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Green and Prosperous Launches Ebook: Little Guidebook on Toxic Chemicals
Jul 24, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Kelly Pemberton
Green and Prosperous began as a vehicle for getting the word out about how toxic chemicals are routinely used in the products we buy. -
U.S. Green Groups File Lawsuit Seeking Chemical Spill Regulations
Jul 24, 2015 | Reuters
By Ayesha Rascoe
Three environmental groups have sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to issue regulations they say might have prevented a major 2014 chemical spill in West Virginia. -
DHS Official Claims Program 'Has Now Hit Its Stride'
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Industry outreach has been crucial to saving a once-maligned security program, a top security official said, but engagement with the labor community has been slower to develop. -
E&E Daily's Northey Outlines Roadblocks, Timeline on Energy Bills
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - TV
With comprehensive energy bills introduced in both the House and Senate this week, what timeline is emerging for moving the bills through committee, and how contentious is the amendment process expected to be? -
When is a Tree a Tree, When is it 'Waste' and Why Does it Matter for the Clean Power Plan?
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Elizabeth Harball
When presenting the case for wood energy use under the Obama administration's proposed Clean Power Plan, the Biomass Power Association created a simple diagram to answer a complicated question: When is a tree a tree and when is it "waste biomass"? -
Nation's Top 100 Power Plants Cut Carbon Emissions 12%
Jul 24, 2015 | LA Times
By Ivan Penn
The nation’s top 100 power plants, including those run by power companies in the Los Angeles region, reduced their collective carbon emissions 12% from 2008 to 2013, according to a report released Thursday. -
EPA Rolls Out 'Methane Challenge' for Oil and Gas Companies
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
The Obama administration proposed voluntary guidelines yesterday for oil and gas companies to reduce methane emissions that it says will complement regulations in the pipeline. -
Old Age, Big Footprints Pose Challenges for Agencies -- GAO
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
Government agencies are hitting some snags in their quest to comply with federal green building rules, according to a new watchdog report.
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Green and Prosperous Launches Ebook: Little Guidebook on Toxic Chemicals
Jul 24, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Kelly Pemberton
Green and Prosperous began as a vehicle for getting the word out about how toxic chemicals are routinely used in the products we buy. The Little Guidebook for Green Moms and Dads is the first ebook in a series of “Green Guidebooks” published by Kelly Pemberton, the face behind Green and Prosperous. Although The Little Guidebook focuses on children’s products, it has something to offer for everyone. The second edition of this ebook is available for download on Amazon.com.
This post discusses how The Little Guidebook for Green Moms and Dads can help you educate yourself and minimize your family’s exposure to harmful toxins. As the book demonstrates, it’s important for all of us, as parents, consumers, and concerned citizens, to take a stand to minimize the risk from toxic chemicals to our health and the environment.
Below, an excerpt from the second chapter of the book looks at some of the effects of the chemical “body burden” that all humans carry. The “body burden” refers to the total chemical load that is present in a person’s body at any given time. While exposure to a single toxic chemical may not have much of an effect on a person’s health, the alarming fact is that our bodies have many toxic chemicals in them at any given time. This is true even if you maintain a very healthy lifestyle, or if you live in a remote location, far from civilization.
What is most disturbing is how few of the 80,000 chemicals available on the U.S. market today have been tested for safety. Even those that are tested and deemed safe may later be found to cause harm, particularly to the developing bodies of fetuses and young children. This was the case with DDT years ago. More recently, it was the case with BPA, a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics.
Exposure to harmful chemicals does not have the same effects on everyone, but there is strong evidence to suggest links between the increase in our chemical “body burden” and the rise of disorders and diseases like cancer, infertility, miscarriage, birth defects, learning disabilities and extreme allergies, asthma, and ADD. The bodies of babies in utero through the toddler years (2-3 years old) are especially vulnerable to the effects of exposure, although the bodies of children through the pubertal stage are also highly vulnerable, since they are still developing.
Many researchers into the health impact of environmental exposures to harmful chemicals note that exposure may have health effects that go beyond the childhood years and last well into adulthood: one study, published in 2000, demonstrated that pre-pubertal males who were exposed to one form of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin fathered predominantly female children…
We know that many of these chemicals are endocrine disruptors: they interfere with the normal functioning of the endocrine system in the bodies of humans and some animals. The endocrine system regulates the metabolism and function of the body. Endocrine glands secrete hormones that act on our organs through cognate receptors. Some of these hormones regulate brain and reproductive functions, including reproduction. For example, thyroid hormones regulate the development of the brain and the body’s metabolism.
These facts should be alarming to everyone. Exposure to toxic chemicals may not affect you in ways that are immediately obvious, or that inhibit your lifestyle dramatically. But they do affect us all. Their effects have gotten worse over time, as we are being exposed to a steady chemical cocktail of toxics that is more detrimental to our health, and the health of the environment, than anything that previous generations have faced.
There are signs, however, that this trend is beginning to change, slowly but surely.
For example, the heightened global awareness of and action on climate change; and the increase in ”organic”, “eco”, and “sustainable” products, services, and industries signal that the green movement is growing. Still, we run the risk of seeing recent gains reversed if we don’t take a pro-active stance to deal with the threats to our environment that compromise everyone’s health and are linked to premature illness, disability, and cancer.
Federal and state regulations alone will not stop manufacturers from needlessly using toxic chemicals in the products you buy. Manufacturers do, however, listen when enough of their customers demand changes (just like our recent Mind the Store victory with Menards).
One of the easiest ways people can take a more pro-active stance is to become educated about the toxic chemicals that are being used in the foods, personal care products, and other consumer goods they purchase and to stop buying those products.One of the easiest ways people can take a more pro-active stance is to become educated about the toxic chemicals that are being used in the foods, personal care products, and other consumer goods they purchase and to stop buying those products.They can also support the good work that organizations like Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families are doing, by supporting their campaigns and calls to action.
The websitewww.greenandprosperous.com has many tips and tools to help you become a better educated, active advocate for green living. Read the blog for more information. Better yet, download and shop with the free“cheat sheet” to help reduce your family’s exposure to toxic chemicals.
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U.S. Green Groups File Lawsuit Seeking Chemical Spill Regulations
Jul 24, 2015 | Reuters
By Ayesha Rascoe
Three environmental groups have sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to issue regulations they say might have prevented a major 2014 chemical spill in West Virginia.
The groups, represented by the Natural Resources Defense Council's Jared Knicley, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
To read the full story on WestlawNext Practitioner Insights, click here: bit.ly/1g94cu8
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DHS Official Claims Program 'Has Now Hit Its Stride'
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Industry outreach has been crucial to saving a once-maligned security program, a top security official said, but engagement with the labor community has been slower to develop.
CFATS "truly has now hit its stride," David Wulf, the director of the Department of Homeland Security's infrastructure security compliance division, told industry representatives this week at a chemical facility security conference in Alexandria, Va.
Launched in 2007, DHS's Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program was once on the verge of cancellation, with lawmakers maligning the program as bloated and ineffective.
The program requires certain chemical facilities to file security plans with DHS and categorizes the plants into tiers depending on the threat the agency determines they pose. But the exact methods, and the number and identity of the plants, are kept confidential, unlike in older chemical security programs, which were built with greater transparency measures.
DHS officials said CFATS will continue being useful in a climate in which security officials are increasingly concerned about the threat of the Islamic State, or ISIS, the group that allegedly inspired a French man to attack an American-owned chemical facility last month near Lyon, France.
Despite public criticism and years of delays approving facility security plans, the program received a four-year reauthorization from Congress last year with new changes to speed the approvals.
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Calling the approvals a "tremendous accomplishment," Wulf said the program was close to signing off on its 2,000th site security plan, meaning that nearly two-thirds of high-risk facilities have approved plans, according to DHS. And the program should finish reviewing the rest of the plans within the next year, Wulf said.
But even as the program stands to become a more lasting part of the regulatory landscape, labor groups and government auditors note it's not without its challenges.
Lawmakers last year inserted new language in the bill extending the program's authorization, the "Protecting and Securing Chemical Facilities from Terrorist Attacks Act," providing whistleblower protections for chemical facility workers who report unsafe conditions to DHS and directing that the agency set up tip lines to accept this information.
While DHS has for years invested significant time on outreach to the chemical industry, its efforts to reach average workers are not as developed. Though Democrats in Congress and labor unions describe whistleblower complaints as a crucial tool to identifying safety hazards, Wulf described these complaints as playing only a limited role at DHS.
"There has not been a flood of whistleblower complaints coming into our office," Wulf said.
When the complaints come to a new toll-free number and email account, they often concern issues that are outside the purview of the CFATS program, Wulf said.
DHS has been slower to develop communication tools aimed at facility workers, like the kind of basic workplace posters long published by agencies like U.S. EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said Anna Fendley, a legislative representative at United Steelworkers.
"My sense is that the DHS outreach has really been focused on managers and corporate-level people," Fendley said.
The union has tried to work with DHS "to try to make their outreach more understandable to the average person who doesn't know the security world," Fendley said.
Many local unions are not made aware when a DHS representative has visited their workplace or may not know that their facility is in the CFATS program, Fendley said. And many chemical facilities, even those that may pose a safety risk, may not be in the CFATS program because it includes fewer plants than EPA's risk management program because of exemptions and other factors, said Greenpeace's legislative director, Rick Hind.
At a panel Fendley led at the USW's Health, Safety & Environment Conference in Pittsburgh earlier this year -- an event DHS officials have yet to join -- a show of hands revealed "every single manager knew what CFATS was, and none of the workers knew," Fendley said.
In time, DHS may improve its outreach to unions, Fendley said, and plans were underway for the agency to participate in the next USW safety conference.GAO flags concerns
The program's opaque nature has also left unsettled the basis behind its risk determinations, the Government Accountability Office said this week.
In a report mandated under the 2014 legislation, GAO found that DHS has no documented process for managing noncompliant facilities, choosing instead to handle them on a case-by-case basis.
In addition, the program "used unverified and self-reported data" to determine plants' risk level.
One key metric -- the distance a plant is from population centers -- was possibly inaccurate at 44 percent of facilities in the program, GAO found. DHS noted in its response that the impact of these misstatements were "likely to be extremely minimal."
And almost half of the facilities inspected prior to February had missed deadlines to implement security features promised in their site security plans, the report found. There is no procedure to address these shortcomings when they occur, and DHS did not always treat plants consistently when it identified these problems, GAO said.
Having these procedures more firmly established would offer "more reasonable assurances that facilities implement planned measures and address security gaps," GAO said.
Congress would continue to monitor the program, said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, in a statement.
This oversight was needed to "continue to make progress and shape a program that keeps these vital facilities and the jobs they provide secure, protects our communities and the environment, and allows our businesses to thrive," Carper said.
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E&E Daily's Northey Outlines Roadblocks, Timeline on Energy Bills
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - TV
With comprehensive energy bills introduced in both the House and Senate this week, what timeline is emerging for moving the bills through committee, and how contentious is the amendment process expected to be? On today's The Cutting Edge, E&E Daily reporter Hannah Northey discusses the outlook for committee markups and floor action.
Transcript
Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to The Cutting Edge. Energy bills dropping in both the House and Senate this week. Is this a first step towards bipartisan compromise? E&E Daily's Hannah Northey is here with details on the next steps and possible roadblocks that we could see that get in the way to getting these bills to the floor. Hannah, let's start with the Senate. Are Chairwoman Murkowski and ranking member Cantwell both pleased with what made it into the bill that's ready for markup? What's included?
Hannah Northey: Well, to make an obvious point, it's a big bill. It's 357 pages, and I think they are pretty happy. It definitely speaks to the bipartisan effort that went into it. The committee staffers told us there are 30 Republican bills that went into the package and over 20 Democratic measures, so it's definitely even. And some of the big provisions, it puts a clock on LNG exports, has cyber authority for the DOE. It also expresses the senators' intent that oil funds from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve should not be used for activities that aren't related. The bill is also pretty interesting for what it doesn't include, which is lifting this decades-old ban on oil exports or drilling in ANWR, which is a big focus for Senator Murkowski. So yeah, I would say that they're pretty happy about it right now.
Monica Trauzzi: And this is where the amendment process comes in. That's where we're expecting things to get sticky. What types of amendments are senators going to be looking to attach?
Hannah Northey: So we're not sure yet. They're being pretty tight-lipped, but I think you could see some of these senators reintroducing language that they had initially proposed for the bill but was then taken out. I was thinking about that. So Sen. Martin Heinrich from New Mexico, for example, he gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission backstop authority to approve transmission lines that states may have taken too long on or rejected, and so maybe he would reintroduce that language or independent Sen. Angus King from Maine, maybe he would reintroduce language that would control which LNG exports are approved, but you know, as far as that more contentious language, Senator Murkowski has said she's going to move a separate bill to deal with lifting the export ban and divvying up oil and gas revenues for coastal states, and she actual wants to move that bill before the recess. So I don't -- we're not absolutely sure that that language is going to make it into an amendment.
Monica Trauzzi: So is that how she's planning to sort of manage this amendment process? I mean, how are she and Fred Upton over on the House side managing the process and then what's the timeline in both chambers?
Hannah Northey: It's moving a little faster in the Senate, actually, and a little slower in the House. But what they've both said is it's going to be regular or they're going to open the floor to amendments. There is a little bit of a difference in that we can tell so far. We're trying to figure this out. In the House, Congressman Pallone, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, has said that he struck a deal with Upton to make sure that any amendment that goes into the deal has bipartisan backing or, you know, consensus. When we pushed him on that, he said, well, everything's still on the table. So it still seems pretty open. And Senator Murkowski, she's also said that the really -- you know, she's showing -- she believes that there's a lot of restraint. She really liked the No Child Left Behind Act where all the amendments were allowed in, but the more contentious issues are put to -- they're allowed to take place on the floor. From what she's said, she's going to allow these amendments, and nothing's left out so far. She's not really putting an edict out there that's saying it has to be germane. So it's pretty interesting.
Monica Trauzzi: And over on the House side, also pretty noncontroversial to start. What types of amendments and what's included in that House bill that's different from the Senate bill?
Hannah Northey: It's more stripped down than the Senate bill. It doesn't deal with hydropower or cyber. It also doesn't talk about lifting the export ban on oil exports. And it actually doesn't talk about LNG exports at all, which is pretty interesting because a lot of members wanted that. So it is less contentious than the Senate bill and also, I mean, in the amendment process in the House, what we're thinking you could see is a little battle between members who are asking, you know, Democrats are asking why doesn't this deal with climate change? Why doesn't this push renewables? So they could offer those type of amendments whereas Republicans, a number have said that they want to see this language to lift the crude export ban. So yeah, we think there's going to be a little rub there.
Monica Trauzzi: This is the most momentum we've seen on an energy bill in a long time. Does this signal that we could see a successful move across the finish line?
Hannah Northey: Some would say yes. I think that it's -- you know, it's kind of unclear right now. What Murkowski and Upton, what the leaders of these committees did is that they put off the controversial amendments, the issues, until later down the road. So they have these bipartisan products that they're really proud of, but it also begs the question, you know, will these amendments bog down these bills? Will they get it done with floor time running out on the clock? We're just going to have to wait and see if the members want it as much as the leaders do and what happens with these amendments.
Monica Trauzzi: Lot of uncertainties still. Thank you for coming on the show.
Hannah Northey: Thanks for having me.
Monica Trauzzi: More Cutting Edge coming next Friday. We'll see you then.
[End of Audio]
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When is a Tree a Tree, When is it 'Waste' and Why Does it Matter for the Clean Power Plan?
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Elizabeth Harball
When presenting the case for wood energy use under the Obama administration's proposed Clean Power Plan, the Biomass Power Association created a simple diagram to answer a complicated question: When is a tree a tree and when is it "waste biomass"?
This question is a contentious issue in the debate over whether burning wood at power plants is a renewable, carbon-neutral energy source or harmful to the global climate. The issue may also have a bit to do with combating wildfires in the drought-parched West.
The diagram, which the BPA said it has presented to a number of Washington, D.C., policymakers, depicts two plants, one a shorter sapling and the second a taller, more tree-like tree. The small limbs and the top of the taller tree are blue, which the diagram categorizes as "waste biomass," while its trunk and larger branches are green, which the diagram categorizes as "sawlogs," more valuable wood used for purposes like home construction.
[+] "I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree," was the beginning of "Trees," a poem by Joyce Kilmer in 1913. Now, 102 years later, the very definition of a tree is part of a fight between the biomass industry and environmental groups. Kilmer, who was killed by a sniper in World War I, also understood fighting, but his poem still enjoys a life of its own. Graphic courtesy of the Biomass Power Association.
The slim sapling is entirely blue, meaning that the BPA considers it to represent 100 percent "waste biomass."
At the smokestack, burning wood for energy produces emissions just like burning fossil fuels. But many environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council agree with the biomass industry that burning "waste" wood material like sawdust is probably good for the climate compared to burning fossil fuels because this material would otherwise decompose and produce emissions. Additionally, trees absorb CO2 when they grow, so burning this form of wood "waste" is considered carbon-neutral.
But there is disagreement surrounding the category of biomass represented by the smaller, blue-colored sapling in the industry group's diagram, a plant that represents what some may call a "whole tree" and others may call "residue," "waste" or "thinnings."
Many environmental groups are less happy with the idea of burning what they call "whole trees" for energy. Sasha Stashwick of the NRDC wrote in a recent blog post that burning "whole trees and other large-diameter wood ... actually increases carbon emissions compared to coal and other fossil fuels."
"Those increases can persist for anywhere from 35 to 100 years or more, depending on regional variations in climate and forest type, and would therefore make climate change worse," Stashwick wrote.
Jessie Stolark, policy associate with the nonprofit Environmental and Energy Study Institute, said the U.S. EPA is actively grappling with the question of what trees are beneficial to burn for energy and what trees are not.
"When we're talking about whole trees, what constitutes a 'whole tree'? Are we talking about particular diameters? Does it have to do with the health of the tree?" Stolark asked. "It is hard to say at any given time what the mixture is, because it so depends on the rest of the marketplace for wood products."Biomass boosters say thinning aids forests
The BPA and other wood industry groups want EPA to conclude that when it comes to helping the climate and the nation's forests, not all trees are created equal.
"Biomass is part of a larger forest products industry; the fuels that our members use come from residues from forestry operations," explained Carrie Annand, vice president of external affairs for BPA. "It's really not realistic to think that our members are using anything other than the lowest-value fuel they can find."
Finding markets for low-value trees through the biomass industry is beneficial, Annand said, because it can help pay for thinning in Western forests to help protect them against wildfires. In some Western forests, brush and small trees that have grown in after years of fire suppression can serve as kindling to make the fires hotter and more threatening to the whole forest, especially during a drought. Forest owners' groups also argue that biomass creates markets for small trees that allow private landowners to keep their land as forest rather than converting it to agriculture or housing developments.
Matt Willey, corporate communications manager for Drax, agrees with Annand on these points. Drax is a power station in the United Kingdom that imports large volumes of wood from the southeastern United States to burn in two of its formerly coal-fired, 660-megawatt generation units. According to a recent report by industry publication ENDS Waste & Bioenergy, Drax recently imported a record 60,000 metric tons of biomass in a single shipment, a new record.
"Forest thinning is an integral part of good forest management and actually helps produce healthier, larger and more valuable trees for other industries," Willey said in a May email.
In a separate email in February, Willey argued that the wood fiber used in Drax's generators comes from "sustainably managed" forests, meaning that the trees they use are what his company considers to be "low grade" trees, including trees that are diseased and damaged.
Willey vehemently denied that his company is causing deforestation in the United States, pointing to recent research by the U.S. Forest Service that found the Southeast's forests are growing, not shrinking, in response to increased European demand for biomass (ClimateWire, Feb. 3).'Hiding behind semantics'?
But some environmentalists contend that if EPA allowed states to burn material sourced from "whole trees" for energy as a way to comply with the Clean Power Plan, this could result in more, not fewer, emissions and speed climate change.
"What we need is a science-based, consistent system for evaluating the actual carbon impacts of different sources of biomass," Stashwick of NRDC said in an email. "The science tells us that when power plants burn trees and other large-diameter wood, it increases emissions compared to coal for many decades, whether that biomass is called a 'waste' or not."
Scot Quaranda, communications director with the activist group Dogwood Alliance, calls the biomass industry's stance on forest "residues" and thinnings "hiding behind semantics, essentially."
"It starts to become disingenuous when you start to call them just 'residuals' or 'thinnings' or other things besides 'whole trees,'" Quaranda said.
The Dogwood Alliance, which aggressively lobbies against the growth of the biomass industry in the U.S. Southeast, has repeatedly published reports alleging the industry is already using large-diameter "whole trees" to manufacture wood pellets, while the industry has repeatedly responded that it only uses "low-grade" wood, "thinnings" and "residues."
The group argues biomass' growth in the Southeast will lead to large-scale clearcutting and widespread conversion of natural forests to plantations, activity it says will do more to harm the climate than to help it. It and other environmental groups are worried EPA will take the side of the industry when it comes to biomass use under the Clean Power Plan.
"The EPA, they don't regulate sustainability in forests, that's not what they do, that's not their area of expertise," Quaranda said. "To assume that that's going to be an easy thing to do is nonsense."EPA mulls over how wood energy can be sustainable
So how will EPA draw the line between a "whole tree" and "waste"?
EPA officials have repeatedly stressed that the agency is in the process of working through the science of what biomass use is "sustainable" and exactly how this energy source can reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions. The agency has appointed a panel of scientific experts, called the Science Advisory Board, to deliberate on this issue, and this group is not expected to come to a conclusion until later this year.
However, agency leaders have hinted that they will accept at least some forms of biomass burning for energy as a way for states to comply with the Clean Power Plan.
"We very much are in favor of recognizing sustainable forestry and the efforts that it provides to essentially lower greenhouse gases," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a recent call with reporters.
But for now, it remains unclear how and when EPA will conclude how big, small, healthy or unhealthy a tree must be for its use as energy to count as "sustainable."
The BPA recently met with the White House Office of Management and Budget to discuss how wood energy emissions will be counted under the Clean Power Plan.
During a recent webinar hosted by Biomass Magazine, Annand said of the meeting, "we don't really have a lot of clues about what the final Clean Power Plan is going to look like, but we are hopeful that it will be positive toward our industry."
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Nation's Top 100 Power Plants Cut Carbon Emissions 12%
Jul 24, 2015 | LA Times
By Ivan Penn
The nation’s top 100 power plants, including those run by power companies in the Los Angeles region, reduced their collective carbon emissions 12% from 2008 to 2013, according to a report released Thursday.
Though emissions have fallen in recent years, carbon produced by the largest power plants was 14% higher than in 1990, the report by Ceres said.Stunning photos, celebrity homes: Get the free weekly Hot Property newsletter
In its 54-page report, Ceres, an Boston organization that advocates for public policies on climate change and other environmental issues, stated that emissions are expected to decline further as power companies retire coal-fired plants and install pollution controls on facilities that continue to operate.
Over the last two years, carbon emissions have basically been flat, the report states, but efforts such as the federal Clean Power Plan are expected to further reduce emissions from the power companies.
Ceres reported that the electricity produced by the top 100 power plants generate 40% of their electricity from coal-fired units; 28% natural gas; 19% nuclear; 7% renewable sources such as solar and wind; and 7% hydro.cCommentsADD A COMMENT0
In 2013, the top 100 power plants, determined by the amount of power they generate, produced 61% of carbon emissions.
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EPA Rolls Out 'Methane Challenge' for Oil and Gas Companies
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
The Obama administration proposed voluntary guidelines yesterday for oil and gas companies to reduce methane emissions that it says will complement regulations in the pipeline.
The "Methane Challenge Program" would allow companies with natural gas and onshore oil operations to make and track methane reduction commitments. Companies that make commitments would be named partners in the program, which U.S. EPA says will allow them to be publicly recognized as leaders in reducing methane emissions.
EPA released the guidelines yesterday as a "proposal for stakeholder feedback."
"The proposed Methane Challenge Program will create a platform for leading companies to go above and beyond existing voluntary action," EPA said, "and make meaningful and transparent commitments to yield significant methane emissions reductions in a quick, flexible, cost-effective way."
Green groups responded to the program by re-upping their calls for strict regulations on methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. Industry groups reacted cautiously, stopping short of full-throated approval and stressing their position that regulations are counterproductive.
The Obama administration called the voluntary program a key part of its methane reduction strategy announced in March 2014. It follows an announcement by EPA in January that it would propose new source rules for methane, as well as expand rules for ozone-forming emissions at existing oil and gas wellheads.
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The actions are aimed at a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector by up to 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025.
EPA said its challenge program would "complement these regulatory actions" by providing incentives for companies to make voluntary reductions. Companies would have the choice of committing to best management practices or to a specific emissions goal, or both.
The agency said the program would provide "flexibility to allow companies to select the path that best fits with their capabilities and corporate priorities in reducing emissions."
Once a company commits to the program, it would sign a memorandum of agreement with EPA that lays out how the company would report both its baseline emissions and its progress to the agency. Companies would also be required to develop an implementation plan within six months of becoming a partner.
EPA intends to track progress through a website or some other type of public forum.
The program would update the agency's Natural Gas STAR Program, a 20-year-old program also aimed at encouraging oil and gas companies to improve efficiency and reduce methane emissions. EPA is aiming to launch the new program by the end of the year.
America's Natural Gas Alliance said it was reviewing the details of the program to assess how it would fit with existing and upcoming regulations.
"We have always said that the best way to achieve reductions in methane is through collaborative measures," ANGA President and CEO Marty Durbin said in a statement.
American Petroleum Institute Senior Director of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Howard Feldman likewise heralded voluntary measures and said industry would consider joining the new program "provided it has the necessary flexibility and incentives."
Industry groups have pointed to EPA figures showing that methane emitted from hydraulically fractured natural gas wells has decreased by 73 percent since 2011. But methane from oil production operations has increased during the drilling boom, up 10 percent since 2008.
Environmental groups urged the administration to swiftly adopt tighter regulations on the sector.
"The industry would like us to believe it will reduce this potent climate pollution out of the goodness of their hearts -- we don't buy it," said Meleah Geertsma, attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, just 1 percent of oil and gas producers have joined the existing Natural Gas STAR Program and prevented only a small fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions released by the sector.
The center said it worried that the release of the program signaled that EPA intended to give the oil and gas industry a "free pass" in its upcoming regulations over the sector.
The White House statement announcing the rules in January said "voluntary industry programs and state actions could reduce the need for future regulations."
"The Obama administration must regulate this dangerous pollutant while we move to a clean-energy future," said Vera Pardee, a senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. "To fight global warming, we need real methane rules, along with real and rapid progress away from these dirty fossil fuels."
Reporter Mike Soraghan contributed.
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Old Age, Big Footprints Pose Challenges for Agencies -- GAO
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
Government agencies are hitting some snags in their quest to comply with federal green building rules, according to a new watchdog report.
The old age of buildings, the large number of federal properties and the specialty functions of many buildings are among the challenges making it tough for agencies to meet green goals for federally owned and leased buildings, according to the analysis from the Government Accountability Office.
The Energy Department, for example, has faced challenges with greening facilities that use energy-intensive processes like laboratories, data centers and supercomputers, the report says.
Officials at the Defense Department told watchdogs that the sheer number of existing buildings they oversee has made it tough to comply with sustainability goals. DOD officials also said many of their buildings are old, and implementing green building rules at existing buildings is more challenging than for new construction or major renovations.
The federal government is the country's biggest energy consumer, according to GAO, and spent about $7 billion in fiscal 2014 to provide energy to more than 275,000 buildings owned or leased by the government. Federal law and policies mandate that agencies implement green building strategies in those buildings.
"As the country's largest property owner and energy user, it is critical that the federal government does what it can to become more energy efficient," said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, who requested the report.
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"I look forward to working with the administration and my colleagues in Congress to ensure that federal agencies have the tools and resources they need to implement this important order and become more sustainable and energy efficient."
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