Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 88

Scottish Professor Figures Out How To Turn Whisky Waste Into Energy

A professor in Scotland figured out how to turn waste from whisky-making into an energy source, and now his company has received a grant to that will produce a million liters (about 264,000 gallons) of biofuel a year.

The U.K. government awarded professor Martin Tangney’s group, Celtic Renewables, £11 million ($16.7 million) to build a plant 25 miles outside Edinburgh. The facility is expected to be operation by the end of 2018.

While the opening of this facility will be a small step towards transitioning to a low-carbon transportation sector, it could signal an important development in the world of biofuels. In the United States, transportation is responsible for nearly a third of total carbon emissions.

“Biofuels are essential in de-carbonizing the transport sector and demand for liquid fuel will continue to soar worldwide, due to the dependence on the internal combustion engine,” the company says on its website.

At the moment, ethanol, largely produced directly from corn, is the leading biofuel but the fuel produced from whisky waste is actually a better energy source than the ethanol currently in the gasoline mix. Ethanol has also raised other significant environmental concerns, particularly land use changes that can result in greenhouse gas emissions.

Celtic Renewables will be pumping out biobutanol. This is an alcohol that is similar to ethanol but releases significantly more energy during combustion than ethanol — almost as much as traditional gasoline. That means that engines already in our cars can use gasoline mixed with biobutanol at almost any level. Most American cars can use only 10 percent ethanol.

It is also going to be produced from something that is currently wasted, which means resources and land are not invested in making it.

“In the production of whisky less than ten percent of what comes out in the distillery is actually the primary product,” Tangney, who founded Celtic Renewables in 2012, . “The bulk of the remainder are these unwanted residues – pot ale and barley.”

The whisky industry produces 1,600 million liters (42 million gallons) of pot ale and 500,000 metric tons of draff each year, the company says.

Tangney said this facility could be replicated across the spirits industry.

“There are huge whisky industries all around the world, and then there are related drinks industries,” he said. “We’re currently going through a pipeline of research and development where we’re looking at a whole wide variety of unrelated products that will also fit into this, so we’re attempting to tap into regional, national, international resources of low value or unwanted biological material.”

Tangney is a professor in the Biofuel Research Centre at Edinburgh Napier University.

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The Southeast Is Set To Be Hit By Potentially Historic Rainfall

Major rainfall is expected in parts of the country over the next few days, as Hurricane Joaquin moves up the East Coast.

The hurricane — which is currently pummeling the Bahamas, leaving thousands without power and trapping some inside their homes — isn’t projected to make landfall in the United States. But a separate weather system is pulling in moisture from Joaquin and is expected to increase rainfall and cause flooding in some states along the East Coast — a region that’s already seen substantial rainfall this week. South Carolina has already declared a state of emergency due to the threat of heavy rainfall and flash flooding, as have North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia. Almost all of North Carolina is under a flash flood watch, according to one meteorologist, and the state could get 5 to 10 more inches of rain.

Already, one person has died in South Carolina as a result of flooding. Weather Underground projects that South Carolina could receive 18 inches of rainfall over the next few days — with NOAA projecting that some parts of the state could experience a one in 1,000 year rainfall event.

“Even if Hurricane Joaquin heads out to sea, the entire state could experience significant flooding from heavy rains that are predicted,” South Carolina Emergency Management Division Director Kim Stenson said in a statement. “We’ve already seen flooding in many parts of South Carolina, these storm systems could make conditions worse.”

#Joaquin looks to stay offshore, but moisture from it will enhance #flood threat for East U.S. http://t.co/ZVgFb6wL8m pic.twitter.com/gYTsQj8E8w

— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) October 2, 2015

Stunning image of #Joaquin from NOAA's GOES West. Stay informed http://t.co/3GVfGphItj and http://t.co/83F2guq6DU pic.twitter.com/qba4j4yyXG

— NOAA (@NOAA) October 1, 2015

Joaquin has been able to intensify rapidly — as of Thursday, it was the strongest Atlantic hurricane in five years. Part of that could be due to warm ocean temperatures — as Weather Underground points out, ocean temperatures in the region are the highest record-keeping began in 1880.

Warm ocean temperatures are expected to drive up the risk of intense hurricanes in the future, as the climate continues to change. Both the heat content of the oceans and water vapor — two things that contribute to hurricanes’ intensity — have increased as the planet has warmed. And as sea levels rise due to melting land ice and heat-driven water expansion, the risk of storm surge due to hurricanes grows stronger.

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, who has worked to prepare his city for a possible onslaught of rain in the coming days, referenced climate change in a press conference this week.

“As a result of global warming, climate change we are going to deal with more extreme weather,” he said.

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The World’s Fourth-Largest Carbon Emitter Is Making A Big Move To Renewables

India submitted its carbon reduction pledge to the United Nations on Thursday, promising to get more electricity from renewables.

The Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) was drawn up in advance of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will meet in Paris in December in an effort to use international treaty process to limit global warming to 2°C.

“India is committed to engaging actively in multilateral negotiations under the UNFCCC in a positive, creative and forward-looking manner,” the country said.

The document highlights, though, some of the inherent tensions in the negotiation process. India still struggles with widespread poverty. One quarter of the people worldwide who do not have electricity live in India.

So, while India is the world’s fourth-largest carbon emitter — after China, the United States, and the European Union — it has not had the advantages of developing during the 1900s, and did not spend that century filling the atmosphere with CO2. Developing nations have pushed for an agreement that takes into account countries’ unequal contributions to climate change.

“India, even though not a part of the problem, has been an active and constructive participant in the search for solutions,” the country wrote in its INDC.

Experts who have been watching India’s development said that the country is trying to curb emissions, while lifting its population out of poverty and dealing with a difficult investment climate.

“India would like to do its part, but it is actually grappling with trying to find solutions,” renewable energy expert Jigar Shah said during a talk hosted by Climate Nexus last month. “They need support in finance and technology. The cost of finance in India is very, very high.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for $100 billion in investment from foreign companies in the solar sector.

The country will need it to reach the goals laid out in the INDC. Its goals include making 40 percent of its electric power capacity non-fossil fuel (such as wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear) by 2030; to reduce its emissions compared to GDP by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels; to increase carbon sinks through additional forest cover; and to implement climate change adaptation initiatives.

Its electricity goal is intended to be met “with the help of transfer of technology and low cost international finance including from Green Climate Fund.” The Green Climate Fund is an international lending mechanism. In the next seven years, the country hopes to increase its solar capacity five-fold.

In the United States, environmental groups largely applauded the announcement.

“India’s strong climate plan offers a comprehensive approach to curb the worst impacts of climate change,” said Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “India now has positioned itself as a global leader in clean energy, and is poised to play an active and influential role in the international climate negotiations this December.”

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Solar Company Announces Huge Step Forward In Efficiency

They are calling it the “most efficient rooftop solar module in the world.”

Residential solar company SolarCity announced Friday that its Buffalo, New York “gigafactory” will be producing solar panels that are more efficient — and 30 percent more powerful — than its previous version.

This is good news for customers. Using more efficient, more powerful modules means homeowners will get more bang for their buck, so to speak. Installation costs go down. Hardware costs go down. SolarCity wins, too, of course.

Keith Emery, a scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, called the announcement a “very significant advancement, which should lower their cost, which should at the very least improve their profit — and I assume they will pass that on to their customers.” The module’s efficiency rate is comparable to other leading modules, Emery said.

Solar is not expensive; in fact, there is no cost at all

Solar prices keep coming down. Average installed costs have fallen 9 percent since last year, according to the most recent report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. The cost of residential solar has dropped 50 percent in the past five years.

Economies of scale will also help push costs down, Emery said.

Economies of scale are part of SolarCity’s plan. The company will manufacture the modules at its new facility in Buffalo, which it hopes to have fully operational by the end of 2017, pumping out enough solar panels to supply 200,000 homes a year. Of course, to hear the CEO say it, we’re already in a pretty good place, cost-wise.

“Solar is not expensive; in fact, there is no cost at all,” SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive told ThinkProgress. “There are savings on day one.”

That may sound too good to be true, but in SolarCity’s model, it is. SolarCity leases its systems to homeowners, whose monthly leasing costs are lower than their previous electricity bills. This model has helped propel the company to one of the leading installers in the country.

But the future of solar might not lie in technological, or even manufacturing, advances.

Rive says there are two ways to address the need to transition to clean energy. Either polluters have to pay for their pollution, or alternatives need to be incentivized.

“Have the people who are destroying the planet pay for destroying the planet,” he said. “If you can’t succeed at that… the next best thing is to incentivize those who are not destroying the planet.”

But the U.S. solar investment tax credit is set to drop from 30 percent to 10 percent at the end of 2016. This “cliff” has already produced effects in the utility-scale solar world, which has a longer planning and construction schedule than residential solar. But as we approach the end of next year, if Congress doesn’t act, the residential sector will also start to suffer.

“The tax credit is actually providing a solution to some of the world’s biggest problems,” Rive said.

Rive is clear, though, that he is not talking about net metering. Net metering — a billing mechanism that compensates homeowners or other solar users for the electricity they put back on the grid — has been talked about a lot in the past few years. “Net meeting is not an incentive,” Rive said.

Utilities, by and large, do not like the policy, which they say pushes the cost of maintaining the grid to non-solar users. In truth, according to a studies like this one commissioned by the Nevada Public Utilities Commissions, solar helps lower utilities’ costs, Rive said.

Concerns about grid stability and cost-shifting is just utilities trying to conserve their revenue stream, Rive said. “It’s all a smokescreen.”

Utilities, which are usually regulated, for-profit monopolies, use an old business model and don’t want to change, Rive said.

“You have one business model that hasn’t changed over the last 80 years that does not want to create a model that enables competition,” Rive said. “But competition causes innovation.”

Regardless of where the net metering debate goes, or what happens with the tax credit, Rive’s company is focusing on innovation.

“We’re bringing jobs back to the U.S., and we’re manufacturing the best solar panels in the world,” he said.

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Republican Politicians Are Betraying Their Party’s Legacy Of Conservation

“You’re worried about what man has done and is doing to this magical planet that God gave us, and I share your concern. What is a conservative after all, but one who conserves?” — President Ronald Reagan

When Ronald Reagan uttered those words, he was drawing on a conservative legacy of environmental protection — one that more Republicans appear to be embracing today. You wouldn’t realize it listening to the current crop of White House hopefuls, but some of the greatest conservationists ever to take the oath of office were Republicans. Teddy Roosevelt created the National Park System. George H.W. Bush passed a cap-and-trade program to curtail acid rain. Richard Nixon arguably did more than almost any president of either party to safeguard our air, water and wildlife. Nixon formed the Council on Environmental Quality, created the EPA and signed the Clean Air Act. Both Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Scientists rated him our greenest president ever.

Richard Nixon was a different breed of Republican, a variety of conservative now almost completely absent from Capitol Hill. Over the last three decades, the party has lurched to the right. According to University of Georgia political scientist Keith Poole, congressional Republicans are now the furthest to the right they’ve been in a century. And according to Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol, “polarization about the environment has grown more sharply since 1987 than polarization about any other set of issues.”

There are two important things to note about this. First, Republican politicians are further right than Republican voters are on the environment. This chart from the League of Conservation Voters shows that self-identified Republicans are more aligned with Democratic members of Congress than with Republican members of Congress when it comes to environmental spending.

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CREDIT: LCV

Second, not only have Republicans become unmoored from the wishes of the average GOP voter, they have also drifted from the wisdom of conservative icons. Check out this video from Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship of past Republican presidents talking about the environment. Few of these speeches led to landmark policy changes, but the values were there. The arguments were there. The rhetoric reminds us that it it’s not only possible, but logical, to be a conservative and an environmentalist.

CRS_Conservative 1 from David Jenkins on Vimeo.

Many of today’s Republican leaders have turned their back on the party’s environmental legacy. Roughly half of sitting U.S. senators deny that humans cause climate change — and that has nothing to do with their ability to sort through the science. Republicans deny climate change because they oppose any popular solution to the problem. As Yale legal scholar Dan Kahan has shown, we are more receptive to the facts of climate change when the solutions comport with our values. However there are virtually no solutions to climate change that would pass muster with today’s GOP, and so they cry “hoax.”

As science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once said, “Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.” To his point, a recently published study looking at Austrialia’s 2010 federal election found that “voting behavior influenced climate change skepticism after an election more than climate change skepticism influenced voting intentions.” Put another way, doubting climate change may lead you to vote conservative, but even more so, voting conservative will lead you to doubt climate change. Being reminded our partisan or ideological preferences can influence our apprehension of the facts.

We filter new information through an ideological lens. As such, we are more receptive to facts the align with our values and more skeptical of facts that don’t. The rightward shift of the GOP means that today’s Republicans are peering through a more polarizing ideological lens than their forbears. Thus, being a Republican member of Congress today by and large means denying climate change, denying its human causes or, at the very least denying the severity of the problem. So, while Republicans of yesteryear supported the EPA and the Clean Air Act, the current crop would revolt against a carbon tax, which qualifies as a conservative policy prescription.

Things may be changing. According the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, 75 percent of Americans, including 63 percent of Republicans, support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Americans are also three times less likely to vote for a candidate who strongly opposes taking action on climate change. That’s not insignificant, especially for Republicans desperate to win back the White House. Whether they have seen the poll numbers or had a moral epiphany, some conservatives are beginning to come around. Still more evidence comes from a new poll that finds a majority of GOP voters understand humans are changing the climate.

A growing number of Republicans are emerging from the margins to take on global warming. Earlier this year, North Carolina businessman Jay Faison pledged $175 million to get Republicans to talk about climate change. Last week, Congressman Chris Gibson and nine other Republican representatives introduced a resolution calling for climate action. Noted conservative thinker Jerry Taylor, writing in a recent op-ed on CNN.com, argued that “one does not need to be a Catholic, a socialist or a scientific alarmist to believe that we’re morally required to take action on climate change. Indeed, the moral argument for liberty and free-market capitalism implies that we’re required to act.”

The Republican field of presidential candidates, though still out of step with the average American, seems to have finally laid to rest its favorite mantra: “I’m not a scientist.” GOP favorites Bush and Rubio now accept that the climate is changing, even if they object to doing something about it. This is a small but important victory, and it points to that fact that, while Republicans haven’t exactly found religion on climate change, they are beginning the inevitable journey back to the responsible strain of conservatism espoused by their ideological forebears.

Jeremy Deaton writes about the science, policy, and politics of climate and energy for Nexus Media. You can follow him at @deaton_jeremy.

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EPA Announces New Ozone Limits, Disappointing Environmental Groups

The EPA has been promising to release new ozone standards for some time, freaking out Republican congressmen and delighting people who worry about our rising asthma rates.

Today, the agency finalized its new ozone standard, which environmental groups are calling inadequate, insufficient, and “weak-kneed.” The rule, mandated by the Clean Air Act, reduces acceptable ozone levels from 75 parts per billion to 70 ppb.

“This action falls far short of what’s needed to protect the one in 10 children who live with asthma,” Lisa Garcia, a vice president at Earthjustice, said in a statement. “The science shows that ozone is dangerous to these kids at the levels allowed by this new standard.”

The environmental law group predicted that the new standard would be challenged in court.

Gound-level ozone — more commonly known as smog — is a serious health hazard. It has been linked to asthma and lung disease. In past decades, the United States has lowered levels of ground-level ozone significantly, due largely to efforts through the Clean Air Act, including emissions limits on cars and trucks. Ozone primarily affects children, the elderly, and people with asthma, but the current standard of 75 ppb leads to impacts for healthy adults who spend a significant chunk of their time outside as well.

[image error]

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy called Thursday’s announcement “another milestone in EPA’s long history of protecting people and the environment.” On a call with reporters, she emphasized that she used her own judgment, based on the newest scientific studies, to set the standard. A 70 ppb standard was within the recommendations made to the agency, she said.

Lowering the standard will prevent 160,000 missed school days, 230,000 asthma attacks, and up to 660 premature deaths per year by 2025, according to the EPA. The benefits will be worth $2.9 billion to $5.9 billion per year — up to four times as much as implementing the standard will cost, McCarty said.

The EPA is required, under the Clean Air Act, to review ozone limits every five years. The 75 ppb limit was set in 2008. However, the EPA’s own science advisory group had recommended going as low as 60 ppb.

“The recommended lower bound of 60 ppb would certainly offer more public health protection than levels of 70 ppb or 65 ppb and would provide an adequate margin of safety,” the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee said last year.

In fact, the EPA previously said a standard of 60 ppb would help prevent 4,000 to 12,000 premature deaths and 21,000 hospital visits. It would also reduce the number of missed school and work days by 2.5 million.

Many groups — including medical groups — applauded the new standard. “The EPA’s stronger ozone standard is a great step forward in reducing the amount of dangerous pollutants in our environment, and will ensure cleaner air for asthma and allergy patients,” Dr. Cary Sennett, president and CEO of AAFA, said in a statement. “However, AAFA supports an even lower standard of 60 ppb, which would better protect the health of the American people.”

According to projections from the EPA, only 14 counties in the United States, outside of California, will not meet the standard by 2025. Attainment timelines are “quite long,” McCarthy said. California, she said, had additional “challenges.”

The fight against lowering the limit has been strong. The National Association of Manufacturers paid for advertisements this summer claiming, “It’s not just manufacturers who will bear this burden, Americans across the country will feel the costs of this expensive, new regulation.” Ground-level ozone can be released by chemical manufacturers, power plants, autobody paint shops, print shops, agricultural operations, and even gas-powered lawn equipment, as well as cars and trucks.

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Food Industry To Congress: We Need You To Act On Climate Change

On Thursday, ten leaders from some of the world’s biggest food companies urged Congress to support a strong global agreement on climate action, in advance of the U.N. climate talks happening in Paris this December.

In a letter published in both the Washington Post and Financial Times, the chief executives from Mars, General Mills, Unilever, Kellogg, Nestle, New Belgium Brewing, Ben & Jerry’s, Clif Bar, Stonyfield Farm, and Dannon asked U.S. and global leaders to “meaningfully address the reality of climate change.”

“The challenge presented by climate change will require all of us — government, civil society and business — to do more with less. For companies like ours, that means producing more food on less land using fewer natural resources. If we don’t take action now, we risk not only today’s livelihoods, but those of future generations,” the letter reads. “We are asking you to embrace the opportunity presented to you in Paris, and to come back with a sound agreement, properly financed, that can affect real change.”

The letter comes at a time when corporations are ramping up their own sustainability goals — just last week, Nike, Walmart, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Salesforce, Starbucks, Steelcase, and Voya Financial all committed to transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy. But at a roundtable discussion on Capitol Hill Thursday, sustainability representatives from many of the food companies represented in the letter urged their industry to go farther than just internal sustainability commitments.

Government stepping forward is pro-planet, pro-business, and pro-people

“The reality is, Unilever can hit all its goals and it won’t make a difference, alone, in and of itself,” Tom Langan, external affairs director at Unilever, said during the roundtable. “We need to work together. We need governments to be involved.”

The roundtable was sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Sen. Chris Gibson (R-NY). In his opening remarks, Whitehouse commented on the “historic” nature of the event, noting that it was the first time in a very long time that a Democratic elected official and a Republican elected official had sat side-by-side and spoken publicly about the challenges of climate change. He also noted that the food companies’ willingness to push for climate action outside of their own operations marked a change in how businesses are reacting to climate change.

“For a long time the corporate community has seen it as their role to reduce their carbon footprint, but quietly — don’t talk about it and whatever you do, don’t lobby on it. I see that changing,” Whitehouse said, adding that he hoped that Paris’ December negotiations would result in “a signed international agreement among major corporations.”

As the representatives from food corporations spoke, each reiterated their company’s commitment to sustainability. Kim Nelson, who works in external relations for General Mills, spoke of the company’s recent announcement to cut its greenhouse gas emissions throughout its entire supply chain 28 percent by 2030. Some spoke of how climate change has already impacted their business, while others spoke of unique steps their companies have taken to move towards a more resilient, sustainable business model. According to Lagan, disruptions due to climate change are expected to cost Unilever $335 million a year. Paul Bakus, president of corporate affairs at Nestle, talked about declines in the company’s pumpkin harvests, a drop he “firmly” believes is because of climate change.

At the end of their statements, each representative underscored the need for government action in the face of climate change.

“Government stepping forward is pro-planet, pro-business, and pro-people,” Barry Parkin, the chief sustainability officer at Mars, said. “There is no conflict here.”

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Wyoming Made It Illegal To Take A Photo Of A Polluted Stream. Now They’re Being Sued For It.

A controversial Wyoming law is under legal fire after a broad coalition of environmental, justice, and animal rights groups filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday.

The law, known as Senate File 12, or the Data Trespass Law, makes it illegal for anyone to collect data on public or private open land with the intention of sharing that data with the state or federal government. Proponents of the law say that it strengthens Wyoming’s trespass laws and gives property owners more power to dictate what happens on their land.

Critics of the law, however, liken it to a slew of “ag-gag” laws that have passed around the country in recent years, aimed at silencing whistleblowers who expose malpractice within the agriculture industry. Wyoming’s law, they contend, makes it illegal for citizen scientists or concerned residents to expose contamination of streams by the ranching industry, which represents a considerable economic and political force in the state.

This law directly infringes on the ability of whistleblowers and other advocates to speak freely under the First Amendment

“These Wyoming laws are designed to stop whistleblowers from being able to enforce the environmental laws in Wyoming,” Leslie Brueckner, a senior attorney at Public Justice, a public interest law firm that has challenged ag-gag laws in other states, told ThinkProgress. “Like the classic ag-gag statutes that we’re challenging in Idaho, this law directly infringes on the ability of whistleblowers and other advocates to speak freely under the First Amendment and also to expose wrongdoing in the agriculture industry.”

Public Justice is representing the Western Watersheds Project, a nonprofit conservation organization that collects water quality data throughout the state of Wyoming. WWP has been at odds with the ranching industry for years — through WWP’s samples, several streams throughout Wyoming have been listed as impaired under the Clean Water Act. The ranching industry has fought back, filing a lawsuit against WWP in 2014 that claimed that WWP employees were trespassing onto the ranchers’ private land in order to collect data.

In Brueckner’s estimation, it’s no coincidence that Wyoming’s Data Trespass law makes illegal the very thing ranchers and WWP have been fighting over.

“These statutes were passed to stop WWP from doing their work,” Brueckner said. “The agriculture industry is all about secrecy, and these laws are all about enlisting the government in the agriculture industry’s fight to keep the public from knowing the truth about the real costs of the animal industry.”

Brueckner draws parallels between Wyoming’s law and a slew of ag-gag laws that have passed — and been challenged — across the country. Recently, a federal judge in Idaho ruled that the state’s ag-gag law violated the First Amendment, something Brueckner says Wyoming’s law also violates. Brueckner also argues that Wyoming’s law, like Idaho’s, violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, as it unfairly singles out a particular group — in this case, environmentalists hoping to shed light on water pollution throughout Wyoming.

But unlike traditional ag-gag laws, which normally narrow their scope to factory farms, Wyoming’s law is stunningly broad. Under the enacted law’s language, a person can be found guilty of trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data if they enter onto open land to collect resource data — in this case, “collect” is defined as “take a sample of material, acquire, gather, photograph or otherwise preserve information in any form from open land which is submitted or intended to be submitted to any agency of the state or federal government.”

These laws…specifically target activity that is unarguably legitimate

Advocates of the law claim that it merely strengthens the rights of private property owners, and does not apply to public land. Indeed, when the law was first introduced, it defined trespassing as “[entering] onto or [crossing] private open land for the purpose of collecting resource data.” However — thanks to an amendment passed unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee — the final version of the law, signed by Gov. Matt Mead (R) in March, defines trespassing as someone who “enters onto open land” and “enters onto private open land” — which is defined as “land outside the exterior boundaries of any incorporated city, town, subdivision.” That distinction calls into question whether the law could potentially be applied to public land. In Wyoming, public lands account for some 17.5 million acres.

“It appears to clearly apply to both private and public land,” Brueckner said. “This is like trespass on steroids. These laws, they don’t merely prohibit data collection. What they criminalize is data collection for the purpose of submitting the information to the state and federal government, and that’s what’s so bizarre and over the top about these laws. They specifically target activity that is unarguably legitimate.”

And while all ag-gag laws are, in a way, targeted at environmentalists, most concern themselves more with animal welfare — exposing the bad actors in factory farming that use abhorrent practices, like lifting a cow too sick to stand to slaughter with a forklift. In Wyoming, the abuse is more subtle. Ranchers have long allowed their cattle to graze on public lands — something allowed by the Bureau of Land Management. But that access comes with an environmental cost when herds graze too close to streams, causing fecal matter to end up in waterways.

“These [Wyoming] laws are designed to prevent the public from knowing about the routine, well-accepted, widespread practices in the industry. In that sense, they are much broader, because the environmental impacts are so unavoidable and systemic,” Brueckner said. “The fact is that grazing of cattle has a profound impact on the environment, and they can’t just blame it on one or two bad actors.”

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Judge Blocks Obama Administration’s Environmental Rules For Fracking

The Obama administration’s regulations targeting fracking on public lands suffered a setback Wednesday, when a federal judge issued an injunction against the rules.

U.S. District Court of Wyoming Judge Scott Skavdahl ruled Wednesday that, until all lawsuits surrounding the rules are settled, the Interior Department can’t enforce its fracking regulations. The regulations, which were finalized in March, prohibit open wastewater pits on federally protected lands and require oil and gas companies to disclose the chemicals they use when fracking on these lands.

The judge wrote in his opinion that the Bureau of Land Management’s fracking rule created “an overlapping federal regime, in the absence of congressional authority to do so, which interferes with the states’ sovereign interests in, and public policies related to, regulation of hydraulic fracturing.”

“At this point, the Court does not believe Congress has granted or delegated to the BLM authority to regulate fracking,” the judge wrote. “It is hard to analytically conclude or infer that, having expressly removed the regulatory authority from the EPA, Congress intended to vest it in the BLM, particularly where the BLM had not previously been regulating the practice.”

Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and North Dakota have all sued over the rule, as have the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance. These lawsuits will need to be settled before the rule has a chance of being implemented, according to the court’s ruling. The oil and gas industry groups both have claimed that the final fracking rule “is contrary to law,” and Wyoming also said that the rule “unlawfully interferes” with its statewide fracking regulations.

Judge Skavdahl issued a temporary injunction on the rule in June, in a decision the Sierra Club called a “setback for our public lands.” The judge’s decision this week means that permits for fracking on public lands will continue to be evaluated and approved under existing regulations. The Bureau of Land Management said it would uphold the ruling.

“The BLM is consulting with the Office of the Solicitor and the Department of Justice about the decision of the U.S. District Court in Wyoming to issue a preliminary injunction of the hydraulic fracturing rule,” the agency said. “While the matter is being resolved, the BLM will follow the Court’s order and will continue to process applications for permit to drill and inspect well sites under its pre-existing regulations.”

Matt Lee-Ashley, director of Public Lands at the Center for American Progress, said he didn’t think the injunction would last long, or be upheld should it go to a higher court.

“These fracking standards are about as common sense as seat belts and airbags,” he said. “The standards are simple: they require that wells be soundly built and tested, that wastewater be properly handled, and that chemicals used in fracking operations be publicly disclosed. With so many oil and gas companies already following these practices, it’s a mistake that the industry is spending millions of dollars on lawsuits to fight them.”

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EPA Acts To Mitigate 44 To 73 Percent Of Acute Pesticide Incidents Among Farmworkers

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took a major step this week to protect the thousands of U.S. agricultural workers who are exposed to pesticides every year, many of whom suffer from chronic health effects years after they stop working in the fields.

EPA officials announced that the agency will help mitigate pesticide exposure by updating a two-decade old regulation known as the Worker Protection Standard (WPS).

The finalized revision of the WPS includes increased mandatory training sessions to inform farmworkers on the protections their employers are required to offer them; expanded training to teach workers how to reduce “take-home exposure;” new anti-retaliatory provisions to protect whistleblowers who raise concerns; and “no-entry” application-exclusion zones up to 100 feet surrounding pesticide application equipment to protect workers from pesticide overspray. And, for the first time ever, the revision bars minors under 18 from handling pesticides.

The regulation, which will be phased in over the next two years, will affect agricultural workers and pesticide handlers who work on farms and in forests, nurseries, and greenhouses. Livestock workers are not covered. Once fully implemented, the revised regulation is expected to “avoid or mitigate approximately 44 to 73 percent of annual reported acute WPS-related pesticide incidents,” according to the EPA.

Virginia Ruiz, Director of Occupational and Environmental Health at the advocacy group Farmworker Justice, told ThinkProgress that EPA could have “gone farther in certain areas,” but welcomed the revised regulation as “a step in the right direction.”

Children under 18 — their bodies are still developing and a lot of different systems are still maturing.

Setting a minimum age for pesticide applicators was especially well-received by farmworker organizations. “Children under 18 — their bodies are still developing and a lot of different systems are still maturing,” Ruiz noted. “Exposing them to risk could have lifelong health effects.”

“People are too immature at 16 years old to be able to handle pesticides, though many people thought that 18 was too young,” Jeannie Economos, Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project Coordinator at the grassroots organization Farmworker Association of Florida, told ThinkProgress in a phone interview. “Younger people will think there’s no problem, they may not wear personal protective equipment, they might not think it’s necessary, or realize what they’re doing to their health or other people.”

Ruiz agreed that 16- and 17-year-olds don’t have “the emotional maturity” to work with pesticides because they may not know how to interact with their bosses when they have health-related questions or concerns. “They might not feel comfortable challenging their supervisors or employers about the potential harm,” she said.

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A farmworker picks broccolini in the rain on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014, in King City, Calif.

An estimated 5.1 billion pounds of pesticides are used in the United States annually. There are anywhere between 1,800 and 3,000 occupational incidents involving pesticides every year, though the number is likely even higher due to widespread underreporting.

Mily Treviño-Sauceda recalled the time a plane flew over the citrus farm where she worked and doused her and other workers with pesticides. “Everyone just started suffocating,” Treviño-Sauceda told Earth Justice. “I tried to run away but couldn’t see or breathe. Everyone was covered with white dust and their eyes were itchy and watering.” Another farmworker Jovita Alfau, a U.S. legal resident and Mexican native, became dizzy, weak, and vomited after she was sent back to tend hibiscus plants 24 hours they were sprayed down. And yet another farmworker Yolanda Gomez told the Center for Public Integrity, “When you go to the field you go clean, and when you come out of the field you can see your eyes are very red.”

Studies have shown a correlation between pesticide usage and Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, prostate cancer, Parkinson’s disease, lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, and asthma, among other problems that could affect workers on an organic and cellular level.

That’s an environmental justice issue. Why are farmworkers still exposed to this pesticide?

“Chlorpyrifos — it’s an organic phosphate pesticide — was banned for residential use because of its impacts on children,” Economos said. “But it’s still used in agriculture. Why is that? That’s an environmental justice issue. Why are farmworkers still exposed to this pesticide?”

It’s not just direct exposure that can make people sick — without proper training to remove clothing that’s been exposed to pesticides, farmworkers can also take home the residue with them to family members who then get sick. “At most agricultural work sites, there aren’t facilities on-site for workers to change out of their work clothes or bathe,” Ruiz said, explaining that her organization teaches workers to reduce pesticide exposure after their work shifts end. “Often workers will go home in the same clothes that they were wearing at work. If they have contact with their family members, for example, hugging their kids or touching other family members who haven’t been working in the fields, they can be exposed to pesticide residue.”

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Celestino Galindo Dominguez, 34, of Veracruz, Mexico, works at a citrus farm owned by Sorrells Brothers Inc. in the Central Florida town of Arcadia, Fla.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Lynne Sladk

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey, at least 53 percent of U.S. farmworkers are undocumented. And while California has moved on expanding health care options for undocumented farmworkers, many other states have not followed suit.

Farmworkers may have the option of going to community health centers where they can pay based on a sliding scale, but they could run into issues like misdiagnosis. Economos said that health providers are not trained to look for symptoms of pesticide exposure and farmworkers may not feel comfortable talking about their health history.

“The most common symptom of pesticide exposure are rashes,” Economos explained. “A farmworker will go in for a rash, but the doctor will just say, ‘you have contact dermatitis, here’s some cream, go home.’ If the doctor doesn’t ask what the occupation is or if the farmworker doesn’t tell them either because they don’t think to tell them or they’re afraid to tell them, then the doctor never diagnoses it as contact dermatitis related to pesticide exposure, which means that the treatment will only last as long as the next exposure.”

At least some farmworkers are likely too scared to stop working with pesticides because they need their jobs. A survey of New Mexico farm workers found that managers told workers they would lose their jobs if they refused to work in direct contact with pesticides. What’s more, workers are often not warned about the chemicals they are working with, and do not know they have been poisoned until they start vomiting or have trouble breathing.

It’s hard to exercise your rights if you don’t know of their existence.

“It’s hard to exercise your rights if you don’t know of their existence,” Department of Labor Thomas Perez said on a conference call. “Our goal is to bring them out of the shadows and into the sunshine.”

Still, agribusinesses and farm groups are reluctant to embrace the new changes. Paul Schlegel, director of environment and energy policy at the American Farm Bureau Federation, released a statement indicating that the EPA “is piling regulatory costs on farmers and ranchers that bear little if any relation to actual safety issues.” The EPA indicated in its revision standards that the average expenditure of each farmworker would be about $30 per year. Meanwhile, the Pesticide Policy Coalition stated in its letter that there was “a lack of evidence of elevated levels of chronic illnesses among farmworkers.”

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