Hill Heat

The House Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence has issued a report, Past is Prologue, listing many of the energy and environmental regulations, rulemakings, and notices the Bush administration is expected to issue (or in some cases, illegally avoid issuing) in its final months in office. As R. Jeffrey Smith writes in the Washington Post, “The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo.” Here’s a partial list:

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to finalize an NSR rule before the end of the administration that would essentially exempt all existing power plants from having to install new pollution control technology when these plants are updated.
• In a separate NSR rule, EPA plans to exempt so-called “fugitive” emissions – meaning emissions that don’t come out of the end of a stack such as volatile organic compounds emitted from leaking pipes and fittings at petroleum refineries – from consideration in determining whether NSR is triggered.
• EPA is also set to finalize a third rule weakening the NSR program, by allowing so-called “batch process facilities” – like oil refineries and chemical plants – to artificially ignore certain emissions when determining when NSR is triggered.
• EPA is also working towards weakening air pollution regulations on power plants and other emissions sources adjacent to national parks and other pristine, so-called “Class I” areas. By changing the modeling of new power plants’ impact on air quality in national parks – using annual emissions averages as opposed to shorter daily or monthly periods – the EPA rule will make it easier for such plants to be built close to parks.
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued proposed regulations to implement the EISA fuel economy standards (increase by the maximum feasible amount each year, such that it reaches at least 35 miles per gallon by 2020) in April 2008, and final regulations are expected soon. If NHTSA used EIA’s higher gasoline price scenario—a range of $3.14/gallon in 2016 to $3.74/gallon in 2030—the technology is available to cost-effectively achieve a much higher fleet wide fuel economy of nearly 35 mpg in 2015 – instead of the 31.6 mpg in 2015 under the lower gas prices used in NHTSA’s proposed rule.
• EPA is expected to issue proposed regulations soon on the renewable fuels provisions passed in EISA that required America’s fuel supply to include 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022 – together with more specific volumetric requirements and lifecycle greenhouse gas benchmarks for “advanced” renewable fuels, cellulosic ethanol, and biodiesel.
• The Department of the Interior (DOI) has already telegraphed its intention to gut the Endangered Species Act by rushing through 300,000 comments on proposed rules in 32 hours, then providing a mere 10-day public comment period on the Environmental Assessment of the proposed rules change. The proposed rules would take expert scientific review out of many Endangered Species Act (ESA) processes, and could exempt the effects of global warming pollution on threatened or endangered species.
• DOI intends to finalize new regulations governing commercial development of oil shale on more than 2 million acres of public lands in the West.
• DOI’s Office of Surface Mining is expected before the end of the administration to issue a final rule that would extend the current rule (which requires a 100-foot buffer zone around streams to protect them from mining practices) so that it also applies to all other bodies of water, such as lakes, ponds and wetlands. But the rule would also exempt many harmful practices – such as permanent coal waste disposal facilities – and could even allow for changing a waterway’s flow.
• EPA has already missed several deadlines to finalize a rule addressing whether concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are required to obtain permits under the Clean Water Act.
• EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers may issue a revised guidance memo on how to interpret the phrase “waters of the United States” in the Clean Water Act, which determines what water bodies are subject to regulation under the Act.
• Under the Omnibus appropriations bill for FY 2008, EPA was directed to establish a mandatory reporting rule for greenhouse gas emissions, using its existing authority under the Clean Air Act, by September 2008. EPA has been working on a proposed rule, which may or may not be issued before the end of the Bush administration. EPA will not issue a final rule before the end of the administration.

The MIT News Office reports:

The amount of methane in Earth’s atmosphere shot up in 2007, bringing to an end a period of about a decade in which atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas were essentially stable, according to a team led by MIT researchers.

Methane levels in the atmosphere have more than tripled since pre-industrial times, accounting for around one-fifth of the human contribution to greenhouse gas-driven global warming. Until recently, the leveling off of methane levels had suggested that the rate of its emission from the Earth’s surface was approximately balanced by the rate of its destruction in the atmosphere.

However, since early 2007 the balance has been upset, according to a paper on the new findings being published this week in Geophysical Review Letters. The paper’s lead authors, postdoctoral researcher Matthew Rigby and Ronald Prinn, the TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science, say this imbalance has resulted in several million metric tons of additional methane in the atmosphere. Methane is produced by wetlands, rice paddies, cattle, and the gas and coal industries, and is destroyed by reaction with the hydroxyl free radical (OH), often referred to as the atmosphere’s “cleanser.”

The cause of the surge is unclear, particularly as it appears methane levels are well-mixed across the globe, although most methane emissions occur in the northern hemisphere. A disturbing possibility is that OH levels are declining, which could set off a catastrophic vicious cycle of rising methane and declining OH.

From the Wonk Room.

A major new study of the success of California’s green economy by economist David Roland-Holst finds that “California’s energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007, while eliminating fewer than 25,000.” Today, California’s per-capita electricity demand is 40 percent below the national average:

Total electricity use, per capita, 1960-2001

Instead of household income being lost to the capital intensive energy sector, Californians have enjoyed the benefits of their wages being plowed into job creating sectors, such that “induced job growth has contributed approximately $45 billion to the California economy since 1972.”

Energy Efficiency, Innovation, and Job Creation in California, by David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, is the first study of how the savings from California’s energy efficiency standards affected its economy through “expenditure shifting” away from the energy sector. The author explains:

When consumers shift one dollar of demand from electricity to groceries, for example, one dollar is removed from a relatively simple, capital intensive supply chain dominated by electric power generation and carbon fuel delivery. When the dollar goes to groceries, it animates much more job intensive expenditure chains including retailers, wholesalers, food processors, transport, and farming. Moreover, a larger proportion of these supply chains (and particularly services that are the dominant part of expenditure) resides within the state, capturing more job creation from Californians for California. Moreover, the state reduced its energy import dependence, while directing a greater percent of its consumption to in-state economic activities.

By Robert M. Sussman, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and former Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, for the Wonk Room.

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion piece, The Carbon Ultimatum, accuses Barack Obama of planning to unleash the bureaucracy of the Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to “bludgeon” Congress into enacting climate change legislation:

He plans to issue an ultimatum to Congress: Either impose new taxes and limits on carbon that he finds amenable, or the EPA carbon police will be let loose to ravage the countryside.

To support this charge, the Journal points to recent comments by Jason Grumet, an Obama energy advisor: “The EPA is obligated to move forward in the absence of Congressional action. If there’s no action by Congress in those 18 months, I think any responsible president would want to have the regulatory approach.’‘

This opinion piece, which uses the time-honored ploy of opponents of environmental progress of demonizing the EPA and ascribing sinister motives to its political overseers, has two fatal flaws. One, the specter of bureaucrats running amok and strangling the economy – by intruding into small businesses and individual households and banning fuels on which millions of Americans depend – is a fantasy of die-hard free-market zealots. In fact, a new administration could enforce new global warming regulations with common sense, focusing on large emitters of greenhouse gases to achieve reasonable reductions while spurring trillions of dollars worth of economic growth and green-collar jobs.

Second, in its zeal to accuse the EPA workforce of a naked power grab, the Journal ignores the central reason why EPA is part of the climate equation, as even the conservative law professor Jonathan Adler recognizes:

The problem with the WSJ’s narrative is that Grumet is describing nothing more than what is legally required as a consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. Under that decision, the EPA is effectively obligated to begin the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. If the law is not amended, and the next Administration fails to act, environmentalist groups will file suit to force their hand – and win.

The Court’s decision came after years of evading climate change by the Bush Administration despite the mounting evidence of rising temperatures and their consequences for our ecosystems and economy. Unfortunately, the EPA remains in default on its fundamental legal responsibilities. EPA’s July Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking – which the Journal describes as as a “roadmap” for blanketing the US economy with onerous regulation – was in fact a further Bush delay. Instead of a scientific “endangerment” analysis, the White House directed EPA to prepare a neutral and non-committal discussion of its legal authority – a stick in the eye of the Supreme Court. They then went further by taking the unprecedented step of belittling and disowning EPA’s technical and legal analysis to score points with its allies in industry and the Republican base.

If anything, allowing EPA to move ahead under the Clean Air Act would be “non-political” because it would honor the terms of a Supreme Court ruling that the outgoing Administration has chosen to defy. How simple respect for the nation’s highest court and the law of the land equates to issuing an “ultimatum” to Congress is baffling.

From the Wonk Room.

The Bush Administration is rushing forward with plans to mine the Grand Canyon for uranium, ignoring a command from Congress to cease such operations. Since 2003, mining interests have staked out over 800 uranium claims within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park. As Mineweb reports, “The Bureau of Land Management has published a proposed rule which rejects the House Natural Resources Emergency House Resolution enacted in June that bans uranium mining and exploration near the Grand Canyon National Park.” The Arizona Republic explains what’s at stake:

Never mind that the drinking water of more than 25 million people, served by the Colorado River, is at risk.

Or that Arizona Game and Fish warns about the impact on wildlife.

Or that Grand Canyon National Park is still dealing with the toxic mess from past mines.

The proposed BLM rule would not only reject the House’s emergency withdrawal of over one million acres of federal land near Grand Canyon National Park from new uranium mining, but also eliminate the provisions that allow Congress to make such withdrawals in the future. The proposed rule, published on Friday, has a remarkably short comment period, closing in less than two weeks on October 27. House Parks Subcommittee Chairman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) blasted BLM’s action, saying, “This last-minute move by this ‘see if we can get it under the clock’ administration is cowardly.”

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been strangely silent on this issue, despite his claimed commitment to protecting the Grand Canyon from drilling:

But McCain’s claim to Roosevelt-style environmentalism has been badly bruised by his silence on uranium mining near the park and on the Navajo Nation.

“McCain gave us hope that he might be a Teddy Roosevelt type of Republican,” said Roger Clark, air and water director for The Grand Canyon Trust, a Flagstaff, Ariz., environmental group. “Since the beginning of his run for president, including 2000, that has kind of crumbled.”

The Arizona Republic’s editorial concludes that it’s legacy time at the administration>

Surely President Bush doesn’t want his to include tainted water and a contaminated landscape. We must keep the temporary ban on uranium mining near Grand Canyon.

Written comments should be submitted online or sent to Director (630), Bureau of Land Management, 1620 L St., NW, Room 401, Washington, DC 20036, Attention: RIN 1004-AEO5.

From the Wonk Room.

As the 110th Congress comes to a close, two of the legislators in charge of climate legislation in the House of Representatives yesterday released a draft climate plan. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the powerful chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), chair of the Energy and Air Quality subcommittee, have primary jurisdiction in the House for legislation that puts mandatory limits on carbon emissions. Although such legislation has been a top priority for Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) since she became Speaker of the House in January 2007, Dingell and Boucher declared they would not be rushed, instead working on the 2007 energy bill, holding several hearings and releasing four white papers from October to May of this year. Dingell’s district is in the heart of the U.S. auto industry; Boucher represents Virginia’s coal country. Below is an analysis of some of the key issues raised in their 460-page draft legislation, an ambitious effort by the two congressmen.

From the Wonk Room.

Today, 152 members of the House of Representatives – over one-third of all members and nearly two-thirds of all Democrats – signed and submitted a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stating their guiding principles for “comprehensive global warming legislation” to “save the planet from calamitous global warming.” The letter, led by representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Jay Inslee (D-WA), was delivered to Pelosi this morning.

The legislators describe four key goals:

1. Reduce emissions to avoid dangerous global warming;
2. Transition America to a clean energy economy;
3. Recognize and minimize any economic impacts from global warming legislation; and
4. Aid communities and ecosystems vulnerable to harm from global warming.

These are the necessary principles that should guide any path out of the climate crisis. What makes this letter significant is the strong, specific details endorsed by the 152 signatories. These include the following measures to respect the severity of the danger of rising greenhouse gas emissions:

• “The United States must do its part to keep global temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels.”
• “Total U.S. emissions must be capped by a date certain, decline every year, be reduced to 15% to 20% below current levels in 2020, and fall to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.”
• “A mechanism for periodic scientific review is necessary, and EPA, and other agencies as appropriate, must adjust the regulatory response if the latest science indicates that more reductions are needed.”
• “Cost-containment measures must not break the cap on global warming pollution.”
• “The United States must reengage in the international negotiations to establish binding emissions reductions goals under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change . . . for the United States and other developed nations to achieve combined emissions reductions of at least 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, as called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” .

The Senate is attaching their version of H.R. 6049 to the bailout bill they plan to vote on this evening.

The New York Times reports:

Senate leaders scheduled a Wednesday vote on a $700 billion financial bailout package after accepting tax breaks and a higher limit for insured bank deposits in a bid to win House approval and send legislation to President Bush by the end of the week. . . The Senate proposal would cost more than $100 billion and extend and expand many individual and business tax breaks, including tax credits for the production and use of renewable energy sources, like solar energy and wind power.

The bill would also extend the business tax credit for research and development, expand the child tax credit, protect millions of families from the alternative minimum tax and provide tax relief to victims of recent floods, tornadoes and severe storms.

Climate Progress has more.

From E&E News:

House Democrats last night added funding for rural counties to tax policy bills as part of an effort to end an impasse with the Senate that is jeopardizing extension of expiring renewable energy tax credits. But the Senate’s top tax writer quickly called the House proposal inadequate, leaving unresolved a standoff that has delayed billions of dollars in incentives for alternative power, energy-efficient buildings and other technologies.

The House may vote as soon as today on two separate tax policy bills. The first (H.R. 7201) is a roughly $14 billion package of energy provisions that mirrors incentives the House approved last week. The second (H.R. 7202) is a much larger package of business and personal credits that now includes a reauthorization through 2009 of the Secure Rural Schools program that aids counties hurt by declining timber sales on federal lands. It also now funds the Payment In Lieu of Taxes program for 2009, and the total cost for the two rural provisions combined is estimated at $1 billion over a decade. The Senate has approved a longer extension of these programs at a cost of roughly $3.3 billion.

Last week, the House voted on the energy and non-energy extenders together as one bill. While Oregon lawmakers have pushed the House to include the county funding, this and other changes to the House plan do not appear to have appeased senators who say their year-end tax package is the only one that can win the needed 60 votes. Senate Democrats say their bill is a carefully negotiated compromise with Republicans who in many cases oppose offsets for tax incentives.

But top House Democrats continued to bristle at calls to simply accept the Senate’s bill. “At the end of the day, I think what we are finding is this whole concept of having two bodies constitute the Congress – the House and the Senate – is actually being shattered,” Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said last night.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd yesterday unveiled a $56.2 billion economic recovery package that will help middle-class families struggling in the weakening Bush-McCain economy.

Reid: “We must not forget Main Street as we work to address the crisis on Wall Street. Democrats believe that we must urgently pass another economic recovery package that will create hundreds of thousands of good-paying American jobs and prevent cuts in critical services for millions of Americans. With the economic news only getting worse each day, I call on the President, Senator McCain and Congressional Republicans to join us to quickly get this done for American families.”

Said Byrd: “There are consequences for failing to invest in America and the Bush Administration has fiddled while Rome has burned. The package we are outlining today addresses the rise in unemployment and high food and energy costs, and funds infrastructure repairs that will create jobs, while also aiding small businesses and rural communities to ensure that Main Street USA is here to stay. I urge all of my fellow Senators to join me in supporting swift action on these critically needed Main Street priorities.”

Key provisions of the bill would extend unemployment insurance benefits for seven weeks, address high food costs and energy prices, create jobs, promote education and job training, and aid small businesses. In addition to extending the oil shale moratorium, the bill includes the following economic provisions: