Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 111

Why Jeb Bush Thinks Climate Change Will Solve Itself

Jeb Bush’s statement on the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, finalized Monday, is probably the closest he has come to admitting that climate change is a problem.

Under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Power Plan directs states to limit carbon emissions from the electricity sector. It is the administration’s strongest action yet to combat climate change.

Prospective voters might reasonably think that admitting there is a problem would encourage a candidate to support solutions, but that’s not the direction Bush chose to go Sunday.

Pointing out that U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases are down to mid-1990s levels, Bush argued that regulation is not going to help. “A chief reason for this success is the energy revolution which was created by American ingenuity — not federal regulations,” he said.

It’s worth taking some time to unpack that statement.

First, Bush says it is a success to decrease emissions. Scientists agree with that. It’s also true that emissions from the energy sector have fallen. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that.

But decreased emissions have been driven by a few key things: efficiency improvements (largely encouraged by policy decisions), improvements in the transportation sector (largely encouraged by policy decisions), and a dramatic shift in electricity generation from coal to natural gas, wind, and solar. Those, too, have been encouraged by policy decisions. All three of these technologies were supported by the Department of Energy. For wind and solar, those technological investments were followed by tax credits.

This is not pointed out to diminish the role of American ingenuity. In the past decades, the solar and wind industries have appeared virtually out of nowhere, largely on the backs of creative business models allowing the new technology to compete with entrenched fossil fuels.

Getting back to into Bush’s statement, let’s look at benchmarks. A decrease to mid-1990s levels — while impressive-sounding — is not going to be enough to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Scientists at the International Panel on Climate Change estimate that the United States needs to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent by 2050. In other words, 1990 levels are not going to cut it.

Does Bush know this? He does, at least, believe climate change is a problem to be solved.

“Climate change will not be solved by grabbing power from states or slowly hollowing out our economy,” Bush said in the statement Sunday. “The real challenge is how do we grow and prosper in order to foster more game-changing innovations and give us the resources we need to solve problems like this one.”

In one statement, Bush has recognized that climate change is a problem to be solved, but side-stepped what it will take.

Still, this is different from how he has talked about the problem in the past. This spring, he said people who accept the science of climate change were “really arrogant.” Of course, a month earlier, he told prospective voters in New Hampshire, “The climate is changing, and I’m concerned about that.”

Bush has backed himself into a corner here. “I don’t think it’s the highest priority. I don’t think we should ignore it, either,” he said at the time. “Just generally I think as conservatives we should embrace innovation, embrace technology, embrace science.”

So, climate change is a problem, but we shouldn’t worry about it. We should do something about it, but we shouldn’t use regulation.

Pollution from the transportation sector has been massively regulated, which is one reason why #killersmog is not trending on Twitter.

“The real challenge is how do we grow and prosper in order to foster more game-changing innovations and give us the resources we need to solve problems like this one,” Bush said.

Obama has an idea. It’s called the Clean Power Plan, and the administration estimates it will lower Americans’ electricity bills and decrease premature deaths caused by fossil fuel energy pollution by 88 percent.

It’s unclear whether voters will find out what Bush’s idea is.

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New TV Ad Tries To Convince Americans That Smog Isn’t A Problem

A powerful organization representing industrial polluters launched a misleading new television ad last week with images of pristine national parks that are, in fact, experiencing dangerous levels of air pollution caused by its own members.

The ad is part of a multi-million dollar campaign by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) against a proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce ozone pollution, which causes breathing problems, aggravates lung diseases, and contributes to premature deaths. The TV ad claims that the proposed regulations are so strict that even America’s “pristine” national parks would fail to comply.

“Our National Parks: vast, untouched, pristine, no industrial activity for miles,” the narrator says in the ad over images of Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks. “But under new ozone rules out of Washington, these national treasures would actually violate clean air laws.”

What the ad doesn’t say is that industrial air pollution in national parks, including these three, is already so bad that air quality frequently fails to meet public health standards. According to the National Park Service, air quality and visibility at the Grand Canyon is declining because the park “lies downwind of polluted air from coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners region, nearby mining, and urban and industrial pollutants from Mexico and California.”

Yosemite National Park’s air quality is regularly so poor that it is unhealthy for park rangers and visitors, according to a new report by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).

In a press release announcing the ad, NAM President and CEO, Jay Timmons, also misleadingly claims that “the new proposed ozone standard is so over the top, even places with no industrial activity for miles around will be considered noncompliant.”

In fact, many national parks are surrounded by industrial activity that contributes to air pollution and other environmental problems. For example, the Alton Coal Mine in Utah is just over 10 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park, and a proposed expansion of the strip mining operations would further threaten the iconic park and contribute to air pollution.

“If you put a coal mine, and you run it 24 hours a day, not only do you have lights and equipment running all that time, but you have particulate matter and other air pollution from blasting and from digging and from wind blowing off your coal pile that all contribute to worsening the views at an iconic national park,” Nathaniel Shoaff, a staff attorney for the Sierra Club, told Utah Public Radio in July.

According to an NPCA analysis of haze and ozone levels in 48 national parks, 36 had “at least ‘moderate’ ozone levels at times, meaning that pollution makes the air unhealthy to breathe for some populations,” and 12 are regularly “blanketed by haze pollution.”

“As Americans flock to our national parks this summer to enjoy the great outdoors, they expect and deserve to find clean, healthy air. Sadly that is not always the case,” Ulla Reeves, manager of NPCA’s Clean Air Campaign said in a press release. “Our parks remain under threat from air pollution, harming visitors’ health, reducing visibility, and driving the impacts of climate change.”

The NPCA report cites pollution sources such as power plants, oil and gas operations, and large industrial processes, among others. It states that although “emissions that are closer to parks usually have the most impact,” because “air pollution can travel thousands of miles, distant sources can play a part as well.”

“For that reason, limiting pollution where we can is critical.”

Despite the misleading claims and wide criticism of past attacks by NAM on federal air quality standards, the proposed ozone rule that is the subject of the ad is expected to improve public health and protect millions of people from the impacts of poor air quality. The rule is expected to be finalized this fall.

Claire Moser is the Research and Advocacy Associate with the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress. You can follow her on Twitter at @Claire_Moser.

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How Obama’s New Clean Power Plan Might Be Just Enough To Stave Off A Climate Catastrophe

The next few years are unprecedented in human history. We know with unusually high scientific certainty that the near-term choices we as a nation and a species make about carbon pollution will determine whether or not we will destroy our livable climate in the coming decades — thereby ruining the lives of billions of people irreversibly for centuries to come.

Humanity’s choice (via the world’s leading scientists and governments): Aggressive climate action ASAP (left figure) minimizes future warming. Continued inaction (right figure) results in catastrophic levels of warming, 9°F over much of U.S.

We have no right to destroy the soil (and other elements of a livable climate) for our children and future generations — a point Thomas Jefferson explained was universally self-evident in a 1789 letter to James Madison.

And so we as a nation have a moral imperative to act. The world’s top scientists and governments could not be clearer on that point. Nor could the Pope be in his recent climate encyclical.

We can and should debate what type of action is necessary to act in a moral fashion in these unprecedented times. But it is no longer a rational or moral option to continue being entranced by the Siren song of “technology, innovation, blah, blah, blah” from conservatives like Jeb Bush and other rejectionists. They imply oppose all strategies that could plausibly achieve the kind of steady and serious ongoing reductions we need — such as pricing carbon pollution or regulating carbon pollution.

The stakes behind the CPP are simply too high, as the leading opponents of action have made all too clear. For instance, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has not merely urged states to ignore the law’s requirement for them to put forward a state implementation plan to meet the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan standards. In one of the most shocking statements ever issued by any U.S. political leader, McConnell actually admitted publicly that his goal is to stop a global deal to avert catastrophic climate change. I’ll return to this key point below.

It was the (primarily) conservative opposition led by McConnell that brought down the 2009 House climate bill in the Senate. That opposition left President Obama and the EPA no choice but to put on the table a plan to enact carbon pollution standards for existing power plants.

Obama’s actual Clean Power Plan is the bare minimum the United States can do and remain a moral nation. Here’s why.

The Law Says So

First, it’s the “bare minimum” because the Supreme Court made clear back in 2007 that the EPA is legally obligated to put in place standards to reduce carbon pollution from mobile sources like cars (which it has done) and then stationary sources like power plants (which is what the Clean Power Plan covers) — once carbon pollution is found to be endangering public health, which it obviously is. After Senate conservatives rejected new legislation that would have reduced carbon pollution from power plants, something like the CPP became legally inevitable.

The Rest of the World Is Acting

Second, the CPP is the bare minimum because it’s part of an overall U.S. carbon reduction target that itself is the bare minimum we can do. The current U.S. climate target announced in advance of the big Paris climate talks this fall is a 26 to 28 percent reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2025 compared to 2005 levels. That is “equivalent to 14–17% below 1990 levels of GHG emissions.” We can compare that target to the one from the European Union, which is “at least 40% domestic greenhouse gas emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2030.”

“The US climate plans are at the least ambitious end of what would be a fair contribution,” as the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) puts it. “The reduction target could therefore be strengthened to reflect the United States’ high capability and responsibility.” The CAT is “independent scientific analysis produced by four research organisations tracking climate action and global efforts towards the globally agreed aim of holding warming below 2°C, since 2009.”

The U.S. should be doing at least as much as the European Union if not more, as this chart of cumulative carbon pollution from 1850 to 2011 makes clear.

[image error]

It is cumulative carbon dioxide emissions that determine a country’s total contribution to the climate crisis. Since the EU is more than two dozen countries, this chart makes clear that the United States is the biggest historical contributor to current atmospheric CO2 levels of any country by far. Again, U.S. inaction is immoral.

At the end of his encyclical, the Pope called on God to “Enlighten those who possess power and money that they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live. The poor and the earth are crying out.” So not only do we bear the most responsibility for the current problem, we are the country with the most power and money to do something about it — power and money we achieved to a great extent by fossil fuels.

The Alternative Is Catastrophic

Third, the Clean Power Plan is the bare minimum we can morally do because it’s part of an overall U.S. carbon reduction target that itself is not adequate to avoid the 2°C (3.6°F) total that the world’s leading scientists and governments have repeatedly agreed is the absolute limit the world can risk. That temperature target in turn requires rich countries such as the United States to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 25 percent in 2020 versus 1990 levels — a cut that even our 2025 target doesn’t achieve — and ultimately cut CO2 emissions by more than 80 percent in 2050 versus 1990 levels. Even with the CPP, we are nowhere near that target.

Moreover, a truly rational and moral species would stay as far below 2°C as is technically possible. If that point wasn’t obvious before the last year, it is painfully obvious now. As we reported in May, the parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (aka the world’s leading nations) set up a “structured expert dialogue” from 2013 to 2015 to review the adequacy of the 2°C target. The 70 top climate experts reviewed the IPCC Fifth Assessment report — together with all the science in the past two to three years that the IPCC didn’t make use of. Their bottom line:

“The 2°C limit should be seen as a defence line … that needs to be stringently defended, while less warming would be preferable.

Why? Because “Significant climate impacts are already occurring at the current level of global warming” (which is about 0.85°C) and so additional “warming will only increase the risk of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts. Therefore, the ‘guardrail’ concept, which implies a warming limit that guarantees full protection from dangerous anthropogenic interference, no longer works.“

And it always bears repeating that inaction is doubly immoral because every major country has the knowledge that action is so damn cheap — especially compared to inaction — because that’s what all the independent economic analyses and all of our real world experience cutting emissions demonstrate.

Is The EPA’s Clean Power Plan Adequate?

Given the science discussed above, readers may wonder how the CPP is even the “bare minimum” we can do. The answer to that is simple.

The 2025 target that Obama has pledged — and which the CPP enables — was sufficient to get China to make its three game=changing commitments last year: 1) to peak CO2 emissions in 2030, 2) to peak in coal use in 2020, and 3) to double its carbon-free power capacity between 2015 to 2030, essentially building an entire new U.S. electrical, but one with no carbon emissions.

That U.S.-China deal broke the long-standing logjam in international climate negotiations between developed and developing nations — and it resulted in a flood of commitments from other countries, which has created the genuine possibility of a breakthrough climate deal in Paris.

You can’t judge our CO2 commitment or any country’s commitment on whether it is sufficient to keep the world below 2°C — because none of them are. As I explained in February and again in July, that’s because 2°C will require deeper and deeper commitments for 2040 and 2050 and beyond until total global emissions hit zero and then beyond that until they go negative. No major country is prepared to take on such long-term obligations, especially given the last quarter-century of relative inaction by so many major countries — especially ours.

Again, Paris is focused on stanching the bleeding with a tourniquet. The goal has always been to get firm global commitments from the big emitters to meet serious targets in the 2025-2030 timeframe so we can get off our current emissions pathway — a pathway that would blow past 4°C (7°F) warming, ruin a livable climate for centuries and make feeding 9 billion people post-2050 an unimaginably difficult task.

The significance of the Clean Power Plan in enabling a climate deal is clear from the fact that the fossil-fuel-funded opponents of action, led by Sen. McConnell, have desperately been trying to kill a Paris deal by persuading the rest of the world that America won’t meet its obligations.

But the truth is that we can and will meet those obligations — and I am certain in fact this nation will surpass them. Why? As morally and scientifically urgent as the EPA’s Clean Power Plan is now, that urgency is going to grow exponentially over the next few years, as global temperatures and extreme weather soar, as the dire nature of our situation becomes painfully obvious to more and more people.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr said (“echoing the words of 19th century abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker”): “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The bend occurring now is a true inflection point in human history. Some may bet against justice and morality prevailing, but I won’t.

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Obama Sends ‘Memo To America’ On The Biggest Thing A President’s Ever Done On Climate Change

Early Sunday morning, the White House shared a video message narrated by President Obama that announced the Monday release of the final version of the Clean Power Plan.

Under the plan, the EPA will adopt a rule that regulates carbon pollution from existing power plants for the first time, and in the video, Obama called it “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.”

Compared to the proposed rule, the new final version cuts more carbon pollution from the power sector, does it with more renewable energy and less natural gas, while providing more flexibility along the way to states trying to meet their targets.

The final version of the regulation, according to a senior administration official, will actually reduce power sector carbon pollution 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. This is more ambitious than the 30 percent reduction over the same period in the proposed rule.

In the proposed rule, renewable energy generation capacity was expected to be 22 percent in 2030. In the final rule, that share is projected to be 28 percent. Instead of the plan leading to a significant, early shift to natural gas, the projection for gas-fired power plant generation will instead flatten to a business-as-usual trendline.

The senior administration official said that this would largely be driven by a Clean Energy Incentive Program which would reward faster renewable energy development. States will get credits for electricity generated in 2020 and 2021 by renewable energy projects that begin construction right after they submit their compliance plans. It also awards double the credits for energy efficiency projects in low-income communities.

The proposed plan’s structure will remain largely the same as proposed. By 2030, each state must meet a certain emissions reduction target, custom-tailored to their current energy mix. The EPA does not implement a top-down solution across the country to cut emissions, or force specific coal plants to close. Every state can meet its targets however it wants — closing old coal plants, building more renewables, increasing energy efficiency, or working with other states to balance emissions and cuts through market-based systems like the cap-and-trade model already being used by the RGGI states in the Northeast.

The administration projects that the final rule’s shift to energy efficiency and renewable energy will drop the average American electricity bill $85 a year by 2030, and lower by 88 percent the premature deaths caused by fossil fuel energy pollution. Carbon pollution traps heat and worsens smog, which both trigger asthma and heart attacks.

The rule had been expected to give states an extra two years to begin cutting emissions, according to a timeline document posted to the EPA website last week. The Washington Post also reported that states will have more time to submit and begin implementing their plans to meet their targets — two more years, or until 2022.

The final regulations will also change so that state targets will not be based upon how much they could cut emissions through programs that improve energy efficiency for consumers.

EPA administrator Gina McCarthy is expected to sign the final plan during Monday’s ceremony. Though the ceremony was scheduled to take place on the White House South Lawn, the New York Times reported that the event may have to be moved inside due to high temperatures.

In the next week and over the next several months, the president will be taking his case to the public, focusing on how climate change is already harming Americans. He will speak at the 2015 National Clean Energy Summit in Nevada and will be the first American president to travel to the Alaskan Arctic at the end of the month. Obama is also scheduled to talk climate change with Pope Francis, who recently released an encyclical about climate change, when he visits Washington, D.C. in September. In December, the U.N. will host talks aiming for a global agreement on greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

But the president got a head start addressing the American people in the video released Sunday. Relying on the fact — “not the opinion” — that the climate is changing and “threatening our economy, our security, and our health,” he said it is time to act.

BREAKING: On Monday, @POTUS will release his #CleanPowerPlan—the biggest step we've ever taken to #ActOnClimate.
https://t.co/BU1PF0wjUK

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 2, 2015

“Climate change is not a problem for another generation,” Obama said. “Not anymore. That’s why on Monday, my administration will release the final version of America’s Clean Power Plan.”

He noted that “power plants are the single biggest source of harmful carbon pollution that contributes to climate change.”

“But until now,” he continued, “there have been no federal limits to the amount of that pollution those plants can dump into the air. Think about that. We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury and sulfur and arsenic in our air and water, and we’re better off for it. But existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air we breathe. For the sake of our kids, for the health and safety of all Americans, that’s about to change.”

Obama said that the administration had worked with states and power companies to ensure they have the flexibility to comply with the rule. Before releasing the proposed version of the rule last year, EPA said it had consulted with over two hundred groups over the course of well over one hundred meetings. This is in addition to 11 official public listening sessions.

Some of the trends the administration hopes to create with the plan are already happening — renewable energy capacity is growing dramatically, and this year natural gas replaced coal as the largest electricity generation source.

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What Does The New Environmental Chapter Mean For The TPP? Not Much, Activists Say

According to documents obtained by the New York Times, negotiators for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement have finished the environmental chapter, one that emphasizes the broad region’s ecodiversity and calls for action on illegal forestry and wildlife trade. But environmentalists say the chapter likely does not have sufficiently binding language and that the TPP overall will make it more difficult to address climate change.

The proposed agreement reportedly requires the 12 nations — including the United States — to simply abide by wildlife trade treaties and current environmental laws. It also bans subsidies for unsustainable industries, such as boat building in over-fished waters, the Times reported.

“We expect that the environmental chapter will have a lot of nice-sounding language,” Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club’s responsible trade program, told ThinkProgress. “It will mention the word whaling, it might mention shark-finning, but the actual obligations — what countries are required to do — will be very weak in many places.”

According to the Times, the environmental chapter does refer to the “long-term conservation of species at risk,” and “iconic marine species such as whales and sharks.” But it also reported that Japan has been pushing back against potential whale-hunting prohibitions.

Whatever language the negotiators finalize is the language Congress will have to vote on, under the terms of the fast-track authority Congress gave the White House in June. Some House Democrats warned this week that without adequate environmental safeguards, they will not approve the deal.

“A strong environmental chapter… is critical,” a group of 19 House Democrats wrote to the U.S. Trade Representative on Wednesday. “We cannot forego an opportunity to improve environmental protections, enforce conservation standards, and prohibit the illegal trade in wildlife, forest, and living marine resources to a degree that no level of foreign aid could accomplish.”

The representatives said they will not vote for the TPP if it does not prohibit trade of illegally taken wildlife and timber, which Solomon said was unlikely to happen.

“We expect the TPP environmental chapter is going to fall short of an actual ban,” she said.

The countries represented in the agreement encompass 40 percent of the world’s economy, including some of the world’s worst deforestation offenders. Illegal logging accounts for 50 to 90 percent of forestry activities in tropical forests, including in Southeast Asia.

Another key concern for environmentalists comes not from the environment chapter, but from other areas of the agreement. The TPP is expected to require the U.S. Department of Energy to automatically approve liquid natural gas (LNG) exports to the 11 partner nations, Solomon said.

“Requiring the U.S. to automatically approve exports is going to facilitate more fracking, more fossil fuel infrastructure, and more climate changing emissions,” she said.

Environmentalists have also long been wary that the TPP will pave the way for fossil fuel companies to sue for rights to extraction and will increase the trade of high-carbon sources such as coal.

“Let’s not suddenly forget why so many of us in the climate movement bitterly fought against fast-tracking this trade deal,” said Karthik Ganapathy, a spokesperson for environmental activist group 350.org.

“TPP tilts the playing field in favor of multinational fossil fuel companies even more, and makes it easier for them to dig carbon out of the ground. Loaded with provisions that would spread fracking across the world, and enable Exxon and Shell to throw multi-million dollar tantrum lawsuits at any government that dares to regulate carbon emissions, TPP was and is an absolute disaster for our climate,” Ganapathy said.

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Drilling Ship Heads To Arctic Despite Portland Bridge Protest

After a showdown Thursday morning that was hailed as an environmentalist victory, Royal Dutch Shell’s Arctic-bound ship passed unobstructed under Portland’s St. John’s bridge just before 6 p.m. Pacific Time that day. The icebreaking vessel Fennica is on its way to Alaska to support Shell’s drilling efforts in the Arctic. Protestors hung from the bridge for 38 hours, obstructing the ship’s passage, before the U.S. Coast Guard and police removed them.

Greenpeace, who organized the protest and blockade, has been fined $2,500 for every hour that it delayed the Fennica’s departure, beginning Thursday at 10 a.m., local time. Eight hours of violation at $2,500 per hour would total $20,000. A motion filed by Shell requesting the federal court to impose a fine said the daily rate paid by the oil company for the ship is $59,288. The fines would have increased every day had protesters not been removed Thursday evening.

Protesters were asked to leave throughout the day by the Coast Guard, but they did not comply. “We’ve been here for 29 hours, and we’re ready to be here for another 29,” Greenpeace activist Kristina Flores said while broadcasting the protest on Periscope.

The 13 climbers were accompanied by anchor supports on the bridge, “kayaktivists” and swimmers on the river, and a crowd of protesters on the nearest dock. Authorities used boats and even “jumped into the water to physically [remove] protesters who left their kayaks,” the Associated Press reported.

The Fennica is designed to protect the drilling fleet from ice and carries the containment dome, a key component of Shell’s oil spill response system. It arrived in Portland last week for repairs on a meter-long gash in its side, and was headed back to the Alaskan Arctic when protesters created a blockade. Exploration and drilling plans could not go forward until the Fennica returned to the site.

Activists hoped to delay the ship’s departure until the drilling window closed, or until the Obama administration rescinded the exploratory drilling permits it gave to Shell last week. The administration has not issued any statements regarding the protest.

Rupali Srivastava is an intern with ThinkProgress.

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More Than 180 Evangelical Leaders Endorse Obama’s Carbon Reduction Plan

More than 180 evangelical Christian leaders signed a letter this week backing President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce carbon emissions from power plants, the latest effort in a growing faith-based environmental movement to curb the effects of climate change.

On Thursday, theologically conservative faith leaders sent a letter to President Obama endorsing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Clean Power Plan (CPP), a sweeping, historic project unveiled in June and set to be officially released next week. Signers of the letter, which was posted on the Evangelical Environmental Network’s website, framed their support in explicitly moral terms.

“We see overcoming the climate challenge as one of the great moral opportunities of our time, a chance to fulfill the Great Commandments to love God, our neighbors, and ourselves,” the letter read. “It is God’s love that calls all of us to take on this challenge. That is why we write to offer our support and encouragement for your efforts to overcome the climate challenge.”

We see overcoming the climate challenge as one of the great moral opportunities of our time, a chance to fulfill the Great Commandments to love God, our neighbors, and ourselves.

Signatories included pastors, teachers, and evangelical thinkers, such as National Latino Evangelical Coalition president Rev. Gabriel Salguero, bestselling Christian author Rev. Brian McLaren, and prominent evangelical theologian Dr. David Gushee. The letter also cited several professors affiliated with conservative Christian schools such as Wheaton College, Calvin College, North Point University, and Oral Roberts University.

The group lauded the potential economic and health benefits of the CPP, which will likely improve public health and reduce energy costs for most Americans by cutting carbon pollution by 30 percent from 2005 levels. It also drew a connection between a “pro-life” position and support for green initiatives, noting that “nearly 230,000 pro-life Christians” have contacted the EPA to express support for the plan.

“[Obama’s] Climate Action Plan … when fully implemented, will: (1) position America to lead the world in the coming clean energy revolution; (2) create good jobs here in America, (3) reduce pollution that fouls our air and makes our water impure, (4) protect the health of our children and the unborn, and (5) build resiliency to the consequences of climate change both here and in vulnerable poor nations,” the letter read.

The effort reflects a growing form of conservative Christian environmentalism. Although evangelical Protestants are historically more likely than most Americans to deny climate change, scores of evangelical leaders have begun calling for their fellow believers to embrace “creation care” — a theological framework that focuses on faith-based concern for the environment. Meanwhile, evangelical scientists such as Dr. Katherine Hayhoe have become leading activists within the environmental movement. Earlier this month, a group of more than 200 evangelical scientists sent a letter to Congress demanding legislation that would reduce carbon emissions and protect the planet.

Evangelicals are also increasingly active participants in ecumenical and interfaith efforts to combat climate change. Conservative Christians insisted President Obama discuss climate change with Pope Francis when the two met met last year. Several evangelical leaders recently added their names to a similar letter addressed to Congress, which expressed support for the pontiff’s encyclical on the environment and demanded that lawmakers introduce legislation to curtail the impact of human-caused climate change. In addition, several pastors from the Evangelical Environmental Network are scheduled to meet with Vatican officials in August to discuss climate concerns.

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What’s Really Inside The Senate’s New Bill To ‘Modernize’ The Energy System

On Thursday afternoon, the Senate’s energy committee sent the first wide-ranging energy bill in over six years to the senate floor, but not before weighing it down with an array of provisions that ensure opposition from many environmentalist groups. The bill, as well as any amendments Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell consents to, could receive votes after the August summer recess.

The main piece of legislation, the “Energy Policy and Modernization Act of 2015,” does not directly address wind and solar energy, sources that comprise the epitome of “modern” energy — over half of new generating capacity came from wind and solar in the first half of 2015. The bill instead focuses on fossil fuels and infrastructure: natural gas pipeline permitting, authorizing the main federal conservation fund, job training, updating the grid, as well as a push on energy efficiency. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed it with an 18-4 vote and many statements of good faith from Democrats and Republicans. Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Mike Lee (R-UT), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) were the four to vote against it.

With the congressional August recess looming after next week, and an incredibly busy legislative fall greeting Congress when it returns, this bill is also expected to be on the docket — though with less of a profile than the Iran nuclear deal, Planned Parenthood funding, the anticipated final carbon rule from the EPA, and other fights on the budget. With so much yet to be decided, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Republican Congress’ fight with President Obama could lead to another government shutdown.

Still, the energy bill served as a proxy for many of the senators on the committee to engage in some old-fashioned bipartisan legislating. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who chairs the committee, called the successful effort to pass a bipartisan bill on to the full Senate an “impressive journey,” where “no one’s getting everything they want, for sure.”

The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), said it was “the first step in the long but important journey” to work on significant energy legislation. Cantwell’s approach has been to deal with “essential” updates to national energy policy to prevent things like blackouts and update the grid to be able to handle more renewable energy sources, while addressing more controversial subjects later.

The drive to make this a bipartisan energy infrastructure bill meant that many amendments from both sides of the aisle were voted down or refused. The committee refused to include amendments about the most notorious proposed energy infrastructure project in the country, the Keystone XL pipeline. A large majority of the committee voted down an amendment offered by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) that would eliminate Congress’ role in choosing how to appropriate the Land and Water Conservation Fund. However, even an amendment offered by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) addressing coal supply emergencies failed, despite praise from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a coal advocate who joked about Franken’s acknowledgment of the need for coal.

Green groups largely oppose the bill because it focuses so much on increased fossil fuel production and mining permits, while interfering with federal energy efficiency programs, and a mandate to phase out fossil fuels in federal buildings, according to a letter they sent the committee earlier this week.

“The committee seemed to forget that a forward looking energy policy must include a rapid transition to clean, renewable energy,” said Friends of the Earth’s Kate DeAngelis in a statement. “The bill, instead, remains focused on rewarding the fossil fuel industry for their campaign contributions.”

Energy Efficiency

The package contains the Portman-Shaheen energy efficiency bill, which famously died last year after being weighed down with many unrelated amendments. Murkowski congratulated Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) again, joking “perhaps third time’s the charm.” The energy efficiency advocacy group Alliance to Save Energy said in a statement that it “unequivocally supports and applauds” the inclusion of Portman-Shaheen in the package, but it “vehemently objects to” another provision “that unduly hampers energy efficiency gains by delaying the establishment of new efficiency standards for furnaces.” It urged the Senate to adopt the compromise worked out in a House version of the bill.

The committee adopted an amendment that delays the implementation of efficiency standards for commercial refrigeration for a short time in order to allow manufacturers to use climate-friendly refrigerants. A Franken amendment to implement a slowly-rising energy efficiency resource standard was rejected by the full committee on Tuesday.

Fossil Fuel Exports

The panel also voted 12-10 to approve a separate bill that would lift the ban on exporting crude oil, in place since the 1970s. That bill would also speed up liquefied natural gas exports and increase offshore drilling.

The close vote to lift the crude oil export ban also came with additional provisions to expand oil and gas drilling efforts in the Atlantic and the Arctic. Jacqueline Savitz, the U.S. vice president of Oceana, the world’s largest international oceans advocacy group, said it was a “massive give-away to Big Oil and a slap in the face to coastal communities that have vocally opposed offshore drilling.”

Democrats opposed the bill, but Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Sen. signaled they may be open to supporting it if Republicans supported extending renewable energy tax credits set to expire. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)’s amendment to require an economic study on what exporting natural gas passed.

On Thursday, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) told Murkowski that one of the underlying bills the committee considered could very well be called the “No Fossil Fuel Left Behind Act,” raising concerns that it was “totally unbalanced.” The committee voted down on party lines his amendment to require an environmental review before the approval of a natural gas export terminal. He voted for the broader energy package, however.

No Solar Or Climate

Sanders used his position on the committee to introduce amendments that continued his push on solar energy development and climate action. The first, the Low Income Solar Act, would provide job training for the solar workforce and support organizations working on expanding low-income resident access to solar energy. It failed 9-13, with only Sen. Manchin crossing party lines to vote with the Republican majority.

The second was a Sense of Congress that climate change is real, caused by human activity, there isn’t much time to reverse it, and the consequences of inaction are dire.

“I think, for those who are planning to vote against the amendment, speak to your kids, think about your grandchildren,” Sanders told his colleagues Wednesday. “Because I think that history will record you on the very, very, very wrong side of this enormous issue.”

It was voted down with the same result as Sanders’ solar amendment.

The package also included a provision promoting clean vehicle technology R&D investment. A bill promoting renewable energy development on public lands was offered and withdrawn, though with the promise that it would be included on the senate floor.

The bill’s ultimate fate, as is the case with anything in congress, lies with what other controversial amendments get added to it on the senate floor.

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The post What’s Really Inside The Senate’s New Bill To ‘Modernize’ The Energy System appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Iowa Governor: Des Moines Water Utility Should ‘Tone Down’ Criticism of Agricultural Pollution

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad told reporters Tuesday that Des Moines Water Works — a private utility that provides water to some 500,000 residents in the Des Moines area — should “just tone it down” when it comes to monitoring water pollution from agriculture.

“The Des Moines Water Works ought to just tone it down and start cooperating and working with others, like Cedar Rapids is doing, and other communities in the state of Iowa,” Branstad reportedly said when asked if the state government would work to help Des Moines Water Works customers impacted by the utility’s expected 10 percent rate increase.

Water Works claims that the rate hikes are necessary to cover the increased costs of water treatment due to nitrate pollution, which comes from largely unregulated fertilizer runoff from surrounding farmland. According to the Des Moines Register, Water Works has spent $1.5 million for nitrate removal since December of 2014, and plans to spend up to $183 million more for new nitrate removal equipment built to keep up with high levels of pollution.

The EPA allows up to 10 milligrams of nitrates per liter in public drinking water — anything higher than that is considered a threat to public health. The Des Moines and Raccoon rivers, from which the Des Moines Water Works pulls its water, both have exhibited levels in excess of federal standards, a trend that’s mirrored in major rivers across the state. According to an April report by the Des Moines Register, nitrate levels across Iowa’s major rivers have more than tripled, increasing from about 2 milligrams per liter on average in 1954 to more than 7 milligrams per liter between 1954 and 2010.

“It’s unmistakable. The long-term trend is decidedly upward,” Keith Schilling, a research scientist at the Iowa Geological Survey at the University of Iowa, told the Des Moines Register. Researchers say that the rise of row-cropping, farm drainage tiles, and the loss of perennial crops have helped make nutrient runoff an issue in Iowa.

In response to high nitrate levels, the Des Moines Water Works announced in January of this year that they would sue three neighboring counties that have failed to properly manage the nutrients applied to their farmland.

“When they build these artificial drainage districts that take water, polluted water, quickly into the Raccoon River, they have a responsibility to us and others as downstream users,” Bill Stowe, general manager of the Des Moines Water Works, told Iowa Public Radio in a January interview.

But taking aggressive action like this, Branstad said Tuesday, has alienated Des Moines Water Works from state officials and legislatures, many of whom represent districts where agriculture is the primary economic driver. In each of the three counties that the Des Moines Water Works is suing (Buena Vista, Calhoun and Sac counties), farms account for 98 percent of the surface land.

“If they want to cooperate and work with us, they are much more likely to get assistance and support,” Branstad said. “If they are continuing to sue and attack other people, that is not doing to get them the kind of assistance and support they would like to have.”

Branstad contended that the state has taken steps to reduce nitrate pollution through a set of voluntary measures known as the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy. The Des Moines Register survey of nitrate pollution did show a slight decline in nitrate levels in recent decades, perhaps due to farmers employing more conservation practices.

“I think we in the state of Iowa want clean water and we want to do everything we can,” Branstad told reporters. “We have a nutrient reduction strategy. We are working on a cooperative and collaborative basis.”

But Graham Gillette, chairman of the Des Moines Water Works Board of Trustees, told the Des Moines Register that Branstad’s comments were “hurtful and derogatory.”

“There is no one in a better situation to help with the water situation in the state than the governor, and I am just baffled why he is not interested in even participating in the conversation,” Gillette said.

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How Coal Companies Are Cheating Taxpayers Out Of Billions

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell on Wednesday launched the first high-level review of the federal government’s coal program in more than three decades, noting concerns with the program’s environmental impacts and fairness to taxpayers.

“We are committed to making sure we’re doing right by the American citizens and the American taxpayer,” Secretary Jewell told a packed room in Washington D.C. as she kicked off the first in a series of public listening sessions to explore reforms to the outdated program. Following her call for an “honest and open conversation about modernizing the federal coal program” earlier this year, she emphasized the need to ask the “tough questions” about how the Department of the Interior (DOI) can make changes to “bring this program into the 21st Century.”

The DOI’s Bureau of Land Management has planned a series of five listening sessions across the country as the first step to raise rock-bottom coal royalty rates.

Although Secretary Jewell noted that the administration has undertaken major reforms to DOI’s oil, gas, and renewable energy programs, she said the agency had more work to do, including taking a “a hard look at the federal coal program” to consider impacts on the climate, increase transparency and competition, meet future energy needs and ensure that “taxpayers are getting the return that they are due from the development and use of our public natural resources.”

A large majority of the speakers at the Wednesday listening session — including leaders from national taxpayer organizations, government watchdog groups, Western landowner organizations, and conservation groups — called for major reforms to the program.

“I’ve had a ringside seat on federal coal management and valuation for the past 40 years,” Steve Charter, a Montana rancher and representative of the Western Organization of Resource Councils, said at the session. “The system is deeply broken and we welcome the opportunity to talk about solutions. Ending the giveaway at rock bottom prices and achieving greater transparency on valuation is absolutely critical.”

Currently, more than 40 percent of all coal in the United States comes from America’s public lands, primarily from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. However, DOI’s outdated policies overseeing coal mining on public lands have been continually criticized for failing to ensure that coal companies pay royalties on the true market value of coal. In fact, recent investigations have shown that coal companies are exploiting loopholes in the program to intentionally avoid paying royalties and costing taxpayers more than $1 billion a year in lost revenue.

“Current practices shortchange taxpayers by failing to reflect the fair market value for the commodities we as taxpayers own and govern,” Ryan Alexander, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, wrote in an op-ed on Wednesday. “There is enough evidence to suggest the DOI’s coal program is failing to ensure a fair return to taxpayers.”

[image error]

Attendees sit at the listening session for the federal coal program on Wednesday, July 29, 2015.

CREDIT: Greenpeace

Despite these concerns and evidence that coal companies are taking advantage of policy loopholes, a representative of Arch Coal told the room that the federal coal program is a “tremendous success story, one that has generated tens of billions of dollars of value for American people in recent decades.”

Members of Congress, however, have continued to call for reform and to “end sweetheart deals for coal companies.” On a press call hosted by the Center for American Progress on Wednesday, Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Matt Cartwright (D-PA) introduced legislation to close loopholes in the federal coal program and ensure coal companies pay royalties based on the market value of coal.

“What Senator Udall, Congressman Cartwright and I want to do is provide a simple, straightforward way to ensure that the American people get a fair return on publicly owned coal,” said Sen. Wyden.

Senator Udall echoed calls for reform, saying that “our broken system is costing taxpayers money that could be used to pay for schools, roads, local infrastructure, and many other priorities.”

In addition to the Coal Royalty Fairness Act in the Senate, Rep. Cartwright introduced similar legislation in the House, which directs funds to invest in “struggling coal communities throughout the Appalachian Region overcome the challenges associated with changing natural resources markets.”

The Department of the Interior plans to hold the rest of the listening sessions to explore potential reforms to the federal coal program throughout August in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Claire Moser is the Research and Advocacy Associate with the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress. You can follow her on Twitter at @Claire_Moser.

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