Hill Heat

The full text of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s speech introducing the draft rule for greenhouse pollution from existing power plants, June 2, 2014.

About a month ago, I took a trip to the Cleveland Clinic. I met a lot of great people, but one stood out—even if he needed to stand on a chair to do it. Parker Frey is 10 years old. He’s struggled with severe asthma all his life. His mom said despite his challenges, Parker’s a tough, active kid—and a stellar hockey player.

But sometimes, she says, the air is too dangerous for him to play outside. In the United States of America, no parent should ever have that worry.

That’s why EPA exists. Our job, directed by our laws, reaffirmed by our courts, is to protect public health and the environment. Climate change, fueled by carbon pollution, supercharges risks not just to our health, but to our communities, our economy, and our way of life. That’s why EPA is delivering on a vital piece of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

I want to thank Janet McCabe, our Acting Assistant Administrator at the Office of Air and Radiation, and the entire EPA team who worked so hard to deliver this proposal. They should be very proud of their work; I know I am.

Today, EPA is proposing a Clean Power Plan that will cut carbon pollution from our power sector, by using cleaner energy sources, and cutting energy waste.

Although we limit pollutants like mercury, sulfur, and arsenic, currently, there are no limits on carbon pollution from power plants, our nation’s largest source. For the sake of our families’ health and our kids’ future, we have a moral obligation to act on climate. When we do, we’ll turn climate risk into business opportunity, we’ll spur innovation and investment, and we’ll build a world-leading clean energy economy.

The science is clear. The risks are clear. And the high costs of climate inaction keep piling up.

The long-awaited Environmental Protection Agency rule for greenhouse pollution from existing power plants will seek a 30 percent reduction from the 2005 peak, the Wall Street Journal’s Amy Harder reports. Half of that reduction has already been achieved in the seven years between 2005 and 2012, where only carbon dioxide emissions are concerned. The draft rule is expected to be unveiled Monday, with a year delay before finalization in 2015. States will be expected to submit compliance plans in June 2016, the final year of the Obama administration.

Because coal-fired power plants emit three-quarters of the greenhouse pollution from electricity generation in the United States, the rule is expected to impact the aging coal-fired fleet of plants, which also cause the lion’s share of traditional air pollution from the country’s power plants.

Coral Davenport of the New York Times summarizes the draft rule:

Under the proposal to be unveiled on Monday, states will be given a wide menu of policy options to achieve the pollution cuts. Rather than immediately shutting down coal plants, states will be allowed to reduce emissions by making changes across their electricity systems – by installing new wind and solar generation, energy-efficiency technology and by starting or joining state and regional “cap-and-trade” programs, in which states agree to cap carbon pollution and buy and sell permits to pollute.

The proposed rule calls for most of the reduction to happen by 2020, with a 25 percent cut from 2005 levels (11 percent cut from 2012) by then.

Carbon-dioxide pollution from electricity generation is already down 15 percent from 2005. This reduction has come primarily from a switch to natural gas and renewables. Any reduction in overall greenhouse pollution from a switch from coal to natural gas requires low levels of methane leakage, a requirement that has not been clearly shown.

Interestingly, the reduction in greenhouse pollution from the proposed rule is about one-third greater than the footprint of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Electricity generation is responsible for one-third of U.S. domestic greenhouse pollution. The announced target represents a reduction of 340 million metric tons of CO2 from 2012 levels, five percent of the United States’ total greenhouse pollution that year. That cut is about double the annual 120-200 MMT/yr climate footprint of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The total pollution saved over 2016-2030 due to the rule would be thirty percent greater than the footprint of the tar-sands crude carried by the pipeline.

The international benchmark for greenhouse pollution is 1990 levels. Measured against 1990’s pollution levels, the proposed rule represents a one percent reduction in power plant emissions by 2020, and a 7 percent cut by 2030 (a two percent cut from total U.S. 1990 greenhouse pollution).

The process for establishing the rule was begun by the Obama administration in March 2011, years after the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision by the Supreme Court overturning the EPA’s 2003 rejection of greenhouse regulation.

Update: The EPA has released what it’s calling the Clean Power Plan. The EPA estimates the rule will “cut particle pollution, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide by more than 25 percent as a co-benefit” and “shrink electricity bills roughly 8 percent by increasing energy efficiency and reducing demand in the electricity system.”

The League of Women Voters has launched a major, nationwide campaign in defense of the EPA’s work to give Americans clean air. The People Not Polluters campaign asks Americans and their elected officials to join the Clean Air Promise:

I promise to protect America’s children and families from dangerous air pollution. Because toxics and pollutants such as mercury, smog, carbon, and soot, cause thousands of hospital visits, asthma attacks, and even deaths, I will support clean air policies and other protections that scientists and public health experts have recommended to the EPA to safeguard our air quality.

Watch the campaign spot:

LWV is mobilizing its members to tell personal stories of the cost of asthma for children and families, including outreach to vulnerable populations like seniors, Latinos, and African Americans.

Senate Republicans have introduced legislation to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. The bill, introduced by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), would merge the EPA, which enforces environmental laws, with the Department of Energy, which manages nuclear energy and energy research, into one department.

In January, Newt Gingrich proposed abolishing the EPA, and several House Republicans have supported that goal. Burr’s statement announcing his bill to eliminate the EPA argues that “duplicative functions” can be eliminated:

U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) introduced a bill that would consolidate the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency into a single, new agency called the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE). The bill would provide cost savings by combining duplicative functions while improving the administration of energy and environmental policies by ensuring a coordinated approach.

Burr’s bill has fifteen co-sponsors, all of them deniers of the threat of global warming pollution, a top EPA priority: Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), John Thune (R-S.D.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), David Vitter (R-La.), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), Mike Lee (R-Utah).

The Natural Resources Defense Council holds a conference call briefing, beginning at 11 a.m., to discuss and release a survey on data that show strong public opposition to “dismantling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) updates to clean-up standards for carbon, smog and other pollution” proposed by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.

Patricipants

• Peter Altman, climate campaign director of the Natural Resources Defense Council
• Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling

Contact: Leslie Anderson, 703-276-3256, [email protected]

Call-in, 800-860-2442; ask for the “EPA/Energy and Commerce Committee member surveys” news event. A streaming audio replay of the news event will be available at 4 p.m. February 10 online: http://www.nrdc.org

02/10/2011 at 11:00AM

8:00 Registration

8:30 Welcome/Opening Comments U.S. EPA Office of Air And Radiation Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy

9:20 Subcommittee Report Outs Economic Incentives and Regulatory Innovation Permits/NSR/Toxics

10:00 “OAR update on Environmental Justice related Activities” Panel Discussion

BREAK

11:15 “Meet the Members” (Two new members will discuss Air Quality Issues related to their work) A Carrier’s Perspective -Dr. Lee Kindberg, Maersk Tribal Air Quality -Joy Wiecks

12:40-1:45 LUNCH

1:45 – 2:30 Mobile Sources Technical Review Subcommittee Move Model Report

2:30- 3:00 CAAAC Operation/Future Topics

3:00 – 3:15 Public Comments

3:15– 3:30 Next Meeting/Close Pat Childers

Crowne Plaza National Airport
1489 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202

01/12/2011 at 08:30AM

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is engaged in a series of rule-making proceedings of extraordinary scope and ambition—going well beyond its efforts to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. All major EPA decisions are contentious, but the current flurry of regulatory initiatives raises unusually serious issues of costs and benefits, feasibility, methodology, and agency discretion. This event will begin with a presentation on air-quality trends followed by panel presentations and discussions on current rule-making proceedings and underlying issues of science, economics, and risk assessment.

Agenda

8:15 a.m.

Registration and Breakfast

8:30

Introduction:

• CHRISTOPHER DEMUTH, AEI

8:40

Presentation: Trends in Air Quality—1970, Today, and Tomorrow

• STEVEN F. HAYWARD, AEI

9:00

Panel I: EPA’s Rule-Making Surge

Panelists:

• PAUL R. NOE, American Forest & Paper Association “The Challenge of Boiler MACT and the Cumulative Air Regulatory Burden”
• ARTHUR FRAAS, Resources for the Future “Banking on Permits: A Risky Business”
• JEFFREY R. HOLMSTEAD, Bracewell & Giuliani “The Clean Air Act and the Rule of Law”

Moderator: *KENNETH P. GREEN, AEI

10:30

Break

10:40

Panel II: Science and Economics in EPA Rule-Making

Panelists:

• RICHARD A. BECKER, American Chemistry Council “The Blurred Lines between Science and Policy”
• RICHARD B. BELZER, Regulatory Checkbook and Neutral Source “Empirical Analysis of EPA Compliance with the Information Quality Act”
• JANE LUXTON, Pepper Hamilton LLP “Polarization on Science Issues in EPA Risk Assessment”
• BRIAN F. MANNIX, Buckland Mill Associates “Whose Telescope is Defective? The Role of Discount-Rate Arbitrage in Energy and Climate Policy”

Moderator:

• SUSAN E. DUDLEY, The George Washington University

Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

11/08/2010 at 08:30AM

Be at GW’s School of Media and Public Affairs for an insider’s guide to America’s next great legislative challenge. We’ll have a one-on-one discussion with top Obama official, Lisa Jackson, and a panel discussion with representatives from media, business and policy to get a picture of what the next stages of the climate debate will be. Will the upcoming Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill get us on the right path? Or will it happen in the scientific or business sectors? Find out. And find out who really wins and loses when the stakes are this high?

Joining SMPA Director and Planet Forward Host Frank Sesno will be Lisa Jackson (US EPA), Ana Unruh-Cohen (House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming), Andrew Revkin (New York Times), Jim Connaughton (Constellation Energy Group), Dr. Dan Lashof (Natural Resources Defense Council) and Kate Sheppard (Mother Jones). We’ll also feature some of the best videos recently submitted to PlanetForward.org…including films from GW’s very own Planet Forward class!

A Co-presentation of GW’s School of Media and Public Affairs, The George Washington University School of Business and GW’s Environmental Studies program.

RSVP

Jack Morton Auditorium
School of Media and Public Affairs
805 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

04/20/2010 at 07:00PM

From the Wonk Room.

“Strong earnings from Exxon Mobil and bullish comments from coal analysts boosted the energy sector Monday” as climate negotiators say a global deal on climate change in 2010 is “all but impossible.”

“At a time when our country is struggling with a deep economic recession, the last thing I want the EPA to do is start regulating greenhouse gases without specific direction from Congress,” Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) said about the EPA budget plan that allocates $56 million for global warming regulation.

Indiana officials will not require insurance companies to complete a nationally approved climate risk survey, because it seems to advance a “politically driven agenda,” said Doug Webber, the state’s acting insurance commissioner.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold two public hearings on the proposed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions thresholds defining when Clean Air Act permits would apply to new or existing industrial facilities. This program would cover nearly 70 percent of the nation’s total GHG emissions from stationary sources. The nation’s largest facilities, including power plants, refineries, and cement production facilities, that emit at least 25,000 tons of GHGs a year would be required to obtain operating and construction permits.

The hearings will be held on November 18 in Arlington, Va. and November 19 in Rosemont, Ill. Both hearings will begin at 10:00 a.m. and end at 7:00 p.m. local time.

Arlington, Va.
Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport
2799 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202
Note: Anyone attending the Arlington hearing will need to bring photo identification.

11/18/2009 at 10:00AM