Hill Heat

According to a new release from the Energy Information Administration, “U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2007 were 1.4 percent above the 2006 total.” This increase erases the 1% drop in emissions in 2006, for which Bush claimed credit (even though the decrease was due to an unusually warm winter and high fuel prices). U.S. annual emissions are now 17% greater than they were in 1990. To avoid catastrophic climate change, the International Panel on Climate Change projects that “industrialized countries would need to reduce emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.”

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.

A report from the Government Accountability Office finds that Europe’s initial cap-and-trade system for limiting greenhouse gases set overly high limits and gave redistributed significant wealth to covered entities. The report (GAO-09-151), requested by Republican members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, was completed November 18 but publicly released today.

The summary notes that the cap was set too high:

By limiting the total number of emission allowances provided to covered entities under the program and enabling these entities to sell or buy allowances, the ETS set a price on carbon emissions. However, in 2006, a release of emissions data revealed that the supply of allowances-the cap-exceeded the demand, and the allowance price collapsed. Overall, the cumulative effect of phase I on emissions is uncertain because of a lack of baseline emissions data.

The report also notes that polluting entities passed on the price of emissions permits to consumers, despite receiving them for free, resulting in windfall profits:

Studies have found that in the EU’s deregulated energy markets, power producers passed on the market value of allowances to consumers by adding the value of the allowances to energy rates.

The GAO also describes Europe’s international offset system, the Clean Development Mechanism, and notes the extreme difficulty in accurately calculating the worth of such investments in terms of emissions reduction. CDM investments are intended to prevent or lessen future emissions or factors such as deforestation which reduce the sequestration of greenhouse gases. Thus, the reductions are based against a hypothetical business-as-usual scenario, which cannot be precisely determined.

From the Wonk Room.

The Bush administration, though in the shadows of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition effort, continues to subvert the rule of law and impede action on global warming. Last week, the White House emailed mayors asking them to oppose the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft proposal for greenhouse gas regulations. According to the Washington Post, the email by Jeremy J. Broggi, associate director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs reminded mayors to formally submit complaints to the EPA:

At the time, President Bush warned that this was the wrong way to regulate emissions. Chairman John D. Dingell called it “a glorious mess.” And many of you contacted us to let us know how harmful this rule would be to the economies of the cities and counties you serve.

Broggi, a young Dick Cheney protegé, also linked to a November 20 U.S. Chamber of Commerce blog post by Bill Kovacs that makes the absurd claim regulation of carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act “will operate as a de facto moratorium on major construction and infrastructure projects.” Broggi’s lobbying against his own government is nothing new—last year the Department of Transportation lobbied Congress to oppose global warming regulations.

To avoid action on global warming despite a direct order from the Supreme Court, Bush’s people have brazenly flouted their Constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the law, ignoring science, ignoring Congressional subpoenas, even ignoring emails from the EPA. Just as former attorney general Alberto Gonzales claimed the Geneva Convention’s ban on torture was “quaint,” EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson called the Clean Air Act “outdated” and “ill-suited” to the task of regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

However, it is the approach of the likes of George Bush, Stephen Johnson, Bill Kovacs, and John Dingell to the climate crisis that is “outdated,” “ill-suited,” and “a glorious mess”—not laws like the Clean Air Act. Robert Sussman, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and co-chairman of Obama’s EPA transition team, explained last month:

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.

Come January, Dingell will have been replaced as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), and the Bush administration by Obama’s team. Sadly, Kovacs will continue plugging his dangerous message of inaction, although major companies are starting to abandon the Chamber’s reactionary rhetoric.

Broggi’s email reminded Bush’s allies in “bold, underlined text” that the public comment period for these proposed regulations closes this Friday, November 28. You can join the We Campaign in sending the message that the EPA can and should take immediate action to control global warming and to help repower America.

The text of the email follows.

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.

On Wednesday, five major U.S. corporations launched a new business coalition with the investors’ activist group Ceres to call for immediate, muscular, and progressive action to fight global warming. The founding members of Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) are Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems and The Timberland Company. As right-wing business organizations like the Chamber of Commerce pretend that limits on pollution will destroy the economy, the members of BICEP recognize that the true threat is failing to halt catastrophic climate change.

The eight principles embraced by BICEP for national action on global warming reflect recommendations from the Center for American Progress, Green For All, 1Sky, and other progressive organizations, including a moratorium on new coal plants, no subsidies for pollution permits, aggressive efficiency standards, and green-job creation in low-income communities.

In addition, BICEP calls for greenhouse gas emissions to be at least 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, in line with scientific recommendations—and more than double the target set by President-elect Barack Obama.

As Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres said in a press call, tackling global warming is integral to future economic strength:

Rather than ignore risk, address the risk and turn it into an opportunity. We need to send the right and honest market signal. Carbon pollution has a cost.

The full list of recommendations:

Today, President-elect Barack Obama set a marker on climate and environmental policy with the release of two videos. The first was broadcast for the Governors’ Global Climate Summit in California:

Saying “denial is no longer an acceptable response,” Obama indicated he will press forward with cap-and-trade legislation and that members of Congress will act as his representatives at the Poznan climate negotiations.

The second video is from a meeting of Obama’s Energy & Environment Policy Transition Team and an interview with team member Heather Zichal:

From the Wonk Room.

In a weekend interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) talks of the impact of global warming on California’s wildfires. Climate change is lowering snowpack in the Rockies and increasing droughts, heat waves and lightning strikes, stoking more intense fires over a longer season:

Through global warming, we have now fire season all year round. We used to have fire seasons only in the fall, but now the fire seasons start in February already, so this means that we have to really upgrade, have more resources, more fire engines, more manpower and all of this, which does cost extra money.

Watch it:

By May of this year wildfires were raging at levels traditionally seen only in July. After California’s driest spring in 114 years of recordkeeping, 1700 wildfires set a record 840,000 acres ablaze from June to July, costing the state more than $200 million. Fires in the past month, the worst in the Los Angeles area in four decades, have destroyed over 1000 homes. “Through last week, 1.24 million acres burned in California, the most since 1970, when consistent, modern records were first kept.”

Last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called for the Bush administration to end delays in assistance, saying, “As the climate warms and wildland fires become bigger and more intense, a rapid response is critical to prevent the spread of fires.”

Roll Call reports that senior Congressional Black Caucus members John Lewis (D-Ga.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) have announced their support for John Dingell’s (D-Mich.) chairmanship of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) announced he was seeking the chair after the elections, spurring Dingell to wage a highly visible campaign to keep his seat.

In October, Dingell and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) released draft climate legislation after nearly two years of hearings and discussions. In the accompanying letter, they indicated significantly different priorities than those of President-elect Obama or the majority of the Democratic caucus, who signed on to a letter of principles drafted by Waxman, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Jay Inslee (D-Wash.).

Today, following recent criticism of the draft plan by Center for American Progress senior fellow Robert Sussman, Dingell has released a defense to his fellow members, arguing that his plan “aligns with the principles and goals” of the letter of climate principles.

The text of this letter follows:

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.”