Hill Heat

From CQ Green Sheets: Senate Environment Presses Ahead on Federal, State Climate Action

Summary: Lieberman & Warner are working on carbon cap-and-trade legislation. Their staff is working hard right now to get the legislation written before the August recess, but they might not make that target. The witnesses at this hearing give a hint as to what the legislation will look like.

Witnesses

• Timothy Profeta, Director, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University, former Lieberman staffer and the principal author of the 2003 Lieberman-McCain cap-and-trade legislation
• Blythe S. Masters, Managing Director, JP Morgan Securities, Inc., supporter of carbon trading
• Robert Baugh, Executive Director, Industrial Union Council, AFL-CIO, supports Bingman-like (S 1766) elements like “safety valve” emission cost caps and money for carbon sequestration
• Garth Edward, Trading Manager, Shell International Trading and Shipping Company, supporter of carbon trading
• Margo Thorning Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, American Council for Capital Formation, believes cap-and-trade evil and the European experience a failure

EnergyConversation.org

Co Sponsored by: DoD, DoE, USDA, EPA, DoT, DHS, FERC, Commerce, State, and DNI on behalf of the entire intelligence community.

5:45 PM -8:30 PM Doubletree Hotel, 300 Army Navy Drive, Arlington, VA

Wind technology is evolving rapidly and becoming more cost effective compared to conventional generation sources.

This month’s Energy Conversation will review the evolution of the technology over the past 25 years and evaluate the future development expected. Dr. Bob Thresher, Director of The National Wind Technology Center, and Rob Gramlich, Policy Director at The American Wind Energy Association, will illustrate the future potential for development both on land and in the ocean and describe the challenges.

Rob Gramlich is Policy Director of the American Wind Energy Association, the trade association for over 1000 entities involved in development, manufacturing, and construction of wind energy facilities. He leads the association’s policy analysis, regulatory policy, electric industry, and transmission efforts. He was Economic Advisor to Chairman Pat Wood III of the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from 2001 to 2005 and has held market and policy analysis positions with the PG&E National Energy Group, PJM Interconnection, the World Resources Institute, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has a Masters in Public Policy from UC Berkeley and a BA with honors in Economics from Colby College.

Dr. Bob Thresher is the Director of the National Wind Technology Center in Golden, Colorado, which is a division of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He earned a tenured professorship in Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University where he taught courses in Applied Mechanics, and initiated pioneering researcher in the mechanics of Wind Energy Systems during the 1970’s and early 80’s. He joined NREL in 1984 and has provided leadership for the growth of NREL’s wind program from $5MM/year at its inception, to its current level of about $30MM/year. He has published extensively and is recognized internationally as one of the leading experts in research, development and commercialization of wind technologies. He also serves as a member of the Advisory Panel on Ocean Energy Technologies for the Electric Power Research Institute.

• THE EVENT IS FREE*
• Registration is not mandatory but STRONGLY encouraged
• Refreshments: A vegetarian friendly buffet is available for $10.
• Transportation. The Pentagon City Metro on the blue/yellow line is just 3 blocks from the hotel.
• Parking: Street parking is limited. Hotel parking with validation costs $8.

To register for this event email Sarah Minczeski at: [email protected]

From CQ.com, coverage of Thursday’s markup:

Passed by voice vote:

• An amendment by Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio, that would give broadband companies that bring services to rural areas 35 years to repay Agriculture Department loans. Currently, loans are typically paid off in 10 to 15 years.
• An amendment by Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., that would create a preference within USDA loan programs for projects that process and distribute locally.
• An amendment by Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, D-S.D., that would set aside federal dollars to help public television stations in rural areas upgrade equipment.
• An amendment by Adrian Smith, R-Neb., that would include ethanol by-product utilization as an objective of USDA alternative energy research.
• An amendment by Conaway that would add goat meat to the list of products that should be included under the country-of-origin labeling law.

Defeated:

• an amendment by Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-La., that would have allowed states to hire outside contractors to administer food stamp programs.

Responding to the reports of disarray at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology and the Committee on Energy and Commerce took action to determine if the Center was indeed incapable of providing necessary forecasts during the hurricane season.

Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX), Chairman of the Science and Technology Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, convened a meeting in June with the heads of NOAA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to learn more about the Quikscat satellite controversy. A hearing on the use of the Quikscat satellite data for hurricane forecasting had already been planned.

With the escalation of the controversy at the NHC in recent days, and subsequent action by NOAA Administrator Admiral Lautenbacher to place Hurricane Center Director William Proenza on leave, the Committees determined that further information was required.

This week they asked Admiral Lautenbacher for documents and records of communications from senior NWS officials and others involved in the controversy.

Witnesses Panel I

• Mr. Bill Proenza, Director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC)

Panel II

• Dr. Robert M. Atlas, Director, Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory
• Mr. Don McKinnon, Director, Jones County Emergency Management Agency

Panel III

• Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Under Secretary for Commerce, Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Congressional Quarterly will sponsor a second CQ Forum on energy titled “Toward a Comprehensive Energy Policy,” featuring leading policy makers and stakeholders who will discuss how to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources, protect the environment and continue to provide energy for the economic growth of the nation as well as for our transportation needs.

Contact: Marie Kilroy at 202-419-8484 or [email protected]

RSVP required

Hyatt Regency Hotel, Thornton Room, 400 New Jersey Ave., N.W.

From CQ.com, summaries of the amendment votes at the markup session:

On the conservation front:

Farmers who earn too much to qualify for payments under the bil would be barred from receiving payments under farmland conservation programs, which worries environmentalists.

“Prohibiting and limiting large commercial farmers, in particular, from participating in conservation programs makes no sense,” said Scott Faber, who directs Environmental Defense’s farm policy campaign. “Large commercial farmers are more likely to participate in conservation programs and manage a disproportionately large share of the landscape.”

Amendments passed:

• The “language barring farmers who make more than $1 million in annual adjusted gross income from collecting government subsidies, and also eliminating payments to those who earn $500,000 to $1 million a year if less than 67 percent of that income comes from farming” was amended by voice vote to “lift limits on marketing loans, which provide short-term loans so farmers can pay their bills until they sell their harvested crops. Aides said this concession by Peterson won support from Southern lawmakers, who worried that the bill would otherwise hurt cotton and rice growers.”

• An amendment by Bob Etheridge, D-N.C., that would make federal dollars available to expand foreign markets for tobacco. The panel adopted the amendment 14-10, with Peterson’s support. North Carolina Republican Robin Hayes warned that without the support for U.S. growers, Chinese growers would dominate the tobacco industry. North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy predicted the amendment would fail on the House floor. He said it “would endure withering criticism for using U.S. dollars to encourage other areas of the world to smoke.”

Passed by voice vote:

• An amendment by Tim Walz, D-Minn., that would make it easier for farmers growing organic crops to enroll in the Conservation Security Program.
• An amendment by Nick Lampson, D-Texas, that would create a one-time incentive program to encourage the market growth of oilseeds, which are lower in trans-fats.
• An amendment by Sam Graves, R-Mo., that would bar farmers or companies defrauding the Agriculture Department from participating in the agency’s programs.
• An amendment by K. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, that would prevent the Agriculture Department from writing subsidy checks smaller than $25. It costs the department too much to write checks for smaller amounts, Conaway said.
• An amendment by Jim Costa, D-Calif., that would require 50 percent of funding in the Regional Water Enhancement Program to be spent on new water preservation projects. Waterways in California and elsewhere could benefit from those federal dollars, Costa said.

Eager to be part of the solution to global warming, many consumers, businesses and government agencies have turned to carbon pollution offsets to help reduce or eliminate their “carbon footprint.” While these offsets represent a promising way to engage consumers in global warming solutions, there are many unanswered questions as to the efficacy and accounting of these unregulated commodities.

Witnesses

• Derik Broekhoff, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute
• Joseph Romm, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
• Thomas Boucher, President and Chief Executive Officer, NativeEnergy LLC
• Russ George, President and Chief Executive Officer, Planktos, Inc.
• Erik Blachford, CEO, TerraPass Inc.

Contact: Moulton, David – Democratic Staff Director at 202-225-4012

From the Washington Post: At the hearing, Planktos CEO Russ George, whose company plans to engage in oceanic iron-seeding in the east Pacific, said the EPA was working with “radical environmental groups” who are criticizing his company. In written submissions, he said his firm’s work had been “falsely portrayed” to “generate public alarm.” George said “it’s the clearest ocean on Earth because it’s lifeless, and it’s not supposed to be that way.” He asserts that the potential is enormous. He said that the annual drop in ocean plant life was like losing all the rain forests every year. “If we succeed, we’ll have created an industry. If we don’t succeed, we’ll have created a lot of great science.”

More from the article at this post.