President Barack Obama spoke bluntly about the reality of climate change during his first post-election press conference yesterday, asserting that it is time for Congress to put in place new policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The president, who was re-elected Nov. 6 with a huge electoral college majority and a nearly three percentage point edge in the popular vote, did not specify any particular actions he would take.
"I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions," Obama said during the media event at the White House Wednesday. "And as a consequence, I think we've got an obligation to future generations to do something about it."
Obama pointed out that his administration has taken actions on its own to lower greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, specifically mentioning efforts to increase use of renewable energy and recent regulations that raise the mininum fuel economy that must be achieved by motor vehicles.
He also said that he would begin an intensive effort to seek out advice about how best to proceed to achieve lower emissions in the future, promising a "wide-ranging conversation" with other elected officials, scientists, and engineers.
The Obama administration has not indicated that it will ask Congress to enact an emissions tax or fee. However, a report in The Hill magazine published earlier this week included an interview with an administration official who said that Obama might be open to it as part of a more wide-ranging revision of the federal tax code.
John M. Reilly, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the co-director of that institution's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said that the view among academic experts is that a tax on greenhouse gas emissions would be an effective response to climate change.
"Our work estimated that such a tax, starting at $20 per ton of CO2 and rising at 4 percent real per year, would reduce U.S. emissions by about 14 percent below 2006 levels by 2010 and by 20 percent by 2050," Reilly said in an e-mail message.
He also pointed out that the tax might take a big chunk out of the federal budget deficit, raising as much as $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years.
The president himself said during his press conference Wednesday that he did not think a tax on carbon dioxide emissions is politically feasible.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
New York Gov. Cuomo says his state will begin efforts to mitigate climate change
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is out with a detailed statement outlining specific steps the Empire State will take to mitigate the effects of climate change.
New York, along with sister state New Jersey, was hit hard by tropical storm Sandy in October. Cuomo, a Democrat thought to be among his party's leading contenders for the presidential nomination in 2016, has argued that the severity of the storm may be linked to ongoing human-caused global warming.
"We will not allow the national paralysis over climate change to stop us from pursuing the necessary path for the future," Cuomo wrote in his op-ed.
The editorial column appears in today's edition of the New York Daily News.
New York, along with sister state New Jersey, was hit hard by tropical storm Sandy in October. Cuomo, a Democrat thought to be among his party's leading contenders for the presidential nomination in 2016, has argued that the severity of the storm may be linked to ongoing human-caused global warming.
"We will not allow the national paralysis over climate change to stop us from pursuing the necessary path for the future," Cuomo wrote in his op-ed.
The editorial column appears in today's edition of the New York Daily News.
Reuters: Plea bargain in BP oil spill case could come today
Reuters reports this morning that a plea deal could come as soon as today in the criminal case arising from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The report said that BP itself is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges arising from the incident and pay a record fine.
BP, in a press release issued today, confirmed that it is in discussions with federal authorities. The company's statement also said that any deal with the U.S. Department of Justice would have no impact on any federal or state efforts to invoke civil penalty provisions of environmental laws or private lawsuits not already settled.
A plea deal may also cover allegations that BP violated criminal provisions of federal securities law, according to the BP statement.
Reuters also reports that two BP employees may be indicted in connection with the incident, which was the largest oil spill accident in history. Eleven people were killed, while 17 more were injured, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded.
UPDATE (10:00 AM MST) - BP said this morning that it will plead guilty to 14 criminal charges and pay a record $4.5 billion in fines and fees.
"All of us at BP deeply regret the tragic loss of life caused by the by Deepwater Horizon accident as well as the impact of the spill on the Gulf Coast region," Bob Dudley, BP's Group Chief Executive, said in a statement. "We apologize for our role in the accident, and as today's resolution with the U.S. government further reflects, we have accepted responsibility for our actions."
BP will pay $4 billion for violation of U.S. environmental laws over the next five years. It will also pay $525 million to resolve criminal allegations under federal securities laws.
The company will also take an additional $3.85 billion charge against income. That follows a $38.1 billion hit against the company's bottom line already experienced since the Deepwater Horizon incident.
The report said that BP itself is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges arising from the incident and pay a record fine.
BP, in a press release issued today, confirmed that it is in discussions with federal authorities. The company's statement also said that any deal with the U.S. Department of Justice would have no impact on any federal or state efforts to invoke civil penalty provisions of environmental laws or private lawsuits not already settled.
A plea deal may also cover allegations that BP violated criminal provisions of federal securities law, according to the BP statement.
Reuters also reports that two BP employees may be indicted in connection with the incident, which was the largest oil spill accident in history. Eleven people were killed, while 17 more were injured, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded.
UPDATE (10:00 AM MST) - BP said this morning that it will plead guilty to 14 criminal charges and pay a record $4.5 billion in fines and fees.
"All of us at BP deeply regret the tragic loss of life caused by the by Deepwater Horizon accident as well as the impact of the spill on the Gulf Coast region," Bob Dudley, BP's Group Chief Executive, said in a statement. "We apologize for our role in the accident, and as today's resolution with the U.S. government further reflects, we have accepted responsibility for our actions."
BP will pay $4 billion for violation of U.S. environmental laws over the next five years. It will also pay $525 million to resolve criminal allegations under federal securities laws.
The company will also take an additional $3.85 billion charge against income. That follows a $38.1 billion hit against the company's bottom line already experienced since the Deepwater Horizon incident.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Roadless rule fight ends
The long fight over a far-reaching federal regulation aimed at preserving roadless areas of the national forests ended Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court decided it would not review an appeals court decision upholding it.
The court's decision means that the rule can go into effect more than ten years after it was finalized by the Clinton administration.
"The Roadless Rule is now indisputably the law of the land," Jamie Williams, the president of the Wilderness Society, said in a statement.
Getting to that point required battles in two federal courts of appeal and the hostility of the George W. Bush administration, which declined to defend it in one appeals court, tried to replace it with a rule that would establish protections on the basis of state preferences, and exempted the nation's largest temperate forest - Alaska's Tongass National Forest - entirely from the rule.
The Bush administration also managed to secure exemptions from the rule for Idaho and Colorado.
Roadless areas are considered to be biologically important because they allow for the preservation of cold-water fish habitat and the sustained connection between a variety of habitats for native wildlife populations.
Areas of forest not sliced up by roads are also more resistant to wildfire and provide refuge for species impacted by human activities elsewhere and by global climate change.
The Forest Service first initiated efforts to protect them during the 1920s, when it set aside "primitive areas", and by the 1960s federal law recognized their ecological significance when Congress enacted the Wilderness Act.
That landmark law required the Forest Service to protect roadless areas pending Congressional decisions about which of the areas to designate as wilderness, and in the 1970s the agency completed an evaluation of its acreage that qualified.
The Clinton administration imposed a moratorium on additional road-building in the national forest roadless areas in 1999 and then, just before leaving office in Jan. 2011 and after a lengthy process that involved the most extensive public involvement process in U.S. history, finalized the regulation to protect them.
Two federal appeals courts later upheld the validity of the Roadless Rule against attacks from motorized recreation advocates, grazing, mining, and timber interests, and a small number of municipalities, counties, and states.
Critics argued that the regulation intruded on Congress' exclusive authority to designate wilderness areas.
The Roadless Rule affects 58.5 million acres of the 193 million-acre national forest system.
There are more than 380,000 miles of roads, mostly built to support timber extraction activities, in the national forests.
The regulation does not require closure of existing roads, does not prevent off-road vehicle use in the national forests, and does not affect opportunities to conduct mining operations in the national forests. It also does not prevent holders of grazing permits from allowing their livestock to roam on federal government-owned forests.
The Supreme Court's orders denying review came in Colorado Mining Association v. U.S.
Department of Agriculture, No. 11-1384 and Wyoming v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, No. 11-1378.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
House GOP shows signs it wants to attack Endangered Species Act again
A House committee hearing in early December may indicate that the Republican-dominated lower chamber of Congress may plan an assault on the Endangered Species Act.
At the hearing, which was held Dec. 6, Natural Resources Committee chairman Doc Hastings, R-Washington, argued that the Endangered Species Act is not effectively working as a tool to recover vulnerable species to a sustainable population size because it allows concerned citizens and organizations too much access to the courts.
“The purpose of the ESA is to recover endangered species – yet this is where the current law is failing – and failing badly," Hastings said. "In my opinion, one of the greatest obstacles to the success of the ESA is the way in which it has become a tool for excessive litigation. Instead of focusing on recovering endangered species, there are groups that use the ESA as a way to bring lawsuits against the government and block job-creating projects.”
The Republican caucus in the House last tried to force through major changes to the ESA while the party had the majority in both chambers between 1995-2007. However, one of the party's leading advocates of weakening the law, Richard Pombo of California, was defeated in his 2006 reelection bid.
The committee indicated in a press release that the oversight hearing was the first in a planned series aimed at taking a "fair look at the ways in which the ESA is working well and areas where it could be improved and updated."
At the hearing, which was held Dec. 6, Natural Resources Committee chairman Doc Hastings, R-Washington, argued that the Endangered Species Act is not effectively working as a tool to recover vulnerable species to a sustainable population size because it allows concerned citizens and organizations too much access to the courts.
“The purpose of the ESA is to recover endangered species – yet this is where the current law is failing – and failing badly," Hastings said. "In my opinion, one of the greatest obstacles to the success of the ESA is the way in which it has become a tool for excessive litigation. Instead of focusing on recovering endangered species, there are groups that use the ESA as a way to bring lawsuits against the government and block job-creating projects.”
The Republican caucus in the House last tried to force through major changes to the ESA while the party had the majority in both chambers between 1995-2007. However, one of the party's leading advocates of weakening the law, Richard Pombo of California, was defeated in his 2006 reelection bid.
The committee indicated in a press release that the oversight hearing was the first in a planned series aimed at taking a "fair look at the ways in which the ESA is working well and areas where it could be improved and updated."
DC Circuit blocks cross-state air pollution rule
An EPA regulation aimed at limiting emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from power plants in 27 states was blocked Friday by a federal appeals court.
The transport rule, as the regulation is formally known, is the subject of at least three dozen lawsuits filed by electric utilities, other industrial interests, a labor union, and the state of Texas.
The petitioners main argument against the regulation is that it allows them too little time to comply with expensive requirements to come into compliance with pollution limits. They also argue that the cross-state pollution rule unlawfully permits EPA to impose emission limits before the states have had the opportunity to do so.
The latter argument is based on language in the Clean Air Act that seems to limit the use of a federal implementation plan (the acronym for a U.S. government program to limit air pollution with a particular state) to situations where a state has not come up with its own plan or the state's plan is inconsistent with the requirements of the federal air pollution law.
The rule would permit polluters to obtain allowances by purchasing them from competitors, but the opponents of the transport rule have urged the District of Columbia-based appeals court to find that the financial expense necessary to gain such permission to pollute would be too great of a harm to utilities.
Aimed at facilities that produce pollutants that travel in the atmosphere across state lines, the rule would likely force the closure of some older, coal-fired power plants. If implemented, it would force violators to switch to fuels that pollute less, such as natural gas, or install control technology.
“Petitioners have satisfied the standards required for a stay pending court review,” U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit judges Brett Kavanaugh, Thomas Griffith and Janice Rogers Brown said in a terse order.
The court's action does not permanently block implementation of the cross-state emissions rule. Instead, it prevents EPA from enforcing it until the compatibility of the rule with federal statutory law is determined.
Oral arguments on the petitions for review of the rule have not been scheduled, but the order released Friday indicates that the court may hear them by April.
Sulfur dioxide is a pollutant that leads to acid precipitation and harmful soot, while nitrogen oxide is a central component of smog and a large contributor to ground-level ozone.
EPA says that the cross-state pollution rule would help to prevent an estimated 13,000-34,000 premature deaths annually by 2014 and reduce hospital and emergency room visits by 19,000 per year.
Coal incineration for electricity production is the source of 98 percent of sulfur dioxide air pollution and 92 percent of nitrogen oxide air pollution released by power plants, according to EPA.
Among states, Texas is the largest consumer of electricity and most of that electricity is produced by burning coal. The state's per capital electricity use is also significantly higher than the national average.
Even if the challengers to the cross-state pollution rule prevail, and EPA is forced to re-draft the rule, power plant operators will likely face the necessity of investing in additional or improved pollution control technology due to a recently-finalized rule limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants.
That regulation was finalized in December and will go into effect in 2015.
Brown, Griffith, and Kavanagh were appointed to the Washington, D.C.-based appeals court, which is often assigned by statute to hear challenges to the legality of federal regulations, by former President (and Texas governor) George W. Bush.
The case is EME Homer City Generation LP v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 11-1302.
The transport rule, as the regulation is formally known, is the subject of at least three dozen lawsuits filed by electric utilities, other industrial interests, a labor union, and the state of Texas.
The petitioners main argument against the regulation is that it allows them too little time to comply with expensive requirements to come into compliance with pollution limits. They also argue that the cross-state pollution rule unlawfully permits EPA to impose emission limits before the states have had the opportunity to do so.
The latter argument is based on language in the Clean Air Act that seems to limit the use of a federal implementation plan (the acronym for a U.S. government program to limit air pollution with a particular state) to situations where a state has not come up with its own plan or the state's plan is inconsistent with the requirements of the federal air pollution law.
The rule would permit polluters to obtain allowances by purchasing them from competitors, but the opponents of the transport rule have urged the District of Columbia-based appeals court to find that the financial expense necessary to gain such permission to pollute would be too great of a harm to utilities.
Aimed at facilities that produce pollutants that travel in the atmosphere across state lines, the rule would likely force the closure of some older, coal-fired power plants. If implemented, it would force violators to switch to fuels that pollute less, such as natural gas, or install control technology.
“Petitioners have satisfied the standards required for a stay pending court review,” U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit judges Brett Kavanaugh, Thomas Griffith and Janice Rogers Brown said in a terse order.
The court's action does not permanently block implementation of the cross-state emissions rule. Instead, it prevents EPA from enforcing it until the compatibility of the rule with federal statutory law is determined.
Oral arguments on the petitions for review of the rule have not been scheduled, but the order released Friday indicates that the court may hear them by April.
Sulfur dioxide is a pollutant that leads to acid precipitation and harmful soot, while nitrogen oxide is a central component of smog and a large contributor to ground-level ozone.
EPA says that the cross-state pollution rule would help to prevent an estimated 13,000-34,000 premature deaths annually by 2014 and reduce hospital and emergency room visits by 19,000 per year.
Coal incineration for electricity production is the source of 98 percent of sulfur dioxide air pollution and 92 percent of nitrogen oxide air pollution released by power plants, according to EPA.
Among states, Texas is the largest consumer of electricity and most of that electricity is produced by burning coal. The state's per capital electricity use is also significantly higher than the national average.
Even if the challengers to the cross-state pollution rule prevail, and EPA is forced to re-draft the rule, power plant operators will likely face the necessity of investing in additional or improved pollution control technology due to a recently-finalized rule limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants.
That regulation was finalized in December and will go into effect in 2015.
Brown, Griffith, and Kavanagh were appointed to the Washington, D.C.-based appeals court, which is often assigned by statute to hear challenges to the legality of federal regulations, by former President (and Texas governor) George W. Bush.
The case is EME Homer City Generation LP v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 11-1302.
Federal judge blocks California greenhouse gas regulations
A federal judge in Fresno ruled Thursday that a California regulation aimed at forcing producers of gasoline and diesel fuel to lower the carbon dioxide pollution in those fuels over the next decade violates the U.S. Constitution.
Judge Lawrence O'Neill of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California held that the Low Carbon Fuel Standard violates the commerce clause, which forbids states from discriminating against economic actors outside their borders or placing an excessive burden on entities engaged in interstate economic activity.
The regulation "discriminates against out-of-state corn-derived ethanol while favoring in-state corn ethanol and impermissibly regulates extraterritorial conduct," O'Neill wrote in granting a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the California Air Resources Board regulation.
O'Neill's opinion also indicated, but did not hold, that the regulation may be preempted by federal law.
This element of O'Neill's analysis has the potential to the most far-reaching. If adopted as part of a ruling on the merits by an appeals court, it would likely severely constrain the ability of California and other states to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.
The particular federal laws O'Neill cited as occupying the legal field of regulating fuels are the Clean Air Act and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2006.
Proponents of the regulation obtained permission to appeal the ruling immediately.
Judge Lawrence O'Neill of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California held that the Low Carbon Fuel Standard violates the commerce clause, which forbids states from discriminating against economic actors outside their borders or placing an excessive burden on entities engaged in interstate economic activity.
The regulation "discriminates against out-of-state corn-derived ethanol while favoring in-state corn ethanol and impermissibly regulates extraterritorial conduct," O'Neill wrote in granting a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the California Air Resources Board regulation.
O'Neill's opinion also indicated, but did not hold, that the regulation may be preempted by federal law.
This element of O'Neill's analysis has the potential to the most far-reaching. If adopted as part of a ruling on the merits by an appeals court, it would likely severely constrain the ability of California and other states to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.
The particular federal laws O'Neill cited as occupying the legal field of regulating fuels are the Clean Air Act and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2006.
Proponents of the regulation obtained permission to appeal the ruling immediately.
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