Reprinted in full from Harris News:
State’s regulatory approach on CO2 still evolving
By Chris Green
TOPEKA — The state’s approach to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions remains a work in progress following last year’s unprecedented decision to deny air-quality permits for two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas.
A year after the ruling by the state’s top environmental regulator, the state still lacks written guidelines that require firms to report their CO2 emissions or establish what levels of the greenhouse gas could be considered harmful.
However, three groups within state government have commenced studies of energy and environmental issues, including two that are specifically looking for ways to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming.
In addition, the Kansas Department of Health and Environmental has started asking some companies to voluntary report their CO2 emissions, even as it awaits further guidance from the federal government on carbon emission regulations.
In nixing permits for the proposed Holcomb expansion project by Sunflower Electric Power Corp. and its partners last year, Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby cited the estimated 11 millions tons of carbon dioxide that the Hays-based utility’s plants would emit each year.
Scientists have linked the greenhouse gas to global warming and Bremby said he couldn’t ignore growing data about the dangers it presented. He also promised his ruling would be the first step in an emerging effort to address carbon emissions.
There are no state or federal regulations regarding carbon dioxide and so far, Sunflower has been the only applicant to see its permit request denied by KDHE because of the amount of CO2 being emitted by its proposal.
One company, Topeka-based Westar Energy, has received air-quality operating and construction permits for its coal-fired Jeffrey Energy Center near St. Marys after entering into an agreement with KDHE earlier this year to voluntarily measure and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the operating permits for 13 other coal-fired generators up-and-running in the state — including the existing Holcomb plant — remain under the agency’s review, according to information provided by KDHE spokeswoman Maggie Thompson.
Supporters of the project, including the Legislature’s top Republican leaders, have seized on the uniqueness of the Sunflower ruling to argue that the cooperative utility’s permits have been unfairly denied.
The company is presently challenging Bremby in an administrative appeal that could ultimately wind up before the Kansas Supreme Court sometime next year.
Earl Watkins, Sunflower president and chief executive officer, said that because his company met all existing laws and rules, it has a right to the permits for the plants.
Bremby’s decision to deny permission for the plants’ construction has created uncertainty not just for Sunflower but other companies that might want to locate their significant projects in Kansas, Watkins said.
“You’re going to go someplace else where you understand there’s regulatory certainty,” Watkins said. “I think it’s impossible to measure the damage to the state of Kansas as result of this, because how do you measure that someone did not come that was planning on it?”
Ongoing studies
But Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and KDHE officials have denied accusations that the ruling has created uncertainty in the state and cite the issuance of 574 permits by the agency since last October as evidence of that.
Bremby has also said he based his decision in part on a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case that deemed CO2 a pollutant. He also cited a state attorney general’s opinion giving him broad authority to protect the environment and human health, even in the absence of state or federal regulations.
Environmentalists have hailed Bremby’s decision as a landmark ruling, saying it was the first time that a regulator has cited global warming as a reason for blocking a coal plant.
Bruce Nilles, national coal campaign director for the Sierra Club, said the “watershed” ruling has paved the way for other states to recognize the need to limit CO2 emissions.
He notes that an top energy adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told Bloomberg, a business news service, last week that Obama would classify CO2 as a “dangerous pollutant,” should he be elected president.
Nilles said that possibility would be a natural extension of Bremby’s decision in Kansas.
“We’ve seen it become a national issue in a way that it really wasn’t before and Kansas really helped make that important,” Nilles said of the need to limit carbon emissions.
But Tom Gross, air monitoring and planning chief at KDHE, said the agency is still waiting for guidance from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has been looking at how to catalog and regulate greenhouse gases since last year’s Supreme Court decision.
While the state hasn’t moved forward with trying to limit the carbon emissions of other projects on its own, it has started to research the footprint of companies operating in the state.
Thompson said the agency has also mailed out a survey to various firms, offering them an opportunity to voluntary report their CO2 emissions. After the request, KDHE received 125 responses, including 22 from firms that had not even been mailed a survey. She said that 55 recipients did not respond.
Bremby specifically cited the importance of the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, which Sebelius created earlier this year through an executive order.
That panel, which Bremby is an ex-officio member of, is presently working with a Pennsylvania consultant, the Center for Climate Strategies, to develop a climate action plan for Kansas. The group’s initial report is due to come out in January.
The Kansas Energy Council is also studying smaller scale ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including a controversial proposal to lower the state’s maximum speed-limit on highways from 65 mph to 55 mph.
Legislative leaders have also created a special committee of their own to study energy and environmental policy.
Bremby said such discussions would be critical for the state to both address global warming and develop a sound energy policy for the future of Kansas.
“I am convinced that working together through these comprehensive process, which include the critical element of public input, we as a state can create policies that serve us well now and into the future.”
It’s baaaaaccccck…. Kinda. Meaning, the (sigh) coal plants.
October 20, 2008
One year after KDHE Secretary Bremby denied the air quality permit for Sunflower Electric’s proposal to build a 1,400 megawatt coal plant that would have emitted more than eleven million tons of the pollutant, fossil fuel carbon dioxide, into the Kansas air, it’s deja vu all over again.
Maybe. Kind of. As we all know, a lot - a lot - has changed in a year. The whole world has changed.
Will those changes affect the coal plant proposal?
Check out these two stories from Chris Green of Harris News. And you decide.
TOPEKA — A year after the state’s top environmental regulator nixed the construction of two coal plants over global warming concerns, the future of that project remains up in the air.
But Sunflower Electric Power Corp. and its partners don’t fear that time is running out on the project as they pursue a legal challenge that could leave the fate of their Holcomb expansion in the hands of the Kansas Supreme Court sometime next year.
The Hays-based utility could also seek help again next year from the Legislature, despite failing to win enough support this past spring to override Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ vetoes of legislation allowing the plants.
Earl Watkins, president and chief executive officer, said Sunflower still believes the project represents the best deal for its customers and has no absolute deadline by which it must win state regulatory approval.
“We always have hope,” Watkins said. “We’re not going to give up. We’re not going to quit on this project until our board of directors tells us that we have to.”
The largest investor in the plants, which would sent 85 percent of their power out of state, also remains on board. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association of Colorado plans to purchase power from one of the project’s two 700-megawatt generators, should they be built.
Tri-State spokesman Lee Boughey said that although the cooperative is also examining building a new electric generation plant in western Colorado, it remains committed to Holcomb, too.
“We do not have a deadline of any kind we’ll continue to work through the appeals process and see where that takes us,” Boughey said.
But critics see a much shakier climate for coal-fired generators since Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby denied air-quality permits for Sunflower’s plants on Oct. 18, 2007.
Scott Allegrucci, treasurer of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, which opposed Sunflower’s project, said that while the plants could still be built, they’ll likely face a number of growing legion of problems.
He said that the $3.6 billion cost estimate for the Holcomb’s two 700-megawatt generators is about two years old, at a time when construction projects have faced drastically higher costs for fuel and construction materials such as steel and oil.
He noted that a Nevada utility recently concluded that the cost of building its 1,500-megawatt coal plant has grown from $3.8 billion to $5 billion over the past two years.
In addition, he also said that several major banks had deemed new coal-fired plants a risky investment, months in advance of a financial crisis that has put a squeeze on the amount of credit being extended.
There’s also the prospect of the federal government implementing a tax or limits on carbon emissions, which could also affect the cost of power coming from coal plants.
As a result, Allegrucci said it’s particularly surprising that Sunflower and its backers aren’t reevaluating whether building the coal plants still makes sense.
“I think in some ways, the thing that’s most stunning about this is that those supporters of the project are ramping up to do this all over again as if nothing’s changed,” Allegrucci said.
At a crossroads?
But Watkins expressed confidence in the project’s financing, noting that the banks loaning money to Sunflower haven’t been hurt by the same financial missteps casting a pall over Wall Street.
In addition, Watkins said falling commodity prices fueled by the economic downturn has made it more difficult to project whether Sunflower’s $3.6 billion cost estimate will prove high, low or on the money.
The company won’t know the costs for sure until it’s able to secure a permit and move forward with construction, he said. In addition, other forms of newly constructed power generation, such as wind power, would also become more expensive because of rising costs and coal power would remain far cheaper per kilowatt hour of electricity being produced.
He also said that concerns about the rising cost of coal were unfounded because the company would be importing its fuel from Wyoming, rather than far more expensive coal coming from mines in the eastern U.S.
Watkins also said that he doesn’t think carbon regulation at the federal level would affect Sunflower plants, which he said would be among the nation’s cleanest and most efficient coal plants.
He said the carbon tax would have to be set at an enormously high rate, one that would destroy the nation’s economy, to make coal a more expensive fuel than a fuel such as natural gas.
In addition, Watkins said he believes there’s a growing recognition among Kansans, hit hard by rising gasoline prices this year, of the need to support policies that ensure a reliable, affordable energy supply.
“The American public has awakened to the significance of that, and the Kansas public in particular,” Watkins said.
Yet Bruce Nilles, national coal campaign director for the Sierra Club, detects a growing sense among the American public that times to move beyond fossil fuels, which threaten to grow more expensive as worldwide demand rises.
He said that instead of building new coal plants, state lawmakers could focus their attention of further developing wind energy production. The amount of wind power being produced in the state is slated to grow this year from 364 megawatts to slightly more than 1,000 megawatts.
While critics of wind power tend to see it as too intermittent to be a viable alternative to coal, nuclear or gas plants, renewable energy backers tout its potential to grow from providing about 1 percent of the nation’s power to providing 20 percent over the next few decades.
“Kansas is really sort of at the crossroads,” Nilles said. “The question is are the Republican leaders in the Legislature going to continue to push coal … or are they going to step back and see what is truly in the best interest of Kansas.”
(Another monumental historical turning point, for the state of Kansas and thus the nation. GREAT. Because we needed another one of those.)
Plants expected to re-emerge as legislative issue
TOPEKA — The Legislature’s top two sitting Republican leaders say they want to resurrect efforts to clear the way for two coal plants in southwest Kansas during the next session.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who successfully vetoed legislation allowing the plants this past spring, said the governor would be disappointed to see the issue consume more of lawmakers’ time during the 2009 session, which begins in January.
“Last session, legislative leaders hijacked what could have been a very production session — to the point that they sacrificed legitimate economic development initiatives,” Sebelius spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran said in an e-mail. “To go through all of that again, instead of addressing the needs of Kansans, is inexcusable.”
But Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, and House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, said a state regulator’s ruling that blocked the plants a year ago over global warming concerns is too flawed to let stand.
Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby said he couldn’t ignore growing scientific evidence about the harm that would be done by 11 millions tons of carbon dioxide being emitted by the plants each year. Scientists have largely concluded that manmade CO2 is causing climate change.
Bremby relied on a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court deeming CO2 a pollutant and an state attorney general’s opinion giving him broad authority to protect the environment and human health.
Supporters of Sunflower Electric Power Corp., the Hays-based utility partnering with out-of-state power providers on the project, counter that Bremby overstepped his authority because CO2 isn’t presently regulated at the state or federal levels.
Neufeld said he believes that Bremby’s decision to nix the plants over global warming concerns threatens the health of an increasingly vulnerable Kansas economy.
“It is clear and it gets clearer the more I go out and visit with people around the state how important it is to get this issue resolved of regulatory uncertainty,” Neufeld said during a recent interview in his Statehouse office. “I mean that clearly, it is just a major impediment of any new development of any consequence in Kansas.”
Morris said he believes that the proposal from Sunflower Electric Power Corp. to add new coal plants to its existing Holcomb generator is vital to energy security for both western Kansas and the state as a whole.
Since lawmakers don’t know when Sunflower’s legal challenge of the decision might make it before the Kansas Supreme Court, Morris said the ball will likely be back in the Legislature’s court come January.
“We will address it some way but it’s yet to be addressed as far as the strategy we develop,” Morris said. “There’s a lot of interest around the state in trying to solve this. I would certainly like to develop a comprehensive energy policy for the state.”
Practical project?
The extent to which the issue comes up next year could depend on the outcomes of legislative races across the state in the Nov. 4 general election.
Lawmakers failed to override Sebelius’ vetoes of bills allowing the plants by just a handful of votes and the election could alter that balance.
In addition, both Morris and Neufeld, who face no Democratic opposition next month, must also win re-election to their leadership positions later this year. Neufeld faces a likely challenge from Rep. Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, who also supported paving the way for the coal plants.
Earl Watkins, the president and chief executive officer of Sunflower Electric, said that he would expect the climate to more favorable to concerns about Bremby’s ruling, even if there isn’t much of a change in the Legislature’s composition.
“I think even if we had back exactly the same numbers, the public perception of the issue, I believe, is much more advanced,” Watkins said. “They’re much more aware about how the regulatory uncertainty and the unfairness of this ruling is directly impacting their lives from an energy perspective.”
But Corcoran notes that since Bremby made his decision, things have been going well in Kansas. The state will nearly triple its production of wind power by the end of this year and is seeing multiple transmission lines projects in development for the first time in 30 years, she said.
“Since last October, we’ve added thousands of new jobs, recruited and retained new businesses, and issued 574 permits through KDHE, indicating that the Kansas economy is moving forward and our regulatory system is sound,” she said.
Watkins said some of the 200 megawatts of power Sunflower would control from the twin, 700-megawatt generators is needed immediately to help the utility serve its customers and take costlier natural gas plants offline .
But Corcoran cites numbers compiled by the Kansas Energy Council that shows Sunflower doesn’t need extra power in their service area until 2019.
“So, until there are clear guidelines from the federal government and new president, constructing a coal plant beyond what our state needs is not very practical,” Corcoran said.
But Neufeld said that if Bremby ruling stays intact, it will continue to cause uncertainly about the state’s rules and regulations and scare away businesses that might otherwise relocate to the state.
“There’s almost no plant that produces anything or any product of any kind that is safe from this ruling,” Neufeld said. “So people are reluctant to put the new money into things.”
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Obama would classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant
October 16, 2008
Ganked from Climateer, this Bloomberg article (reprinted pretty much in full):
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.
The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so.
If elected, Obama would be the first president to group emissions blamed for global warming into a category of pollutants that includes lead and carbon monoxide. Obama’s rival in the presidential race, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, has not said how he would treat CO2 under the act.
Obama “would initiate those rulemakings,” Grumet said in an Oct. 6 interview in Boston. “He’s not going to insert political judgments to interrupt the recommendations of the scientific efforts.”
Placing heat-trapping pollutants in the same category as ozone may lead to caps on power-plant emissions and force utilities to use the most expensive systems to curb pollution. The move may halt construction plans on as many as half of the 130 proposed new U.S. coal plants.
The president may take action on new rules immediately upon taking office, said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club. Environment groups including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council will issue a regulatory agenda for the next president that calls for limits on CO2 from industry.
`Hit Ground Running’
“This is what they should do to hit the ground running,” Bookbinder said in an Oct. 10 telephone interview.
Separately, Congress is debating legislation to create an emissions market to address global warming, a solution endorsed by both candidates and utilities such as American Electric Power Co., the biggest U.S. producer of electricity from coal. Congress failed to pass a global-warming bill in June and how long it may take lawmakers to agree on a plan isn’t known.
“We need federal legislation to deal with greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Vicki Arroyo, general counsel for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia. “In the meantime, there is this vacuum. People are eager to get started on this.”
An Obama victory would help clear the deadlock in talks on an international agreement to slow global warming, Rajendra Pachauri, head of a United Nation panel of climate-change scientists, said today in Berlin. Negotiators from almost 200 countries will meet in December in Poznan, Poland, to discuss ways to limit CO2.
`Back in the Game’
“The U.S. has to move quickly domestically so we can get back in the game internationally,” Grumet said. “We cannot have a meaningful impact in the international discussion until we develop a meaningful domestic consensus. So he’ll move quickly.”
Burning coal to generate electricity produces more than a third of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and half the U.S. power supply, according to the Energy Department. Every hour, fossil-fuel combustion generates 3.5 million tons of emissions worldwide, helping create a warming effect that “already threatens our climate,” the Paris-based International Energy Agency said.
The EPA under Bush fought the notion that the Clean Air Act applies to CO2 all the way to the Supreme Court. The law has been used successfully to regulate six pollutants, including sulfur dioxide and ozone. Regulation under the act “could result in an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority,” EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said in July. The law “is the wrong tool for the job.”
Proponents of regulation are hoping for better results under a new president. Obama adviser Grumet, executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, said if Congress hasn’t acted in 18 months, about the time it would take to draft rules, the president should.
EPA Authority
“The EPA is obligated to move forward in the absence of Congressional action,” Grumet said. “If there’s no action by Congress in those 18 months, I think any responsible president would want to have the regulatory approach.”
States where coal-fired plants may be affected include Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia and Florida.
The alternative, a national cap-and-trade program created by Congress, offers industry more options, said Bruce Braine, a vice president at Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric. The world’s largest cap-and-trade plan for greenhouse gases opened in Europe in 2005.
Under a cap-and-trade program, polluters may keep less- efficient plants running if they offset those emissions with investments in projects that lower pollution, such as wind-energy turbines or systems that destroy methane gas from landfills.
McCain `Not a Fan’
“Those options may still allow me to build new efficient power plants that might not meet a higher standard,” Braine said in an Oct. 9 interview. “That might be a more cost-effective way to approach it.”
McCain hasn’t said how he would approach CO2 regulation under the Clean Air Act. McCain adviser and former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey said Oct. 6 that new rules may conflict with Congressional efforts. Policy adviser Rebecca Jensen Tallent said in August that McCain prefers a bill debated by Congress rather than regulations “established through one agency where one secretary is getting to make a lot of decisions.”
“He is not as big of a fan of standards-based approaches,” Arroyo said. “The Supreme Court thinks it’s clear that there is greenhouse-gas authority under the Clean Air Act. To take that off the table probably wouldn’t be very wise.”
More Efficient Technologies
How new regulations would affect the proposed U.S. coal plants depends on how they are written, said Bill Fang, climate issue director for the Edison Electric Institute, a Washington-based lobbying group for utilities. About half of the proposed plants plan to use technologies that are 20 percent more efficient than conventional coal burners.
“Several states have denied the applicability of the Clean Air Act to coal permits,” Fang said in an Oct. 10 interview.
In June, a court in Georgia stopped construction of the 1,200- megawatt Longleaf power plant, a $2 billion project, because developer Dynegy Inc. failed to consider cleaner technology.
An appeals board within the EPA is considering a challenge from the Sierra Club to Deseret Power Electric Cooperative’s air permit for its 110-megawatt Bonanza coal plant in Utah on grounds that it failed to require controls on CO2. One megawatt is enough to power about 800 typical U.S. homes.
“Industry has woken up to the fact that a new progressive administration could move quickly to make the United States a leader rather than a laggard,” said Bruce Nilles, director of the group’s national coal campaign.
Live Blogging - Notes from the Kansas Energy Council, presentation by Yale environmental economist on cap and trade
September 4, 2008
On Wednesday the Kansas Energy Council sponsored a presentation on cap and trade by Dr. Robert Repetto. Repetto is an environmental economist recently retired from Yale University, who currently works for the UN Foundation. He holds degrees from Harvard University and the London School of Economics.
In his coverage of the event, reporter David Klepper for the KC Star captured the presentation’s main message: “Addressing the carbon emissions blamed for climate change won’t be easy, but there’s no reason it should cripple the economy.” Quotable:
(Repetto) told the Kansas Energy Council that cooperation, political courage and a good grasp of economics will be essential if the state and nation are to enact measures to reduce carbon emissions. But he said such measures could actually benefit the economy by spurring innovation while reducing the risks of climate havoc. And he said the costs passed on to consumers and businesses are likely to be smaller than if the nation does nothing at all….
… He offered this ray of hope: Society has wrestled with big changes in energy before. And some companies and governments will actually find themselves better off.
But the cost of doing nothing? “Just having a policy of waiting and hoping, I don’t think is adequate to the challenge,” he said.
**************************
For additional detail on the presentation, see below, and keep reading (and reading. and reading). For the Cliff’s Notes, just read the next bit:
The big takeaway messages:
1 - To prepare for a federal cap and trade system, Kansas needs to reduce its vulnerabilities (ie, the amount of electricity we generate from coal) and maximize its assets (energy efficiency potential, renewable energy resources, and soil carbon sequestration thru agriculture - also methane capture, biomass, etc.)
2 - Energy transitions have happened many times in the past 100 years - from water power to steam power, from steam to electric, etc. There was always disruption, and there will always be winners and losers. However, in the transition to a clean energy economy, Kansas can be a winner. We are situated much better than many states, if we just plan ahead.
3 - Even with assuming the worst case scenarios, economic models of the financial impacts of cap and trade show that the U.S. economy will still grow at least .5% per year over the next 20 years. In the best case, cap and trade will help the U.S. economy grow faster, due to stimulating new technology development. Carbon regulation can be designed to not have negative economic impacts.
4 - Don’t forget what lies beyond cap and trade (or even before. or around it, for that matter). Not every emissions reduction strategy fits under the cap and trade scheme. There are many other ways to reduce emissions - even improving transmission infrastructure is one example.
BACKGROUND: Dr. Repetto began with a quick re-cap of why cap and trade is even on the table. Cap and trade is one scheme of carbon regulation (a carbon tax is another option). Carbon regulation is an issue because of climate concerns, and the desire to manage and prevent the risks associated with climate change.
The U.S. is considering carbon regulation in part because we (and 191 other countries) have signed the United Nations framework treaty on climate change. This says that by 2012, these nations will come up with a treaty to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon regulation (of whatever version) has to walk a crucial line: (1) the economy must keep growing, while (2) emissions must decrease. Major improvements in efficiency must occur, as well as a shift away from dependence on fossil fuels.
Repetto favors market-friendly approaches, where incentives encourage businesses to become more efficient in their operations, to develop new technologies, etc. Studies show that this approach could mean tremendous cost savings, up to 1-2% of GDP per year.
Nebraska wins $2.3 million in USDA 9006/ REAP loans and grants for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects (AP). $35 million was awarded nationally. The 170 successful Nebraska projects included wind turbines, geothermal systems, biomass corn stoves, and the conversion of diesel irrigators to electric.
The Kansas Energy Office has now hired someone to help Kansans fill out REAP and CREBs applications. Contact them for more information.
Good farm economy still at risk (Bloomberg). Originally found this article on Climateer. Quotable:
U.S. agricultural income is the highest in three decades after corn and soybeans rose to records. The risk for farmers is that costs are rising even faster, increasing concern of a profit squeeze.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture report tomorrow may show costs are accelerating as revenue growth slows, similar to a pattern that led to a 1980s farm crisis that was the worst since the Great Depression, said Gary Schnitkey, a University of Illinois farm economist. Corn, wheat and soybean prices are all at least 18 percent below their peaks.
Fertilizer costs doubled from a year ago, while fuel increased 62 percent, USDA data show. Expenses probably will surpass the $279.2 billion that the USDA estimated in February, eroding net income the government pegged at a record $92.3 billion for 2008, farmers and economists said.
“Income peaked this year,” said Kurt Line, who owns or manages more than 6,800 acres of farmland near Momence, Illinois. “We should see a significant drop in 2009. For the number of dollars we will be risking the next two years, profit margins are not going to be robust.”
New study identifies cause of death for bats around wind turbines - air pressure drops (NAWindpower). Quotable:
The study shows that 90% of the bats examined after death showed signs of internal hemorrhaging consistent with barotraumas, while only about half showed evidence of direct contact with the blades.
The study was initiated by power generation company TransAlta Corp. after its wind farm operators noticed bat carcasses below wind turbines and approached Barclay, an internationally recognized bat expert, for advice.
“It was important for us to determine as much as we could about this issue,” says Jason Edworthy, director for stakeholder relations for TransAlta. “Ultimately, it’s a situation we’re working hard to alleviate. Ongoing research with the university is seeing some real results in terms of mitigation of collisions.”
TX regulators slap rate restrictions on proposed coal-fired plant in Arkansas (Reuters). (The project also appears to be having problems with an air permit.) Quotable:
In its final order, signed this week, the Texas Public Utility Commission said Texas customers of AEP’s Southwestern Electric Power Co (SWEPCO) unit will pay no more their share of the $1.52 billion price tag to build the 600-megawatt John W Turk Jr. coal-fired plant in Fulton, Arkansas.
“This cap on the capital cost of the Turk plant limits the financial risk to Texas ratepayers,” the order said.
Texas regulators, who voted last month to approve the plant, also limited the amount of future carbon-mitigation costs than can be passed to Texas ratepayers at $28 per ton through 2030.
Estimated costs for carbon mitigation ranged from $13 to $70 per ton, with the average between $30-$45, the order said.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
News updates: Coal and carbon regulation catch-up
August 19, 2008
League of Women Voters calls for moratorium on new coal plants. Quotable:
“Burning more coal is too big a risk for too many people,” Wilson said. “Coal is the single largest source of global warming pollution in the U.S., with power plants responsible for 33 percent of CO2 emissions. Because of this pollution, we already face increasingly severe heat waves and droughts, intensifying hurricanes and floods, disappearing glaciers and more wildfires. If left unchecked, the effects will be catastrophic to us and our planet,” she said.
“We will be active in opposing the building of these plants,” said Wilson. “Coal-fired electric power plants have a very long lifespan and contribute huge amounts of pollution to the atmosphere. Building these new plants would foreclose the possibility of preventing dangerous global warming.”
“Today, there is no environmentally sound use of coal,” Wilson said. “Many hope that CO2 can be captured and stored underground,” she observed, “but this technology has never been demonstrated on a commercial scale.”
“Instead of coal, we must look to clean energy alternatives,” according to Wilson. “California, which has been a leader in energy conservation and efficiency, has been able to keep per capita energy consumption essentially constant for three decades while enjoying a growing economy,” she noted. “Wind and solar are also ready to make large contributions to economic growth,” she said.
TX environmental groups compromise on coal plant proposal (NAWindpower). Coal plant operators compromised on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury, reductions in water usage, among other environmental concerns. Quotable:
In an effort to reduce emissions, NRG Texas will offset or sequester 50% of the carbon generated by the new unit in a manner that is verifiable, which makes the carbon profile of this coal-fueled plant roughly equivalent to that of a gas-fueled plant. Offsetting efforts could include agricultural and forestry sequestration; retiring older, less efficient generation assets; bringing new wind or solar generation online; and post-combustion carbon capture and sequestration technology at the WA Parish Plant.
The company also will not build another coal-fueled plant in Texas unless the plant uses integrated gasification combined cycle, or ultra-supercritical coal technology, and sequesters or offsets at least 50% of the CO2 emissions of that future plant.
Another coal compromise in Wisconsin (NAWindpower). This one included “environmental initiatives that include reductions in greenhouse gases, investments in additional renewable energy resources and the retirement of older, less-efficient generation” as well as compromises on several political initiatives related to renewable energy.
Westar executive says climate regulation is inevitable and businesses should prepare (KCBizJournal). Lawyer speaking to Kansas Chamber pretty much says exact opposite (Wichita Eagle). You decide. Quotable from the Eagle article:
It was a message many at the session wanted to hear. Melvin Neufeld, the Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives, who spent much of last session fighting for a coal plant in western Kansas, was at the talk and said it agreed with what he had heard last spring. The owners of the coal plant promised to use new technology to mitigate its greenhouse emissions.
“The whole argument that coal would be a terrible thing for an environment was wrong,” Neufeld said.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Thinking about Policy: Climate and Costs
August 5, 2008
The United States is preparing to deal with climate change. Both presidential candidates support some form of cap and trade legislation to regulate carbon dioxide. Many states are also considering ways to cut emissions.
A question on everyone’s mind - how much will this cost?
Luckily for Kansas, benefits will balance some of the costs. Blessed as we are with abundant renewable resources, we are better off than many states. Still, our politicians are sure to hear that dealing with climate change will mean raising taxes. It might.
It also might not.
Right now, all sorts of policy options remain on the table. After the election, they will ideally be sorted through in a transparent and bipartisan manner. Special interests will inevitably try to close off certain options, but hopefully the democratic process will triumph.
As these debates go on, here are some important concerns to keep in mind:
The connections between national defense and climate change. Retired U.S. Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni said it best:
“We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll. There is no way out of this that does not have costs attached to it. That has to hit home.”
After World War II, for example, voters realized that the world was a pretty scary place. To fight communism, they needed to create a national defense. To keep their citizens safe, politicians raised taxes. The result is the military we have today.
Would you vote to cut defense spending? If the answer is no, then why would you vote against fighting climate change?
Cost-shifting. Despite the benefits of a new renewable energy economy, there will still be costs to dealing with climate change. Period.
Ignoring these costs won’t make them go away. It will instead make them someone else’s problem. Basically, that is not fair. Costs will simply shift to other parts of taxpayers’ budgets - probably with a higher mark-up.
An even bigger question - how much will climate change cost in the long-term, if we don’t deal with it now?
A recent study commissioned by the National Conference of State Legislatures made some sobering projections regarding the possible economic impact of climate change. For Kansas, the average temperature is projected to rise 2-6 degrees Celsius over the next thirty years. Eastern Kansas will experience more precipitation and probably more flooding, and western Kansas will likely dry up even more.
Economically, losses could exceed $1 billion. $1 billion. That’s a lot of money to gamble with - and dollars and cents can in no way ever cover all human and environmental costs of climate change.
Are these risks worth the possibility of perhaps raising taxes? Is the issue really all about the money? Really? Is that all that matters?
However one chooses to answer those questions, on a decision this big we should at least start out with all the options on the table.
The issues – the people – deserve no less.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
As many of you know, as part of Massachusetts v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the EPA to come up with rules and regulations on carbon dioxide emissions.
For a variety of reasons, the EPA has not done so. Regulatory uncertainty on CO2 at the federal level is still ongoing. It appears that the rules will not be developed until the next presidential administration.
Which leaves you, the public - with ample time and opportunity to present public comment! Share your views on the issue.
The process couldn’t be easier, actually (considering this is the federal government). Go to this EPA webpage, read the instructions, and you can even submit online or by email.
Great school project! Fun for the family! Fun for anyone with an opinion on the topic! Go for it.
The deadline for comments is 180 days after the publication date of the order. This should make it due around… November 7.
Do it by Halloween, just to make sure.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Federal regulatory uncertainty over carbon continues
July 17, 2008
Just a sampling of the carbon drama - rules? regulations? harmful? not harmful? etc. - at the federal level this past few weeks or so.
Keep in mind, during all this, President Bush just accepted greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets as part of G8 negotiations.
EPA says carbon dioxide emissions harm human health (Rueters). Quotable: “In a 149-page document, the agency’s scientists said that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that potential health risks include more heat waves, floods and droughts, insect outbreaks and and wildfires, along with crop failure and decline in livestock and fisheries productivity.”
The White House had previously refused to open the email that contained that EPA study (NYTimes). “The document, which ended up in e-mail limbo, without official status, was the E.P.A.’s answer to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required it to determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment, the officials said.” What was finally released was supposedly significantly watered down.”
Vice-President Cheney was also involved in heavy censoring of CDC testimony on the health risks of climate change (AP), apparently “fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials maintains.”
The EPA administrator refused to create rules and regs for carbon dioxide, despite a Supreme Court decision mandating this compliance (Reuters and LATimes). Instead, he kicked the issue over to Congress, where a cap and trade bill failed last month. Quotable:
Last year’s Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court ruling had found that greenhouse gases can be regulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act. The decision pressured the EPA to reconsider its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new cars and trucks.
But instead of laying out rules, Johnson solicited public comments for a 120-day period on a nearly 1,000 page draft on the effects of climate change and the ramifications of the Clean Air Act on greenhouse emissions.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Coal, carbon, and politics
July 8, 2008
Decided to bundle all the recent coal and carbon policy news into one post.
Georgia court bans coal plant proposal on basis of carbon dioxide emissions (Reuters). “A Georgia state court on Monday invalidated a permit to build a 1,200-megawatt coal-fired power plant, citing the developers’ failure to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.”
The judge cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that carbon dioxide qualifies as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. KDHE Secretary Rod Bremby cited the same case in his 2007 decision to deny Sunflower Electric’s permit for a 1,400 MW plant.
Wisconsin Power & Light trying to cut deal for coal plant expansion of 300 MW (Energy Legal Blog). “WP&L has offered to retire the oldest coal-fired plant in its fleet, develop an additional 200 MW of wind power above the 300 MW it has already pledged to develop in the next several years, increase the amount of biomass co-firing planned for the new unit, and increase energy efficiency and conservation efforts. WP&L’s estimated cost for these proposed efforts are $500-$550 million.
Coal opponents going after financing (Reuters).
Speaker Neufeld appoints four coal plant supporters to new legislative joint committee on energy and environment (LJWorld). One of the committee’s goals is to develop a statewide energy policy.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Now that wasn’t so bad, now, was it… On one hand, the Warner-Lieberman Climate Security Act didn’t get enough votes in the Senate to make it past a procedural vote to continue debate on the bill. (For CEP coverage of the W-L debate, check here.)
On the other hand, it did get a majority of votes from a legislative body that had been very leery of global warming and carbon regulation before. This made one of the bill’s sponsors, Lieberman, a very happy man (Hartford Courant). Quotable:
“It may be a small step for mankind,” said Lieberman, “but it’s a giant step for the United States Senate.”
CSMonitor analyzed the secret of this success. Quotable:
Last week’s Senate debate also marks the first time a majority of senators – backed by a broad coalition of business, labor, environmental, and religious groups – publicly endorsed a cap on carbon emissions.
“The big change is the sense of inevitability of climate-change legislation,” says Brendan Bell, Washington representative for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a leading nonprofit environmental group. “This is the beginning of the US crafting its climate-change policy, and a lot of the disagreements and the frustrations were based on the mechanisms of the program and not disputes over the science.”
Time, though, wondered whether cap and trade was necessarily inevitable. It noted that Warner-Lieberman “was complicated, even bloated — it would have raised $6.7 trillion over 40 years by auctioning global warming pollution permits, using great gobs of that money to buy off various interest groups.”
Which made some return to the idea of a carbon tax. Some looked at the administrative overhead of the cap and trade system and thought, big government. NYTimes Philip Tierny reconsidered this idea, as put forth by NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen (who will be speaking in Kansas this September at the KCC’s Wind and Renewable Energy Conference - pdf). Quotable:
“(Hansen) is urging a “tax-and-dividend”: a carbon tax whose revenues would all be directly returned to citizens. The money would be divided equally, so that people who use less energy than average — like lower-income people — would get back more than they spend.
“Dr. Hansen and I are not exactly public-policy soulmates, but I’m with him on this one…
“… Refunding money directly removes the temptation for Congress to treat a carbon-reduction revenues as a chance to dispense trillions of dollars worth of favors — as proposed in last week’s bill, which was aptly dubbed “pork-and-trade.”
“Removing the pork potential seems to me an essential first step for environmentalists to win over small-government conservatives to climate-change legislation. Of course, it won’t be easy to get these conservatives to endorse any kind of tax, but some of them are starting to see that a carbon tax is better than the alternative: a spate of 1970s-style programs to promote pet energy projects (like the ethanol subsidies that are now so widely deplored).
Evangelicals splinter over Warner-Lieberman. From the Christian Post. Quotable:
A group of pro-emission cap evangelicals had supported the bill and urged lawmakers to end the filibuster to move it forward.
“This legislation opens a new era of concern about the impact of global warming on this and future generations and we view it with a sharp moral lens,” said the Rev. Jim Ball, spokesperson for the Evangelical Climate Initiative, in a statement released Thursday before the bill was pulled.
The Evangelical Climate Initiative has more than 100 signers and includes prominent pastors such as Rick Warren and Bill Hybels.
“This is no time for political machinations; it’s time for the Senate to act now to protect our most vulnerable neighbors and to create a healthy world for our children and grandchildren,” Ball said.
But other Christians are opposed to the bill because it requires deep cuts in carbon emissions, which they argue would be more detrimental than helpful to humans. Supporters of the “We Get It!” campaign contend that it is not proven that global warming is mainly human-induced and that the Bible teaches Christians to care for their neighbors.
“The number of premature deaths, number of diseases, and the harm to the human economy that can be predicted from the policies used to fight the warming” is more destructive than even if all the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)-predicted global warming-caused disasters came true, Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, founder and national spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, said at the launch of the “We Get It!” campaign in May.
“You try to cap emissions and you kill more people than die if you don’t cap emissions,” Beisner said, referring to those who would die from lack of access to energy, higher food prices, and the halt in their country’s economic development.
“We will have killed people,” he added solemnly. “We care about this issue the same way why we care about abortion. It kills people.”
Energy policy in general is getting gridlocked at the national level (we feel their pain). Two other bills - including a tax on windfall oil company profits - have crashed and burned in the Senate (NYTimes).
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Policy Updates: Climate Security Act (Warner-Lieberman) falls short of making it past procedural vote in Senate
June 6, 2008
Tune in next session! Because we’ll be back. That was the message that supporters of Warner-Lieberman gave this morning, as the legislation failed to get the sixty votes needed to continue on in the Senate.
The measure received 48 votes, but six other senators not present for the vote - McCain, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Kennedy, and one I missed (sorry) - had supportive statements entered into the record, saying that they would have voted yes if they had been there. That would have left supporters only six votes shy.
The debate this past week was a lot like a really interesting first round in a poker game that is going to last until the wee hours.
CEP tracked the various arguments (pro and con) that popped up - Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4. We’ve seen many of them before in the Kansas energy debates, and I am sure we will all see them again as local, state, national, and international debates about lowering greenhouse gas emissions continue.
For Kansans interested in carbon regulation, Yale environmental economist Dr. Robert Repetto will be at the Kansas Electricity Council meeting this next Tuesday, June 10. He will speak on cap and trade, using Warner-Lieberman as an example.
The meeting begins at 9:00 a.m. and he is scheduled to speak at 9:15. The meeting will be held at the Eisenhower State Office Building (KDOT), Auditorium A, 700 SW Harrison, Topeka.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Back again! Lieberman-Warner, the Climate Security Act, . (You can find the text of the bill here, and listen in live here.) CEP took notes on the debate on Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3, and here’s some of the recent media coverage.
Also, Pew Climate has a site that analyzes the bill.
A great deal of the climate and energy debate in the states (such as in Kansas) revolves around the fact that Congress is expected to soon implement carbon regulation. The Warner-Lieberman bill, regardless of whether it is passed, will set the foundation for this regulation.
The debate will go on all day. We won’t listen all day. Plus which, we are mainly just taking notes on the arguments, not live blogging per se. However, feel free to check for updates to this entry as we roughly follow along.
A tension I have noted in the debate so far: Conservative senators from Midwestern states are kind of caught between a rock and a hard place - between agriculture (which is highly climate-sensitive), and energy.
How does this work? As a region, recall that the Midwest gets around 75% of its energy from coal power. Eek. That’s a very high proportion. Of course, coal is a very high-carbon fuel, carbon sequestration technology that can control the emissions at the point of combustion does not yet exist, and so carbon regulation will make the price of coal-fired electricity go up.
That’s the energy side. These congressfolk are worried that carbon regulation could create higher energy prices in the Midwest compared to the rest of the country. Understandable.
However, on the climate side, the Midwestern agricultural economy is already facing very high risks from climate change. As a major USDA study just announced, weeds are growing faster, insect populations are increasing, yields are decreasing, and precipitation and drought cycles are intensifying and becoming more extreme.
That’s not good.
Have any of these senators from these states mentioned this study at all, though? Not that I have heard. They are talking a lot about energy prices, not so much about ag. (Ag lobbyists - where are you? More importantly, farmers, where are you? You can contact your senator through www.congress.org.)
The Midwest has huge incentive to fight climate change, lower carbon dioxide emissions, and thus protect its agricultural base. If we continue to burn coal without carbon dioxide controls, then we continue to change the climate, which will then continue to hurt agriculture.
Whatever hurts agriculture hurts us. What good will it do the region to have cheap electricity if there’s not many people left living here to use it?
Overall, the major argument that opposition to the bill is making - the legislation’s economic impact is not worth the environmental benefits because the carbon dioxide reduction targets are set too low.
While I don’t know this, of course, I can indeed see Warner and Lieberman and Boxer silently screaming in their heads - “But we had to set them low or otherwise you all wouldn’t pass them!”
Well, there can always be a new amendment to raise the targets. And then it would be interesting to see who voted for or against them.
On the ongoing procedural amendment drama, re the amendments: Opposition to the bill is pretty cranky because they want more amendments, but “the amendment tree is filled” by the Democratic Majority Leader and they can’t.
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As noted on other days, I will just offer versions of arguments that we haven’t seen before - or arguments that are getting refined/ tweaked in interesting ways. And if there is a “pro” or “con” missing below then that is probably just because I walked away from my desk and didn’t hear it.
“Can’t we all just get along?”: Pro: We might not all agree about global warming… but surely we can all agree about the need for energy independence. Con: OK, then let’s talk about those amendments and especially the ones on nuclear power.
Renewable energy: Pro: It will create a new economic sector and inspire domestic manufacturing and create new jobs. Con: Yes of course we need more renewables and to give lots and lots and lots of money to research and development. But there is a better way than this legislation.
The Senate has begun debating the Climate Security Act, also known as Warner-Lieberman, also known as Lieberman-Warner. (You can find the text of the bill here, and listen in live here.) CEP took notes on the debate on Day 1 and Day 2.
W-L is the first carbon regulation proposal to make it this far in Congress. It is a system of cap and trade. Carbon regulation is not widely expected to pass until the next presidential administration - all three remaining candidates support some form of it.
A great deal of the climate and energy debate in the states - such as Kansas - revolves around the fact that Congress is expected to soon implement carbon regulation. The Warner-Lieberman bill, regardless of whether it is passed, will set the foundation for this regulation.
Thus, CEP is taking notes. The debate will go on all day and we will fade in and out, but check back for updates to this entry as we roughly follow along.
Some of the major trends we have noticed so far: There is an elephant in the room. Its name is “carbon tax.”
There are basically three main types of models for carbon regulation - command and control, cap and trade, and a carbon tax. Command and control is off the table. Supporters of carbon regulation often agree that a carbon tax is the best way to go, but that there’s no way that any policy initiative with the word “tax” in it has a chance of getting passed. So that left cap and trade.
Opposition of carbon regulation is kind of mixed right now, though. The traditional dogma about cap and trade is that it is hugely bureaucratic with lots of overhead - meaning, big government. So if you are a small government person… well… if there is going to be carbon regulation, maybe a carbon tax doesn’t look so bad after all. The opposition is very torn between trying to say that cap and trade is actually a hidden carbon tax, and then realizing that if they tank cap and trade they might be left with a carbon tax.
Rock and a hard place. That’s one interesting trend. Another is that the opposition is trying to make this about gas prices. Supporters counter that rising gas prices are happening with or without carbon regulation, that that is about peak oil.
Another trend, one that crosses opposition and support - the development of nuclear power.
Yesterday the U.S. Senate began debating the Climate Security Act, also known as Warner-Lieberman, also known as Lieberman-Warner. (You can find the text of the bill here, and listen in live here.)
W-L is the first carbon regulation proposal to make it this far in Congress. It is a system of cap and trade. Carbon regulation is not widely expected to pass until the next presidential administration - all three remaining candidates support some form of it.
If you have time - YOU SHOULD LISTEN.
Today seems to be just a comment period on the bill. They will get to amendments later at some point. The hearings will go on and off for probably at least this week. CEP is just checking in every so often and taking notes and posting them here, just to keep track of the arguments.
Just from yesterday, what we have already noticed:
Do the facts and cites quoted on both sides vary widely? You bet. And if someone doesn’t cite a reliable source I won’t repeat any numbers (although I did yesterday).
Are they debating global warming? No, not really (not even James Inhofe from OK). Mostly this morning, opposition to the bill is trying to turn it into a debate on gas prices. Then the support will come back and fight to frame the issue in their own way, probably this afternoon.
Others are trying to make it a debate on nuclear power.
(FYI, this blog entry will be updated ongoing through the day.)
Live blogging (pretending to) Warner-Lieberman Climate Change Security Act in Senate (aka, “a historic day”)
June 2, 2008
As noted earlier, the Warner-Lieberman Climate Security Act is being debated today in the Senate.
CEP is nonpartisan - you may have noticed that we usually just refer to “supporters” and “opponents” on policy issues, and leave their parties out of it unless the affiliations somehow make a difference to the story. We tend to find that climate and energy issues have the potential to transcend party lines.
However, try applying this approach to covering the U.S. Senate. Their dynamics make partisan politics in Kansas seem like we are all holding hands and singing hymns together.
So, the below is highly abbreviated. In part to avoid the partisan jabs they keep zinging each other with.
This live blogging is just for fun, so CEP can keep notes on different policy arguments. You can listen in live here.
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Mitch McConnell - carbon regulation will cost too much and when gas prices are going up this bill is really bad timing and I need to head out to a meeting now.
Harry Reid - we have to protect the beauties of nature and what McConnell said shocked me - shocked me - because gas prices have gone up 250% since the Republicans came into power but the EIA says that this bill will offset the price increases from this bill and the Republicans are planning to filibuster and we won’t get to vote. Global warming is real and is caused by manmade pollution - drought, changed growing seasons, sea level rise, increased precipitation, increased wildfires - it’s caused in part by burning fossil fuels. We gotta fix it. The one thing we can’t afford is delay. And Warner-Lieberman will restore America’s economic growth.
Jeff Sessions - this is a huge income redistribution scheme and this is a bad time to be taking this up and 30 hours is not enough we can do a lot now but we shouldn’t rush it with this bill and we need to stop buying foreign oil this is a wealth transfer and we need to get our energy at home and I really, really like the Wall St Journal editorial page don’t make fun of it this legislation is not a good idea and it shouldn’t be done in this fashion we must be good stewards over this marvelous earth over which we have dominion and energy is powerful force for good electricity is a great thing good for our families if we didn’t have it we would still be hauling water in buckets from the spring can’t see it in any other light. Many are convinced the world is warming but few would dispute the immensity of the earth and complexity of forces at work in our climate and climate experts have developed complex models to explain and monitor forces that have been warming us but apparently not for last ten years - some think these models are fact, some don’t there is dispute there are some legitimate questions that carbon dioxide -
MH - forget it, he’s getting tangled here, can’t follow. And for partisans, yes, Reid got tangled too, they all do. Regardless of party, these are all politicians. They tangle. Anyway, Sessions is debating global warming and saying that being prudent means NOT taking action right away especially since it will cost money. Supporters of the bill are essentially saying that being prudent means TAKING action right away because it will cost even more not to.
According to the calendar of the U.S. Senate, the Warner-Lieberman Climate Security Act (which proposes a cap and trade system of carbon regulation) will be debated on the Senate floor sometime after 2:00 east coast time today. (You can listen in live on C-SPAN 2.)
Why is this important? Because this is the first time that the chamber has discussed a climate change bill since 2005.
Lots has changed since then - and, well, lots hasn’t. Climate change is even higher on the public radar. So, however, is climate change denial.
This piece of legislation is full of compromises that at least got it out of committee. Neither side is particularly happy with the result. Opposition will be bringing lots of amendments to the floor to weaken the bill, and supporters will be trying to strengthen it. If the bill is too weakened in the process, supporters plan to pull it. It is unclear whether the legislation has enough votes to pass, at any rate.
If that’s true, then what’s the big deal about the debate? The big deal is that the legislation - regardless of flaws - is a big step forward in policy at the national level. The international order is moving ahead on treaties dealing with climate change. Across the nation, most state policies on climate and energy are lightyears ahead of the feds. Under court order, the White House just released its climate plan four years late (AP).
Some of the provisions included in the legislation, according to Grist:
The bill calls for a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions starting in 2012, with electric utilities, refineries, and the industrial and transportation sectors required to cut their emissions 19 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and a 71 percent by 2050. Other provisions of the bill are expected to reduce greenhouse gases from additional emitters 66 percent by 2050.
For the primary industries covered, emissions cuts would be achieved through a cap-and-trade system that would let polluting entities buy and sell the right to emit carbon. About 20 percent of emissions credits would be auctioned initially; the rest would be given out free to emitters and states. The percentage of credits auctioned instead of given away would increase gradually over time. (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both advocated for auctioning 100% of credits from the beginning, a position widely supported by enviros.)
Some new provisions in the bill are intended to help consumers deal with any increases in energy prices. There’s an $800 billion consumer tax relief package and a $911 billion allowance to local electricity and gas utilities to help them cushion consumers from price swings, invest in renewables, and promote efficiency. This would all be paid for by the revenue from auctioning emissions credits, expected to total $3.3 trillion over the life of the bill. Funds from the auction would also go to worker transition programs, block grants to local governments for energy-efficiency programs, international adaptation programs, and deficit reduction.
As NPR also describes the legislation:
The legislation would require factories, power plants, refineries and other heavy industry to pay the government for permits to emit greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide. Companies also could trade permits among themselves and even bank them to use when needed. Economists who’ve analyzed this “cap-and-trade” program say it could generate about $6 trillion by 2050 — most of it from industry coffers.
Some of the objections that are supposed to be raised in the debate today: cost containment, where the money should go (to renewable energy, or to nuclear power development?), how to allocate the credits (auction them all off to polluters, or allocate some/ auction some), and can states have stronger emissions standards than the federal government.
Perhaps the biggest issue of all - is the target for emissions set low enough to actually head off the worst effects of climate change? Scientists widely agree that carbon dioxide levels must be reduced 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 (the target also endorsed by Obama and Clinton).
BTW, if you want to support Warner-Lieberman, click here - and if you don’t, click here.
We will be listening to the debate here at CEP. Actually, Maril is currently driving Eileen nuts with a nervous countdown - “Thirty minutes! 29 minutes! 23 minutes!”
Very exciting.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
News Updates: carbon regulation hits the Senate, grow your own, wind energy in KS, carbon dioxide and oil refineries
May 28, 2008
Warner-Lieberman is coming up for debate in the Senate. If you know what W-L is, you read that and probably went either “yay!” “gulp!” “not this year, my pretty” or “hmm.”
And if you don’t know what it is please allow me to explain - Warner-Lieberman is a piece of climate legislation (that link goes to Reuters/ NYTimes) that promotes a cap-and-trade system of carbon regulation (the last link explains how cap and trade basically works).
Actually, at the Kansas Energy Council’s last Greenhouse Gas Policy Committee meeting, I enjoyed this presentation from Kansas Energy Office staff - an overview of what is in Warner-Lieberman.
Grow more of our own. Growing more foods locally is a good way for a region to cut down on its carbon footprint. It might not be a great option for large parts of Arizona, say. But in certain parts of Kansas, we can definitely make this happen.
In fact, we once did. Wamego was once known as the Sweet Potato Capital of the world. My area of the state, Jefferson County, was famous for its apples and hard cider (before Prohibition).
K-State researcher Rhonda Janke says this success could return (KHI News Service). This isn’t just a nostalgic farm story of better days, though. Kansans could also make money. Quotable:
According to her research, people in the 10-county region in 2006 spent more than $260 million on fruit and vegetables but only 8 percent of that was for locally grown produce. A reasonable goal, she said, would be to double that output, expanding the current 2,114 acres in the region dedicated to fruits and vegetables to 3,794. That would still be less than the 4,222 acres of produce farming done in the valley in 1950 and far below the 33,104 acres in 1910, that Janke believes was probably the peak.
Wind Energy Technology program expands. Cloud County Community College (CCCC) (that acronym could be like 4-H, but it’s not) just got $155,000 from the Department of Commerce for its wind technician curriculum.
CCCC has only one of five such programs nationwide. Kansas alone will need 625 new technicians over the next few years as its wind farms currently under construction come online.
More Kansans putting up wind turbines at homes and farms. This story is from Emporia. Hard to pay them off in a timely fashion, though, without net metering.
Any oil refining geeks out there? There have to be… Up north in the Sioux City Journal (you know, the folks that got the Hyperion oil refinery, regardless of what your thoughts are on the timing of that decision), a reporter asks whether the proposed project really is all that green.
The issue is much the same as we just confronted in Kansas over Sunflower’s proposed coal plants - yes, the refinery will have much upgraded technology compared to other older refineries. However, the scale of the refinery is huge and it will still emit 17 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, and there is no way yet to sequester or capture those emissions. (Either way, fascinating article.)
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
As folks no doubt know, the Kansas legislature reconvenes tomorrow, Wednesday, April 30, at 10:00 a.m.
Kansas citizens are invited to Pack The Capitol, also convening at 10:00 a.m., in order to show support for the Governor’s vetoes of the coal bills, and for clean energy. PBS Frontline will be covering the event for a documentary.
The legislators have a lot to wade through during the wrap-up session - abortion, the budget (which still has to address home services for aging populations), immigration, health care, housing and water conservation.
CEP will be live blogging the wrap-up session, which means we will watch all these issues play out. Our focus, though - like much of the nation - will be on the fate of the coal bills. (For more info, see CEP’s FAQs on the Kansas Coal Controversy).
Both SB 327 and SB 148 have been vetoed by Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. The Kansas Senate has overridden SB 327, and we await an override attempt in the House. SB 148 awaits a veto override attempt by both chambers. The Senate will doubtless get the votes. In both cases, the House is the question mark.
The two bills are essentially the same in the major respects - they would both allow Sunflower Electric’s 1,400 MW coal-fired plan