The Move On Energy

It is commonly believed that the Obama Administration will make health care reform its next big policy push. But there are enough signs that energy actually has more momentum right now. In the stimulus there is as much attention paid to energy and energy infrastructure (like the smart electric grid) as health care. And the imminent EPA decision to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act is a major step forward.

The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen.

The environmental agency is under order from the Supreme Court to make a determination whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant that endangers public health and welfare, an order that the Bush administration essentially ignored despite near-unanimous belief among agency experts that research points inexorably to such a finding.

Lisa P. Jackson, the new E.P.A. administrator, said in an interview that she had asked her staff to review the latest scientific evidence and prepare the documentation for a so-called endangerment finding. Ms. Jackson said she had not decided to issue such a finding but she pointedly noted that the second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. E.P.A., is April 2, and there is the wide expectation that she will act by then.

“We here know how momentous that decision could be,” Ms. Jackson said. “We have to lay out a road map.”

At Grist, Dave Roberts lays out the importance, including how this will end new coal plant production in the US as we know it. Some would call that exclusionary, but actually it just properly prices the externalities in a way that the coal industry has never had to deal with. If they want to keep spewing toxicity into the atmosphere, they can pay the public health costs and the costs in changing weather patterns and increased natural disasters and droughts.

Depending on how they want to play it, the Obama administration could use the regs one of two ways, either:

• use them to put the screws to the economy's biggest CO2 polluters, thereby easing some pressure off the economy-wide cap-and-trade program, allowing it to ramp up more gently and serve as the backstop rather than the primary means of transforming America's dirtiest industries;

• use the threat of regs to reduce industry opposition to cap-and-trade and force big polluters to the table; however much industry hates cap-and-trade, they'll prefer it to hard regs.

Ultimately, if I had to guess, I'd say it's the latter: ultimately, the EPA rulemaking will be a cudgel to force big polluters to play ball on cap-and-trade.

And the other way that old-energy power plants will be legislated into irrelevance is through a renewable energy standard, which apparently is going to happen without delay.

Not satisfied with the billions for clean energy projects in the stimulus package, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today he will work to pass a new energy bill within a matter of weeks.

Reid -- who's helped organize a clean energy summit next week in Washington that is bringing former president President Clinton and vice president Al Gore to town along with entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens -- said he's asked Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) to prepare a bill that will set a national renewable portfolio standard.

That would mandate that a percentage of the nation's electricity come from renewables by a certain date. I've heard 25% by 2020 as a baseline. It could be more, but that's a very good start.

I think energy is an issue that unites individuals of both parties, if not their legislators. It's a good issue for Obama and the Democrats to take up.

Bush Fighting The War On The Environment

George Bush is doing this "major press event" on the environment and fighting global warming, but he's not talking about anything new, but taking credit for initiatives that Democrats in Congress passed. And he sounds positively angry about it. "We're doing a lot!" he just shouted. Now he's talking about activist judges and how they're using "laws passed 30 years ago" to regulate climate change. You know, we actually do use laws that are still on the books all the time. All laws don't have a statute of limitations, and new laws aren't somehow more valid than old laws.

This is a sham. He's trying to wiggle out of the Clean Air Act and numerous court decisions mandating that the federal government regulate greenhouse gases. It's the same old "No We Can't" approach to climate change, saying that we'll ruin the economy if we make any effort to slow emissions. This is a Presidential filibuster that's been going on for close to eight years. And it's an attempt to take global warming off the table in the upcoming elections. Don't buy that the oil man is suddenly going green.

UPDATE: Rep. Ed Markey:

"By the time President Bush's plan finally starts to cut global warming emissions, the planet will already be cooked.

"The President's short-term goal is to do nothing, his medium-term goal is to do nothing much, and his long-term goal is to do nothing close to what's needed to save the planet from global warming.

"On a day of faith in America, where the Pope and scientists all agree that we must act on global warming, President Bush's paltry goals show little faith in American ingenuity and solutions to global warming.

D'you think he did it just because the Pope was here? That would make sense in a perverse way, actually.

Schwarzenegger, Brown Finally Sue EPA Over Tailpipe Emissions Waiver

It was scheduled to happen the week of the SoCal wildfires, but events intervened. Now, California is poised to sue the federal government over the EPA's failure to grant a waiver to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Schwarzenegger and Brown plan to file a lawsuit asking a federal court to order the Bush administration to decide whether to approve California's landmark law requiring automakers to gradually reduce tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.

“California has a long and proud history of leadership in reducing pollution and fighting for clean air for our residents,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement yesterday. “And we are upholding that tradition by filing a lawsuit against the federal government that takes a big step forward in the battle against global warming.”

Under federal law, California must receive an EPA waiver to implement emissions standards tougher than federal levels.

But even if they prevail in court, California leaders are pessimistic that they will secure the waiver from the Bush administration, which has been slow to acknowledge warnings that human-caused global warming is a serious threat to the planet.

“Realistically, we think the chances are slim,” said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board. “We've made the case on the merits. We're right on the law. Somehow or the other politics will intervene. We just don't know where or how.”

The strategy here has been to slow-walk the decision to avoid the negative consequences of disallowing broadly popular legislation. It should be noted that the EPA has NEVER in its history failed to grant a waiver of this kind for tighter air pollution control laws. There's not even any standing for denying the waiver under the Clean Air Act, which only should occur if the regulations are not "technologically feasible." Considering that people are making 150mpg conversions in their garages, that's just patently absurd. Automakers in this country are killing themselves slowly by refusing to adapt to the needs and desires of consumers. If they persist, states should be allowed to recognize the impact on their own air quality and demand a shift.

This is going to be a long fight, but eventually, we will get this law.

I Think "Fires" And "Warming" Correlate

You can talk all you want about the terrible California wildfires not being the cause of global warming, but saying instead that the conditions that allowed the fires to sustain themselves and grow have an antecedent in the changing climate is a distinction without a difference. We just went through a series of major fires in Greece a couple months ago. Their Mediterrenean climate and the California climate, particularly in the mountains and the foothills where the fire is raging, are largely the same. In both cases, the desert conditions on the outer edge are moving up into these more habitable areas, creating the optimal conditions for the fires to spread.

And we're going to see a lot more of this in the coming years.

PARIS, Oct. 25 — The human population is living far beyond its means and inflicting damage to the environment that could pass points of no return, according to a major report being issued today by the United Nations.

Climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the threats putting humanity at risk, according to the United Nations Environment Program in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook since 1997.

“The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns,” Achim Steiner, the executive director of the Environment Program, said in a telephone interview. Efficient use of resources and reducing waste now are “among the greatest challenges at the beginning in of 21st century,” he said.

Through innovation and proper sustainability we can combat this growing concern on all fronts. What we need are the political guts from all countries on the globe to enact what needs to be enacted. This week the head of the CDC, Julie Gerberding, was muzzled in testimony to the Senate Environmental Committee, with the White House heavily editing her comments about climate change and public health. We have a White House that, when it isn't asleep at the switch about the environment, is actively seeking to stop any prospects for combating the environmental challenges we face.

Let me mention one good thing this government has done: they levied the largest fine in the history of the Clean Air Act against British Petroleum for manipulating prices and a refinery explosion. But this was a plea bargain, and if the money collected doesn't go into research and development for sustainable resources, the effect is negligible. There is no doubt that the climate crisis is real, and requires specific steps to solve it. We need leadership willing to do the job.

UPDATE: This is not leadership:

Rancho Bernardo residents began their journey back home with a surprise today.

They were stuck in traffic for two to three hours sitting in their cars at a standstill because of President Bush's visit to their community.

Police and the CHP had blocked off Interstate 15 ramps to West Bernardo Drive, which leads to the recovery center that was opened yesterday. Cars lined up for miles on the freeway.

"I'm glad he's coming but it's unfortunate to keep us all waiting," said Joy Fleming, who lives in North Oaks.

Fed up with waiting, Barbara Gandre said she needed to drive her 87-year-old mother home to pick up medication for her 89-year-old husband.

Her mother just recovered from pneumonia in September and the family did not have masks to wear over their faces. They sat in their car with the windows rolled down because they only had a quarter tank of gas left.

"I cannot run the air conditioning or I'll run out of gas," Gandre said. "I am sick of this," she said.

If I never see another photo-op again, I don't think I'd miss them.

More Politicization of Federal Agencies

We didn't need any more evidence that the Bush Administration uses the executive branch as a political instrument. But this latest example shows that they will use federal agencies to work to oppose legislative efforts at the state level, making a complete mockery of the entire premise of federalism itself.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Henry Waxman has received information that the Department of Transportation has been lobbying members of Congress to oppose state efforts, sought by California and others, to regulate tailpipe emissions. California is waiting for an EPA waiver to implement their tailpipe emissions proposal. The Governor has threatened to sue the EPA if they don't receive that waiver. The first roadblock that the EPA tried was to appeal to the Supreme Court by claiming that they didn't have the ability to regulate greenhouse gases, but in a landmark decision the Supreme Court said that they did. So plan B, apparently, is to use the DOT to threaten legislators in automobile-producing districts that their local economies would be severly impacted by any efforts to regulate. This excerpt is from a letter by Waxman to Transportation Secretary Mary Peters:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently considering a request from the State of California for a waiver under the Clean Air Act (Waxman wrote the Clean Air Act -ed.) to establish state motor vehicle emissions standards for greenhouse gases...

My understanding is that the Department of Transportation and the Bush Administration have not taken an official postition on this issue. However, the staff of a member of Congress recently received a voicemail message from Heideh Shahmoradi, special assistant for governmental affairs in the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, suggesting that the member (1) submit comments to EPA opposing California's request and (2) "reach out to your governor's office for them to submit comments since this would greatly impact auto facilities within your district."

You can read the full text of the voicemail and the entire letter from Rep. Waxman to Sec. Peters at this link.

This is patently illegal. The DOT, which is supposed to merely regulate and facilitate transportation and not advocate on behalf of automobile interests, is lobbying Congress to influence an EPA ruling that would affect state legislation. Within the letter, there are other instances of federal agencies in the Clinton Administration distributing talking points supporting or opposing Congressional legislation. But this goes even further, asking Congress to step in to an exceutive agency decision which will nullify state efforts to tackle global warming. It allows the President to be supposedly neutral about the EPA ruling while getting Congress to do his dirty work for him.

For the past six years of Republican rule, Congress has done nothing while the planet has continued to warm and spew harnful greenhouse gases into the air. States like California have stopped waiting around for the feds to get their act together, and put forward their own plan, which is completely legal under the Clean Air Act. Now the Bush Administration is using federal agencies illegally to try and derail it. Now that we actually have oversight in the Congress (in one branch, anyway), we are beginning to see the depth of the politicization of these federal agencies, suggesting that what has been done behind the scenes in these two terms of office has been far more destructive that what has been done out in the open.