treaty includes an enforcement mechanism, in the form of trade sanctions, and has been used to phase out nearly 100 dangerous gases.
“The Montreal Protocol didn’t set out to protect the climate, but it has been very successful,” Mr. Barrett said.
Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said by e-mail that for the G-7 to help galvanize action, it needed ultimately to embrace a positive message. “It is critical to emphasize the hope of taking action, not the despair of doing nothing,” he said.
“We have the technology to transition to a low-carbon economy,” Mr. Pachauri said, “and the pathways along which we can move toward that goal. We can make that transition without imposing an unacceptable burden on the global economy.”
8. Wall Street Journal, “N.Y., N.J. To Receive Nearly $1 Billion To Protect Against Future Storms”
June 2, 2014
June 2, 2014
By Laura Kusisto
The federal government plans to spend nearly a billion dollars to build earthen levees, add a system of water pumps and construct partially submerged barriers that will double as marine habitat to guard New York and New Jersey against future storms, officials said Monday.
The money represents a down payment on the daunting task of protecting one of the most densely populated coastal areas in the U.S., one expert said.
“You’ve got to start somewhere and this can best be seen as a creative beginning to a long-term challenge,” said Eric Goldstein, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental organization.
Appearing together at a news conference, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, promised the region wouldn’t be as vulnerable if it were rocked by another storm on the scale of superstorm Sandy.
“Sandy was devastating, and frankly as a nation and as a region, we were unprepared. That won’t happen again, plain and simple, because of what we have done here today,” said Mr. Schumer, who spoke at the event held at a public-housing complex on the far east side of Manhattan.
The $920 million will be distributed among six projects in New York and New Jersey. The largest share—$335 million—will go toward building a portion of the first phase of a 10-mile protective barrier on Manhattan’s east side. The first step will be creating an earthen berm 10 to 20 feet tall that will run along the middle of East River Park and FDR Drive and will connect residents to the river by sloping bridges over the highway.
The project represents one element of a larger vision presented by BIG, an architecture firm, to protect the lower half of Manhattan with structures that also serve as recreation sites. The entire first phase of the project would cost about $1.2 billion, according to the team.
In another winning proposal, interconnected pumps and drainage routes would capture and store excess rainwater and prevent flash flooding in Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken. The initial $230 million would be focused in Hoboken. HUD officials said that award could help attract additional public and private investment through a “Flood Development Corporation” or “Resilience District” model.
Another idea, which received $60 million, would create partly submerged barriers known as breakwaters off the south shore of Staten Island to dampen the impact of storms while promoting habitat for marine life, including lobster and oysters.
The federal competition, called Rebuild by Design, offered a way for HUD to distribute some of the money allocated as part of a $60 billion aid package to help the region recover from superstorm Sandy, which blasted the area in October 2012.
Mr. Donovan, a former New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development commissioner, is said to have been inspired to hold the competition by his work in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, which launched such programs to tackle public projects while also creating an atmosphere of excitement.
The federal housing department is trying to distribute about $1 billion of the remaining money through a national resiliency competition. Mr. Goldstein said some of those funds could instead be used to pay for needed infrastructure.
Projects will need to seek additional money from federal, city and state governments, as well as private sources, HUD officials said.
Mr. Bloomberg’s administration issued a report outlining billions of dollars of initiatives to help protect the city, though those initiatives remain largely unfunded.
Henk Ovink, a senior adviser to Mr. Donovan who ran the competition and is a deputy director at the Dutch ministry for infrastructure and the environment, said it was intended to spark a greater recognition of the need for large-scale resiliency projects in the U.S.
“A cultural change always starts small,” he said. “It will take a long time. With Rebuild by Design, we set some steps in this cultural change.”
1. Thomson Reuters, “U.S. industry gears up to fight Obama’s climate rules”
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014
By Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) – A U.S. plan to curb carbon emissions from power plants is likely to come under attack this summer by industry opponents in a bid to stir voter anger ahead of elections in November, when voters in states such as Kentucky and West Virginia could decide whether Democrats keep control of the Senate.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose on Monday new rules to crack down on power plant emissions as part of President Barack Obama’s efforts to combat climate change.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a report on Wednesday that predicted the regulations would cost consumers $289 billion more for electricity through 2030 and crimp the economy by $50 billion a year.
The EPA called the report “nothing more than irresponsible speculation” and said it was based on unfounded assumptions about future requirements for natural gas plants.
“The chamber is using the same tired play from the same special interest playbook that is engineered to continue polluting and stall progress,” EPA spokesman Tom Reynolds said in a statement.
White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said there is a “moral obligation” for the new climate change rule.
“Every time America has taken common sense steps to protect air quality and the health of our children, polluters have made doomsday predictions – and every time they’ve been wrong,” Lehrich said.
BOTH SIDES ARMED WITH NUMBERS
Industry lobbyists plan to say the new rules will probably raise household electricity costs, prompt power brown-outs during heat waves and cold snaps and destroy jobs at coal mines and manufacturing plants.
“We fully expect that whatever comes out will be overly stringent, and will be something that is not good for American consumers or businesses,” said Laura Sheehan, spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.
In March, Sheehan’s group, which represents coal mining companies as well as owners of coal-fired plants like American Electric Power and Southern Co, released a report warning that the EPA plan may kill more than 2.85 million jobs.
The National Mining Association, which represents large coal mining companies including Peabody Coal Co, Arch Coal Inc , Alpha Natural Resources and Cloud Peak Energy Inc has spent $1 million on advertising in five states depicting shocked consumers opening expensive electricity bills.
Environmental groups plan to fight back with their own projections. On Thursday, the Natural Resources Defense Council is expected to release a report concluding the EPA rule would create “hundreds of thousands of jobs” and save consumers “tens of billions of dollars” on electricity.
“The chamber’s so-called study is the latest in a long series of ‘sky-is-falling’ claims that cleaning up harmful air pollution will cost jobs,” said David Hawkins, director of NRDC’s climate programs.
Because the new U.S. rules would take years to implement, perception matters more than facts, particularly ahead of November elections, said Andrew Holland, a former Republican legislative aide who is now an energy analyst at the American Security Project, a nonpartisan think tank.
The industry’s arguments have “the virtue of not being testable” before the midterm elections, he said, noting previous EPA rules have ended up being cheaper than industry feared.
“It turns out that engineers are better at this than the lawyers expect them to be,” said Holland.
COST CONCERN
Industry groups made their concerns clear to regulators. For example, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association sent three of its experts to a White House meeting to show how not-for-profit co-ops that rely on coal for fuel and provide power to some of the nation’s poorest regions could be pinched by the new EPA proposal.
And some industry coalitions have said they will try to work with the EPA and state officials to craft practical rules.
After the EPA first said in 2008 that it would treat carbon as a pollutant, power companies including AES and NRG and manufacturers including Boeing and 3M formed the National Climate Coalition.
It wants the EPA to phase in standards, and eventually develop rules for companies and states to trade credits for carbon-reducing actions, said Robert Wyman, a partner with law firm Latham & Watkins, who represents the coalition.
The coalition will take at least a week to read and understand the EPA rule before responding, Wyman said.
“Obviously the more politicized the issue becomes, the more likely it is that rhetoric will overshadow some of the technical issues,” he said.
2. Fox News, “Looming EPA power plant rules fuel industry concerns”
May 29, 2014
By Doug McKelway
May 29, 2014
By Doug McKelway
Lawmakers and Washington interest groups are engaged in a battle over whether looming EPA rules will help or hurt as President Obama prepares to announce a highly anticipated performance standard for power plants June 2.
The proposed standard will require existing natural gas and coal-fired power plants to release no more than 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity – easily done with natural gas but unobtainable by present day coal plants.
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Although coal still provides almost 40 percent of U.S. electricity, the White House’s new point man on energy, John Podesta, said Wednesday that climate change necessitates coal’s demise. “President Obama believes we have a moral obligation to act now to curb climate change,” he said.
While Podesta affirmed the president’s commitment to address climate change, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was releasing a study that found the new standard will result in the loss of 224,000 jobs every year through 2030 and impose $50 billion in annual costs.
“The American household will lose $586 billion of disposable income. That means a household losing over $3,400 of income they’d otherwise be spending on something else,” said Karen Harbert of the Chamber of Commerce.
The White House dismissed the Chamber of Commerce study. In an email, spokesman Matt Lehrich wrote that while the White House was still reviewing the study’s methodology, “Polluters have made doomsday predictions, and every time they’ve been wrong.”
Environmental groups believe the transition to cleaner energy will stimulate the economy. Bob Deans, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Fox News, “We think this plan is going to drive American innovation and investment and jobs, hundreds of thousands of them, in Ohio, North Carolina, Texas, all over the country.”
He added, “These are good paying jobs, doing good work that are going to help save money for our families and are going to protect future generations from the greatest threat of our time, which is global climate change.”
Under the new standard, states will have broad flexibility in how to comply. But most are expected to use a cap and trade type of system. Electric plants that don’t meet the standard may be able to trade carbon credits with other businesses that do. The details have yet to be worked out.
Even so, seven energy state Democratic Senators, Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., Mary Landrieu, D-La., Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Mark Warner, D-Va., who are all facing tough re-election battles, wrote the president last week expressing “deep concerns” about the plan. Among other concerns, they fear it will kill incentive for ongoing research into clean coal combustion.
After the president announces the new standard next week, a one-year public comment follows. States will have to notify the EPA as to how they’ll implement it the following year, but lawsuits and the potential for Republican control of Congress or the White House could undo it all.
3. Bloomberg News, “Lobbies debate climate rules’ effect on jobs”
May 28, 2014
By Mark Drajem
WASHINGTON — The nation’s biggest business lobby says President Barack Obama’s plan to tackle climate change could cost the U.S. economy $50 billion a year. Supporters predict that it will create jobs and lower power bills.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Natural Resources Defense Council are both releasing economic impact studies this week, signaling that the political battle over the president’s plan will be fought over dollars and cents. For Mr. Obama, the risk is the plan gets labeled a job-killer just as campaigns heat up for an election that could determine Senate control.
In an analysis released Wednesday — days before the Environmental Protection Agency unveils a proposal to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants — the Chamber said an ambitious pollution-control effort could force more than a third of the coal-fired power capacity to close by 2030, resulting in economic losses of $50 billion a year and the elimination of 224,000 jobs.
“This raises serious questions that need to be answered,” Karen Harbert, president of the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, said in an interview. “Utilities will be faced with some very unappealing choices.”
While the Chamber isn’t taking a position on the proposal before its release, the dire economic warnings in its analysis shows that the lobbying powerhouse is unlikely to back off opposition to the Obama administration’s efforts to fight climate change. Environmental groups such as the NRDC say the EPA’s pledge to give states wide leeway will limit the costs, which could be offset by lower electric bills for consumers as utilities become more efficient.
The administration is focusing on an approach that would let states set up their own systems to achieve mandated cuts, including linking into existing cap-and-trade networks, or expanding use of renewable energy, according to people familiar with the plan.
And the EPA, which said any details about the rule are speculation at this point, says the economic risks of not dealing with the threat of climate change are real as well.
“The cost of inaction on climate is the real drain on our economy,” EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said in an email. “In 2012, we saw the second-costliest year in U.S. history for natural disasters. Even the strongest sectors can’t escape the pressures of a changing climate, so it is time for us to lead.”
NRDC is set to release a report today showing that the rules could create hundreds of thousands of jobs and cut health care costs and power bills.
“The costs are certainly quite modest,” said NRDC fellow Starla Yeh, who helped develop and analyze its proposal. With efficiency programs, she said, “the savings in fuel and maintenance you forgo balances out the costs.”
In fact, while the Chamber study predicts that electricity costs will increase, especially in the coal-heavy states of the Midwest and South, the NRDC says efficiency gains will mean a drop in wholesale electricity prices, which has led some utilities to complain about “demand destruction,” Ms. Yeh said.
Mr. Obama has pledged to use his regulatory powers to cut U.S. greenhouse gases about 17 percent by 2020 over 2005 levels, with deeper cuts to follow. Groups such as Resources for the Future say achieving those reductions requires the EPA to order cuts deeper than 17 percent in power-plant emissions. Power plants are the top source of carbon dioxide, and the rules aimed at electricity generators could be followed by similar efforts for refineries, steelmakers and cement plants.
The Chamber hired the independent research firm IHS Energy to analyze a plan produced by the NRDC that people familiar with the deliberations say was considered by the Obama administration in developing its approach. The NRDC proposal, released in late 2012, calls for using a broad approach to achieve emissions cuts of as much as 30 percent by 2020 compared with 2005. For its analysis, the Chamber extended those cuts out for another decade, to achieve reductions of 40 percent by 2030.
Under those assumptions, coal’s share of the generating mix would fall to 14 percent from about 40 percent now, while 114 gigawatts of coal-fired generating plants would shutter, it said. The compliance costs over that period would be $28 billion a year, with $17 billion of that passed on to consumers as higher electricity costs, the study said. Those higher rates are “an issue of competitiveness with the rest of the world.” Ms. Harbert said.
The Chamber’s analysis differs from that of NRDC because it forecasts a steady increase in demand for electricity and predicts that the energy-efficiency savings the NRDC forecasts aren’t possible.
And the costs come on top of the billions of dollars utilities are now spending to comply with the EPA’s mercury rule, which phases in by 2016. To be sure, a $50 billion cost represents 0.31 percent of the overall U.S. gross domestic product, and critics say business groups have a long history of overstating their predictions of what EPA rules will cost.
“Critics have tried for years to convince people that more pollution equals more jobs and a better economy, but history has proved them wrong over and over again,” the EPA’s Ms. Purchia said. “Climate action sharpens America’s competitive edge and spurs innovation.”
And not all of what it counts as costs are universal negatives for companies. Nuclear-reliant power producers such as Exelon Corp. and Entergy Corp. say the EPA rules could help their struggling plants get a leg up in the competitive power markets.
Under the Chamber’s analysis, use of natural gas would increase to 46 percent of total generation by 2030 from about 27 percent now, which could be a boon for gas producers such as Exxon Mobil Corp., and power generators with gas plants.
Also this week, companies such as OPOWER Inc., which helps consumers monitor and cut electricity bills, will showcase ways that their technology could prosper under the EPA rules.
“We see EPA’s carbon rules as a huge opportunity to modernize our grid, and that will help the economy overall,” said Malcolm Woolf, senior vice president for government affairs at Advanced Energy Economy, a business group that represents lower-carbon power suppliers and efficiency companies. “We see this as a real opportunity.”
4. KTVU, “More illnesses linked to Foster Farms chicken”
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014
[Click Here to view the segment]
5. The Oregonian, “Foster Farms salmonella cases slow but chicken outbreak one of biggest, longest”
May 28, 2014
By Lynne Terry
The Foster Farms outbreak is one of the biggest and longest in recent history, with no end in sight. But federal officials said Wednesday that fewer cases are popping up each week, indicating the company is making progress in tackling its salmonella problem.
“People are still getting sick,” said Ian Williams, who oversees multistate outbreaks at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But we’re heading in the right direction.
The outbreak started in March 2013. At its height later that year, the CDC received reports of 20 cases a week. Those have slowed in the past few weeks to about six, Williams said.
The CDC announced on Tuesday that 50 new cases had popped up since March, bringing the total to 574 in 27 states, including Oregon, and Puerto Rico. Williams said that freshly purchased chicken – not long-stored items retrieved from a freezer – was still making people sick.
He said most of the patients have reported eating a range of Foster Farms products produced on different days. The U.S. Department of Agriculture pinpointed the outbreak to three Foster Farms plants in central California, including one that it shut in January over a cockroach infestation. The plant reopened three weeks later.
Foster Farms said in a statement Tuesday that tests of processed chicken had a 10 percent rate of salmonella contamination compared with 25 percent before. But test results do not guarantee food safety.
“You can’t test your way to safety,” Williams said. “It indicates if the process is in control or not.”
Clearly, Foster Farms continues to have a production issue, Williams said.
This is not the first time. Another salmonella outbreak that started in June 2012 was also traced to Foster Farms chicken. It ended in April last year, with 134 sickened, mainly in Oregon and Washington. That outbreak was traced to the company’s plant in Kelso, Wash.
Foster Farms said it stepped up food safety controls at the plant to end the outbreak. It’s done the same thing this time around while also stepping up measures in poultry houses. It’s not clear why this outbreak is more persistent.
But both have involved antibiotic strains of Salmonella Heidelberg, which can cause a higher hospitalization rates and pose problems for treatment. Williams said in the latest outbreak that of 61 patients tested, 38 showed resistance to at least one antibiotic and 19 were resistant to several drugs. Seven antibiotic resistant strains have been detected.
Though none was resistant to drugs used to treat severe salmonella infections, antibiotic resistance in general poses a huge public health threat, with the specter that in the future that infections now easily treatable could be fatal.
Federal and world health authorities have warned against misuse of antibiotics, including on the farm. Foster Farms has acknowledged using antibiotics, according to Jonathan Kaplan, head of food and agriculture at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Scientists know that when chicken producers use antibiotics routinely, some bacteria become resistant and escape into the environment,” Kaplan wrote in a statement. “Is this happening at Foster Farms?”
The family owned company has declined to disclose details about its antibiotic use, Kaplan said. It also has not released specifics about measures taken to fight salmonella contamination.
6. The Kansas City Star, “KCP&L’s energy efficiency plans again plugged in”
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014
By Steve Everly
In 2012, the utility dropped energy efficiency plans that would have, among other steps, given customers rebates for more efficient air conditioners and provided programmable thermostats.
At the time, the move was harshly criticized by environmental groups. But a settlement Wednesday among the utility, environmental groups and state regulatory staffers would allow the programs to finally become a reality as early as July.
“KCP&L has taken a huge step in improving Missouri’s stature as an energy efficient state,” P.J. Wilson, director of the clean energy group Renew Missouri, said in a statement.
The Missouri Public Service Commission still has to give its approval, but such settlements like the one reached Wednesday usually smooth the way for that to happen.
For the last year and a half KCP&L has been offering energy efficiency programs, including the rebates for cooling equipment, to customers in western Missouri who were once served by Aquila Inc. in suburbs like Raytown. Those programs will continue and the settlement will for the first time offer them instant rebates when purchasing more efficient lighting.
But the big change is bringing those programs, which were once offered as a pilot, to KCP&L’s traditional service territory, including most of Kansas City. The utility in 2012 said it wouldn’t proceed with its energy efficiency plans in that area because there was more than enough power to serve those customers and spending money on energy efficiency was not cost effective.
The utility now wants to proceed, believing that eventually demand will outrun supply and it will take a while for energy efficiency to grow and displace enough demand to start making a difference.
“We believe now is the time,”’ said Katie McDonald, a spokeswoman for KCP&L. “We’re excited about making the Kansas City region a leader in the state.”
KCP&L doesn’t offer energy efficiency programs in Kansas, but the state recently approved legislation that will make them possible in the future.
The environmental groups involved in the settlement said that even with the utility’s energy efficiency programs, Missouri will continues to lag behind the rest of the country.
But their relationship with KCP&L has clearly improved with the settlements and an announcement in January that the utility will use more wind power.
“For the second time in less than six months, KCP&L has demonstrated that clean energy can deliver significant savings to its customers,” said Holly Bender, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.
The settlement reached Wednesday sets a goal to save enough electricity through 2015 to power more than 5,000 homes. That will be enough to eliminate 101,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from a coal-fired plant, or eliminate the same amount of emissions produced by 21,000 cars on the road for a year.
“Programs like these represent exactly the kind of win-win solutions we’re hopeful Missouri will place at the center of its energy policy and emissions reduction plans under the carbon standards for power plants we expect EPA to unveil next week,” said David Weiskopf, sustainable energy fellow for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
7. Crain’s Detroit Business, “Michigan drops in state rankings of renewable-energy jobs”
May 22, 2014
By Jay Greene
By Jay Greene
For several years, Michigan’s job creation numbers in the renewable energy industry had been growing, but that streak came to a halt in 2013 and in the first quarter of 2014, according to Environmental Entrepreneurs.
In 2013, businesses in Michigan announced more than 1,700 clean energy jobs, including 910 in energy efficiency positions, 277 in wind energy, 205 in solar and 380 in clean vehicle manufacturing, according to an E2 report.
But those numbers are down from 2012, when E2 said Michigan announced 2,262 renewable energy and vehicle manufacturing jobs.
During the first quarter of this year, Michigan also didn’t rank in the top 10 for clean energy jobs as it had several times in the past. Top states include Idaho, Texas, California, Missouri, New York, Kansas, Arizona, Hawaii, New Mexico and Louisiana.
E2 said congressional inaction on key clean energy tax policies and political attacks on state renewable energy programs led to a dramatic decline this year in clean energy job announcements.
Some 5,600 clean energy and clean transportation jobs were announced in the first three months of this year, down from 12,000 such jobs reported in the comparable period in 2013, E2 said.
“Congress pulled the plug on smart clean energy tax policies at the end of last year, while in the states, lawmakers are getting bullied by special interests that don’t want our country to produce more clean, renewable energy,” said E2 executive director Bob Keefe in a statement.
Keefe said Congress should act this year to reinstate federal tax incentives, including the Production Tax Credit for wind. The American Wind Energy Association estimated loss of tax incentives have led to the loss of about 30,000 jobs nationally.
Next month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to issue new standards for existing power plants that will for the first time limit carbon pollution.
Keefe said the new carbon limits pave the way for manufacturing and power-generation companies in clean energy and energy efficiency sectors to invest in operations and add jobs.
8. FuelFix, “Texas ranks high for green job growth”
May 22, 2014
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
WASHINGTON — Texas added nearly 800 clean energy jobs during the first three months of the year, putting the Lone Star State second in the nation just behind Idaho and well above California, according to an analysis released Thursday.
But that’s where the good news ends, according to Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), the non-partisan business group that put out the figures.
Although E2 counted 5,600 new clean energy and clean transportation jobs announced nationwide during the first quarter, that’s fewer than half the 12,000 reported in the same time frame last year, and it marks a steep drop from the past two quarters.
E2 Executive Director Bob Keefe suggests more declines could be on the horizon, amid uncertainty about the future of state mandates and federal tax incentives driving renewable energy investments around the country.
“Congress pulled the plug on smart clean energy tax policies at the end of last year, while in the states, lawmakers are getting bullied by special interests that don’t want our country to produce more clean, renewable energy,” Keefe said in a statement.
Texas success: Renewable energy production up 12 percent
The biggest hit at the federal level is the disappearance of the renewable energy production tax credit which allows project owners to reduce tax bills by 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced over 10 years.
Prospects for quickly reauthorizing the credit are slim, with the Senate stalemated over a measure to extend it and a slew of other expired tax breaks, and House leaders committed to tackling the provisions individually.
Wind industry leaders who have championed the PTC also are up against significant opposition in the House from lawmakers who say it is no longer needed.
An investment tax credit that has been used to finance solar projects with long lead times is also set to expire in 2016.
Tax credits for investing in efficiency improvements and constructing efficient homes also are in limbo.
Outside of Washington, D.C., in statehouses across the country, lawmakers also are weighing measures that would scale back or repeal existing mandates that utilities derive some of their electricity from renewable sources such as the wind and sun.
New customers: Transmission line could expand Texas wind market outside state
So far, renewable energy advocates have been prevailing in most of those fights, most notably when the Kansas House voted to retain the state’s requirement that utilities draw 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. But a similar battle is under way in Ohio, where the state Senate has passed legislation to freeze efficiency and renewable energy targets for 2014.
E2′s assessment, updated quarterly, tracks announcements of new jobs tied to renewable energy sources, including solar, wind and biomass, as well as initiatives involving recycling, public transportation infrastructure, smart meters, transmission improvements and building efficiency.
Nationwide, the group documented a shift in the solar sector, from larger, utility-scale projects to residential initiatives and distributed solar generation. Some sun-drenched states, such as California, have exceeded state quotas for renewable energy, which may be one reason for the shift.
In Texas, the group counted four big new projects: the Barilla Solar project in Pecos County, the Plainview Orchard Wind project in Plainview, the First Wind project in Armstrong and Carson counties and Austin-based Thomas Biodiesel’s plans to locate a 25,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Temple. The wind and solar projects announced in Texas during the first quarter have a combined capacity of 249 megawatts.
Texas narrowly lost the top spot by 11 jobs to Idaho, where a single project — a 25-megawatt geothermal project — is responsible for 800 planned jobs.
Other top-ranking states:
3: California, with four projects tied to 660 jobs.
4: Missouri, with three projects tied to 449 jobs.
5: New York, with three projects tied to 435 jobs.
6: Kansas, with two projects worth 355 jobs.
7: Arizona, with two projects tied to 342 jobs.
8: Hawaii, with two projects tied to 340 jobs.
9: New Mexico, with two projects tied to 328 jobs.
10: Louisiana, with 1 project tied to 300 jobs.
1. CNN en Español, “Adrianna Quintero on CNN en Español for Earth Day 2014”
April 23, 2014
[Click here to view the segment]
2. MTV.com, “5 Ways You Can Make A Difference On Earth Day (Or Better Yet, Every Day).”
April 22, 2014
By Danica Davidson
By Danica Davidson
Happy Earth Day 2014! Today’s a day to celebrate how much we love the earth, but it’s also a great time to really rev up the ways we take care of the planet. Check out below for some easy and impactful ways to take action.
+ Recycle and Buy Recycled Products
Recycling is a big key to things. You can even earn money for recycling things like cans and bottles! Some things might seem a little harder to recycle, but there are often opportunities if you check it out — like how DoSomething.org has a campaign going on now to recycle clothes.
+ Cut Back
Try to cut back on things where you can. For instance, try to walk, carpool or use public transportation instead of driving everywhere. Turn lights off when you’re done with them. Instead of getting plastic bags each time you go to the store, buy cloth bags and take them along each time.
+ Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline
The Keystone XL Pipeline would be a SERIOUS threat to the environment and all of our well-being by pumping tons of dirty tar sands for 900 miles. One of the biggest environmental goals right now is to make sure it doesn’t happen, and you can join Jared Leto, Sierra Club and millions of others in the campaign against the pipeline.
+ Get Political
Politics matter! Some politicians are ignoring climate change because they’re getting money from oil companies who want to cover up the damage being done to the earth. Write or tweet your elected officials to let them know you care about the earth. When it’s election time, research who’s running. And if you’re 18 or up, make sure you VOOOOTE!
+ Support Orgs
There are a number of orgs just as passionate about the earth as you are. Check out places like 350.org, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the National Resources Defense Council, the Nature Conservancy and the Ian Somerhalder Foundation. Feel free to get involved with one or more, because they’d love to have you!.
3. Chicago Sun-Times, “Clean Energy: A Very Chicago Enterprise”
April 22, 2014
By Henry Henderson
Earlier this month I attended the Clean Energy Trust’s Clean Energy Challenge, where teams of entrepreneurial students pitched a series of ideas that could set the world on a better path by using the free market to attack serious problems looming before us: water scarcity, air pollution and climate change.
It was a very Chicago event. This city’s history is dominated by audacious, radical and profitable attacks on the status quo.
Everyone knows Burnham’s plan to re-shape the city into a livable cosmopolis grew from his brilliant vision for the Columbian Exposition. Less commonly understood is that the scheme was hatched in part to demonstrate the practicality of urban planning, clean water and sanitation that had been rejected by City Hall at the time. Rather than take “no” for an answer, Burnham invited the world to see a better way. That same spirit guided Samuel Insull to use cutting-edge technology and innovative energy policy to create the modern electric grid in Chicago.
Today, we again find ourselves with an unbearable status quo in need of quick innovation. Last weekend international scientists released an updated synopsis of the looming reality of climate change. It’s not pretty. And the inaction on this issue can already be seen taking a toll.
Bold action is expected from the Whitehouse this summer addressing our biggest carbon emitters to help slow climate change’s onslaught; but the broader transformation must come from a new generation of innovators. Illinois stands as one of the biggest carbon emitters on the planet, but a state well-positioned to thrive in the shift to a clean, diversified energy economy. Embracing strong in-state and national energy and climate policies will empower young entrepreneurs to continue Chicago’s rich legacy of seizing upon technology to improve conditions—bringing jobs, prosperity and a safer world too.
NRDC is an environmental action group, combining the grassroots power of 1.4 million members and online activists with the courtroom clout and expertise of more than 450 lawyers, scientists and other professionals. Jasculca Terman, an independent strategic communications firm specializing in public affairs, event management, crisis communications and digital strategies, is the sponsor of this article.
4. Fort-Worth Star-Telegram, “Energy Future Holdings deserves credit”
April 20, 2014
By Ralph Cavanagh and Jim Marston
Lyndon Johnson, president, Texan and committed environmentalist, famously said, “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.’ ”
Credit is not always given where credit is due.
Such is the case when it comes to the energy debate in Texas. It’s basic: For Texas to maintain its status as an economic growth engine, it must reinforce to the world an ability to accommodate future growth without sacrificing the environment.
This need not — and should not — be a zero-sum game. Economic vitality and responsible environmental stewardship should go hand-in-hand.
And while no one we know has walked across the Brazos or the Trinity, Energy Future Holdings, which includes Texas’ largest power producer, Luminant, and largest electricity provider, TXU Energy, has fully met the ambitious commitments that led us to support its ownership change more than six years ago. That’s despite significant financial challenges.
We have been closely following the company’s environmental results since then as members of the EFH Sustainable Energy Advisory Board, a group of independent advisers on topics ranging from labor to the environment to consumer issues to reliability and economic development.
It is no secret that outside of the more than two dozen specific commitments made initially by its new owners, we have disagreed with some of the company’s positions on public policy issues and some of its environmental practices.
But we can report now that EFH has met each of the commitments that it made back in 2007, despite all the financial headwinds (none of which have anything to do with the company’s environmental performance).
We have seen EFH excel at balancing investments in energy infrastructure to meet this rapid growth profile without compromising environmental responsibility and sustainability.
The company scrapped plans to add eight new coal-fired power plants and focused successfully on measures to reduce nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions from its coal fleet by more than 20 percent from 2005 levels.
The company’s Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant has maintained top decile industry performance at a time when several major nuclear generation owners have stumbled painfully.
As it promised, EFH has also invested more than $400 million in energy efficiency, technology and conservation programs over the past five years, including $100 million from TXU Energy, to empower customers to better manage their energy use.
The company’s track record with respect to reclamation and land stewardship is no less impressive. Since EFH commenced mining activities more than 40 years ago, the company has reclaimed more than 75,000 acres and secured reclamation bond liability release on more than 36,000 acres through 2013.
The company has also planted more than 34 million trees as part of its reclamation program, including 1.5 million in 2013.
All of this capital investment and innovation has yielded another real and tangible benefit: EFH added 1,900 jobs in Texas — an increase of 25 percent — since 2007.
Our aim is not to report that EFH’s work is done — far from it. As Texas continues to grow, so too does the challenge of balancing that growth with continued environmental stewardship.
The industry must continue to do its part to maintain vigilance on clean energy and combating climate change.
However, we have seen firsthand how the EFH model — continuous improvement in power generation’s environmental performance, capital investment, efficiency incentives for energy consumers and a deep commitment to land conservation — is several steps in the right direction. Even if those steps aren’t walking on water.
Ralph Cavanagh is energy program co-director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Jim Marston is senior attorney and director of the Texas regional office for the Environmental Defense Fund.
5. New York Times, “Ceasar’s Making Bid for Casino in Upstate New York”
April 22, 2014
By Charles V. Bagli
For more than two years, the major Las Vegas gambling companies have resisted Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s call to consider building a casino resort in New York to help him revive an upstate economy wracked by unemployment and declining opportunities.
But with applicants required to post a $1 million application fee for one of the four available licenses by Wednesday night, Caesars Entertainment has entered the contest, with plans for an entertainment complex worth more than $750 million, about 50 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.
Caesars, which operates 53 casinos worldwide, including four in Atlantic City, is proposing a hotel and casino complex with shops, restaurants and an entertainment hall on a 120-acre parcel in the town of Woodbury, N.Y., near the New York Thruway and a Metro-North Railroad train station.
The site, in Orange County, is a short distance from Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, a mall that attracts more than 11 million visitors a year, and offers critical highway and public transit connections to New York City and millions of potential customers.
“It’ll be an integrated resort,” Jan Jones Blackhurst, an executive vice president at Caesars, said. “It’s all about creating an entertainment venue where gaming is a piece but not the only piece.”
Ms. Blackhurst is still working out the details of the proposal, since the company signed a letter of intent with the developer who controls the property, David Flaum, just three days ago. Mr. Flaum would lease the property to Caesars and participate in developing the complex.
Caesars, which submitted its $1 million application fee on Tuesday, is one of at least four companies vying for a casino license in Orange County. A total of 16 groups are expected to compete for the four licenses.
The casinos will be allowed in three regions: the Catskills and the Hudson Valley, which includes Orange, Sullivan and Ulster Counties; the Saratoga-Albany region; and a narrow strip in western New York, running from Binghamton north to the Canadian border.
Mr. Flaum and James D. Featherstonhaugh, who owns a racetrack and slot parlor in Saratoga Springs, are submitting proposals for casinos in the Albany area. Three other proposals are expected in western New York. But nowhere is the competition as intense as in the Catskills.
Mr. Cuomo, who led the effort to expand gambling in the state as a way to generate jobs, economic development and tax revenue, had sought to entice Las Vegas casino operators to compete for a New York license and legitimize his initiative.
Las Vegas Sands, MGM and Boyd Gaming all hired New York consultants to explore the idea, but only Caesars was interested in an upstate casino.
“Most of the national casino companies want to be where the money is — downstate,” said John Sabini, the former chairman of the State Racing and Wagering Board, and a casino in Orange County would put Caesars in proximity to the biggest prize for gambling operators: densely populated New York City.
But casino developers in Sullivan and Ulster Counties, where local officials have long hoped that gambling would revive their flagging economies, are dismayed by the idea of casinos on their southern flank.
They say an Orange County casino would take business away from existing slot parlors in Monticello in Sullivan County and in Yonkers and Queens, while undermining chances to build a full-scale casino in their counties, which are roughly 90 miles from New York City. Charles Jacobs, senior vice president of the Cordish companies, which is proposing a $750 million casino-resort in Orange County, near Woodbury, seems to agree. Last week, he told local officials that building a casino in the Catskills was a “recipe for disaster,” according to The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y.
He said Orange County’s proximity to New York City would trump any potential casinos in Ulster or Sullivan Counties.
But State Senator John J. Bonacic, a Republican who represents the Catskills, said the casino legislation was meant to create jobs and economic activity at the north end of the region, not in more prosperous Orange County.
State tax revenues from gambling would also decline if there is an Orange County casino, said Emanuel R. Pearlman, chairman of Empire Resorts, which operates the racetrack and slot parlor in Monticello and, together with EPR Properties, is proposing to build a $750 million casino-resort in Monticello. “A casino in Orange County would dramatically dilute revenue to the state,” Mr. Pearlman said. “It won’t add to state revenues like a casino in Sullivan or Ulster counties.
The state’s newly inaugurated Gaming Commission and its siting board will determine this fall who will get the licenses. All the applicants are required to show they would be able to open their casinos in 2016, and demonstrate local support for their projects.
That timeline could prove difficult for projects in Orange County that do not already have environmental approvals. Mark A. Izeman, a lawyer for the National Resources Defense Council, has said he is prepared to battle in court against any casino project that could do harm in the Catskills.
The Orange County executive, Steven M. Neuhaus, has embraced the notion of a casino setting down roots in the county. But not everyone agrees.
“There certainly is a mixed feeling on the street out there,” John Burke, supervisor for the town of Woodbury, said. “There are those who would enjoy it, mainly because of the tax revenues.
“But there may be just as many people who say, ‘I didn’t move here to have a casino in my backyard.’ ”
6. KCRW – Southern California Public Radio, Which Way, LA?, “California’s Worst Air Pollutant Might Catch a Break”
April 22, 2014
By Barbara Bogaev
[Click here to hear the full program]
It’s Earth Day, when we rededicate ourselves to protecting the environment, to taking shorter showers, and to using public transportation. But sometimes the fixes aren’t so cut and dried. This week, California air quality officials are considering relaxing emission regulations on diesel trucks, the worst air pollution offenders left in the state. Guest hosts Barbara Bogaev hears the pros and cons. Also, Los Angeles magazine has picked the 75 best restaurants in the city and you’ve just got to try them.
Should Truckers Get a Break on Air Quality Rules? (7:00PM)
Here in LA, we love to gripe about how bad the smog is. It’s a national cliché. But if you’re old enough to have taken a deep breath in Los Angeles back in the 1970’s, you know just how bad air quality can get. Thanks to passing the strictest emissions regulations in the country, California now has relatively decent air. So, at least to environmentalists, rolling back tough regulations for diesel trucks — the worst air pollution offenders left in the state — seems to set a bad precedent. But truckers say they need more time to retrofit their rigs and to update to cleaner models. In response the California Air Resources Board has proposed relaxing rulesfor aging diesel rigs… They’re expected to decide this on Thursday.
Guests:
Joe Rajkovacz: California Construction Trucking Association
Diane Bailey: Natural Resources Defense Council, @nrdc
Wayne Miller: UC Riverside
7. Sacramento Bee, “Obama Administration delays Keystone Pipeline decision”
April 18, 2014
By Sean Cockerham
WASHINGTON — The Obama Administration is again delaying a decision on approving the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, likely putting off any action until after the November midterm elections.
The State Department said Friday it would give federal agencies more time to comment on the project. The postponement is needed because a Nebraska judge in February struck down a law allowing the governor of that state to approve the pipeline’s route and bypass the Nebraska Public Service Commission, according to the State Department.
“Agencies need additional time based on the uncertainty created by the on-going litigation in the Nebraska Supreme Court which could ultimately affect the pipeline route in that state,” the State Department said in a brief statement Friday afternoon.
Congressional Republicans attacked the decision, saying Obama is delaying jobs in favor of political gain.
“It is crystal clear that the Obama administration is simply not serious about American energy and American jobs,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.
Keystone would bring crude oil from the Canadian oil sands to American refineries on the Gulf Coast. Plans for the pipelines are so controversial because tapping the thick Alberta crude would result in more planet-warming gases than would conventional sources of oil.
Environmental groups on Friday applauded the delay.
“The State Department is taking the most prudent course of action possible. It is already clear that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline fails the climate test and will damage our climate, our lands and our waters,” said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of the International Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
8. Daily Democrat, “Court ruling may change water contracts approved a decade ago”
April 21, 2014
By Heather Hacking
San Francisco >> The Natural Resources Defense Council won a victory in court last week that may send water users along the Sacramento River back to the negotiating table for contracts approved a decade ago.
All this time the case has been working its way through the court system, with appeals. The recent news is that the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed the process to renew the 40-year contracts should have gone through an Endangered Species Act review. Specifically, the case was concerned about delta smelt.
“It’s a step toward potential changes in the contracts,” explained Doug Obegi, staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Water districts in this area with senior water rights that could potentially be affected include Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, Anderson Cottonwood, Maxwell Irrigation District, Sutter Mutual Water Company, the city of Redding, Conaway Preservation Group, Reclamation District 108, Princeton-Codora-Glenn Irrigation District and numerous others throughout the state.
At the root of the issue is promises of delivering more water than is available, Obegi said Friday. “It highlights the need to make sure we have contracts that don’t overpromise,” water supply.
“Water rights are subject to the public trust and other limitations that sometimes agencies ignore.
“In the really dry years, there are times when we can’t deliver as much water and senior water rights holders may have to be shorted,” the attorney said.
At this point there are a lot more questions than answers, he added.
Also last week, many of these same water users had successfully negotiated a drought-year plan that included waiting for water deliveries to hold cold water during winter-run chinook salmon season.
“There are ways to change the contracts — pricing or water conservation, how much each contractor gets to take and when. Are there ways to be more flexible to better meet everyone’s needs? If this proves it work out, that would be a great thing,” Obegi said of this year’s water delivery changes.
After the court decision, the case will go back to lower courts to reconsider the contracts.
“I do see ground for optimism … We have increased water efficiency over 40 percent, and really increased urban water efficiency,” Obegi said. “We are doing better. We can do better.”
Thad Bettner, manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District along the Sacramento River, one of the named defendants, said its likely a judge would ask for the case to be resolved out of court. Or, the defendants could challenge the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Or, it could be that the Bureau of Reclamation consults again with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the water contracts are changed.
“It could be we all get in the room and find ways to reoperate and help the smelt,” Bettner said.
To read the legal decision from the court: http://goo.gl/GmQnoJ
Contact reporter Heather Hacking at 896-7758.
1. Washington Post, “Two Environmental Groups to Create Political Alliance”
April 14, 2014
By Juliet Eilperin
Two major environmental groups will announce Monday that they are creating an alliance between their two political action arms, in an effort to expand their influence on national policymakers.
The League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund are starting LeadingGreen, a collaboration that will steer donations to federal candidates and enlist the help of major donors in lobbying elected officials. Although it was not prompted by the Supreme Court’s decision this month to strike down the overall limit on how much individuals can give candidates and political parties, LCV President Gene Karpinski said the ruling highlights what has motivated the two groups.
“It underscores the fact we need more environmental money in politics, and we need more environmental donors doing advocacy to make sure politicians understand they feel strongly about these issues, and that’s what the new alliance is all about,” Karpinski said in an interview.
LCV’s political action committee raised and contributed $2 million to candidates during the last election cycle; NRDC Action Fund primarily operated by encouraging its donors to donate directly to candidates or environmental advocacy groups, and it established a political action committee just last year. The new initiative aims to raise and contribute $5 million directly to candidates this year, according to officials, separate from its independent expenditure spending activities.
That sum is more modest than what many conservative groups will spend on the election, as well as below the $100 million that billionaire and climate activist Tom Steyer has pledged to mobilize between now and 2016. NRDC Action Fund President Frances Beinecke described the two ventures — both of which will highlight climate change — as “parallel efforts.”
“We certainly welcome what Tom’s doing. He’s able to go to a scale that we’ll hopefully get to one day,” she said, adding the new coalition will be “principally focused on the Senate, the president’s climate action plan and in particular, the power plants rule. That’s the number one priority in this cycle.”
NRDC has traditionally focused mostly on policy and legal advocacy; LCV has concentrated on federal and state elections. Democrats and their environmental allies lack the votes in Congress to pass the kind of broad climate bill that the House adopted in 2009, but they are working to ensure Republicans do not make such major gains this fall that they could block the president from using his executive authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Business groups already started a multimillion-dollar campaign in January criticizing the Obama administration for its climate rules, including those that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. That coalition includes the American Farm Bureau, the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 75 other groups.
Americans for Prosperity spokesman Levi Russell, whose group is chaired by David Koch, wrote in an e-mail he was skeptical that environmentalists will be able to persuade lawmakers to take a more aggressive stance on carbon regulation.
“There’s a good reason why any legislation based on environmental ideology has come to a grinding halt in Congress. Most Americans are far more concerned about jobs, the economy and the impact of Obamacare,” wrote Russell, whose group has focused mainly on the health-care law this year but recently ran an ad attacking Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) for his position on carbon pricing. “Policies based on shaky data that result in higher energy prices will be a pretty tough sell.”
However, Carol Browner, who served as Obama’s special assistant on energy and climate change during his first term and now chairs LCV’s Board of Directors, wrote in an e-mail, “LeadingGreen is uniquely situated to help shift the politics of climate change in Congress in order to make the progress we so desperately need.”
Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who received support for his 2013 Senate bid from LCV and Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action committee, said in a phone interview Sunday that he and other elected officials will need environmentalists to become more politically active in order to stay in office.
“The polluters are sparing no expense to defeat supporters of clean energy, climate change and environmental protection,” he said. “There’s no way to compete against these polluted dollars without significant help from environmentalists.”
2. Associated Press, “Cost of Fighting Warming ‘Modest’ says UN Panel”
April 14, 2014
By Karl Ritter
BERLIN (AP) — The cost of keeping global warming in check is “relatively modest,” but only if the world acts quickly to reverse the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the head of the U.N.’s expert panel on climate change said Sunday.
Such gases, mainly CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, rose on average by 2.2 percent a year in 2000-2010, driven by the use of coal in the power sector, officials said as they launched the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change’s report on measures to fight global warming.
Without additional measures to contain emissions, global temperatures will rise about 3 degrees to 4 degrees Celsius (5 degrees to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 compared to current levels, the panel said.
“The longer we delay the higher would be the cost,” IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri told The Associated Press after the panel’s weeklong session in Berlin. “But despite that, the point I’m making is that even now, the cost is not something that’s going to bring about a major disruption of economic systems. It’s well within our reach.”
The IPCC, an international body assessing climate science, projected that shifting the energy system from fossil fuels to zero- or low-carbon sources including wind and solar power would reduce consumption growth by about 0.06 percentage points per year, adding that that didn’t take into account the economic benefits of reduced climate change. “The loss in consumption is relatively modest,” Pachauri said.
The IPCC said the shift would entail a near-quadrupling of low-carbon energy — which in the panel’s projections included renewable sources as well as nuclear power and fossil fuel-fired plants equipped with technologies to capture some of the emissions.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called it a global economic opportunity.
“So many of the technologies that will help us fight climate change are far cheaper, more readily available, and better performing than they were when the last IPCC assessment was released less than a decade ago,” Kerry said.
The IPCC said large changes in investments would be required. Fossil fuel investments in the power sector would drop by about $30 billion annually while investments in low-carbon sources would grow by $147 billion. Meanwhile, annual investments in energy efficiency in transport, buildings and industry sectors would grow by $336 billion.
The message contrasted with oil and gas company Exxon Mobil’s projection two weeks ago that the world’s climate policies are “highly unlikely” to stop it from selling fossil fuels far into the future, saying they are critical to global development and economic growth.
Coal emissions have declined in the U.S. as some power plants have switched to lower-priced natural gas but they are fueling economic growth in China and India.
The IPCC avoided singling out any countries or recommending how to share the costs of climate action in the report, the third of a four-part assessment on climate change.
Though it is a scientific body, its summaries outlining the main findings of the underlying reports need to be approved by governments. This brings a political dimension to the process.
In Berlin, a dispute erupted over whether to include charts that showed emissions from large developing countries are rising the fastest as they expand their economies. Developing countries said linking emissions to income growth would divert attention from the fact that historically, most emissions have come from the developed nations, which industrialized earlier.
“This is the first step for developed countries of avoiding responsibilities and saying all countries have to assume the responsibility for climate change,” said Diego Pacheco, the head of Bolivia’s delegation in Berlin.
In the end the charts were taken out of the summary, but would remain in the underlying report, which was to be published later in the week, officials said.
Counting all emissions since the industrial revolution in the 18th century, the U.S. is the top carbon polluter. China’s current emissions are greater than those of the U.S. and rising quickly. China’s historical emissions are expected to overtake those of the U.S. in the next decade.
The IPCC summary also refrained from detailed discussions on what level of financial transfers are needed to help developing countries shift to cleaner energy and adapt to climate change.
Another IPCC report, released last month, warned that flooding, droughts and other climate impacts could have devastating effects on economies, agriculture and human health, particularly in developing countries.
“The world’s poorest nations are in need of economic development. But they need to be helped to leapfrog dirty energy and develop in a way which won’t entrench their poverty by making climate change worse,” said Mohamed Adow of charity group Christian Aid.
The IPCC reports provide the scientific basis for U.N. climate negotiations. Governments are supposed to adopt a new climate agreement next year that would rein in emissions after 2020.
The ambition of that process is to keep warming below 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) compared to today’s levels. Global temperatures have already gone up 0.8 Celsius (1.4 Fahrenheit) since the start of record-keeping in the 19th century.
The IPCC, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007, said the U.N. goal is still possible but would require emissions cuts of 40 percent to 70 percent by 2050 and possibly the large-scale deployment of new technologies to suck CO2 out of the air and bury it deep underground.
“The IPCC is telling us in no uncertain terms that we are running out of time — but not out of solutions — if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based environmental group. “That requires decisive actions to curb carbon pollution — and an all-out race to embrace renewable sources of energy. History is calling.”
3. Fast Company, “Here’s How You Get a 9-Hour Documentary Series About Climate Change on TV”
April 11, 2014
By Christine Champagne
The media is failing to give climate change the amount of coverage it should be getting, according to David Gelber, who spent 25 years of his career as a producer at 60 Minutes. “In the 2012 presidential debates, not one question was asked about climate change. Not one question,” he says. “How could that be?”
Eager to put climate change back on the national agenda, Gelber and Joel Bach, also a former 60 Minutes producer, co-created and co-executive produced Years of Living Dangerously. The doc series premieres on Showtime April 13 at 10 p.m. EST, and you can also watch the first episode online for free at YearsOfLivingDangerously.com.
Combining science with star power, the series finds celebrities including Harrison Ford, Matt Damon, and America Ferrera acting as correspondents, traveling the globe to learn why our weather has gotten so extreme and what kind of effect it is having on us and our planet. Veteran journalists like Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes and the New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman also report on the subject.
Among the stories examined are the effects of deforestation in Indonesia, the role drought plays in political conflicts in the Middle East, and the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
Here, Gelber talks to Co.Create about how he and Bach managed to get the comprehensive doc series–we’re talking nine hours of programming–on television and how they plan to inspire social action on the issue.
It Began With A Willingness To Change Course
Gelber and Bach wanted to spread the word about climate change, and while they were still working at 60 Minutes, they would go out for lunch at a Greek joint on 10th Avenue near their Manhattan office and brainstorm potential projects.
Initially, they thought a feature film was the best way to go, and they were intent on fictionalizing the real-life story of coal baron Jim Rodgers, the former CEO of Duke Energy who came to believe that climate change was real and lobbied for a federal bill to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. Then reality hit. “We realized we don’t know how to make feature films,” Gelber says.
Undeterred, they decided to produce a theatrical documentary on climate change. The pair got a meeting with movie producer Jerry Weintraub because Bach knew his niece and shared their grand plan hoping he could help them get Hollywood people involved so that the documentary would have a bigger reach. But Weintraub didn’t think a theatrical documentary was a good move. “Jerry looked at us, and he said, ‘Listen, if you want eyeballs, nobody goes to theatrical documentaries. You want eyeballs? You do television,'” Gelber recounts.
Gelber and Bach definitely wanted eyeballs–as many as possible given that this was a passion project. “So we morphed it overnight into a television series,” Gelber says.
They Went Hollywood In A Big Way
The pair knew they had the newsgathering and reporting chops to produce the series. They would ultimately spend a year researching climate change and finding the stories they most wanted to tell. They brought in Dr. Heidi Cullen, chief climatologist for Climate Central, which researches and reports news on climate change, and physicist Joe Romm, a fellow at American Progress and founding editor of the blog Climate Progress, to serve as chief science advisors, and they created an advisory board including the likes of Frances Beinecke, president of Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Michael Brune, executive director of Sierra Club, and primatologist Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute.
But they also wanted to ensure that Years of Living Dangerously was entertaining and would reach an audience beyond science geeks. They wanted to produce “a blockbuster,” according to Gelber, so they sought help from Weintraub, James Cameron, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who all came on board as executive producers. (Schwarzenegger also served as a correspondent, reporting on the causes and effects of the now year-round forest fires in the western part of the United States.) “On the one hand, we wanted to do something to help save the planet,” Gelber says of the ambitions he and Bach had for the series. “On the other hand, or in addition to that, we thought we would do something to help save the television news show format. We wanted to try and inject some life into it, so we had this idea of putting a lot more emphasis on production values, on cinematography, than you see in most of the television news magazine shows.”
The Search Was On For A Daring Television Network
Gelber and Bach shopped the idea for their doc series around to a few networks and got some “tepid offers,” Gelber says. “They were clearly nervous about how advertisers were going to react. This is such a partisan political issue. We thought, ‘A thermometer is neither Republican nor Democrat,'” he says. By the time they took their pitch to Showtime’s president of entertainment David Nevins, Cameron was involved as an executive producer and had helped them make a sizzle reel, which he narrated. Nevins, who greenlit the impactful but hard-to-watch Time of Death doc series, liked what he saw. “Nevins was amazing. I’m not kissing ass here. The guy has been fantastic. He said, ‘This is the kind of stuff I want to do,'” Gelber recalls of their first meeting. “He has been totally supportive.”
The True Potential Of Celebrity Talent Was Tapped
The celebrities featured in Years of Living Dangerously aren’t simply window-dressing. Not one of them stands atop a mountain lecturing the world on the effects of climate range, Gelber points out. Rather, they are out in the field reporting stories. Gelber says care was taken to find celebrities who were seriously interested about climate change and had a grasp of the subject even if they weren’t experts. Ian Somerhalder was chosen, for example, because he runs the Ian Somerhalder Foundation, which is all about getting young people involved in environmental issues; Don Cheadle is a global ambassador for the United Nations Environment Program; Harrison Ford is a board member of Conservation International; and Matt Damon works to bring clean drinking water to people around the world as co-founder of Water.org. “When you talk to somebody like Matt Damon, I mean, I can’t teach Damon anything about this issue,” Gelber says. “He’s an incredibly smart, decent guy, and he could be a 60 Minutes correspondent tomorrow if that was something he wanted to do.”
That said, all of the talent needed prep like any broadcast journalist would. “I did what I did at 60 Minutes. I worked with Ed Bradley for 20 years. Ed was doing 25 stories a year. I was doing four or five stories a year, and I knew more about them than he did, but he was a quick study. We did preparation and got him up to speed. The same thing happened here, and I would say in every case they really did get it,” Gelber says. “We wanted to make sure they understood it well enough to be able to follow up and ask tough, critical questions, which they did.”
The Message Will Extend Beyond Television
The doc series has birthed a social action campaign via YearsOfLivingDangerously.com. “We are really hoping to have a role in generating a grassroots movement and popular action on climate issues,” Gelber says. “We are hoping that we can encourage people to not just simply change a light bulb but to join with others and demand decisive policies from our leaders.”
Currently, visitors to the site are asked to help Beyond Coal by writing to the EPA to lobby for limitation on the amount of carbon pollution emitted from coal plants.
On the education front, YearsOfLivingDangerously.com has partnered with the National Wildlife Federation to provide learning resources for students of all ages designed to extend the experience of Years of Living Dangerously beyond the screen.
4. Midwest Energy News, “To Improve Efficiency, Cities Collaborate – and Compete”
April 14, 2014
By Kari Lydersen
Advocates in Chicago want their city to be the most energy efficient in the nation. But they’ll need a little help to get there.
The city is part of a national effort to cut energy bills by as much as $1 billion nationwide and achieve emissions reductions equivalent to taking a million cars off the road.
The City Energy Project, launched in January, brings together ten U.S. cities in reducing emissions by increasing efficiency at large buildings. A joint effort of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Institute for Market Transformation, it is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Kresge Foundation.
(The NRDC is a member of RE-AMP, which also publishes Midwest Energy News.)
The new project builds on energy efficiency programs that each city already has underway or in the works, by funding a full-time consultant in each city, supporting outreach and education and also facilitating interaction between the cities to share best practices and ideas. As part of the project each city will draft a comprehensive energy efficiency strategy and plan.
The other participating cities are Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Orlando, Philadelphia and Salt Lake City. Laurie Kerr, director of the City Energy Project for the NRDC, said that in the future it could be expanded to involve more participants.
“There are a lot of models out there – we’ll be helping walk some of the cities through the options,” said Kerr. “There are a mixture of options cities are looking at – some are ordinances, some are policies or programs, ways of providing financing, working with a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program or creating an energy efficiency financing entity.
“The idea is that in order to make large-scale change in how buildings use energy, there’s not a silver bullet,” Kerr added. “You need financing, help with leasing, some sort of information about how buildings use energy.”
Kerr said the project aims to create ongoing dialogue between cities, so city experts can ask each questions about what’s working and what isn’t.
The consultant in each city is subsidized for a relatively lengthy three-year period since, Kerr said, “these policies take a long time to implement well. We’re not just there when they adopt it.”
Most cities are still in the process of hiring the consultants, which would typically be local experts already working in the field.
The project will also provide funding for city officials to work with local non-profits – like U.S. Green Building Council chapters or chambers of commerce – to do outreach and education about energy efficiency in buildings.
Large buildings – including private businesses or residential high rises, government offices, hospitals, universities and museums — are considered major contributors to climate change. They use vast amounts of energy and are often highly inefficient, both in terms of structural components and practices like unnecessary use of heat, air or lights.
A press release from the City Energy Project notes:
“Buildings are the largest single source of U.S. carbon emissions, representing 40 percent nationwide – more than either the transportation or industrial sectors. That number is even more dramatic at the city level, with more than half of carbon emissions in most U.S. cities coming from buildings – and in some cities as much as 75 percent. Much of the energy these buildings use, however, is wasted.”
Chicago sets a high bar
Rebecca Stanfield, policy deputy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council Midwest program, said Chicago aims to lead the nation in energy efficiency of buildings.
The City Energy Project will dovetail with Retrofit Chicago, a public-private energy efficiency program launched in 2012 with commercial, residential and municipal building components.
Stanfield said a few other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and New York, are “a little bit ahead of Chicago” in energy efficiency at the moment, but Chicago leaders aim to “leapfrog over other cities.”
“Our goal is to be the most efficient in the nation, to have New York and Seattle asking, ‘How do you do that?’” said Stanfield, adding that the City Energy Project could “put Chicago head and shoulders above other cities” on building efficiency.
Kerr noted that getting information on how much energy buildings are using is critical, and Chicago’s benchmarking ordinance is a good model in doing that.
Adopted in September 2013, the ordinance requires all buildings over 50,000 square feet to track and report their energy use, with verification by a third party. New York – where buildings account for about 80 percent of the carbon footprint — instituted an ambitious energy efficiency and benchmarking plan for buildings in 2009.
“Chicago is one of the earlier ones out of the gate,” said Kerr. “Chicago has passed its [benchmarking] ordinance and is working to implement it; most of these cities have not done anything like that yet. Other cities might have done more with, say, energy code compliance or improving the efficiency of their municipal building stock. There are different strategies. No city is the complete leader on everything.”
Stanfield noted that while some buildings will “never be in that top leadership class,” increased awareness and transparency about efficiency will push even the laggards to a higher level.
“With policies like benchmarking you have the potential to bring all the rest of the buildings up to a minimum standard,” she said. “For the first time ever, people will be able to make decisions about which building to lease office space in based on energy efficiency.”
Stanfield said Chicago leaders hope the City Energy Project can help them expand the Retrofit program and also increase the number of building operators seeking energy efficiency certification – another city initiative.
“Most building operators are not trained to manage energy use, and they’re not rewarded financially or otherwise on the basis of how well they manage building energy use,” Stanfield said. “Having someone in the building continuously looking for opportunities to make it more efficient can be a huge driver of improvement.”
Stanfield said data showing Retrofit’s progress should be available soon, and that the program is on track to make 20 percent energy use reductions in five years.
A ‘hub’ for other cities
Dennis Murphey, chief environmental officer of Kansas City, Missouri, doesn’t mind admitting that Chicago is ahead on the energy efficiency front. But he said the City Energy Project is helping local leaders learn from Chicago and otherwise step up their game, augmenting efficiency initiatives that are already ongoing.
“We have very high expectations of what we’re going to be able to do over the next three years that will affect us for decades to come,” said Murphey, noting that local efficiency advocates also look to Philadelphia as an example. “It will have a huge impact if we make this as successful as we hope in ten cities. It will be a hub to push it out to other cities in the region, like Tulsa, Des Moines, Oklahoma City.”
Murphey noted that reducing energy use is especially important in a place like Kansas City that gets most of its energy – about 75 percent – from coal-fired power. That means cutting energy use more directly drives carbon emissions reductions than in cities that get more power from hydro, wind or natural gas.
Buildings account for about 50 percent of energy use in Kansas City, according to officials, who say that by 2030 the ripple effects of the City Energy Project will save ratepayers $55 million. Murphey said Kansas City’s 550 largest buildings, which are the focus of the City Energy Project, make up about half the city’s floor space.
City Energy Project funding has already been used to hire a part-time staffer who had been working on efficiency issues through the Chamber of Commerce, Murphey noted, and they are in the process of hiring a full-time efficiency expert. The city is tracking project progress on a blog.
Among other things, Murphey said Kansas City leaders will leverage the City Energy Project to push for state legislation that gives utilities more motivation to increase energy efficiency, “to make it possible for a utility to be a real partner with us.”
Kansas City already has important successes to point to. The city council passed an ordinance giving developers access to PACE funding. And they’ve renovated City Hall — a 29-story, World War II-era building — to obtain a top efficiency rating. City leaders are also working with the Missouri Clean Energy District, an entity authorized by 2010 state legislation that works with counties and municipalities on PACE and other clean energy initiatives.
“We intend to do a lot of education and outreach to make the business case to building owners who have not already made improvements,” Murphey said. “We’ll help them identify financial resources and service providers…And we’re having early adopters make the case so it’s not just the city or the NRDC telling the story.”
5. Associated Press, “California to See Surge in Oil Brought in by Rail”
April 13, 2014
VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — California is preparing for an oil boom — brought in on rail cars.
There are no pipelines that bring crude oil into California. For decades, the fuel that powers the state’s 32 million vehicles has come from tanker ships or in-state production.
But government regulators predict a surge in U.S. oil production will means a steep increase in the number of trains carrying it to California refineries.
The Ventura County Star reported (http://bit.ly/1jCCGBR ) Sunday that the increase in rail traffic will happen quickly, jumping from 9,000 carloads in 2011 to more than 200,000 carloads by 2016, according to California Energy Commission estimates.
Within a few years, analysts predict 25 percent of oil consumed in California will arrive at state refineries by rail.
According to the California Public Utilities Commission, five California refineries have facilities either about to come online or in the planning stages that will let them receive crude-oil deliveries by rail.
The newspaper said state and local agencies are reviewing plans for responding to possible spills and derailments, with more trains carrying oil through mountain passes, over bridges that cross nearly every major waterway and through the neighborhoods of millions of Californians.
Gov. Jerry Brown has asked lawmakers for an additional $6.7 million for oil-spill response. In its request, the administration noted the increased rail shipments will consist mostly of North Dakota Bakken shale crude oil.
“This type of oil is extremely flammable, and its transport increases the risk of serious accidents,” it says.
Because it contains more natural gas than heavier crude, Bakken oil can have a lower ignition point.
To date, the increased traffic has been mostly in Northern California, involving trains bound for refineries in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Diane Bailey, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the newspaper that statistics from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration show there were more rail accidents involving oil spills last year than over the previous 30 years combined.
6. Columbia Chronicle, “Petcoke Stockpiles Face Stricter Rules”
April 14, 2014
By Maria Castellucci
After months of fielding complaints from Southeast Side residents, legislation to regulate petroleum coke, or petcoke—a harmful waste product of oil refineries that is stored along the banks of the Calumet River—finally began to gain traction among city officials. However, a proposed exemption has caused the ordinance to be stalled in a City Council committee.
The Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards met April 1 to review the ordinance proposal, at which Alderman John Pope (10th Ward) presented the committee with a revised version that imposes looser restrictions than those outlined in the original draft. The initial proposal—which Pope wrote with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Alderman Edward Burke (14th Ward)—sought to require KCBX Terminals Co., the company managing the stockpiles, to store petcoke in an enclosed area and prohibit new companies that produce petcoke from opening. Pope’s amended proposal, however, would still allow for these facilities to be established.
The 18-member committee voted to defer the bill until its April 29 meeting, when it will reconsider the proposal. Advocates for the original draft are outraged by the potential revision.
“Rather than preventing an expansion and creating an environment that pushes these piles out, it actually lays out a welcome mat for more petcoke,” said Josh Mogerman, a Natural Resources Defense Council spokesman who was present at the committee meeting. “It really is counter to what this ordinance is supposed to do.”
Pope’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the exemption as of press time.
The ordinance is a response to community complaints that KCBX stores petroleum stockpiles on the Southeast Side along the bank of the Calumet River. Petcoke is a carbon particle derived as a byproduct of the oil refining process. It is normally used as a fuel source in power plants. The open piles emit dust particles that are dangerous to inhale, which discourages residents from venturing outside their homes, as reported Nov. 25, 2013 by The Chronicle.
Mogerman said he thinks Pope included the exemption to allow gasification plants, which produce petroleum coke as byproduct, to set up shop in the city. Gasification plants generate energy by applying steam to organic materials to create a gas substitute known as syngas, said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs at the Respiratory Health Association. This gas alternative is appealing because it is inexpensive, but the byproducts are toxic.
“[Residents are] looking at a longer-term goal: getting the clean sustainability industry in their neighborhood to provide good jobs and economic development,” Urbaszewski said. “I don’t think they view petcoke and petroleum refinery leftovers as fitting into their vision of what their neighborhood should be.”
Emanuel announced March 13 that KCBX has two years to enclose all of its petcoke stockpiles.
Facilities must report their enclosure plans to the city within 90 days and will be monitored. They will also be required to enclose petcoke during transportation, install monitors that detect toxic petcoke dust and sweep nearby streets daily.
Southeast Side resident Tom Shepherd said he thinks Emanuel’s regulations will be helpful because piles are currently exposed and admit toxic dust particles, causing health concerns. Shepherd said he spoke with Pope about the exemption and he will not pursue it further.
Inhaling petcoke dust particles can cause asthma attacks, stroke, lung cancer and premature death, Urbaszewski said, adding that these health risks make legal regulations necessary.
Urbaszewski said Chicago is one of the many Midwest cities dealing with excess petcoke. Massive amounts of petcoke are generated when tarzan oil, the thick oil transported from Canada, is converted to gasoline, he said. The oil is becoming more common in the U.S.
“The petcoke amount coming out has tripled,” Urbaszewski said. “A lot more stuff is coming in and the piles are getting higher on the Southeast Side.”
Although Emanuel has imposed regulations, Mogerman said they are not strict enough.
“We’re going to call on the mayor to use his considerable power and influence in the City Council to help make sure we get this thing right,” Mogerman said. “He can do a lot more.”
7. Earth Island Journal, “Is the Sofa Toxic? Bill Introduced in California to Label Flame Retardants in Furniture”
April 12, 2014
By Zoe Loftus-Farren
Ever wondered if your couch was filled with toxic flame retardants? If you have, chances are you weren’t able to find out because the manufacturer wasn’t required to inform you.
Flame retardant use expanded in California under Technical Bulletin 117 (TB 117), which was implemented in 1975 and required furniture filling to be resistant to an open flame, encouraging the use of flame retardants among furniture manufacturers. (Yes, even furniture gets it’s own regulations.) Fortunately, that may be changing. Last month, California State Senator Mark Leno introduced SB 1019, a bill that would require furniture manufacturers to label furniture that has been treated with flame retardants and to inform consumers of such use at the point of sale. If passed, the proposed bill will be implemented in January 2015, and would contribute to a broad effort in California to reduce the use of toxic flame retardants.
Over the past few years, however, research has called into question the fire safety benefits of flame retardants, while also pointing to the serious health and environmental risks associated with exposure to flame retardant chemicals.
With respect to fire safety, recent studies have shown that fireproofing furniture filling doesn’t do a whole lot of good. “It turns out, on the fire safety side, [TB-117] actually wasn’t a very good regulation,” said Veena Singla, staff scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “What they found was that adding flame retardants to the inside [of furniture] doesn’t provide any meaningful fire safety benefits.” In other words, once the outside fabric of a couch goes up in flames, it doesn’t matter how much flame retardant has been doused on the fillings. The couch is going to burn.
In addition to their questionable fire-safety benefits, flame retardants have been linked to a variety of environmental and health ills. “They produce health and environmental concerns,” said Singla. “The chemicals are added to the filling, but they aren’t chemically attached or bound to it, so they continuously migrate out of the filling into the air and dust, and that is how people get exposed to these chemicals.”
Once released into the air and dust, these chemicals persist in the environment and have been shown to negatively impact wildlife. The have also been linked to health problems in humans, including cancer, hyperactivity, decreased fertility, hormone disruption, and lower IQ. Children are particularly vulnerable, because they often play on the ground and are more likely to ingest chemical-laden dust.
Low-income communities and communities of color also face elevated exposure levels, possibly due to the use of second-hand furniture, more time spent indoors, or inadequate home ventilation systems. Firefighters represent another highly exposed group and have been on the frontlines of toxics advocacy in California.
In 2012, following repeated legislative failures for regulatory reform (and a $23 million lobbying effort in California by the flame retardant industry), Governor Brown directed the Bureau of Home Furnishings to change the regulation in an attempt to reduce the use of these harmful chemicals. The new standards ( TB 117-2013), which became effective in January 2014, now focuses on the outer fabric of couches and chairs, rather than furniture fillings. That means furniture manufacturers can comply with the regulation by choosing flame-resistant outer fabrics rather than treating furniture filling with highly toxic flame retardants.
TB 117-2013 doesn’t prohibit flame retardants, and neither would SB 1019. Because of lax testing requirements, flat-out bans are hard to come by. “Certainly some flame retardants have been restricted or banned,” said Singla. “But what happens then is that other chemicals are brought in to replace the banned chemicals. There is no minimum safety testing required in terms of possible long-term health effects, so when new chemicals come in, we just don’t have the information we need in order to try to restrict them or ban them one by one.”
8. Natural News, “If You Compute, You Pollute: The Dark Legacy of E-Waste and a National of Consumers in Denial”
April 14, 2014
By J.D. Heyes
Chances are excellent that, if you are reading this, you are using some sort of electronic device to do so. Natural News is, after all, an online publication.
And if you are, then you are also most likely one of the billions of people contributing to the ecological, Earth-damaging disaster that is electronic waste — “e-waste,” for short — because sooner or later, the device you are using, be it a personal computer, tablet, laptop, cell phone or other piece of technology, will end up in a landfill or dump somewhere or, worse, in an open-air burn pit in some developing country.
As Natural News reported previously, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that about 30 million computers are tossed in the U.S. each year; in Europe, about 100 million cell phones are discarded.
Developing world becomes dumping ground for toxic e-waste
In the coming years, as the “Internet of Everything” becomes reality, the amount of e-waste is set to explode. Societies will become even more dependent on electronic, Internet-connected devices, and as they do, millions more tons of this kind of waste will be generated each and every year. The UN’s Environment Program estimates, for instance, that by 2020 e-waste from old computers will have jumped by 200 to 400 percent from 2007 levels, and by 500 percent in India.
By that same year in China, e-waste from discarded mobile phones will be about 7 times higher than 2007 levels and, in India, 18 times higher.
But only about one-quarter of e-waste is recycled. Most of e-waste winds up in an incinerator, and that’s a big problem for the environment and your health. That’s because of the hazardous heavy metals — many of them rare earth metals — that are contained in every device.
“Electronic waste isn’t just waste — it contains some very toxic substances, such as mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, beryllium and brominated flame retardants,” says the group e-Stewards, on its website. “When the latter are burned at low temperatures, they create additional toxins, such as halogenated dioxins and furans — some of the most toxic substances known to humankind. The toxic materials in electronics can cause cancer, reproductive disorders, endocrine disruption, and many other health problems if this waste stream is not properly managed. Many of the toxic constituents are elements, which means they never disappear, even though they may change form.”
Ruining Asia
The most fertile e-waste dumping grounds are in Asia; China, India and Pakistan are the leading nations where e-waste is routed to burn pits, contaminating the soil, the air, the water and the people with which these toxins come into contact. Ghana, located along the West African coast, is also a major e-waste destination.
Off-loading the toxins
The biggest complaint from groups working to curb the amount of environmental damaged created by e-waste is not so much that wealthier societies are using technology as it was intended, but that, when it comes time to discard it, they are off-loading the worst effects to poorer countries without laws that protect soil, air and water.
In 2008, the CBS program 60 Minutes reported on the trail of e-waste to poorer countries, where workers — including many children — disassemble discarded electronic products to mine for valuable, reusable materials. These materials, even when they are not burned, can be toxic over time.
For the report, correspondent Scott Pelley traveled to “one of the most toxic places on Earth — a place that government officials and gangsters don’t want you to see.” The location: Guiyu, a dingy town in China where you cannot breathe the air or drink the water. The blood of many children is laced with too much lead (7 out of 10). Pregnancies are six times more likely to end in miscarriage. In essence, the town is a nightmare of toxicity.
‘Dirty little secret’
What’s more, the e-waste “disposal” that is taking place there is a result of the violation of law — both in the United States and in Europe, where much of the e-waste comes from, as well as in China.
“This is really the dirty little secret of the electronic age,” Jim Puckett, founder of the Basel Action Network, a watchdog group named for the treaty that is supposed to stop rich countries from dumping toxic waste on poor ones, told Pelley.
Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and authority on waste management at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of the activities in Guiyu: “The situation in Guiyu is actually pre-capitalist. It’s mercantile. It reverts back to a time when people lived where they worked, lived at their shop. Open, uncontrolled burning of plastics. Chlorinated and brominated plastics is known worldwide to cause the emission of polychlorinated and polybrominated dioxins. These are among the most toxic compounds known on earth. We have a situation where we have 21st century toxics being managed in a 17th century environment.”
Recycling the proper way
What’s the answer? The U.S. — indeed, the world — is not simply going to stop using electronics. They have been integral to our societies; our daily lives incorporate so many of them. We need them to do our jobs, even.
Responsible recycling programs that don’t engage in the kind of offshore outsourcing of e-waste, but instead disposes of such toxic waste in a responsible, environmentally sustainable way, is the only answer.
But how to create them? In the 60 Minutes story, one “responsible” e-recycler, Executive Recycling, of Englewood, Colo., portrayed itself as a company that advertised itself thusly: “Your e-waste is recycled properly, right here in the U.S. – not simply dumped on somebody else.”
But the program’s investigation found that a shipping container filled with computer monitors, which are especially hazardous because each picture tube, called a cathode ray tube or CRT, contains several pounds of lead. They can only be exported with special permission from the U.S. government. Only, the Executive Recycling container did get sent to China; 60 Minutes tracked it to Hong Kong, where it was sent illegally.
Here are some ways to do the right thing when it comes to getting rid of your old electronics products:
–Donate for reuse, if possible. Some reputable reuse firms that have vowed not to export e-waste include the National Christina Foundation and World Computer Exchange.
— Look for responsible e-recyclers in your local area. The most reputable are members of the “e-Steward” network. Find a local one here.
–Take it to a responsible retailer. There are some retailers, like Staples, that have agreed to do the right thing and ensure that products they take in for recycling are not merely dumped on a third-world country. So does Best Buy.
–Mail it. Cell phone recycling can be much easier, because you can actually mail them to responsible e-waste recyclers. Consider contacting Capstone Wireless or Call2Recycle.org.
1. MSNBC, All In with Chris Hayes, “25 Years After Exxon Valdez: Fossil Fuels And Accountability”
March 24, 2014
Watch the interview here
Chris Hayes talks to his panel about the U.S. becoming the world’s top oil producer.
2. Marketplace, “25 Years After The Exxon Valdez Crisis, We’ve Learned…?”
March 24, 2014
By Adriene Hill
Listen to the Interview here
It’s been 25 years since the Exxon Valdez hit a reef and spilled millions of gallons of oil, polluting hundreds of miles of Alaska’s shoreline.
If you were alive during the spill, you can probably still recall the video footage: black shorelines, dead sea otters, oil soaked birds.
“It was vivid,” said Zygmunt Plater, an environmental law professor at Boston College who worked on the Alaska Oil Spill Commission after Valdez. “It pointed to the problems of the oil mega-system.” Along every step of the process, he said, “there was repeated cost cutting to increase risk. Our commission concluded that this mega-system was dominated by complacency, collusion and neglect.”
Those are words heard after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, nearly 20 years later.
Valdez also showed us just how vulnerable the environment can be, in a way that previous oil spills, including the Santa Barbara spill in 1969, had not.
“It underscored the enormous risk that we place natural resources at when we produce and distribute oil,” said Bob Deans, a spokesperson for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The risk was something we hadn’t quite come to terms with, he said. “There was this perception that it was safe to do this,” Deans said, “and that if the oil got in the water, surely industry had a way to clean it up. Surely there was a way to save the oceans and marine life from the consequence of a spill like this, and we found out that none of that was true.”
After the Exxon Valdez and again, after the BP oil spill, regulations were tightened.
But spills are not things of the past.
Over the weekend, about 170,000 gallons of oil gushed out into Galveston Bay when an oil barge and cargo ship collided.
3. Bloomberg Businessweek, “Christie Greenhouse Changes Violate N.J. Law, Court Says”
March 25, 2014
By David Voreacos and Justin Doom
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s administration violated state law in the way it withdrew from a regional program to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, a state appellate court ruled.
New Jersey must begin amending or repealing the state’s climate-change regulations within 60 days, according to a three-judge panel in Trenton. Christie’s withdrawal from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative drew a lawsuit in 2012 from environmental groups, who cheered today’s ruling.
“Neither Governor Christie nor the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection can simply repeal state laws by fiat,” Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, said in a statement.
Christie decided to withdraw by the end of 2011 from RGGI, which set a cap on carbon-dioxide emissions and created a trading program. Christie said RGGI, which then included the six New England states, New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Maryland, failed because the low auction prices it drew didn’t motivate companies to change business practices.
New Jersey’s withdrawal meant emissions producers no longer had to comply with the program and DEP didn’t make emissions allowances available for purchase or give emissions offsets to companies.
Web Posting
Environment New Jersey and the Natural Resources Defense Council sued, claiming DEP improperly posted its withdrawal from the trading program on the department’s website rather than follow the Administrative Procedure Act. DEP argued that by withdrawing from RGGI, its trading program regulations are defunct, according to the ruling.
The judges found “little doubt” that lawmakers meant for trading-program regulations to “enable New Jersey’s participation in RGGI, rather than to establish a stand-alone carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program in New Jersey.”
The regulations are broadly worded and “can be read to require action by the department absent participation in a regional greenhouse program,” according to the ruling.
“The department should have taken action to repeal the regulations or amend them to clarify that they do not create a stand-alone trading program,” the judges ruled.
Governor
The governor’s spokesmen, Michael Drewniak, Kevin Roberts and Colin Reed, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment on the decision.
“You can’t just say, ‘Oh, state law? We’re not doing this anymore,’” Dale Bryk, a director and attorney at New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, said today in a phone interview. “The same way you pass a law you have to unravel a law. And that’s what they didn’t do.”
The case is In Re Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), A-4878-11T4, Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division (Trenton).
4. Country Weekly, “Willie Nelson Joins The Fight Against Mountaintop Removal”
March 24, 2014
By Jon Freeman
Word to the wise, people: Willie Nelson prefers his rivers to flow with whiskey, not the pollutants caused by the mining operation of mountaintop removal.
Willie has now joined up with the Natural Resources Defense Council in the fight against mountaintop removal to help protect Appalachian communities from its effects. In a new video (watch below), Willie sings “America the Beautiful” while mountain after mountain is blasted away and toxic sludge encroaches on residential communities.
On Tuesday, March 25, the House of Representatives will vote on a bill (HR 2824) that would lock into place the ability for mining companies to continue current practices and prevent the Obama administration from making any changes to mining regulations.
5. E&E Daily, “Enviros Mobilize Against Johnson Stream Rule Bill”
March 25, 2014
By Manuel Quiñones
Environmental groups are mobilizing against House passage of legislation to block an Obama administration rulemaking meant to protect waterways from coal mining.
The House could vote as soon as this afternoon on Ohio Republican Rep. Bill Johnson’s H.R. 2824 to block the Office of Surface Mining’s forthcoming Stream Protection Rule and instead task the agency with implementing the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule.
Earlier this month, President Obama threatened to veto the bill, and yesterday League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski called it “a destructive bill that would nullify sensible safeguards that prevent the dumping of dangerous mining waste into our waterways.”
Mining companies think the 2008 rule provides waterways with enough protection from strip mining. Environmentalists, however, say it includes too many exceptions from a strong buffer.
“This legislation would clear the way for more destruction and more pollution. It must be stopped,” said Natural Resources Defense Council senior water attorney Jon Devine in a statement.
NRDC yesterday released a video of iconic performer Willie Nelson singing “America the Beautiful” to images of mountaintop-removal coal mining to coincide with the debate.
It’s no surprise the Republican-controlled House will almost certainly approve the legislation. What environmentalists fear is the bill gaining momentum in the Senate or in upcoming negotiations on a broader measure. A vote for the legislation will count against lawmakers in LCV’s annual score card, the group said.
6. Greenwire, “Advocates Weigh In As White House Work On Methane Guidance Hits Home Stretch”
March 24, 2014
By Jean Chemnick
With U.S. EPA curbs on greenhouse gases dominating debates on Capitol Hill, federal agencies have been quietly writing a white paper that outlines plans to limit heat-trapping methane emissions.
Officials from six agencies have been working since summer on the interagency methane strategy that President Obama ordered up in his Climate Action Plan last year.
White House energy and climate adviser Dan Utech has spearheaded the group, which includes staff from EPA and the departments of Agriculture, Energy, the Interior, Labor and Transportation. White House counselor John Podesta told reporters last week the interagency group is “in the final throes” of work on the document.
Few details about the effort have been made public. Obama’s plan calls on agencies to assess data on methane, consider “best practices” for reducing emissions and identify “existing authorities and incentive-based opportunities” to reduce methane releases.
EPA has already included methane emissions in its annual inventories of greenhouse gas emissions and sinks, though some academic institutions have faulted the methodology used in that analysis.
The charge to identify “existing authorities” suggests the group may look at some new regulatory actions to draw down emissions, which are up to 30 times as climate-forcing as carbon dioxide in the short term and contribute more to human-induced global warming than any gas except CO2.
Environmentalists have urged EPA to use the Clean Air Act to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector as it has done for power plants’ carbon emissions.
David Doniger, policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview last week that he hopes the interagency document would include specific timelines for methane rules, as the president did last year for rules governing power sector carbon.
“We’d like to see commitments to schedules for action that would make sure that there is a plan and a schedule to get things done during this term,” he said.
The administration should commit to expand EPA’s 2012 New Source Performance Standard requiring the capture of natural gas from new gas wells, mandating that gas-producing oil wells use the same green completion technology, he said. And EPA should publish rules to reduce methane leakage throughout oil and gas systems, including from the production, transportation, processing and distribution of gas.
The document should also set a long-term goal of tackling methane leakage from aging distribution pipes under cities, he said.
Elgie Holstein of the Environmental Defense Fund, which has done substantial work on analyzing the methane footprint of natural gas systems, said he was happy to see the White House highlight methane’s role in climate change. Policies to address short-lived climate pollutants were once seen as a distraction from efforts to curb CO2, he said.
“Going back let’s say a year ago, methane was basically not discussed in these circles,” he said. “So we’ve come a long way.”
Holstein said that the administration has unquestioned legal authority to promulgate Clean Air Act regulations for methane. But while he said he expected the interagency working group to keep those options on the table, other nonregulatory activities also exist that can pay dividends in reducing emissions and boosting the capture and sale of natural gas. Those options should be reflected in the document too, he said, including the role the Department of Energy can play in developing technologies that can minimize leakage.
“There are multiple benefits of addressing methane,” Holstein said. Besides its environmental benefits, repairing leaky natural gas infrastructure can help protect the public. This month’s lethal East Harlem gas explosion drives home the dangers of allowing aging infrastructure to deteriorate, he said (EnergyWire, March 14).
The petroleum industry, meanwhile, said it was already taking steps to ensure that its practices leak as little methane as possible.
“Through voluntary and regulatory measures already in place, our emissions have dropped substantially,” Frank Macchiarola, executive vice president of America’s Natural Gas Alliance, said in an email. “We look forward to working with the administration and other stakeholders to ensure that we continue the significant progress we have made through ongoing innovation.”
Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of the Western Energy Alliance, noted that EPA’s own inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, released last month, showed a 14 percent improvement in methane emissions from petroleum production between 2008 and 2012.
“That is companies reducing emissions on their own without an EPA rule,” she said, adding, “I don’t think that a new rule is necessary.”
Regulations burden companies with a rigid set of obligations that may yield little environmental result, she said. Gas producers already have an incentive to ensure that they are not leaking valuable product into the atmosphere, and the administration should trust their practices, she said.
7. Midwest Energy News, “Compromise May Help Preserve Net Metering In Kansas”
March 21, 2014
By Karen Uhlenhuth
Clean-energy advocates and Kansas’ largest utility have agreed to maintain net metering in the state – but in a somewhat diminished form.
Earlier this year, lawmakers introduced bills that would have hobbled net metering, if not kill it outright, according to supporters of the policy. The bills would have drastically reduced – or eliminated – what utilities pay to small generators for their excess power.
Last weekend, however, advocates met with a negotiator for Westar Energy and developed a compromise that is predicted to pass the legislature.
The middle ground, which was introduced on the Senate floor on Wednesday, would reduce the maximum size of solar arrays eligible for net metering. In addition, it would change the “true-up” period from the current standard of once a year to once a month. Any excess power at the end of the month would be credited to the customer at the utilities avoided cost rate.
The changes would apply only to installations installed after July 1 of this year.
Aron Cromwell, CEO of a solar design and installation firm in Lawrence, Kansas, spent long hours over the past weekend negotiating with the Westar representative.
“This is the best we could have gotten,” he said. “We avoided a lot of harm. The first iteration of this killed net metering.”
One bill moving through the legislature earlier this year would have eliminated any payment to owners of small solar or wind installations. Current law requires that utilities pay net metering customers the retail rate that the utility charges for power, approximately 10 cents per kWh. Another bill that surfaced this session would have cut that to 150 percent of what’s known as the utility’s “avoided cost,” amounting to about 3.5 cents per kWh.
The compromise puts tighter limits on the permitted size of solar installations to be connected to the grid. Kansas law currently allows installations of up to 25 kW at a residence and 200 kW at a commercial site. The agreement reduces those to 15 and 100 kW, respectively. It also provides a 150-kW threshold for schools.
It also reduces payment to generators to 100 percent of “avoided cost,” a substantial cut from the retail rate.
The compromise “really isn’t too much of a loss,” said Pierre Bull, a policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s disconcerting to see how utilities have responded to applicants getting on the system.”
He said that net metering has been challenged in several other states recently, mostly through regulatory channels. Last summer, the Arizona utility regulator decided to allow utilities to impose a fee on small-scale solar generators.
In Colorado, he said, it appears that the public service commission is going to honor a request by Xcel Energy to do a cost-benefit analysis of net metering.
Regulators in North Carolina this spring will begin a similar study.
The campaign against net metering has by far been most energized and vociferous in Kansas, according to Bull.
“It really spoke to the political power that utilities have in Kansas,” he said.
Cromwell said he thinks the compromise will cause only limited damage to renewables and net metering. He doesn’t foresee a 15-kW limit actually interfering much with solar installations at homes.
“I don’t think this will affect our customers. Our average is about 7.5 kW. We’ve done larger residential [installations], but maybe one or two. With 7.5, we’re meeting most of their needs.”
The true-up policy is important because it determines how much time is available to a customer to equal out the energy produced with the energy consumed. With a once-a-year true-up, a customer is more likely to use up credit for excess power generated during peak production time.
Although the compromise makes net metering overall somewhat less attractive, Cromwell said net metering supporters had to act.
“Something was going to happen,” he said. “Our ultimate win would have been to avoid any change at all. But that was not going to happen. We had to do something to mitigate the damage.”
“The Senate bill could have moved on,” said Zack Pistora, who lobbies for the Kansas Sierra Club. “We were asking ourselves, ‘Do we want to go head-to-head on a bill that is significantly worse than the House bill?’ It was a tough call.”
As Cromwell sees it, “We got a win, and they (the utilities) got a win.”
There may be one more gain for the utilities in this dispute. The bill allows them to seek from the Kansas Corporation Commission some sort of monthly fee to be imposed on solar generators.
“We have the ability to challenge that,” Cromwell said, “and we will do so.”
One more benefit for net meterers: if the substitute bill passes the legislature – and Cromwell believes it will – it is likely to discourage further bills designed to weaken or kill net metering.
“It would be a difficult case for them to make after agreeing to this,” Cromwell said. “This should give us stability for the next couple years.”
The NRDC is a member of RE-AMP, which also publishes Midwest Energy News.
An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that customers would lose credit for excess energy at the end of the monthly true-up period under the proposed plan.
8. KPCC, Pacific Swell, “When It Comes To ‘Gray Water,’ Australia And Arizona Set The Bar”
March 21, 2014
By Molly Peterson
My dad is a very law-abiding man, but since yesterday’s gray water story, I discovered that in the mid 1970s, he ran “a hose or tubing or something” out the bathroom drain into a tank in the back yard of our Menlo Park home, so he could water plants. He was breaking the law.
“I don’t know whose idea it was,” he said. “Everybody was rigging things up. If someone had told me it was illegal, I would have told them I thought it was illegal to waste water.”
At the time, it was illegal to reuse water that flowed through bathroom sinks, showers and washing machines because of health concerns. That prohibition has since been lifted (though it’s still illegal to use gray water from a kitchen sink).
The point of this story is: it’s really hard to know how much water we’ve been saving through methods like gray water, because what people do in their yards, they don’t always discuss with others. It’s also really hard to know who’s doing well at saving gray water, as long as what people do is so different from what the code provides.
Some people are trying to change that. Tracy Quinn, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, is researching what the rules are all around the country. And around the world. Australia apparently puts us to shame. Over 50% of homes there use gray water and rainwater for flushing toilets or watering lawns.
Even if we can’t be Australian, Quinn told me some amazing stuff about water recycling opportunities generally in the United States.
“Over 50% of the water we use indoors can be considered gray water. And fifty percent of total household use in a single family home is landscaping,” she said. “So gray water, which is more than half of the water that we are flushing away and sending to our sewers, can be used for two of our biggest demands.”
But if you want to model your gray water rules on something, sounds like Arizona is the place. There, the state has updated its general permit for reclaimed water, so that Arizonans don’t have to apply for permits for simple gray water systems as long as they follow a list of 13 best practices.
And in Tucson, they’re actually requiring that newly-constructed single family homes be dually plumbed to capture gray water. (There’s a fat rebate too.)
I’m guessing we haven’t seen the end of changes to the California Plumbing Code yet.
1. CBS News, “NRDC Letter to Marshall: From the Office of the NRDC President”
March 20, 2014
By Frances Beinecke
March 20, 2014
By Frances Beinecke
March 14th, 2014
Dear Mr. Eriksen:
Congratulations on your court win against Gruber Pharmaceuticals! I have such fond memories of summer vacations at Frog Lake. What a shame the court ordered so small a settlement. But I cannot thank you enough for your efforts to protect this wonderful place.
I respect that you’ve chosen to temporarily postpone your dreams of saving the planet to move with your family to Rome. However, I hope this proves only a minor detour on your path to becoming a judge. We desperately need more defenders of the environment in our legal system. With any luck, you’ll one day decide cases that help save our forests and wildlands, which might also help you achieve one of your other dreams: finding and befriending Bigfoot.
However, if banging the gavel is not in the cards, please know that NRDC is always on the lookout for brilliant and passionate legal advocates such as yourself; our door is always open. Not literally open of course, because that wouldn’t be energy efficient. But you know what I mean.
I hope that NRDC continues to hold a special place in your heart. Good luck in all your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Frances Beinecke
President, Natural Resources Defense Council
The Earth’s Best Defense
President, Natural Resources Defense Council
The Earth’s Best Defense
2. PoliticoPro, “NRDC: Power plant rules could make deeper CO2 cuts than past estimates”
March 20, 2014
By Erica Martinson
March 20, 2014
By Erica Martinson
EPA’s upcoming greenhouse gas regulations for the nation’s existing power plants can achieve deeper cuts to carbon emissions than previously imagined, the Natural Resources Defense Council says in a new analysis.
The report, released Thursday, says the U.S. could get more than twice the carbon dioxide reductions from EPA’s regulations compared with a proposal NRDC put forth in 2012, without additional costs.
EPA is due to propose its rules in June, and is expected to send a draft to the White House Office of Management and Budget any day now.
Agency officials have been tight-lipped about what the regulations will look like, but some indications have emerged that EPA is crafting a rule that would treat power plants as a “system” rather than requiring plant-by-plant cuts. That would allow for more flexibility in how utilities cut their carbon, including using methods such as cross-state trading programs.
A broader program like that is just what NRDC has proposed.
And now, after adjusting its models to reflect trends in the electric industry such as low demand and lower cost wind turbines and natural gas, the program could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 470 million to 700 million tons a year in 2020 compared with 2012 levels, NRDC’s report says. In 2012, NRDC estimated cuts of 270 million tons a year.
NRDC’s newly estimated cuts would amount to 21 percent to 31 percent of power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions, the report says.
The group offered EPA a possible legal path to regulating CO2 under the Clean Air Act in its 2012 report, which suggested imposing an average fleet standard of 1,500 pounds per megawatt hour for coal and 1,000 pounds per megawatt hour for oil and gas units in 2020. Wind, solar, nuclear and other low-emitting power options would generate credits to make those fleet averages possible, and credits would be available for making energy efficiency upgrades.
At the time, EPA had grown quiet about plans to set greenhouse gas rules for existing power plants, but that changed last year with President Barack Obama’s Georgetown University climate change speech and an executive order pushing EPA to get moving on the rule.
The Obama administration is likely to lean heavily on the EPA regulations as proof that the United States is acting on climate change as it heads into international negotiations in 2015. There’s little chance the Senate would ratify any treaty on climate change, so the White House needs to bring something to the table if it wants to lead other countries into acting, particularly fast-growing, coal-dependent China.
If EPA and the White House pick up on NRDC’s analysis, it could help counter concerns that EPA regulations wouldn’t be able to drive deep enough emissions cuts.
So far, the administration’s enacted carbon-cutting efforts have largely been limited to its greenhouse gas standards for cars, which require the auto industry to boost fuel economy.
NRDC says the 470 million to 700 million tons of CO2 emissions EPA could get from power plant regulations would be like lifting 95 million to 130 million cars off the road. Power plants make up at least a third of the nation’s CO2 emissions.
The group estimates the cost of the regulations would be around $10 billion, with benefits in health benefits and avoided damages up to $63 billion in 2020.
“NRDC’s new analysis demonstrates that there are cheaper, cleaner and more routes to substantially reduce this dangerous pollution,” Executive Director Peter Lehner said.
The scenarios NRDC considered in its new report that it didn’t in 2012 include less energy efficiency at state levels, more stringent emissions targets, use of carbon capture and storage, and extension of the languishing federal wind production tax credit to 2020.
NRDC’s plan may not entirely align with the administration’s ongoing courting of the natural gas industry.
“Not only is it possible to use the Clean Air Act to reduce power plant carbon pollution significantly and cost-effectively, there are many pathways to do so that do not require increasing our reliance on natural gas,” said Daniel Lashof, director of NRDC’s Climate and Clean Air Program.
But the report addresses key concerns of the rule’s opponents: that utility customers could pay dearly for the cost of cutting carbon, and that requirements could cause reliability problems leading to blackouts.
Under NRDC’s approach, wholesale power prices would be 4 percent lower than without the regulations, the report says. And energy efficiency improvements in homes and businesses could lower customers’ electricity bills.
Some of those same “demand side” energy efficiency efforts could also cut “strain on the electric power grid during peak hours,” the report says. That would “add flexibility and efficiency to energy consumption patterns, diversify the resource mix, reduce emissions, and lower energy costs,” the report says.
3. Bloomberg, “Shuttered Coal Plants Seen Cutting Cost of Carbon Rules”
March 20, 2014
By Mark Drajem
March 20, 2014
By Mark Drajem
The cost of limiting power-plant emissions has fallen because cheap natural gas is already shuttering some coal-powered facilities that would be at risk, an environmental group said today in a study.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, which is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to impose strict limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, released an updated analysis of what rules would accomplish and the impact on coal plants and lower-carbon energy sources. The EPA says it will issue its proposed rules in June.
“We could eliminate hundreds of millions of tons of carbon pollution, save thousands of lives and stimulate a surge in clean energy and energy efficiency investments, and all at a lower cost than many would imagine,” said Dan Lashof, director of climate and clean air at the New York-based group.
President Barack Obama has pledged to cut U.S. greenhouse gases about 17 percent by 2020 over 2005 levels, a goal that groups such as Resources for the Future say requires the EPA to order deep cuts in power-plant emissions. Power plants are the top source of carbon-dioxide emissions.
Just after Obama was re-elected, NRDC issued the most detailed proposal for how the EPA could use regulations under the Clean Air Act to limit emissions from power plants. Because coal plants emit twice as much carbon dioxide as a natural-gas plant of the same size, much of the discussion about those rules has focused on how or whether coal could survive.
Ideas Embraced
Obama embraced the NRDC’s ideas in his climate announcement in June, and the EPA is preparing rules for existing power plants.
Lashof said that the group in its report today took account of revised baseline projections showing lower emissions as electricity demand stagnates, coal plants close and solar and wind power use accelerates. It also took into account criticism of earlier projections that energy efficiency would ramp up to meet cuts in coal generation.
If efficiency gains are constrained, more coal plants may install carbon-capture technology, and then sell that carbon-dioxide to oil producers who use it to stimulate production in old oil fields, Lashof said. The sale of the carbon dioxide makes the investment worthwhile, he said.
Overall, the most ambitious plan, which would achieve a cut of 30 percent in power plant emissions by 2020, would cost $14.6 billion, according to the NRDC. Less restrictive plans would cost from nothing to achieve a 24 percent reduction, to $11.1 billion to reach a 31 percent cut, assuming that energy efficiency can ramp up.
“We found we could make deeper reductions at a cheaper cost,” Lashof said in an interview.
4. Scientific American, “The Danger in Your Antibacterial Soap”
March 21, 2014
By Maricel V. Maffini
March 21, 2014
By Maricel V. Maffini
In 1978 the Bee Gees ruled the airwaves,Grease topped the box office and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration first proposed a rule on antibacterial hand soaps—a rule that would have eliminated an unnecessary and unsafe ingredient called triclosan. Thirty-five years later many things have changed, but the FDA has not. Just recently it proposed rules on antibacterial soaps that would remove triclosan-containing soap from the shelves—for the third time. Yet because the FDA has failed to finalize any of these proposals, triclosan has proliferated in the marketplace. It is now the most common active ingredient found in antibacterial consumer hand soaps.
It’s also common in our bodies. Triclosan has been measured in amniotic fluid, breast milk, human blood and the urine of 75 percent of Americans sampled over the age of six. Although it does not discriminate by gender or racial/ethnic group, it appears to increase in concentration as income increases. Despite little evidence of their effectiveness to reduce illness, triclosan-containing antibacterial soaps have dominated the market. Soap aside, triclosan can also be found in consumer products as diverse as cutting boards, shoes, lipstick and toothpaste.
In other words, we are continually exposed to triclosan. The problem is that triclosan is not safe. In animal studies it has been shown to interfere with the regulation of thyroid hormones (affecting metabolism and brain development), testosterone synthesis (decreasing sperm counts) and estrogen action (causing early onset of puberty). Exposure to triclosan has been shown to weaken heart muscle, impairing contractions and reducing heart function, and to weaken skeletal muscle, reducing grip strength. In aquatic environments fish exposed to triclosan were unable to swim properly.
Higher urinary levels of triclosan are associated with hay fever, allergies to airborne triggers (like ragweed and cats) and food (peanut, shrimp, dairy) allergies. Triclosan has even been associated with elevated body mass index in adults. Although the mechanism driving this association is not clear, researchers suggest that it could be due to changes in the gut flora or hormones.
There are also concerns about the potential impact of triclosan use on development of antibiotic resistance. Laboratory studies on bacteria exposed to triclosan demonstrate evidence of cross-resistance to critically important antibiotics including erythromycin, ciprofloxacin, ampicillin and gentamicin. Further, there is evidence that resistance to triclosan itself exists in Salmonella enterica, Staphylococcus aureus, streptococcus, Escherichia coli and other species of bacteria. Strains ofMycobacterium tuberculosis tolerant to triclosan have also showed resistance to the drug isoniazid (INH), which is used to treat tuberculosis. Although the overuse of antibiotics in humans and livestock is a greater contributor to the public health crisis of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the potential increased risk of antibiotic resistance from the use of antimicrobial chemicals is unnecessary.
To add insult to injury, there is no added benefit to using triclosan (or any antibacterial) soaps. Triclosan is intrinsically ineffective against some bacteria likePseudomonas aeruginosa and fungal infections. The FDA requires that to be considered effective these soaps must do more than remove bacteria; they must “provide a clinical benefit by reducing infections.” But studies show that using soap containing triclosan does not reduce human illnesses or infections any more than using regular soap. There have even been occasional reports of fatal bacterial outbreaks in hospitals using triclosan, including bacterial contamination of triclosan soap containers in a surgical intensive care unit.
Which brings us back to the FDA. In the rule it proposed in 1978 (and again in 1994 and 2013) the FDA said it does not have sufficient information to determine whether triclosan is safe or effective. In the absence of such a determination triclosan cannot be sold in the U.S.—but the FDA’s failure to finalize these proposals allowed the products to remain on the market. Therefore, in 2010 the Natural Resources Defense Council sued the FDA to compel it to finalize its rules. As a result of the settlement, the FDA now has to finish its rules on antibacterial soaps by September 2016. If at that time the FDA still cannot say triclosan is safe and effective, then antibacterial hand soaps can no longer contain triclosan. Until then, antibacterial soaps remain on the market and consumers are left to protect themselves from this harmful chemical.
5. ThinkProgress, “China’s Plan to Develop Totally New Nuclear Fuel Speeds Up”
March 20, 2014
By Ari.Phillips
March 20, 2014
By Ari.Phillips
China needs energy just about any way they can get it — coal, gas, solar, wind, biomass, nuclear — they’ll take it. However the country’s heavy reliance on coal is is becoming a heavy liability. Coal-fired power plants and other industrial outlets that ring China’s growing urban hubs are creating near-permanent smog centers that choke out the sun and leave residents and visitors alike engulfed in a debilitating hazy mess. China’s top-down government is addressing this issue ever more urgently, extending influence into pollution monitoring, new regulations and most of all, new power sources. Renewables and natural gas are at the top of the list, but nuclear is also a cornerstone of China’s energy future.
With only 20 nuclear plants currently operating, China already has 28 under construction, according to the World Nuclear Association — about 40 percent of the total global number being built. Last year China expected to add nearly 9 gigawatts to nuclear capability to its grid. Even with that additional amount, nuclear still provides less than two percent of the country’s electricity (with around 70 percent still coming from coal). However, in China, plans matter. And China has big plans for nuclear, hoping to generate almost 60 gigawatts of nuclear energy by 2020 and 150 gigawatts by 2050. By 2020, Hong Kong plans to get half of its power from mainland nuclear plants.
Nuclear power comes with well-known risks. Japan had similar nuclear ambitions before the Fukushima nuclear meltdown threw the country’s energy ambitions out of orbit. Aside from being highly radioactive, uranium, which fuels traditional nuclear power plants, is also expensive and in limited supply. China is currently an importer of the uranium it uses for its nuclear power plants.
China has big plans for this too, as authorities recently set a 10-year deadline to develop a totally different kind of nuclear power plant not dependent on uranium. In January, Jiang Mianheng, son of former leader Jiang Zemin, launched China’s push to develop thorium nuclear energy, which uses the radioactive element thorium instead of uranium as the primary element of production. The Chinese National Academy of Sciences has a start-up budget of $350 million, according to The Telegraph, with 140 scientists at the Shanghai Institute of Nuclear and Applied Physics already working on the project — and a plan to staff-up to 750 by next year.
The scientists had a 25-year timeline to build their first fully-functioning thorium reactor until this week when it got moved up 15 years.
“In the past the government was interested in nuclear power because of the energy shortage,” Professor Li Zhong, a leading scientist working on the project, told the South China Morning Post. “Now they are more interested because of smog:”
“The problem of coal has become clear. If the average energy consumption per person doubles, this country will be choked to death by polluted air. Nuclear power provides the only solution for massive coal replacement and thorium carries much hope.”
Research into thorium reactors is not new, and the U.S. actually developed an eight-megawatt prototype at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the late 1960s. However interest and funding waned in the ensuing 40 years as engineering challenges remained and uranium reactors took precedence. Plutonium associated with uranium reactors was also needed for nuclear weapons development. However, as the environmental costs — both to acquire uranium and over potential meltdowns — build and the ambition to develop fossil fuel alternatives heats up, programs in the U.S., the U.K., and Japan are also looking into thorium reactors. With a 10-year deadline, China has set the bar extremely high, as much of the technology remains unproven and major challenges are yet to be resolved.
“This is definitely a race,” Li said. “China faces fierce competition from overseas and to get there first will not be an easy task.” He added that the conditions they are working under are war-like. This is befitting, since earlier in March, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang declared a “war on pollution.”
With so much research going into thorium, some are hopeful that technical and engineering challenges can be overcome in a short timeframe. Scientists are pushing a similar timeframe in which address climate change before “abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes occur” — as bluntly stated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science this week in a new report.
“There is a fair bit of research going on at the moment into the use of thorium,” Jonathan Cobb, of the World Nuclear Association told The Guardian. “And technology-wise, using thorium would not be too much of a leap. It is certainly something that is well under way in terms of research.”
Thorium is a plentiful chemical element, and while acquiring it is not the challenge, it would still create significant radioactive waste and still presents significant safety challenges for any large-scale plant. It would likely be harder to create nuclear weapons from thorium than traditional uranium enrichment processes, so it would be beneficial to efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation. Then there’s also the issue of overcoming the power of the existing nuclear industry, which is deeply enmeshed in the global energy infrastructure and most likely resistant to any significant changes that could add costs or new safety or oversight concerns.
“I wouldn’t read a whole lot into it,” Tom Cochran, senior scientist in the Natural Resource Defense Council’s Nuclear Program and a member of the Energy Department’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee, told ThinkProgress. “China has been looking into everything when it comes to nuclear power. They have a broad civil nuclear R&D program and interest. It remains to be seen whether anything will come of this thorium effort.”
Cochran mentioned that some companies in the U.S. are looking into thorium reactors and that India has had a longstanding program to develop the technology, but he doesn’t think it’s going anywhere. And even if China did come up with a working thorium reactor in a decade, “so what? Meanwhile they will have dozens of traditional nuclear reactors using low-enriched uranium,” Cochran said.
6. Greenwire, “2 Pet Supply Companies Agree to Remove Pesticide From Flea Collars”
March 20, 2014
By Sam Pearson
March 20, 2014
By Sam Pearson
U.S. EPA has reached a voluntary agreement with two companies to remove a potent chemical used in pet flea products from the marketplace, although environmental groups aren’t happy the agency is giving manufacturers more than two years to fully do so.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has targeted propoxur and another chemical, tetrachlorvinphos, or TCVP, for years. The group petitioned EPA in 2010, urging the agency to cancel all manufacturer registrations for pet products using both chemicals, which would effectively remove them from the pet retail market. After years with no response from the agency, NRDC sued EPA in February, seeking to force the agency to take action over the petition (E&ENews PM, Feb. 7).
“This action is another example of EPA’s efforts to protect children from pesticide risks,” said Jim Jones, the assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, in a statement. “This voluntary move will get to an expedient result that protects people’s health.”
EPA’s announcement last week that it had reached an agreement with Omaha, Neb.-based Sergeant’s Pet Care Products Inc. and another company, Wellmark International, to remove pet products containing propoxur, was met with praise by NRDC — though the group remained concerned about the way EPA conducted the process.
Under the terms of the agreement, the two manufacturers may continue to produce the collars until April 1, 2015, and distribute them until April 1, 2016. Collars may linger on store shelves for up to five years until reaching their expiration dates, according to NRDC.
EPA said in a fact sheet posted online that while “the products do not meet the current safety standard, they do not pose a public health risk if label directions are followed.” NRDC has argued propoxur can have a harmful effect on children’s nervous systems — similar to lead — and that children often are exposed to the chemical through contact with pets at levels above what EPA considers safe.
The action will allow the products to continue circulating for years and doesn’t apply to other companies that may be active in the pet market. EPA also did not take regulatory action on TCVP, as NRDC had sought.
“EPA found a risk to kids that deserves immediate action, not a slow retreat,” Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, a senior scientist at NRDC, said in a statement. “Families shouldn’t have to wait years for dangerous products to leave the store shelves.”
The companies agreed to withdraw their products after they determined they could not eliminate the risk that children may be exposed to propoxur when they come into contact with animals treated with the chemical.
“We are pleased to be able to work with the EPA to resolve this matter amicably and ensure that our customers can continue to benefit from uninterrupted access to Sergeant’s products,” said Caryn Stichler, vice president of marketing for Sergeant’s, in a statement. “Sergeant’s remains committed to compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements.”
A Wellmark representative couldn’t be reached for comment in time for publication.
7. Associated Press, “Environmental Coalition Names 3 NC Senators in Ad”
March 20, 2014
March 20, 2014
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Several groups are banding together to fight what they view as threats to North Carolina’s environment, starting by calling out three state Republican senators for their votes on fracking in a television commercial.
The groups announced Thursday the formation of the North Carolina Environmental Partnership. It includes the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Natural Resources Defense Council and local environmental and citizens group in North Carolina.
The new partnership’s campaign will initially focus on fracking, the process of injecting chemicals and water into the ground to extract oil and gas.
Its first ad, now running on major television stations and on cable channels in the Triangle and Fayetteville, name Sens. Chad Barefoot of Wake Forest, Ron Rabin of Spring Lake and Wesley Meredith of Fayetteville as part of the “fracking crew.”
The commercial says the three all voted to “fast track” fracking and “put our families at risk.” It asks viewers to tell the legislators to stop “reckless” fracking.
The Senate approved legislation last year that would have allowed permits to be issued starting in March 2015. The permit date was ultimately removed from final legislation. GOP legislators say the state Mining and Energy Commission is creating state-of-the-art fracking regulations that will protect the health of citizens.
The partnership said the ad campaign will be augmented by direct mail and other public outreach.
“When legislators vote to threaten North Carolina’s drinking water, we’re going to make sure folks back home know about it,” Mary Maclean Asbill, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in a release. Roughshod
8. Daily Kos, “New White house climate.data.gov Site Unveiled”
March 20, 2014
By Meteor Blades
March 20, 2014
By Meteor Blades
The White House rolled out a new project Wednesday designed to help local communities use existing federal and other data to cope with climate change. The Climate Data Initiative is, as several commentators have pointed out, a geeky response designed to show, among other things, which locales are most vulnerable to coastal flooding. The announcement came in a post on the White House blog from Obama’s special adviser John Podesta and science adviser John P. Holdren:
Data from NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Department of Defense, and other Federal agencies will be featured on climate.data.gov, a new section within data.gov that opens for business today. The first batch of climate data being made available will focus on coastal flooding and sea level rise. NOAA and NASA will also be announcing an innovation challenge calling on researchers and developers to create data-driven simulations to help plan for the future and to educate the public about the vulnerability of their own communities to sea level rise and flood events.
These and other Federal efforts will be amplified by a number of ambitious private commitments. For example, Esri, the company that produces the ArcGIS software used by thousands of city and regional planning experts, will be partnering with 12 cities across the country to create free and open “maps and apps” to help state and local governments plan for climate change impacts.
Google, Intel and Microsoft are all on board to contribute their expertise as well as vast amounts of computing time and storage to the project. Google alone will provide a petabyte of cloud storage for climate data. Rebecca Moore, the engineering manager of Google Earth Engine & Earth Outreach, said the company plans to help people prepare for extreme heat, drought, sea level rise and flooding “as easily as they use Google maps to get driving directions.”
A fact sheet on specifics of who will be doing what in this seminal public-private partnership can be read here.
As Coral Davenport at the New York Times points out, until the climate science, mapping and other capabilities are transformed into easy-to-use applications, “the site will remain very much in its testing phase. … Average users will not be able to do much yet on their own. Instead, NASA and the NOAA will call on researchers and private companies to create software simulations illustrating the impact of sea level rise.”
Senior Policy Analyst Rob Moore at the Natural Resources Defense Council notes that one federal agency that won’t be included at the site is the Federal Emergency Management Agency even though it probably does more mapping than any other U.S. government operation. FEMA maps are drafted for purposes of federal flood insurance, but they don’t yet take into account future sea-level rise.
What the White House might ponder while climate.data.gov gets honed is establishing another site, a twin, if you will. This would be sort of a reverse website of climate.data.gov to provide information from municipalities, states and—dare I suggest—foreign nations that have already adopted measures to deal with climate change. Many of those policies, such as requirements for efficiency standards and for how much future electricity should be provided from renewable sources, are the sort of farsighted moves that would be of interest to communities just getting started on passing measures related to global warming.
Many of those local and state policies ought to become elements of national policy. As such, the twin website ought to be required reading for every member of Congress, especially the ones who still believe that climate change is a hoax or those who don’t think so but still can’t get their butts in gear to do anything about it.
1. USA Today, “Shale Could Be Long-Term Home for Nuclear Waste”
March 17, 2014
By Wendy Koch
March 17, 2014
By Wendy Koch
Could shale rock spur another energy bonanza? It’s already helped create a surge in U.S. oil and natural gas production, and research today suggests it could do something else: store radioactive waste from nuclear power plants.
These rock formations are ideal for storing potentially dangerous spent fuel for millennia, because they are nearly impermeable, a U.S. geologist told a scientific meeting. One of the biggest risks of storing nuclear waste for thousands of years is water contamination.
The development of new U.S. nuclear power plants, all of which are now decades old, has been partly hobbled by the lack of a long-term repository for their waste. In 2009, the U.S. government abandoned plans for a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, so plants currently store about 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel onsite in above-ground facilities.
“Shale has a lot of nice properties. … We really should consider whether this is something we should look into,” says Chris Neuzil of the U.S. Geological Survey, who presented his findings Monday in Dallas to the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society. He says experiments show how incredibly watertight shale can be — 100 to 10,000 times less permeable than cement grout.
“Not all shales have the low permeabilities at the scale we desire,” but plenty is available in tectonically stable areas that won’t be used for oil and natural gas production, Neuzil says. In recent years, hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is being used to break apart these rock deposits and extract the the gas or oil trapped within.
Neuzil says current U.S. storage of nuclear waste is problematic because the spent fuel continues to produce heat and harmful radiation long after a power plant uses it to produce electricity. Plants typically store the waste in steel-lined, concrete pools filled with water or in massive, airtight steel casks.
Neuzil says safe maintenance of above-ground storage depends on stable societies for thousands of years. He also notes the risks of natural disasters, including Japan’s 2011 tsunami that knocked cooling pumps offline at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Several countries, including France, Switzerland and Belgium, have plans to develop long-term nuclear waste repositories hundreds of yards underground in layers of shale and other clay-rich rock. Neuzil is investigating a site using limestone in Ontario with the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization.
“He’s bringing up a very sensible idea, but this isn’t particularly new,” says Mick Apted, a geochemist at Austin-based INTERA, an environmental consulting firm. “The Europeans have taught us this.”
Apted, who’s working with Switzerland and Belgium on their programs, says France is furthest along in pursuing an underground repository in clay-rich rock, which isn’t as hard as shale. He says France, which gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, has identified a site. In Finland and Sweden, he says, companies have submitted a construction license to build a repository in granite-like rock and are waiting on government approval.
“It’s far too soon to know” whether shale is a viable long-term storage option, says Geoff Fettus, an attorney in the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. He says prior research has looked at the feasibility of various geologic formations, but “NRDC is not aware of a significant number of studies on this particular medium (shale).”
In his January 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama received standing applause from both sides of the political aisle when he called for a “new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants.” In February, his administration finalized $6.5 billion in loan guarantees for the nation’s first two new nuclear reactors in three decades — at Southern Co.’s Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia.
The expansion of nuclear power, welcomed by the nuclear industry and business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, remains controversial in the environmental community. Many environmentalists oppose it, citing potential Fukushima-type meltdown risks as well as the lack of a long-term repository for nuclear waste.
Yet in recent years, it’s drawn the support of leading climate scientists, such as James Hansen, former head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who say solar and wind energy will not be able to deliver enough carbon-free energy to avoid catastrophic global warming. Nuclear power plants emit no heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Chicago Tribune, “MillerCoors Lifts a Glass to Saving Water”
March 18, 2014
By Julie Wernau
March 18, 2014
By Julie Wernau
It can take up to 20 gallons of water to make a single pint of beer and, with water in scarce supply, more than one-quarter of beverage production is in jeopardy.
In response, major brewers such as Chicago-based MillerCoors have been squeezing water out of the beer-making process because of concerns that their most important ingredient could soon dry up. That includes helping farmers who grow hops and barley or tap the same water sources as the breweries — to better manage water use.
Smaller craft breweries also have joined the effort, working hand in hand with environmental groups to ensure that water quality, key to the flavor of their brews, remains high.
“If there’s no water, there’s no beer,” said Kim Marotta, director of sustainability at MillerCoors.
In the past three years, the company says, its eight breweries have saved 1 billion gallons of water, equivalent to the amount of water 10 million Americans use daily for everything from drinking and bathing to brushing teeth.
In the past three years, the company says, its eight breweries have saved 1 billion gallons of water, equivalent to the amount of water 10 million Americans use daily for everything from drinking and bathing to brushing teeth.
MillerCoors says it’s using 3 1/2 barrels of water for every barrel of beer it produces, half the water some other beer-makers use. That’s ahead of its goal for in-house water reduction.
Now the company is focused on improving water-management practices at farms, especially in parts of the country that don’t have adequate water supplies.
“It can cause serious disruptions to your business if water is severely limited,” said Tod Christenson, director of the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable.
MillerCoors has several breweries in areas with water limitations.
Its Fort Worth, Texas, brewery, for example, sits on the Trinity River watershed, which provides the state with 40 percent of its drinking water. The demands of people, agriculture and industry, combined with a drought during the past three years, have threatened the brewery’s source of water.
The company has launched a massive initiative to spread best practices for water management at farms in the region. Those farms don’t supply MillerCoors, but they compete with the breweries’ water needs.
“It’s not unusual for a brewery to focus on conservation within their four walls. It is very unusual for a company to go outside those walls and engage with landowners,” said Ken Klaveness, executive director at Trinity Waters, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the watershed.
MillerCoors breweries in Irwindale, Calif., and Golden, Colo., also depend on at-risk watersheds. And recent changes in weather patterns have threatened the water supply in the San Luis Valley in Colorado where the company relies on about 150 barley growers.
“Their aquifers are really depressed, and many are depleted,” Marotta said.
In Silver Creek Valley, Idaho, MillerCoors teamed with The Nature Conservancy and, during three growing seasons, helped a barley farmer save 430 million gallons of water, the equivalent of the amount its brewery would use for three months.
The fixes were relatively simple. Pivots on the water sprinkling system were lowered so more water hit crops and less was lost to evaporation. The system also was retrofitted with a device to alert the farmer when it rained, so the system could be turned off with a smartphone.
MillerCoors, which contracts directly with 850 barley growers, hopes to duplicate that success at other farms that tap into water sources that also supply breweries and drinking water.
Reducing water use globally is crucial.
“As the population booms, they’re consuming more food. Agriculture continues to grow to serve their needs. Also, living standards are rising around the world, and they are desiring more Western diets, which means more consumption of dairy and meat, which is water-intensive,” said Richard Rosengren, senior adviser at The Nature Conservancy in Minneapolis.
Some of the measures MillerCoors has taken to cut water use might seem small, but they add up because of the immense volume of beer the company makes; last year it produced 63.3 million barrels of beer. At its Fort Worth brewery, for example, the same water used to warm beer bottles for labeling is also used during labeling.
At MillerCoors’ Milwaukee brewery, which sprawls over 82 acres, a machine pumps ionized air into cans to remove dust, a process that once used water. The company also determined that its massive kettles got just as clean with one rinse using a better cleaning mixture instead of multiple times with water.
Since 2009 the company has cut about a half-barrel of water use from each barrel of beer it produces. The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable said 84 percent of breweries cut water use from 2010 to 2012.
St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch is also taking part. The company has reduced water use in its breweries 32 percent during the past five years, according to Pete Kraemer, vice president of supply.
Recently, drought conditions in the West led the company to lower its water usage at its Los Angeles brewery by 12.6 percent, he said, and the company also reduced water at its Fairfield, Calif., brewery by 4.4 percent.
But smaller craft brewers, Christenson said, don’t have the economy of scale to sharply curtail water needs. It isn’t uncommon, he said, for smaller brewers to use twice the amount of water or more per can of beer compared with the largest breweries, because their runs are smaller and their kettles need to be rinsed more frequently.
Revolution Brewing, a craft brewery in Chicago, pumps out 220 cans per minute compared with the 6,700 cans per minute produced at MillerCoors’ brewery in Milwaukee.
“At our size, we can’t hope to have an impact standing alone, but when we interact with other brewers, we can see some result,” says Josh Deth, managing partner at Revolution.
Revolution is among 40 craft brewers that have signed on to an initiative with the Natural Resources Defense Council that would grant smaller water bodies and tributaries certain protections under the Clean Water Act.
In spite of water-saving measures the company has taken, it takes about seven barrels of water to produce one barrel of Revolution beer, Deth said.
“There’s a lot of things the bigger brewers can do because they have more volume, more space,” he said.
The company taps into Lake Michigan and wants to make sure the quality remains up to snuff.
Josh Mogerman, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said working with brewers was a natural fit because it is an industry that thinks about water quality as much as they do.
“Bad water is bad beer,” he said.
3. WNYC News, “New Sanitation Commissioner Faces Challenges”
March 17, 2014
By Tracie Hunte
March 17, 2014
By Tracie Hunte
Listen here to Eric Goldstein’s radio interview.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has a new Sanitation Commissioner. Over the weekend, he appointed Kathryn Garcia, the former Chief Operating Officer for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. She’ll take over the sanitation job from John Doherty, who’s retiring after 16 years.
Garcia is well known in city government and among environmental groups, but her only experience in the Sanitation Department comes from an internship there more than 20 years ago.
Garcia will have a number of challenges ahead of her, including implementing former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Solid Waste Management Plan from 2006. Then-City Councilman Bill de Blasio voted for the plan.
“The fact that she has this extensive experience in working in a New York City government agency; that she has a commitment to implementing environmentally-sustainable disposal programs and that she has the personal confidence of the mayor. Those are the essential qualities one needs in a commissioner these days,” said Eric Goldstein, New York City Environment director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has a new Sanitation Commissioner. Over the weekend, he appointed Kathryn Garcia, the former Chief Operating Officer for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. She’ll take over the sanitation job from John Doherty, who’s retiring after 16 years.
Garcia is well known in city government and among environmental groups, but her only experience in the Sanitation Department comes from an internship there more than 20 years ago.
Garcia will have a number of challenges ahead of her, including implementing former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Solid Waste Management Plan from 2006. Then-City Councilman Bill de Blasio voted for the plan.
“The fact that she has this extensive experience in working in a New York City government agency; that she has a commitment to implementing environmentally-sustainable disposal programs and that she has the personal confidence of the mayor. Those are the essential qualities one needs in a commissioner these days,” said Eric Goldstein, New York City Environment director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
He spoke to WNYC’s Amy Eddings.
4. New York Times – “Well” Blog, “Sorting Out the Risks of Fish”
March 17, 2014
By Roni Caryn Rabin
March 17, 2014
By Roni Caryn Rabin
Fish is often called “brain food.” It’s an excellent source of lean protein, rich in nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins and iodine, and pregnant women are encouraged to eat it. There’s just one, ah, catch: Fish also may have mercury, which can harm the developing brain.
Two advocacy organizations sued the Food and Drug Administration last week, demanding that the agency require canned and packaged fish to carry labels informing consumers of the mercury content, and that federal officials force grocery stores and fish markets to display information if they sell fish high in mercury.
The F.D.A. long ago put out information about mercury in seafood, but the groups say it should be at consumers’ fingertips when they’re shopping for dinner.
“People shouldn’t have to do detective work to get this information,” said Michael Bender, executive director of the Mercury Policy Project, one of the groups. Agency officials said they could not comment because of the continuing litigation.
But will labels on a can of tuna do more harm than good — scaring people away from eating fish altogether?
That’s the concern of fishing industry representatives, who note that consumption of fish and seafood dropped the last time the F.D.A. issued warnings about mercury. They argue that the benefits of eating fish are much greater than the possible harmful effects of mercury.
“When environmental activists suggest that consumers not eat a healthy protein like seafood, they’re doing more harm than good,” said Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for the National Fisheries Institutes, a nonprofit organization backed by the fishing and seafood industry. “The benefits outweigh the risks.”
Many health experts are also cautious about the way they word their advice on the matter because they don’t want Americans to forgo the benefits of fish and seafood in favor of, say, bacon cheeseburgers.
Worries over mercury in seafood stretch back decades, confounding consumers who are told that fish and seafood are healthy, especially for the developing fetus, but hazardous in great amounts. New research has helped tease out the benefits and the harms.
Edward Groth III, an independent food safety consultant who prepared a report on the effects of mercury on fetal brain development for the Mercury Pilot Project, agreed that women of childbearing age shouldn’t just quit eating fish.
“If women are eating less fish because they’re confused, and there’s some evidence that’s the case, then we’re not getting the result we want,” he said. “The secret is to get women to eat more low-mercury fish.”
The debate has taken on added urgency because of new studies suggesting that mercury may cause subtle adverse effects at levels lower than those now considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency, even as they reaffirm the cognitive benefits to children whose mothers ate fish while pregnant.
Dr. Emily Oken and her colleagues at Harvard looked at the association between mothers’ fish intake and their infants’ cognitive scores at six months. The researchers found that the babies’ performance on visual recognition memory tests increased a significant four points with each additional weekly serving of fish that the mother ate while pregnant.
But the researchers also measured mercury levels in the mothers’ hair, and found that infants whose mothers had very high levels of mercury scored lower than the others, for a drop of 7.5 points for every one part per million increase in mercury.
The bottom line: The babies who scored highest were those whose mothers were among the top fish and seafood consumers, eating it at least twice a week, but who also had lower mercury levels.
Dr. Oken’s study included only 135 pairs of mothers and infants, but several other epidemiological studies in recent years have reported similar associations. Another Harvard study found that children whose mothers ate fish and seafood during pregnancy were at a lower risk for impulsive and hyperactive behaviors, but that prenatal exposure to low levels of mercury increased the risk for those behaviors.
“It’s a paradox, but it highlights an important public health message: that eating fish is really important for development, but eating fish high in mercury — swordfish, king mackerel, fresh tuna — does pose a risk to neurodevelopment,” said Sharon Sagiv, lead author of that study, now an epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
Though most studies have examined the effects of prenatal exposure to mercury, the brain continues to develop through childhood, and one study has suggested middle-age adults could also be vulnerable to mercury’s effects. In that research, adults who ate a high-fish diet performed well on cognitive tasks, but performance was impaired among those with higher blood mercury levels.
So, what’s a health-conscious fish eater to do?
For starters, avoid eating large predatory fish that are high on the food chain. The F.D.A. lists only four fish in this category: swordfish, king mackerel, shark and tilefish. The Natural Resources Defense Council has a more comprehensive list that includes orange roughy, marlin, and both ahi and bigeye tuna.
When it comes to canned tuna, “light” tuna usually is the smaller skipjack, with significantly less mercury than “white” albacore; still, the F.D.A. recommends no more than 12 ounces of light tuna a week and no more than six ounces of white tuna for women — even less for children.
The good news: Many fish and shellfish are low in mercury, including salmon, shrimp and catfish, as well as tilapia, scallops, oysters, herring, sardines and trout.
5. ClimateWire, “U.S. Wood Pellets Could Help U.K. Coal Plants Cut Greenhouse Gases by Half — Study
March 17, 2014
By Tiffany Stecker
March 17, 2014
By Tiffany Stecker
Replacing coal with wood pellets in the United Kingdom could lead to a significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent study, giving environmental points to a booming industry in the Southeast.
The paper, published last month in Environmental Research Letters, says burning wood pellets reduces carbon emissions between 50 percent and 68 percent per unit of fossil fuel electricity — roughly in the midrange of recent studies. The range depends on the size of the power plant, as large, 100-megawatt facilities have a better conversion efficiency than smaller, 20 MW ones per unit of electricity. It also depends on the cycle of tree harvests; a 25-year cycle is more climate-friendly than a 12-year one.
Overall emissions from biomass, or plant-based, energy are widely debated. One study placed the benefits as high as 80 percent over coal, while some environmental groups have said burning wood is worse than coal from a climate perspective.
“The truth lies somewhere in the middle,” said Madhu Khanna, a professor at the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
This study examined 930 scenarios for bringing wood pellets from slash pines at plantations in the southern United States to an electric generator in Selby, England. One important consideration was the distance traveled between the woody material used to make pellets and the pellet-making facility.
“Most studies assume that transportation is like a fixed distance, 50 kilometers,” Khanna said. “It doesn’t take into account that the forest is a spatially distributed resource, and everything isn’t going to be exactly 50 kilometers.”
Overall greenhouse gas emissions are higher in intensive wood-growing practices, in which large amounts of herbicides and fertilizers are used. Nitrogen fertilizers lead to the release of nitrous oxide, a gas more than 300 times as powerful as CO2 in warming the planet.
Business expected to triple
Pellets are usually made from small trees and leftovers of another industry, like paper or lumber. The facility then grinds the woods, dries it and reforms it into small cylinders of processed wood resembling rabbit feed. Unlike most of the pellets for domestic use, which are used to fire small residential stoves, these pellets travel across the Atlantic to fire European power plants, typically in northern countries like England, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Wood pellet production for export, driven by Europe’s renewable energy mandates, has exploded in recent years and is expected to grow three times its size between 2012 and 2015. Proponents of biomass energy consider it carbon-neutral, as trees absorb carbon from photosynthesis, and the forest products industry promotes the growth of trees.
But environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Clean Air Task Force and Friends of the Earth reject this notion. They say emissions from the smokestack of a biomass power plant cannot go unaccounted, as it can take decades for that CO2 to be reabsorbed in forests. This results in a carbon “debt,” in which more carbon is emitted than there are trees to sequester it.
Khanna sat on U.S. EPA’s scientific advisory board in 2012 to explore the issue of biomass emissions. The board published a report recommending that the agency formulate different approaches for different feedstocks — wood waste from the logging industry should be measured differently from whole trees, for example. It also rejected a blanket assumption that all biomass energy is carbon-neutral (ClimateWire, July 15, 2013).
EPA is mulling a proposal to properly account for carbon emissions from biomass power plants, which are currently exempt from greenhouse gas permitting requirements.
“It shows that it is not zero percent, completely carbon-neutral, nor that it should be treated equivalent to coal,” Khanna said of the study. “It depends really on … what one is assuming on how forests will be managed, and then what is the impact with bioenergy.”
Wrestling over the carbon ‘debt’
A carbon debt would be achieved only in certain cases, like if a forester changed his or her schedule from cutting trees every 25 years to every 15 years to accommodate pellet production. In this case, there would be 10 years lost of potential carbon sequestration in trees.
But Sami Wassa, senior scientist for NRDC’s Our Forests Aren’t Fuel campaign, disagrees, based on a single sentence in the methods section of the paper: “Biogenic [greenhouse gas] emissions related to burning of bark and wood pellets were not considered under the assumption that harvested tracts were immediately planted after harvest.”
This assumption is false, he said.
“It may be carbon-neutral after 50 years, but you need to say that upfront,” he said. “This study’s results would be entirely different if you consider the factor of time.”
It is unclear how future demand for pellets will affect prices for other products, Khanna said.
“How far can we go on increasing production of pellets without having a negative impact on the price of pulpwood and traditional markets of pulpwood remains to be seen,” she said. As for an environmental impact, she believes increasing demand will lead to a shift from wood pellets to pellets made from energy grasses, like miscanthus.
The U.S. Industrial Pellet Association, the trade group for manufacturers of Europe-bound pellets, said it “applauds the basic supposition of the study, which is that burning biomass for energy offers significant carbon benefits as a replacement fuel in place of coal.”
6. The Greenville News, “Antibiotics Overuse Making it Harder to Fight Superbugs”
March 16, 2014
By Liv Osby
March 16, 2014
By Liv Osby
Kimberly Shivell was giving her baby girl a bath before church one Sunday morning when she noticed a strange, red, nickel-sized bump on her skin that wasn’t there the day before.
By the next day, it was the size of a silver dollar. And terrifyingly, it was the size of her palm by the third day.
Doctors sent the otherwise healthy 15-month-old to the hospital where she wound up having surgery and getting intravenous drugs for what turned out to be an antibiotic-resistant superbug.
“The time in the hospital was horrible,” Shivell told The Greenville News. “You just pray your child doesn’t die from this crazy infection that’s spread in such a small period of time.”
More and more bacteria are becoming resistant to the drugs that have been used to treat them, leaving few treatments for some infections.
At least 2 million Americans contract an antibiotic-resistant infection every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least 23,000 of them die, the CDC reports, though other groups set that number much higher.
And experts say it has become a public health crisis that could claim many more lives unless something is done.
“I don’t remember a time when antibiotics weren’t easily accessible, inexpensive and worked,” said Dr. Ryan Hoffman, director of emergency services at Bon Secours St. Francis Health System.
“And I don’t want to go back to a time when people died from scraping their knee or a sore throat,” he added. “That would be my concern.”
Overused and misused
Antibiotics are commonly prescribed for strep throat, tuberculosis and staph infections, among other bacterial conditions. But they don’t work for viruses like those that cause colds, even though they are prescribed for those ailments.
In fact, the CDC estimates that about half of all antibiotics aren’t needed or effective as prescribed. And the bacteria that survive develop resistance to the drugs.
In a report last fall, the CDC sounded the alarm about three “urgent” threats — Clostridium difficile, a severe intestinal infection; a drug-resistant gonorrhea; and Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, like E. coli, which is resistant to most, and in some cases, all, antibiotics.
The report also cited 12 “serious” threats, including Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA; Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus; multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa; drug-resistant Salmonella; and drug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae. Three more are “concerning threats.”
MRSA caused about 80,461 severe infections and 11,285 deaths in 2011, according to CDC, while an unknown “but much higher number” of less severe infections occurred as well. And resistant S. pneumoniae causes about 1.2 million infections and 7,000 deaths a year, CDC reports.
What’s more, these infections cost the health system more than $20 billion annually and there are few new antibiotics in development.
“The loss of effective antibiotic treatments will not only cripple the ability to fight routine infectious diseases, but will also undermine treatment of infectious complications in patients with other diseases,” the CDC researchers said.
“Many of the advances in medical treatment — diseases such as diabetes, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis — are dependent on the ability to fight infections with antibiotics,” they continued. “If that ability is lost, the ability to safely offer people many life-saving and life-improving modern medical advantages will be lost with it.”
In the food
The medical community has been trying to reduce the amount of inappropriately prescribed antibiotics for several years, issuing guidelines for their use in common childhood ear infections, for example.
But these drugs are also in much of the food that winds up in Americans’ diets. Cattle, hogs and chickens are routinely given antibiotics, not just to treat illnesses, but to promote growth or to prevent disease, according to the CDC.
“Unless you are eating grass-fed, organic beef, you are ingesting antibiotics every time you have a burger,” said Tim Reihm, spokesman for the Alliance for Natural Health – USA, adding that the food chain is “saturated” with antibiotics.
The CDC says the practice of giving antibiotics to food animals is dangerous, unnecessary and should be phased out. And in December, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a plan to do just that.
But critics say it will do little to change the status quo because it’s voluntary, takes three years to implement and allows agribusinesses to continue using the drugs for disease prevention with veterinary oversight.
“It’s useful that the (FDA) is now clearly on record that this is a health threat, that we should be reducing antibiotic use,” Jonathan Kaplan, food and agriculture director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The News.
“But … we have very little reason to believe it’s going to reduce a lot of antibiotic use,” he said. “It’s voluntary and relies on industry to stop a production practice it has insisted on for the last four decades.”
The NRDC, which says the drugs are given to prevent disease because the animals are kept in unsanitary and overcrowded living conditions, sued the FDA in 2012 to act on its own 1977 findings that antibiotics in livestock can lead to resistance. A federal judge ordered the agency to begin cancellation proceedings for two classes of antibiotics, Kaplan said, but FDA appealed and the matter is pending.
Phasing out
This month, the Animal Health Institute, a trade group representing the drug companies that make pharmaceuticals for animals, committed to adopting the FDA policy over the next three years.
The National Chicken Council has too, even though “several studies show the threat from antibiotic use in livestock and poultry production is negligible, if it exists at all,” said spokesman Thomas Super.
Raising healthy birds is the top priority for the industry and antibiotics are just one tool used, he said, adding that the drugs are administered judiciously and only when needed to prevent and treat disease. Most of the antibiotics used in raising chickens aren’t used in human medicine, he said.
“Still, chicken producers are phasing out subtherapeutic or ‘growth uses’ of antibiotics important to treating humans,” he said. “We agree there needs to be dialogue about the use of antibiotics in farm animals, but we stand firm that antibiotics, when used properly and under veterinary oversight, are critical to keeping birds healthy and food safe.”
Liz Wagstrom, chief veterinarian for the National Pork Producers Council, said that hog farmers have for years followed good production practices that include the responsible use of antibiotics to minimize the risk of resistance.
The industry also has spent millions of dollars trying to understand resistance, she said, adding that, from the farmer’s point of view, the FDA guidance will significantly limit the antibiotics and uses available.
“Once those labels are gone, we will no longer have those products to use,” she said. “And we fully expect our producers and feed mills they buy from will comply and will make a real difference in the types of antibiotics that are available and how they may be used.”
National Cattlemen’s Beef Association president Scott George said in a statement the association will review the FDA guidance to ensure it is based on sound science and address producers’ concerns. Producers work with experts on health management plans, including the appropriate use of antibiotics “to prevent, control and treat diseases in their animals,” he said.
“Only by carefully evaluating antimicrobial resistance in a comprehensive manner that evaluates all of the peer-reviewed science related to all animal and human use will we effectively address this important issue,” he added.
First step
But Ami Gadhia, senior policy counsel with Consumers Union, said that while the new guidance is a good first step, the disease prevention use still permitted could leave a loophole for continued inappropriate use of the drugs. And, she said, FDA needs to be moving faster.
“Alarm bells have been ringing on this problem for a very long time,” she said. “Clearly more needs to be done right away on this issue. We would like to see use of antibiotics in food animals limited to treating only sick animals.”
The Infectious Diseases Society of America agrees, saying in a 2011 letter to Congress that “the evidence is so strong of a link between misuse of antibiotics in food animals and human antibiotic resistance that FDA and Congress should be acting much more boldly and urgently to protect these vital drugs for human illness.”
Both Consumers Union and the NRDC have urged Congress to pass the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, or PAMTA, introduced by U.S. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-NY, to ban eight classes of drugs for non-therapeutic uses.
“If we continue along the path we’re going, there is significant worry that people are going to get sicker with antibiotic-resistant bugs,” Gadhia said. “And once they get sick, the treatments we have now just aren’t going to work. That could potentially affect all of us and is something every consumer should be concerned about.”
But Slaughter spokesman Eric Walker said the bill has been stalled by industry lobbying and political contributions.
“In the 112th Congress, there were 225 lobbying reports filed on that bill,” he said, “and 87.5 percent were filed from groups hostile to regulation.”
Harmful bacteria
Meat is routinely contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to Keep Antibiotics Working, a coalition of health, consumer and other groups that works to end the inappropriate use of antibiotics in food animals.
More than half the chicken tested by FDA in 2010 was contaminated with antibiotic-resistant E. coli, according to NRDC, which reports that 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the U.S., or about 29 million pounds, are used on livestock, and most on animals that aren’t sick.
And Consumer Reports says that almost all the chicken breasts it recently tested from 26 states were contaminated by potentially harmful bacteria, and about half had at least one bug resistant to three or more common antibiotics.
Gadhia points to the ongoing outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella in Foster Farms chicken, which has sickened nearly 500 people in 25 states.
“The science community has known for four decades that when you give herds and flocks of animals antibiotics day after day, you end up breeding antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” said Kaplan. “They escape by colonizing workers, going into the environment, riding through the food system on fresh meat products, and can go straight to your kitchen from the grocery store.”
And children are at greater risk of getting many of these infections, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“Fifty years ago, we were able to keep up with the antibiotic resistance that would occur,” said Dr. Joe Maurer of Greenville Health System’s The Children’s Clinic.
“But in recent years, we are losing. The antibiotics we use orally don’t work any more and so we’re having kids coming into the hospital. And these bacteria are not only resistant to antibiotics, they tend to cause more severe infections too,” he said.
“Our concern is that we seem to be further and further limiting our ability to treat (bacterial infections) because of potential overuse of antibiotics, and from the other end the antibiotics given to animals and that get into the environment.”
The good news is that parents increasingly understand that overuse of antibiotics can harm their children, and society as a whole, Maurer said. That’s important because 70 percent of ear infections, upper respiratory infections and sore throats are viral at onset, he said.
So instead of prescribing antibiotics and stronger ones than needed as they often did in the past, he said, doctors don’t give the drugs, wait two or three days to see if the condition improves, or use more selective antibiotics.
Good antibiotic stewardship, said Hoffman, is vital to trying to solve the problem.
Tipping point
One of Maurer’s major concerns is day care centers that require a sick child to be on antibiotics and fever-free for 24 hours before returning even though the drugs won’t help viruses.
“It’s a tough balance,” he said. “We don’t want kids in day care that are sick and spreading disease, but families need their children in day care.”
Still, he said, in the past 10 or 15 years, there’s been a decrease in antibiotics being prescribed, though it seems to have hit a plateau.
“I don’t know what the solution is,” Maurer said. “But from my perspective, more needs to be done.”
Kaplan believes the country is at a tipping point on the issue. More and more people are becoming aware of the problem and consumers are increasingly opting for antibiotic-free foods, he said.
“For the last several decades, the industry side has been to challenge the notion that there’s a credible health threat here. They can’t do that any longer,” he said. “It’s hard to argue with the CDC on whether this issue is a public health threat.”
Kimberly Shivell said she has no idea how Mary Claire was infected.
She took the toddler to the doctor as soon as she noticed the bump and got antibiotics. But when her daughter developed a fever and began vomiting two days later, they were sent to the hospital. After another couple of days, Shivell and her husband, Andy, took their little girl home.
“It was a huge relief,” said the Greenville woman. “She was in such pain and seeing a small child with the IV hooked up all the time was rough.”
Before it happened, Shivell had no idea how common these infections are.
“They said it’s almost as common as a cold,” she said. “All it takes is an open sore to get infected.”
And with two small, rough and tumble girls, the self-described neat freak has been even more meticulous about cleaning, washing hands and making sure any cuts and bruises are treated properly.
“Every night, I spray the tub down and take all the toys and put in the dishwasher to sanitize them,” she said. “And I go straight to the doctor’s office when they get sick now because of what we’ve experienced.”
7. Brooklyn Heritage Radio Network, “What Doesn’t Kill You” – Big Pork with Ted Genoways
March 17, 2014
March 17, 2014
What does Hormel have to do with the water supply in Nebraska? What are the issues facing workers in the pork industry? Find out on a pork-themed episode of What Doesn’t Kill You as Katy Keiffer chats with expert Ted Genoways.
Ted Genoways is editor-at-large at OnEarth, the magazine of the Natural Resources Defense Fund. He has also contributed to a number of other magazines such as The Atlantic, Bloomberg Businessweek, Harper’s, Mother Jones, The New Republic, and Outside. His book, The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food, is forthcoming from HarperCollins in October.
This program was sponsored by Cain Vineyard & Winery.
8. China Radio International, “Achievements on China’s Wildlife Protection”
March 18, 2014
By Catherine Xu
March 18, 2014
By Catherine Xu
Listen here to Andrew Wetzler’s interview.
As part of the recently-concluded “two sessions,” members of the CPPCC, including former basketball star Yao Ming and actor Jackie Chan have issued calls for the better protection of wildlife both here in China and beyond.
As part of the recently-concluded “two sessions,” members of the CPPCC, including former basketball star Yao Ming and actor Jackie Chan have issued calls for the better protection of wildlife both here in China and beyond.
For the past few years, more and more celebrity advocates have been coming forward to try to further the cause of wildlife protection here in China.
For more on the achievements being made, CRI’s Catherine Xu spoke earlier with Andrew Wetzler, Director of the Endangered Species Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
1. Politico, “House Panel Prods EPA on Carbon Storage Worries”
March 12, 2014
By Erica Martinson
Opponents of a key EPA greenhouse gas regulation launched a fresh attack on EPA’s proposed rules for new power plants on Wednesday, questioning whether the agency had adequately considered the environmental threats from pumping carbon underground.
The new issue emerged as Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday also opened an investigation into the EPA’s determination that carbon capture technology is viable for new coal-fired power plants.
At a hearing with the House Science committee’s panel on the environment, Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) questioned the EPA claims that carbon capture and storage is really ready to be rolled out. “My fear is … the law of unintended consequences,” he said.
The opponents of EPA’s rule pushed the agency to revisit a myriad of environmental problems that they contend could arise after the carbon is stripped out, from the safety of drinking water to endangered species.
EPA has proposed a greenhouse gas limit for future coal-fired power plants that would essentially require them to capture 30 to 60 percent of their carbon dioxide emissions. The agency has argued its regulation is the driver needed to push the technology into commercial use, but its opponents say the technology is too expensive, too new and unproven.
For now, the most likely endpoint for all that carbon dioxide is in the oil fields, where it can be used in enhanced oil recovery to squeeze more crude oil out of aging wells.
But alternately, the carbon pollution from one type of fossil fuel doesn’t have to be used to help produce another. Several years ago EPA set up a permitting program for long-term underground storage of carbon dioxide, setting environmental standards for power producers to capture their carbon and inject it far underground in certain types of geologic structures.
“We transport coal thousands of miles” to burn, said Natural Resources Defense Council attorney David Hawkins. Surely the carbon dioxide from that coal can be transported hundreds of miles to be injected underground or used in oil fields, he said, defending the prospects for long-term carbon sequestration.
EPA’s proposed rule doesn’t delve into carbon storage issues — it just provides an emissions limit the companies will need to hit using whatever technology they decide is the most cost effective.
“The regulatory approach to the sequestration and storage is not within the four corners of this rule — it is addressed in other regulatory programs,” EPA’s acting air chief Janet McCabe told the panel.
For opponents of EPA’s effort to curb the greenhouse gases from power plants, the carbon dioxide storage issues are the newest point of contention around the rules that President Barack Obama has asked the agency to roll out.
Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) pressed McCabe on the carbon dioxide storage, charging that “it is misleading and dangerous for the EPA to quietly dismiss inconvenient facts,” and he pointed to concerns about the programmatic separation of carbon capture and sequestration processes that has been previously raised by EPA’s science advisers.
“Staying silent on the last step of the process proves the lack of demonstrated commercial viability,” said Rep. Cynthia Lummis, (R-Wy.).
“The EPA is ignoring the consequences of their rulemaking to instead set legal precedent for mandating unproven technologies. They need to go back and assess the impacts of this rule on non-air issues. There is no science behind the de facto mandated storage requirement,” she added.
Some Republicans on the committee questioned whether EPA had adequately tested whether injecting carbon dioxide underground would harm drinking water aquifers. And several members of the Texas delegation on Wednesday suggested that EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act regulations for storing carbon dioxide could add unnecessary burdens for industry.
Bridenstine also pressed McCabe on whether the agency has asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to consult on Endangered Species Act concerns — echoing a previous request from some Senate Republicans.
Republicans on the committee have previously complained the plants EPA had cited to show that carbon capture is viable at a commercial scale have all received government funding. That makes them ineligible to be the basis in the rulemaking under a provision of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, they argue.
EPA has countered that with a notice of data availability to support its contention that the proposed rule doesn’t run afoul of the 2005 law.
“We do believe that the proposal we put forward meets the requirements of the Clean Air Act for determining technology that’s appropriate,” McCabe said Wednesday.
The agency doesn’t set the technology — just the limit, she added.
“That’s one of the beauties of how the Clean Air Act has worked over the years … it provides room for innovation and flexibility and smart people … finding better and less costly ways to do things,” she said.
2. Huffington Post, “The Climate Crisis is Here”
March 13, 2014
By Peter Morton
Los Angeles — Here in California, we have been experiencing the worst drought on record. More than a meteorological curiosity, this has been a calamity for many people and a hardship on the economy, the world’s 8th largest if we were an independent country.
Crops are dying in California’s once lush fields, source of half the country’s fruits and vegetables, wildfires have been raging throughout the state, ranchers have sold cows they can’t feed, wells are running dry and towns are running out of water, salmon fisheries are threatened as streams dwindle to a trickle. The governor of the state has declared a drought emergency, and the cost of the drought has soared past $5 billion, by some estimates.
This is what climate change looks like.
We’ve been hit by droughts before, and we would face more in the future even if we weren’t loading up our atmosphere with heat-trapping carbon pollution. But the scientific models are also clear that climate change will make droughts like this more frequent and more severe. It is causing sea levels to rise, worsening the impact of coastal storms and allowing diseases and pests to spread more widely, among other consequences.
Yet the truth is that in Los Angeles, where I live, we don’t grow food and our taps have not run dry, so we’re feeling less of the impact from this drought. And that is part of the real problem with America’s struggle to address the climate crisis, the gravest environmental threat of our time.
Too many folks still don’t get it.
Because they are not directly affected, too many people remain oblivious to the reality that climate change is already here and that we are already paying a huge price for it. Too many are unaware of the far, far greater expenses we will incur in the future from climate disruption, caused by humans pumping 90 million of tons of heat-trapping pollution into the atmosphere every day. Too many politicians, backed by the oil, natural gas and coal industries, point only to the costs of cleaning up this pollution.
They always exaggerate these costs. Worse, they refuse to admit that we are already suffering the consequences of our inaction, and they deny that any more calamities are to come. Yet the facts tell a different story:
— Across the U.S. in the first six months of 2012, 24,000 heat records were broken, and 2013 was one of the 10 hottest years on record. Drought affected about two-thirds of the continental United States in 2012 and was blamed for $30 billion in agricultural losses and another $1 billion in destruction from wildfires.
— The flow of the Colorado River, which winds across the western third of the U.S. to northern Mexico and provides water for 30 million people, is at its lowest levels since measurements in Arizona began more than 90 years ago. The most recent draft of the government’s National Climate Assessment warns that with a changing climate, in the Colorado River Basin, “…drought is projected to become more frequent, intense, and longer lasting than in the historical record.”
— The Rocky Mountains in Canada and the U.S. have seen nearly 70,000 square miles of forest die since 2000 due to outbreaks of tree-killing insects that are now able to survive in the warmer winters.
— Water scarcity already affects every continent. Around 1.2 billion people, or almost one-fifth of the world’s population, live in areas of physical scarcity, and 500 million people are approaching this situation.
— Ocean acidification, caused by the massive carbon pollution in the air, has contributed to the death of 40 percent of the coral reefs in the Caribbean. Half the corals in the U.S. and its territories, and as many as 70 percent worldwide, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, are severely degraded or at risk of extinction. Coral reefs are home to one-fourth of all marine species and provide habitat to fish and shellfish that feed half a billion people.
— After nearly 2,000 years with relatively little change, sea levels rose an average of seven inches just during the 20th century. In this century, if current warming patterns continue, sea levels could rise 10 to 23 inches, according to the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change. In the U.S., roughly 100 million people live in coastal areas within three feet of mean sea level.
— By 2050, we can expect up to 1 billion additional “climate refugees” who will be driven from their homes by drought, famine, flooding, coastal erosion and monster storms. This unprecedented scale of refugee movement threatens to destabilize entire regions.
But we are not powerless to slow and eventually reverse the accumulation of atmospheric carbon pollution that is driving climate chaos. As individuals, as consumers and as citizens, we can all play a role in eliminating waste, living more efficiently, getting more of our energy from clean sources and demanding action from our elected officials.
We can waste less food (40 percent of the food in the U.S. goes uneaten) to lower the demands on our fossil fuel-intensive agricultural system. We can choose a climate-friendly diet, high in locally produced, organic foods, especially fruits, vegetables and grains, and low in meat. (Particularly beef, which, largely due to methane emissions from cows, has a carbon footprint at least 10 times larger than chicken).
We can drive less, buy more fuel-efficient cars, and insulate our houses. Increased efficiency, in fact, is the unsung hero in the climate battle. Over the past 40 years, according to a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group, “efficiency’s contribution to meeting the nation’s overall energy needs exceeded that of all fossil and nuclear resources combined.” Using the best technology, factories and businesses can produce more with less dirty energy.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we can demand that our leaders acknowledge the real threats of climate change, ignore the fear-mongering from the fossil fuel industry, and take the steps necessary to cut the carbon pollution that is choking the planet. The NRDC and other conservation groups have outlined a number of steps that the government should take, but one stands out: cut the carbon pollution from fossil-fueled electric power plants.
These plants are the source of 40 percent of America’s carbon pollution, and the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority and the obligation under the law to take action. The polluters, predictably, cry this will devastate the American economy, but NRDC has conducted an exhaustive study that shows a flexible, state-by-state approach can cut carbon pollution sharply at a reasonable cost.
Solving the climate crisis is not a technical problem, it is a political one. Politicians will take steps to restore the environment and protect human health if, and only if, citizens and voters demand it. The public generally favors clean air and water and limits on carbon pollution. But the fossil energy industry, powerful and wealthy, has mobilized its forces to block progress.
That means citizens who want to move climate to the top of the political agenda will have to mobilize as well, by supporting, with determination, persistence and funding, organizations that are dedicated to averting climate chaos.
Apathy is not an option. We have a moral obligation to future generations to act on climate change now.
3. Huffington Post, “’Social Cost of Carbon’ Too Low, Report Says”
March 13, 2014
By Kate Sheppard
WASHINGTON -– The U.S. government uses $37 as its estimate of how much a ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere costs, including decreased agricultural productivity, damage from rising sea levels and harm to human health related to climate change. The Obama administration updated that figure, known as the “social cost of carbon,” in November.
But a report released Thursday argues that $37 is far too low. It doesn’t include costs of other major climate impacts, such as increased respiratory illness from higher pollen or ozone, or the spread of insect-borne diseases such as Lyme disease, or the toll that ocean acidification will take on fisheries.
The report comes from the environmental groups Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund, and the Institute for Policy Integrity, based at New York University’s School of Law. Policy Integrity economic fellow Peter Howard authored the report, posted on the group’s website, Cost of Carbon.
The $37 figure, said Gernot Wagner, a senior economist at Environmental Defense Fund, is the “most scientifically sound estimate coming out of climate economic models right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s complete.”
The report argues the current social cost of carbon estimate is “biased downwards.” The estimate doesn’t consider climate impacts well-established in scientific literature, but not easily quantifiable as a cost.
“What we know is bad,” said Wagner. “What we don’t know makes it worse.”
An interagency working group of scientists and economists from the National Economic Council, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Council on Environmental Quality, as well as the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Transportation, and Treasury, determines the social cost of carbon. The figure is created using integrated assessment models, which combine climate and economic modeling. The working group periodically reviews the cost. The update in November was the first since 2010, when it was set at $24 a ton.
The figure is used in cost-benefit analyses for proposed regulations, allowing agencies to evaluate the economic benefits of new rules. For example, when considering regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the dollar figure allows the agencies to quantify future benefits of avoiding additional emissions. The higher the number, the more benefits are derived from a new rule limiting those emissions.
The report highlights areas the current cost estimate for carbon is missing, including loss of labor productivity due to extreme heat, potential climate change impact on crop-destroying pests, and climate-fueled wildfires.
Impacts on fisheries are also largely omitted from government models, including problems caused by ocean acidification, warmer ocean temperatures and algae blooms. Because the fishing industry is a major part of the economy in many parts of the world, with many people relying on it for jobs and for food, climate change is likely to bring significant costs.
Industry groups, and Republicans in Congress, won’t like the suggestion that the government’s carbon cost should be higher. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute have criticized the federal government’s $37 figure, arguing that the models haven’t been adequately reviewed by scientists and economists. Republicans slammed last year’s increase to the figure.
The report does not suggest an alternate figure. Instead, it highlights areas where there is increasing scientific and economic research that could be used in future estimates.
“What we are doing with this report is pointing the light, guiding scientists toward the kinds of missing damages that ought to be included in the next iteration,” said Wagner.
4. The Nation, “The Pesticide Industry Vs. Consumers: Not a Fair Fight”
March 11, 2014
By Lee Fang
In a small regulatory office in Sacramento, California, in 2007, a handful of farmworkers and scientists gathered to explain to state officials why chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide, should be considered a toxicant under Proposition 65, a state law that prohibits businesses from discharging substances known to cause birth defects and reproductive harm into the drinking water.
Chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate insecticide, was first developed as a cousin to the nerve agents stockpiled during World War II. The chemical has been banned for household use for more than a decade, and studies have shown that infants born to mothers with high levels of chlorpyrifos in their bodies have significantly higher rates of neurodevelopmental disorders, problems with in utero development, brain impairments, low birth weights and endocrine disruption.
Workers who handle produce, though less at risk, are also endangered by exposure to chlorpyrifos, a chemical sprayed to kill worms and other pests. Many have been found to experience headaches, seizures and bouts of vomiting.
But in the agricultural fields of America, where mostly migrant laborers and their families work to produce almonds, corn, peaches, grapes, alfalfa and other crops, chlorpyrifos is still applied with regularity. The chemical is known to stay on the bodies and clothing of workers when they return home to their families, and it easily drifts with the wind into local community
buildings—from daycare centers and hospitals to churches and playgrounds. California farmers use about
1.3 million pounds of it every year.
Remembering that meeting in Sacramento, Margaret Reeves, a senior scientist with the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), recalls that people critical of chlorpyrifos “each got one to two minutes to speak.” Then came the scientists working for Dow Chemical, the principal manufacturer of the chemical in the United States.
“There were five Dow scientists, and they each got five to ten minutes. It was mind-boggling, the preference for their input over the victims and the consumer rights advocates and the farmworker advocates,” says Dr. Reeves.
The advocates have also been overpowered financially by the industry. Over the last decade, PAN has spent about $21,000 on lobbying in Sacramento. Dow, meanwhile, has spent more than $1.2 million on lobbying in the California capital during the same period.
In the end, chlorpyrifos was not deemed by the state to be a toxic substance subject to regulation under California’s Prop 65.
This imbalance of power in favor of industry also prevails at the national level, stalling progress in Washington on protecting farmworkers from dangerous chemicals used in agriculture.
In 1996, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act, which required the EPA to create standards for protecting children from pesticide use by 2006. That deadline has long since passed, and critics argue there has not been enough regulatory action. The EPA has also refused a request from PAN North America and the Natural Resources Defense Council for a ban on chlorpyrifos.
Finally, in January of this year, the EPA opened for public comment a rule on evaluating the environmental and human health risks caused by pesticide drift from farms into nearby areas, including homes and schools. And last month, the agency released a long-awaited proposal to update safety laws regarding the handling of pesticides by farmworkers.
But pesticide manufacturers are poised to beat back the EPA’s efforts. CropLife America—a trade group for companies including Dow, Bayer and DuPont that spends more than $14 million a year on research and advocacy—is not only in close communication with the EPA; it has worked with congressional allies to block the agency’s attempts at regulation. The organization called on Representative Darrell Issa of California, chair of the House Oversight Committee, to investigate the administration for pursuing agricultural regulations, including the so-called “spray-drift” rules. According to CropLife officials, these reforms “unnecessarily cost farmers time, money and liability, and significantly impact U.S. agriculture and the economy.” In response, Issa has held multiple hearings to undermine the EPA—under the guise of protecting “Job Creators Still Buried by Red Tape,” as one session relating to the EPA regulations on pesticides was titled.
Dow Chemical and other companies are relying on close ties forged with other legislators, particularly those in the Republican Party. In addition to Issa’s committee, a number of GOP legislators have sponsored amendments to appropriation bills that would block EPA action on pesticide rules. The recently passed farm bill included a bipartisan amendment exempting certain forms of pesticide pollution from enforcement under the Clean Water Act.
Farmworker advocates can bring few political resources to the table, but the pesticide industry extends the promise of re-election to its allies. After the
Supreme Court enabled unlimited corporate spending
in politics with its Citizens United decision, Dow Chemical increased its contributions to politically active nonprofits. The company hiked donations to the US Chamber of Commerce from $1.7 million in 2009 to more than $2.9 million in 2012. These funds augmented the $644,143 in direct contributions made by Dow’s political action committee to largely Republican federal candidates in the last election.
In a troubling display of post–Citizens United politics, the American Chemistry Council, another trade group funded by Dow and other pesticide producers, began airing campaign-style advertisements in favor of industry-friendly politicians, even those in safe seats. In many cases, the ads have aired well more than a year before the election, a visible reminder that allegiance to chemical companies comes with political rewards.
Although studies in California suggest that a shift from chlorpyrifos to less toxic pesticides would come at minimal cost to farmers, the transition has been slow. And for Dow, which manufactures two chlorpyrifos-based products, Dursban and Lorsban, the status quo is quite lucrative: the company, which produces a range of chemical products, generated over $4.8 billion in profits last year.
Dow has not only emerged as a powerhouse
of traditional lobbying; it has also kept up the pressure on regulators in other ways. The company maintains a website, Chlorpyrifos Protects (chlorpyrifos.com), that gives the public an accessible platform for sending letters to the EPA opposing regulation.
Meanwhile, informational fact sheets distributed by Dow attempt to sow doubt about the potential health risks. “Since any substance can cause harm given sufficient exposure, nothing can be called ‘safe’ in absolute terms,” reads one chlorpyrifos white paper sponsored by the company. “A couple tablets of aspirin, for example, can relieve a headache. But an overdose of aspirin can be fatal.”
These efforts, however extensive, are only the more aboveground forms of advocacy. If the battle over atrazine, another controversial pesticide, is any indication, more subterranean lobbying is probably afoot.
As recent court documents reveal, Syngenta, the producer of atrazine, doled out grants to a wide array of public relations firms, political pundits and think tanks to discredit Berkeley professor Tyrone Hayes, whose research found that atrazine causes reproductive deformities in frogs. (A recent article in The New Yorker by Rachel Aviv chronicled the company’s years-long campaign against Hayes.) Some tactics used by Syngenta were reminiscent of the ’90s-era tobacco wars, or the more recent attempts by the fossil-fuel industry to block action on climate change. Right-leaning think tanks—including the Cato Institute, the Heartland Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise—were listed in Syngenta’s internal “third party stakeholder” database. Officials from some of the organizations on that list received contributions from Syngenta to place opinion pieces in local media defending atrazine. To win over journalists and scientists, Syngenta offered expense-paid trips to Switzerland, where the company is based.
But there were also some innovations in building influence. A Syngenta public relations document instructs company officials to purchase “Tyrone Hayes” as a search term on the Internet, “so that anytime someone searches for Tyrone’s material, the first thing they see is our material, not his,” according to filings with the Madison County Circuit Court in Illinois.
Syngenta officials also debated whether to encourage CropLife America, the pesticide trade association now fighting the spray-drift rule, to lead a pro-pesticide campaign to shift public opinion. Citing recent industry efforts to reshape the perception of biotechnology and the plastics industry, Syngenta concluded that “the public image of Syngenta would improve if the public image of pesticides/pesticide companies
improved overall.”
Dow, meanwhile, is accused of conducting an underhanded campaign against critics of chemicals like chlorpyrifos and di-
oxin. “Dow hired a private security firm to obtain confidential information about Greenpeace,” charges Charlie Cray, a research specialist with the environmental group. “The firm hired former intelligence and off-duty police officers to steal documents from Greenpeace’s offices and plant paid informants inside allied organizations.” Last year, after Greenpeace filed a lawsuit against Dow and other defendants, a Superior Court judge in Washington, DC, dismissed four of its claims—a decision the group is appealing—but allowed part of the suit to move forward. (Dow officials did not respond to requests for comment.)
In the current battle over pesticide regulation, Dow has given presentations to agricultural officials portraying groups like PAN as outside the mainstream. Last year, a Dow lobbyist in New Zealand attempted to downplay PAN’s arguments about chlori-
pyrifos. In one slide, he argued that the pesticide must be safe because it is not listed as a toxicant under Prop 65 in
California—a state in which Dow dominates the political process.
While the larger efforts to control and
regulate chlorpyrifos may have stalled, the EPA in February released a long-awaited rule to at least inform farmworkers of better safety standards for handling harmful pesticides. The original safety rule was created in the mid-1990s. Advocacy groups criticized it as weak and poorly enforced. An updated version was supposed to be released in 2008; why the EPA took another five-plus years to act remains a mystery.
The newly released rule builds on the existing regulations to ensure that all workers handling pesticides are at least 16 years old (except in cases of family farms). The rule also updates the law to ensure that workers will undergo training every year (rather than the previous standard of every five years) to learn about the health risks associated with pesticide use and how to handle these chemicals safely during application.
But along with that step forward, there has also been a step back. The EPA’s new standard removes a requirement that farms provide a central posting of information about pesticides. Under the new proposal, workers may obtain pesticide information if they ask for it, but the requirement that such information must be posted in an area where workers congregate has been eliminated.
So why the delays, and the arguably weakened pesticide safety rules? “Our best guess is that there has been very strong industry pushback,” says Dr. Reeves.
She might be on to something. White House logs show that just weeks before the EPA released the new worker-protection standard, there was at least one major meeting between administration officials and four senior officers from CropLife America.
5. Bloomberg BNA, “Florida Sen. Nelson Calls Sea-Level Rise, Climate Change ‘Compelling Story,’ Announces Hearing”
March 12, 2014
By Anthony Adragna
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) told Bloomberg BNA he plans to hold a field hearing April 22 in Miami Beach with members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on the effects of climate change and sea level rise.
It is not clear whether the hearing will be a full committee or subcommittee hearing. Nelson chairs the Subcommittee on Science and Space.
“South Florida is the area that is most threatened by sea level rise in the continental U.S.,” Nelson told Bloomberg BNA.
Nelson said the hearing also will examine how local governments in the area are adjusting to the impacts of both climate change and sea level rise and how shifts in the climate are affecting budgetary decisions in local communities.
A day earlier, during the Senate’s all-night session on climate change, Nelson took to the floor to call South Florida “ground zero for sea level rise.”
“What is threatened the most in the continental United States is the Miami area,” Nelson said March 10. “We have a compelling story to tell.”
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has identified South Florida as one of the vulnerable regions in the world to property damage as a result of sea level rise.
A city official told Bloomberg BNA in December 2012 that Miami modified building codes to require new buildings to be more resilient to hurricanes and has increased its number of stormwater pumps from four to 11 over the past 10 years .
South Florida ‘Highly Vulnerable.’
Projections for sea level rise in South Florida are 1.5 feet to 2.3 feet by mid-century and three feet to five feet by 2100, leaving the region “highly vulnerable to the effects of global sea level rise,” according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Infrastructure in highly-developed areas that are at risk include power plants, power generating facilities, airports, solid waste disposal sites, schools, prisons and hospitals,” according to the 2011 NRDC fact sheet.
6. Reno Gazette-Journal, “Nevada Near Top on ‘Clean’ Jobs List”
March 12, 2014
By Yvonne Beasley
A new report lists Nevada as No. 7 on a list of states with the most clean-energy jobs announced in 2013.
The Silver State generated more than 3,300 jobs last year in sectors tracked by the report’s sponsor, Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2).
Other states in the report’s top 10 are California, Texas, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, Oregon, New York and Missouri.
Most of the state’s new jobs were in the solar industry, said Bob Keefe, communications director for E2.
On the Northern Nevada side of the E2 map are:
A solar project at the Desert Research Institute in Reno.
Solar arrays at the Apple data center east of Sparks.
A geothermal project at TGP Dixie in Pershing County.
A geothermal project headed by Ormat, near the Nevada border in Mono County, Calif.
Statewide solar projects by Solar City.
To see all the report’s renewable projects in Nevada, visit www.cleanenergyworksforus.org.
Nevada is on track to get 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025. That means more jobs in the future, according to Keefe.
“We’ll see job growth from people manufacturing, installing and making these solar projects work,” he said.
The E2 report, released Wednesday, tracked 78,600 jobs from about 260 projects around the country.
“Obviously, you’ve got a lot of sun out there, but you’ve also got great renewable portfolio standard policies in Nevada,” Keefe said. Renewable portfolio standards are designed to increase generation of electricity from renewable resources, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
E2 is a business-policy group affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental action group.
7. Al Jazeera America, “Agent Orange from Farm to Table”
March 12, 2014
By Anna Lappé
While my sister-in-law put the finishing touches on Thanksgiving dinner, I listened to her friend recount the losing battle her husband, a Vietnam veteran, fought with lung cancer. She explained her husband’s illness was caused by his wartime exposure to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange, produced primarily by two companies, Dow Chemical and Monsanto. Named for the colored band on its transport tanks, Agent Orange was a cocktail of chemicals, including an herbicide called 2,4-D. Shortly after the spraying — conducted to deprive guerrilla fighters of cover and a food supply — started in 1962, reports began to emerge of serious health effects, from birth defects to other illnesses. To this day, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs offers an Agent Orange registry health exam for the possible long-term problems caused by exposure, and more than 40,000 veterans have submitted disability claims. The Red Cross estimates that 1 million Vietnamese were affected, including third-generation children born with severe birth defects.
In January the U.S. Department of Agriculture opened a public comment period on the environmental and health impacts of a new suite of crops engineered to be resistant to 2,4-D. These corn and soybean plants, produced by Dow AgroSciences, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, would be the first developed to be resistant to the herbicide.
According to experts, the introduction of these new crops could cause 2,4-D use to jump, big time. Chuck Benbrook, a pesticide policy expert with the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University, has estimated that if it’s approved, the engineered corn could cause applications of 2,4-D to jump 20-fold by 2019.
That’s particularly concerning because experts have long shown that 2,4-D causes serious harm to humans, especially when used over vast swaths of farmland and lawns. Largely because of such concern, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to revoke the chemical’s approval, first granted in 1948.
NRDC researchers and other critics of 2,4-D point to studies showing the chemical is a neurotoxin and that exposure to it can cause hormone disruption, certain forms of cancer and genetic mutations. The chemical has also been linked to lowered sperm counts, liver disease and Parkinson’s disease as well as adverse effects on reproductive and immune systems. What’s further worrisome is that 2,4-D is known to drift, affecting areas near farms, including streams, rivers and wildlife.
In April 2012 the EPA rejected the NRDC’s petition, stating that the group did not prove that the chemical was unsafe in the manner it is used. Despite the EPA’s actions, public health advocates have maintained that there are serious human health impacts, based on compelling evidence from peer-reviewed studies around the world. A University of Minnesota study found a greater frequency of genetic mutations in pesticide applicators who had higher rates of 2,4-D in their urine. A National Cancer Institute study found farmers exposed to 2,4-D upward of 20 days a year had a higher risk of developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma than nonfarmers did, by a factor of six. The EPA’s fact sheet notes that the chemical has shown toxic effects on the thyroid and gonads and expresses concern about potential “endocrine-disrupting effects.”
With all these risks, why are chemical companies like Dow and Monsanto formulating seeds to be resistant to this decades-old chemical with a terrible health track record? The USDA said these new crops are intended to “help address the problem of weeds that have developed resistance to other herbicides.”
But what’s driving the weed resistance in the first place? In part, the widespread use of another genetically engineered technology by the same chemical companies: Roundup Ready corn and soybeans developed by Monsanto. Introduced in the 1990s, Roundup Ready corn and soybeans account for 70 and 90 percent of those crops, respectively. Since then, farmers have sprayed so much of the relatively inexpensive Roundup herbicide that weeds have been developing resistance. Roundup-resistant weeds now pose such a problem for farmers that the head of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts told The New York Times these superweeds are “the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen.”
But, 2,4-D-resistant genetically engineered corn and soybean seeds will lead to more weed resistance. In 2012 the trade journal Weed Science reported on new, previously undocumented 2,4-D-resistant weeds. As the new plants encourage more spraying of 2,4-D, this weed resistance will expand. This is particularly worrisome because 2,4-D is much more toxic than Roundup; it is the seventh-largest source of dioxins (PDF) in our environment, and it bioaccumulates, meaning it builds up in our bodies and in the environment over time. “If Dow Chemical’s 2,4-D-tolerant corn and soy crops are approved by the USDA, hundreds of millions more pounds (PDF) of this toxic chemical will be used on crops, with ever-increasing residues on our food,” the Center for Food Safety’s Rebecca Spector told me. And because 2,4-D can drift, even organic crops, grown by farmers who by definition do not use herbicides, are at risk from neighbors using those genetically engineered seeds.
The real motivation behind the introduction of those products is Monsanto’s and Dow’s bottom lines. Simply put, producing new herbicide-resistant seeds is one of the best ways to boost sales of chemicals. “[Genetically engineered] seeds are the growth engine of pesticide companies,” said Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, a senior scientist at the Pesticide Action Network, a coalition that seeks to replace harmful pesticides with ecologically sound alternatives. “This is the primary reason that pesticide companies began buying up seed companies in the 1980s and then engineering seeds to be used with proprietary pesticides. The profitable trend for chemical companies continues today and has kept American farmers on this pesticide treadmill.
Decades after Agent Orange was sprayed over South Vietnam, we have borne witness to the human toll of exposure to its cocktail of chemicals, including 2,4-D. It would be wise to approach with extreme caution any regulatory action that would encourage more — not less — use of 2,4-D. What’s more, herbicide use on American farmland simply perpetuates a vicious cycle: Spraying leads to weed resistance, which leads to more spraying. The solution is to break the cycle by investing in a different kind of innovation, one that promotes ecological solutions to weed control.
On March 11, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service closed its public comment period on the question of regulating these new crops. If the USDA approves the seeds, the EPA still has to assess whether and how 2,4-D should be sprayed. Until then, environmental and health advocates, such as the Center for Food Safety, are urging Americans to air their concerns about this new use of genetic engineering. It’s time we pivot from a corrosive cycle and support the kind of innovations that get decades-old, toxic chemicals off our farms, fields and lawns.
8. ClimateWire, “Calif.’s Pioneering Low-Carbon Fuels Rule Could See Multiple Changes”
March 12, 2014
By Anne C. Mulkern
California’s landmark law requiring lower-carbon fuels is poised for a rewrite.
Advisers to the state’s Air Resources Board yesterday detailed proposed revisions to the low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS), a first-in-the-nation regulation. Potential changes include allowing oil companies to earn program credits for making refinery upgrades that shrink greenhouse gas pollution.
That amendment would give businesses more options while still meeting goals of the program, ARB staff said. The projects also could lower the cost of complying with the state’s cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions, said Mike Waugh, chief of ARB’s transportation fuels branch.
“If you can reduce your GHG emissions at the refinery itself, you reduce your obligation under cap and trade, but legitimately, you reduce your emissions and your life cycle for the LCFS,” Waugh said. “So you can do something that benefits both programs.”
Representatives from oil companies, alternative fuels manufacturers, environmental groups and health associations crowded into a meeting room in Sacramento to hear about the changes. It became so packed that it violated a fire code limit of 90 people, forcing many to relocate to another site where they watched remotely.
Revisions to LCFS would go before the board for a vote later this year. Agency staff is recommending that ARB readopt the regulation, which was first approved in 2009. It’s one of several rules rolled out after passage of the states’ 2006 climate law, A.B. 32. Transportation accounts for about 40 percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The proposed LCFS rewrite follows a 5th District Court of Appeal ruling that ARB when it approved the fuels law violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the state Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The court last summer said that the agency could continue to enforce LCFS while it worked to rectify the issues (ClimateWire, July 16, 2013).
The LCFS aims to cut the carbon content of fuels sold in California 10 percent by 2020. To meet that goal, a fuel blender must keep the average carbon intensity (or CI) in its total volume produced below an annual limit set by ARB. The mandate is frozen at 1 percent reduction because of the court ruling.
ARB staff said there are signs that the LCFS is working with regulated companies reporting 5.4 million metric tons of credits and 3.3 million metric tons of deficits through 2012.
But agency aides also are analyzing what low-carbon-intensity fuels are likely to be available for compliance by 2020 as well as the 2030 time frame “based on industry, academic, and government sources,” it said in a concept paper. “Staff is also in the process of identifying which of these fuels are likely to come to California to be used for compliance with the LCFS.”
Oil companies want changes
Many oil companies see the LCFS as unworkable. They repeated their concerns yesterday as ARB staff detailed the proposed changes.
“A limit on sufficient volumes of low enough CI fuels will occur prior to 2020, which will impact longer-term compliance,” said Gina Grey, the Western States Petroleum Association’s vice president for strategic policy for fuels. “The development of commercial-scale, ultra-low CI fuel, such as cellulosic ethanol, has been much slower than originally envisioned.”
Although there will be some transition to lower-carbon fuels, she said, “staying the course with the current program design could result in disruptions in the marketplace. Our conclusion is that a program revision is needed.”
Miles Heller, director of California fuels and regulatory issues at Tesoro, asked whether ARB would be allowing credit for improvement projects done since 2010, the base-line year for the LCFS.
Waugh said no firm decision has been made but that his initial response was that credits would only be given “henceforth.”
Environmental groups said they wanted to prevent any revisions that would dilute the strength of the program. The 10 percent reduction by 2020 is “tremendously important,” said Tim O’Connor, attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund. “I don’t think that the court would have wanted ARB to back away from that.”
“The uncertainty that’s created when you do that sort of can become the self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “You create the uncertainty, and then you don’t get the fuels that can come and be online to meet the standard, so maintaining that commitment” to the 2020 goal is vital.
Simon Mui, director of the California vehicles and fuels program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said that there is room for oil companies to help meet their LCFS obligations through emissions reductions along the petroleum development chain.
An NRDC report last year found that improvements at refineries and at the crude oil production level could go toward 17 to 33 percent of the low-carbon fuel standard by 2020. Those could be done through refinery improvements that include energy efficiency, adding renewable power, and carbon capture and sequestration.
But if projects are allowed for credits, he said, green groups want assurances that the state is not “inadvertently creating anything that would create a backsliding mechanism for the other parts of the refinery. We really want to see a strong counting mechanism here.”
Other revisions proposed
The ARB staff also is suggesting other revisions to the LCFS. Those include looking at different carbon intensity levels for 2015 through 2020. That’s needed because the current level of 1 percent by 2015 would have been in place three years.
“Staff currently has no proposal to change the average carbon intensity target of 10 percent by 2020,” the concept paper said. “However, staff believes that some post-2015 ‘curve-smoothing’ will be appropriate.” The study on projected fuel availability “will inform the 2016-2020 compliance targets.”
ARB also will be looking at post-2020 targets that call for carbon intensity reductions above 10 percent.
In addition, staff is looking at adding a “cost-containment” provision. There are two possible options. One would be a “Credit Clearance Option,” under which regulated parties would be allowed to carry over carbon cut deficits to the next compliance period. They would need to purchase their required share of credits, which would be made available during a “credit clearance” period.
“Deficits that are carried over would become part of that regulated party’s cumulative compliance obligation and incur interest, to be repaid in subsequent compliance years,” the concept paper said.
The other alternative would be a “Credit Window Option.” Under that, if regulated parties were unable to obtain sufficient credits on the open market, they could buy compliance-only credits from ARB at a predetermined price. Proceeds would go into the Air Pollution Control Fund, unless directed differently by the Legislature.
One oil company executive questioned whether many of the proposed revisions would damage the LCFS and its market-driven promise.
“It actually circumvents the whole purpose of the LCFS,” said David Stern, senior adviser on advanced fuels at Exxon Mobil Corp. The credit window and credits for emissions reductions at refineries are “off-ramps” from the program, he said.
“All options divert from the intended purpose of the LCFS, which is to try to encourage investment and development of low-carbon-intensity fuels,” Stern said. Exxon Mobil has invested $600 million in algae biofuel technologies.
Waugh with ARB responded that the program is market-driven and that “having a healthy credit market — and healthy means reasonable credit prices — will drive investment.”