Hill Heat

From the Wonk Room.

The economic recovery plan agreed to by House and Senate negotiators will “pump billions of dollars into ‘smart grid’ projects,” renewable energy, energy efficiency, and public transit. The conference report reduced some of the more controversial elements that were included by the Senate:

COAL SUPPORT

Wonk Room: Senate ‘Improvements For Integration’ Loophole May Make $4.6 Billion ‘Clean Coal’ Fund A Dirty Giveaway (2/12/09):

The Senate version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act adds $2.2 billion to the House’s allocation of $2.4 billion for the development of “carbon capture and sequestration technologies” (CCS). Furthermore, the Senate language adds a dangerous loophole that changes a potentially green investment into subsidy for a dirty industry.

CONFERENCE REPORT: Fossil energy funding is now $3.4 billion, with no specific terms or limitations.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Wonk Room: Senate’s Billion-Dollar Nuclear Weapons Provision Should Be Cut From Recovery Plan (2/10/09):

Buried in the Senate version of the economic recovery plan — despite the “heroic” efforts of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), and other centrists to “fr[y] the bacon” — is an allocation of $1 billion to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for “weapons activities.” This provision, divorced as it is from any semblance of national security strategy, should be eliminated.

CONFERENCE REPORT: Nuclear weapons funding has been eliminated.

‘CLEAN ENERGY’ LOAN GUARANTEES

Wonk Room: Senate Appropriators Add $50 Billion Nuclear Waste To Recovery Plan (1/30/09):

On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to increase nuclear loan guarantees by $50 billion in the economic recovery package (S. 336). This sum “would more than double the current loan guarantee cap of $38 billion” for “clean energy” technology.

CONFERENCE REPORT: These loan guarantees have been eliminated.

From the Wonk Room.

The coal-industry public relations group, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), is celebrating the Senate’s insertion of billions of dollars of coal R&D funds in the recovery plan in an email to supporters. The Senate plan added $2.2 billion to the House’s allocation of $2.4 billion for the development of “carbon capture and sequestration technologies.” ACCCE heralded the ”$4.6 billion in clean coal technology funding” in the message, claiming the “funding is important because”:

• It contributes to energy independence, allowing us to use coal that is right here in America
• It stimulates the economy and could create almost 7 million job-years of employment and over $1 trillion in sales
• It will help fight climate change and aid other environmental goals by promoting technologies to reduce carbon dioxide and major air pollutants

It is not the case that $4.6 billion for coal technology could “create almost 7 million job-years of employment and over $1 trillion in sales.” The “7 million job-years” figure comes from “Employment and Other Economic Benefits from Advanced Coal Electric Generation with Carbon Capture and Storage,” a BBC Research report commissioned by ACCCE. The report says that the construction of 100 gigawatts of advanced coal plants - about 200 plants over a fifteen-year span - would generate that much job activity. The construction expenditures for a single plant with CCS is estimated at “approximately $2.0 to $2.1 billion.” So the $4.6 billion in the Senate plan is enough for the construction of only two plants and about 6,000 construction and manufacturing jobs. Two hundred plants would cost a $393 billion. The ACCCE email “is a bit confused,” Doug Jeavons, the author of the BBC report tells the Wonk Room:

The nearly 7 million job-years estimate is associated with full scale development of about 100 gigawatts of advanced coal CCS capacity, not just the proposed $4.6 billion in the stimulus plan.

Furthermore, the technology to build such plants does not yet exist. As NV Energy announced when they indefinitely postponed the construction of a coal-fired plant in Ely, Nevada:

The company will not move forward with construction of the coal plant until the technologies that will capture and store greenhouse gasses are commercially feasible, which is not likely before the end of the next decade.

To make CCS technology commercially viable, the Center for American Progress recommends, there should be a federal greenhouse emissions performance standard put in place for new plants, and a cap-and-trade system to make polluters pay for their emissions.

On Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) stood with fellow Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to introduce principles for climate legislation, saying “We know that we have to act, and we intend to act.” David Axelrod, one of President Obama’s senior advisers, told E&E News that the effort by Congress to construct legislation to fight global warming is more than welcome:

We think that it’s healthy that there’s so much momentum in Congress to address this problem. It’s long overdue.

Boxer admitted that December is her working deadline for getting a bill “out of committee.” Other Senate chairs, including Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingman (D-NM) and Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) intend to weigh in on any legislation. “All of those committees,” Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told E&E News, “especially my old committee, EPW, have an important role to play for the Senate to produce a sound cap-and-trade bill that meets the president’s emission reductions objectives.”

At Climate Progress, Joe Romm therefore doubts climate legislation will be passed before 2010: “So this has to get through multiple Senate committees, pass the full Senate, be reconciled with whatever comes out of the House, and then pass both House and Senate again, and finally end up on Barack Obama’s desk.”

Meanwhile, President Obama continues to build a green-powered administration, with the selection of Robert Sussman and Lisa Heinzerling as senior EPA policy advisers, Todd Stern as the State Department climate envoy, climate justice leader Ron Sims as deputy secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and even new assistant White House chef Sam Kass, a strong supporter of local, sustainable, and healthy food.

On February 4th, the EPA and Department of Justice restarted a “national initiative, targeting electric utilities whose coal-fired power plants violate the law,” with a lawsuit against a Kansas utility whose coal-fired power plant has been in violation of the Clean Air Act for more than ten years. The case against Westar Energy had been held up by the Bush administration since 2003. A memo from Stephen Johnson’s deputy Marcus Peacock practically shut down all enforcement activity in 2005.

From the Wonk Room.

Recognizing the new era of “energy transformation,” a Montana electric utility has decided to “scrap its plans for a $900 million coal-fired power plant east of Great Falls and turn instead to renewable energy to meet the needs of its 65,000 Montana customers.”

Years ago, the Southern Montana Generation and Transmission Cooperative introduced plans to build the Highwood Generating coal-fired plant to satisfy the electricity needs of Great Falls, Montana. Today, CEO Tim Gregori announced “they are changing construction plans from a coal-fired facility to a natural gas and high wind producing plant.” This switch will dramatically reduce the pollution footprint of the facility, from soot to greenhouse gases, and will take less time to get up and running. Montana Environmental Information Center Program Director, Anne Hedges, announced, “This is a relief”:

It’s a relief to the land owners adjacent to the plant. It is a relief to people across the state and across the nation who are concerned about the direction of our climate.

MEIC, Citizens for Clean Energy, Earthjustice, and Sierra Club’s Move Beyond Coal campaign worked together for years to challenge the Highwood plant on its environmental impact, including its mercury and particulate matter pollution. The utility also recognized that the global warming emissions of coal give the fuel an “aura of uncertainty”—in other words, a large economic risk, as has been pointed out repeatedly by economic analysts. It no longer makes environmental nor economic sense to rely on 19th-century technology to power a 21st-century America.

Witnesses

Panel 1

• Tom Kilgore, President and CEO, Tennessee Valley Authority

Panel 2

• Stephen A. Smith DVM, Executive Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
• William “Howie” Rose, Director of Emergency Management Services, Roane County, Tennessee

Coal giant Massey Energy was fined Tuesday $2.5 million in criminal fines and $1.7 million in civil fines for a deadly 2006 mine fire controlled by its subsidiary, Aracoma Coal Co.

From Reuters:

A subsidiary of Massey Energy, Aracoma Coal Co, will pay $4.2 million for safety violations that led to the deaths of two miners in 2006.

“The global settlement is the largest financial settlement in the coal industry’s history,” the Justice Department said in a statement on Tuesday.

Federal mine inspectors decided to ignore violations to “let them run coal.”

Minness Justice, an inspector with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, told fellow MSHA employee Danny Woods that he believed dangerous amounts of spilled coal and dust had been allowed to accumulate along the belt line, raising the risk of a fire, and that the belt’s fire suppression system was inadequate, Mr. Woods said.

“He was just told to back off and let them run coal, that there was too much demand for coal,” Mr. Woods said. “He came up and told me he was told to do certain things and the inspectors before him hadn’t done a proper job.”

Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship also decided to ignore violations to allow the miners to continue to “run coal.”

Blankenship involved himself in “day to day decisions” about how the Aracoma Mine would be run, including an October 2005 note in which Blankenship told mine managers to ignore anyone who tells them their job is to do anything except “run coal.”

The permits for a 800-megawatt, $2.4 billion Duke Energy Cliffside coal-fired power plant granted by the North Carolina Department of Air Quality in February have been struck down by a federal court. This case in part stems from a 2005 decision by the Bush administration EPA to remove these kinds of plants from the hazardous air pollutant provisions of the Clean Air Act. Shortly after the permits were granted, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals found that the 2005 EPA decision was illegal, and environmental groups used that ruling to challenge the Cliffside project. Duke’s argument was that the permit was granted before the circuit court decision, and should stand.

Lacy Thornburg, for the Western North Carolina District Court, found that the DAQ permit failed to comply with the Clean Air Act, notwithstanding EPA’s illegal maneuvers. Thornburg determined that the permitting process ignored critical provisions of the Clean Air Act, and that “Duke is simply refusing to comply with controlling law.”

The Cliffside plant “has the potential to emit in excess of ten tons per year” of hydrochloric acid and “over 25 tons of a combination of” other hazardous air pollutants. Section 112 of the Clean Air Act governs the federal control program for hazardous air pollutants.

Thornburg’s judgment found that the facts of the case were simple:

As of this date, neither the EPA or DAQ (North Carolina’s authority delegated with enforcing § 112) has issued to Duke an Air Quality Permit recognizing compliance with § 112. The material facts herein are not in dispute. Duke is simply refusing to comply with controlling law.

The Cliffside expansion project was launched in June 2006.

From the Wonk Room.

Last Thursday, Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, the fourth largest United States coal company, described his critics as “communists,” “atheists,” and “greeniacs.” In an address before the Tug Valley Mining Institute in Williamson, WV, Blankenship said those who criticize him are “our enemies” like Osama bin Laden:

It is as great a pleasure for me to be criticized by the communists and the atheists of the Charleston Gazette as to be applauded by my best friends. Because I know they are wrong. People are cowering away from being criticized by people that are our enemies. Would we be upset if Osama bin Laden was critical of us?

These are actually mild words for Don Blankenship. This spring, Blankenship was caught on tape threatening to shoot an ABC reporter and then assaulting him: The Charleston Gazette’s coverage of Don Blankenship has included these controversial stories:

• The Fatal Aracoma Mine Fire. In the months before the fatal 2006 fire at the Aracoma mine, which had 25 violations of health and safety laws, Blankenship personally waived company policy and told mine managers to ignore rules and “run coal.”
• Political Corruption. Blankenship has spent millions of dollars to influence West Virginia judgeships and state legislative races, and palled around in Monte Carlo with state Supreme Court Chief Justice Elliott “Spike” Maynard and their “female friends” in July 2006. The state court reversed a $77 million verdict against Massey in 2008.
• Mountaintop Removal. Massey Energy is the king of the incredibly destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining. The Bush Administration (which includes former Massey officials) overturned Clinton-era rules limiting the practice. Massey now plans to destroy Coal River Mountain despite lacking necessary permits.

Blankenship sits on the boards of the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association, who are running multimillion-dollar campaigns to block global warming regulations and fight the Employee Free Choice Act. Blankenship claimed that global warming skeptics like himself are being silenced by “greeniacs,” and called Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, and Harry Reid “totally wrong” and “absolutely crazy”:

How many times have the people in this room heard, at the US Chamber of Commerce or at the National Mining Association, “I don’t believe in climate change, but I’m afraid to say that because it is a political reality”? The greeniacs are taking over the world.

From the Wonk Room.

Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board ruled today that the EPA has no valid reason for refusing to place limits on the global warming emissions from Desert Power’s proposed 110-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Vernal, Utah.

Deseret Power’s Bonanza Generating Station would have emitted 3.37 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. In July 2007, the EPA issued a permit for the plant, ignoring the Clean Air Act’s stipulation that all such permits must include a “best-available control technology” emissions limit for each pollutant “subject to regulation under the Act.” Before the Sierra Club brought suit, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform opened an investigation into the EPA’s decision, saying:

It is reckless to approve a huge coal-fired power plant with no global warming emission controls. This one massive plant will negate the emissions reductions being implemented by the Northeastern states in the first mandatory regional program to cut global warming pollution. The Administration’s shameful decision rewards polluters, flouts the Clean Air Act, and fails the American people.

Joanna Spalding, the Sierra Club attorney who successfully argued the case, delivered this statement:

Today’s decision opens the way for meaningful action to fight global warming and is a major step in bringing about a clean energy economy. This is one more sign that we must begin repowering, refueling and rebuilding America. The EAB rejected every Bush Administration excuse for failing to regulate the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States. This decision gives the Obama Administration a clean slate to begin building our clean energy economy for the 21st century.

The 69-page decision described the Bush administration’s arguments as “weak,” “questionable,” “not sustainable,” and “not sufficient,” and rebuked EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson for failing to issue CO2 regulations, repeatedly recommending an “action of nationwide scope.”

From ThinkProgress’s Ali Frick.

Today, the right wing – enthusiastically joined by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) – attacked Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for advocating in a January interview a cap and trade plan that would reward new coal plants built with carbon capture technology. McCain said he wanted to control emissions, but insisted, “I’m not going to let our coal industry go bankrupt.” Palin claimed Obama has been “talking about bankrupting the coal industry,” and pledged, “John McCain and I, we will not let that happen to the coal industry.”

Now former governor Mitt Romney is using McCain’s attacks against Obama to attack McCain himself. On Glenn Beck’s radio show today, he denounced McCain’s cap and trade program, saying it would “kill jobs” in the U.S. and that he would “endeavor to convince” McCain to change his plans:

BECK: How would you address the cap and trade on the day when everyone’s paying attention to coal?

ROMNEY: Well as you know, there were a number of places in the primary campaign where I disagreed with John McCain, and his cap and trade proposal was one of them. ... If you want to negotiate with someone and you feel it’s important to bring down global CO2 emissions then China has to be part of the picture. And if we go out there and put a burden on our own industry and they don’t put a burden on theirs, why you’ll just kill jobs here.

Listen here: