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(ACC Mentioned) Water Utilities Press EPA For Nano Research, Sampling In Future Data Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
Drinking water utilities, in comments on EPA's proposed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) data collection rule for nanomaterials, are calling for additional research and water sampling to better assess nanomaterials' presence in the environment and potential risks, arguments that could support advocates' calls to address risks to aquatic species. -
US Business Coalition Publishes 'Safer' Preservatives Guidance
Aug 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
US-based business coalition, the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3), has published a guide, aimed at accelerating the development of safer preservatives for use in household and personal care products. -
Can Outrage, Open as Needed
Aug 5, 2015 | The Scranton Times-Tribune
By Tim Rowland
We’re taught the virtue of allowing cooler heads to prevail, but at times it might be wished that anger could be canned, dried or frozen to be reconstituted when needed. -
California to Reassess Lead Exposure Limit
Aug 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is to initiate a rulemaking to update the existing maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for lead, in response to an NGO petition. -
Large Explosion Rocks Mo. Aluminum Plant
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
A large explosion shook a southeast Missouri aluminum plant yesterday, injuring some workers and launching a plume of smoke visible for miles. -
Dems Boycott Vote to Overturn Climate Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Senate Democrats walked out of a committee meeting Wednesday, denying Republicans the quorum they needed to pass a bill to overturn President Obama’s climate rule for power plants. -
Dem Walkout Postpones EPW Vote on Carbon Rule Legislation
Aug 5, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillén
Senate Republicans delayed a committee vote on a bill targeting the Obama administration’s carbon rules for power plants after Democrats walked out over unrelated legislation. -
Dem Poll: Climate Rule has Broad Support
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A poll from a progressive group shows broad public support for the Obama administration’s new climate rule for power plants. -
EPA Rule Earns Ridicule in Oil and Gas Country, But Some Support Percolates
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Edward Klump
If there's one thing traditional oil and gas states don't like, it's being told how energy policy should work. -
Resource Planning Put TVA 'Well Ahead of Most Others' on EPA Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Kristi E. Swartz
Critics of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan argue that the rule disrupts an electric utility's traditional resource planning process where the lowest-cost electricity options rule the day. -
Senate Markup on EPA Rules Sparks Interstate Brawl
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
A Senate Environment and Public Works Committee debate over legislation that would scuttle U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan turned into a fight between coastal Democrats and Republicans from states that rely heavily on fossil fuels. -
Ads Use National Parks as Props to Attack EPA Ozone Plan
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
Most industry campaigns opposing U.S. EPA's proposal to tighten the national ground-level ozone limit have argued that a lower standard is not necessary and would cause widespread economic ruin. -
ClearView Energy's Book Discusses Impact of Rule on Energy Markets
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - TV
How could changes made in U.S. EPA's final Clean Power Plan affect natural gas markets and infrastructure development? -
EPA Rule Includes 'Panoply' of Changes to Help States Trade Carbon Emissions
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Emily Holden and Elizabeth Harball
U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan does far more than the draft proposal to support states pursuing carbon trading, offering a "panoply" of tools, in the rule's words. -
Memos May Open Obama Rule to Legal Assault From Left
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Annie Snider
The biggest threat to the Obama administration's ambitious water rule may come not from industry foes or states challenging what they call a federal power grab, but from greens suing under one of the country's foremost environmental laws, legal experts say.
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(ACC Mentioned) Water Utilities Press EPA For Nano Research, Sampling In Future Data Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
Drinking water utilities, in comments on EPA's proposed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) data collection rule for nanomaterials, are calling for additional research and water sampling to better assess nanomaterials' presence in the environment and potential risks, arguments that could support advocates' calls to address risks to aquatic species.
"Data on the environmental occurrence of nanomaterials are lacking," the American Water Works Association (AWWA) says in June 30 comments, which were recently posted to a federal website. "To understand whether engineered nanomaterials are present in source waters at concentrations of potential concern requires sampling and analysis of surface waters, waste water treatment plant effluents, and groundwater."
AWWA also argues additional information is needed on methods for removing nanomaterials from water, and says data on removal through conventional drinking water treatment processes commonly used in the United States are "almost non-existent."
The drinking water utilities' call for research and sampling to better determine nanomaterials' presence in the environment and potential risks could back arguments from environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, to address the risks certain nanomaterials may pose risks to aquatic species.
But while AWWA says "there needs to be regulation of nanotechnology industries," the utilities group cautions that "regulators must not make decisions while there are still knowledge gaps in topics such as exposure and health effects."
EPA is taking comment through the end of Aug. 5 on a proposed TSCA section 8(a) nano reporting and record-keeping rule, which the agency has said will guide its future policies on the substances, including potential regulation of some nanomaterials found to pose risks to human health or the environment.
The American Chemistry Council has called on EPA to revise and re-propose the April 6 plan, arguing it lacks sufficient clarity and scientific backing, though some western states have said new reporting requirements are insufficient and that stronger action to address nanomaterials' potential risks is needed.
The California Department of Public Health has urged EPA to define all nanomaterials as new chemicals, subjecting them to premanufacture scrutiny.
And the Washington Department of Ecology has said a safety determination on the substances' potential risks to human health and the environment is needed to ensure regulation can be implemented when needed.
Federal agencies have long struggled with how to assess and potentially regulate nanomaterials because their unique properties that advance technology may also present health and safety risks.
Studying Nanomaterials
As part of the effort, EPA has conducted case studies of certain nanomaterials seeking information to prioritize and inform future risk assessment of the substances, though the agency has said those studies were not intended as a basis for regulatory or risk management decisions in the near term.
In one case study, EPA reviewed risks of nanoscale titanium dioxide (TiO2) used in sunscreen and drinking water treatment. The study identified areas for future research, including on potential long-term health effects associated with exposure to nano-TiO2, though environmentalist and industry sources said the review left core questions unresolved and was unclear on how the information could be used.
EPA's April 6 proposal follows years of wrangling with the nano industry and White House officials over the scope of the proposed reporting rule. The proposal would require a one-time data submission to EPA six months after issuance of the final rule, and the agency is also proposing that companies that intend to manufacture reportable substances after the rule takes effect would have to report to EPA at least 135 days before commencing manufacturing.
In comments, AWWA says environmental releases of nanomaterials occur from point sources, including manufacturing and wastewater treatment plants, as well as from runoff. While the proposed rule could fill some knowledge gaps related to nanomaterials, AWWA also says the agency should clarify and narrow an exclusion for substances that dissociate in water, and should remove "unique and novel characteristics" as a requirement for reporting, arguing the phrase could become a loophole allowing companies not to report.
The utilities group also opposes EPA's plan not to publish an inventory of nanomaterials based on information reported under the rule, saying that publishing "some aggregated anonymous information" on nanomaterials and the quantities reported of certain substances would help fill data gaps.
Additionally, AWWA says most studies on the health of effects of nanomaterials are of inhalation exposure, while only a few studies address the ingestion and dermal pathways. While data suggests some nanomaterials cause adverse effects, AWWA says that information is too limited to draw conclusions.
"There is a need for ongoing research and classification to identify which metrics to use in toxicology studies and to conduct experiments at environmentally relevant concentrations," according to the AWWA comments.
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US Business Coalition Publishes 'Safer' Preservatives Guidance
Aug 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
US-based business coalition, the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3), has published a guide, aimed at accelerating the development of safer preservatives for use in household and personal care products.
The guidance says that regulatory bans and restrictions - as well as consumer, NGO and retailer pressure to eliminate their use in some cases - are reducing the “palette of preservatives” available to formulators.
“As a result, product manufacturers are under pressure to identify new, safe and effective preservatives.”
According to the council, the purpose of the document is to:motivate increased research and development within the chemical supplier, entrepreneurial and academic communities of new, safe preservatives for cosmetics and household goods; andcreate a set of criteria to guide collaborative sponsorship of new technology research, testing and evaluation.
These criteria are divided into two stages. Stage 1 include performance and regulatory parameters to guide early R&D initiatives and testing, whereas Stage 2 address human health and environmental priorities.
For more detail on this story go to CW+BiocidesHub.
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Aug 5, 2015 | The Scranton Times-Tribune
By Tim Rowland
We’re taught the virtue of allowing cooler heads to prevail, but at times it might be wished that anger could be canned, dried or frozen to be reconstituted when needed. Perhaps then, the passion we feel with each environmental disaster could be recreated when it came time for Congress to write new laws.
Eighteen months have passed since an aging industrial tank on the banks of the Elk River owned by Freedom Enterprises sprang a leak, sending 7,500 gallons of an unpronounceable coal-cleaning chemical into the homes of 300,000 residents of West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley.
Yet Congress is just now passing a law that would test some of the tens of thousands of the nation’s uncharted chemicals for safety — key word being some. About 10 chemicals a year. Chemicals will continue to pour into our lives far faster than we are able to fully understand their effects.
Many members of Congress are hailing the measure as an act of unfettered consumer and environmental protection; the chemical industry is basking in the moment, comfortable in the knowledge that, because it helped draft the bill, the industry will remain safe from any financial inconvenience. And while some are protesting that this is a case where nothing would have been preferable to something, these days it’s best to accept any environmental victory that presents itself.
But if the passions that were flowing early in 2014 could be channeled today, the public might have demanded something meaningful.
At the time, there were many concerns about inspections, maintenance records and the lack of a sound corporate response. But perhaps more troubling was the chemical itself, a foaming agent known as MCHM.
With a name like 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol it was assumed the chemical, which smelled faintly of licorice, was toxic. But incredibly, no one could really say with any authority exactly what the chemical’s effect might be on people. Nor was MCHM an outlier. Newsweek reported that the EPA has tested and published data on only 200 of the 83,000 chemicals in its inventory.
The Toxic Substances Control Act hasn’t been revised since it was passed in 1976. It’s so outdated that even the carcinogen asbestos escapes regulation.
So for 10 days, with no solid information to act on, residents of the valley relied on water trucked into emergency distribution centers. Residents were aghast, as they felt neither Freedom Enterprises nor the government was leveling with them.
The iconic video was of Freedom Enterprise executive Gary Southern chugging bottled water and complaining to reporters that the whole affair had been quite a personal inconvenience to him. Newspapers later reported that Freedom Enterprises had failed to report the spill to authorities and water utilities.
Facing a landslide of lawsuits, Freedom Enterprises filed for bankruptcy protection — yet two months later, the Charleston Gazette reported that a new company “whose characteristics are strikingly similar Freedom Enterprises,” had registered with the West Virginia Secretary of State. The addresses and phone numbers were the same as Freedom Enterprises. It was, as happens all to often in these matters, business as usual.
In the realm of companies behaving badly, Freedom Enterprise was a tough act to follow. But as with all other perpetrators of environmental disasters, time is on the side of the companies and their supporting industries. As the months and years go by, indignation wanes; the public will have sharks, Isis and other calamities to occupy its attention.
So the next time — and rest assured there will be a next time — the best course of action might be to keep our emotions in check as the disaster unfolds, then unleash our anger when Congress uses the occasion to sweeten its relationship with moneyed industries at the people’s and environment’s expense.
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California to Reassess Lead Exposure Limit
Aug 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is to initiate a rulemaking to update the existing maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for lead, in response to an NGO petition.
The 2 July petition from the Center for Environmental Health argues that the existing Proposition 65 MADL for lead of 0.5 µg/day is not protective of health, and that it should be repealed or amended.
“Studies have repeatedly shown that there is no safe level of exposure to lead and that even minute amounts of lead exposure can permanently reduce mental capacity in children,” the petitioners say.
A MADL is the established limit, below which a Prop 65 warning label is not required for a listed chemical.
The CEH attests that the current limit was incorrectly derived because it was based on an Occupational Safety and Health Administration permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 500 µg/day, rather than on a no observable effect level (NOEL).
The petition also argues that the OEHHA failed to establish a new MADL when it re-listed lead as a reproductive toxicant in 2013, ignoring decades of new studies (CW 22 November 2013). Instead, it maintained the limit established in 1989 when the substance was first listed.
“Under OEHHA’s interpretation of Proposition 65, the science around lead exposure should essentially be frozen in time,” the petition says. “This absurd construction of the statute does not withstand scrutiny.”
The OEHHA has set a 9 October hearing date, which will begin the formal rulemaking process.
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Large Explosion Rocks Mo. Aluminum Plant
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
A large explosion shook a southeast Missouri aluminum plant yesterday, injuring some workers and launching a plume of smoke visible for miles.
The explosion at about 12:30 p.m. yesterday at the Noranda Aluminum Holding Corp. plant near Marston, Mo., 170 miles south of St. Louis, likely originated in the cast house of the plant, where the company makes a cylindrical-shaped metal called extrusion billet, company spokesman John Parker said.
Parker said all workers had been accounted for and none had suffered life-threatening injuries. Some staff, however, suffered non-critical abrasions, dust irritation or smoke inhalation, Parker said. He said about 20 employees were working in the area when the explosion occurred.
The plant, which employs about 900 workers, manufactured about 263,000 metric tons of aluminum in 2009, which amounted to about 15 percent of all U.S. aluminum production (Associated Press, Aug. 4). -- SP
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Dems Boycott Vote to Overturn Climate Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Senate Democrats walked out of a committee meeting Wednesday, denying Republicans the quorum they needed to pass a bill to overturn President Obama’s climate rule for power plants.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, organized the walkout to protest a separate bill on pesticides that has not had a hearing.
Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) could not find enough senators to get to the 11-person quorum.
While not a stated intention of Boxer, the action pushed back, if only by a few hours, the committee’s vote to block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing its climate rule.
The walkout followed nearly two hours of tense debate on the climate bill, marked by impassioned speeches and Democrats speaking at length about their proposed amendments, all of which failed on party lines.
“I think this has been a terrific hearing. It’s been emotional and difficult, but we got through it,” Boxer said of the climate debate.
“What is very disturbing to our side is that the other bill you have on here, which would say for the first time since 2011 that if you spray pesticides on water, you don’t have to get a Clean Water Act permit,” she said. “We have not had a single hearing on that bill. Not one hearing.”
She asked Inhofe to delay a vote on that bill, but he declined.
The meeting’s main purpose was to consider Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s (R-W.Va.) bill to overturn the Clean Power Plan and make it all but impossible for the EPA to re-write it.
Throughout the meeting, Democrats castigated Republicans for trying to overturn the most significant action the United States has taken on climate change.
“The bill creates giant loopholes, making it nearly impossible to take any meaningful action to address climate change and reduce harmful carbon pollution, which hurts our families,” Boxer said.
“If we turn away from the president’s Clean Power Plan, we move toward the most devastating impacts of climate change.”
The Democratic amendments would have kept the rule in place unless certain conditions are met, including that the GOP passes legislation to accomplish similar carbon or public health goals, or that Capito’s bill would not exacerbate sea level rise.
“To put a fine point on it, if you don’t like the Clean Power Plan, then what’s your plan to cut carbon pollution and address the negative health impacts of climate change,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said of his amendment, which would mandate other measures to protect public health. “What’s your plan to avoid the asthma, the deaths, the missed workdays?”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) wanted a provision to block the bill if it would cause more sea-level rise, which has been linked to climate change.
She told an impassioned story from 2012, when Superstorm Sandy hit her state.
“A wall of 10 feet of water came into communities. A mother holding two children lost her handle on her two kids and they drowned,” she said. “This is not an issue about money. This is an issue about lives lost. And we have to care about the whole country.”
Inhofe was visibly annoyed by the Democrats taking what he saw as too much time to talk about their amendments, and started to cut off their speeches, reminding them that the panel has had hearings on many of their concerns with climate change.
“We’ve had hearings on all this,” he said. “I can come up with my book of science on this. The science, it’s divided. We all know that. You speak of it as fact.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) refuted the Democrats’ contention that their concerns were related to climate change, or that carbon dioxide from human activity is to blame.
“The point that … I would make is that the climate has always been changing,” he said. “This is about a colorless, tasteless, necessary part of the atmosphere called carbon dioxide.”
Wicker said the naming of Greenland is proof of climate change, because it shows that the island was not covered in ice when people first settled it, a claim that experts have repeatedly refuted.
Inhofe said he hopes to hold a vote on Capito’s bill Wednesday afternoon between or shortly following votes on the Senate floor in the Capitol.
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Dem Walkout Postpones EPW Vote on Carbon Rule Legislation
Aug 5, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillén
Senate Republicans delayed a committee vote on a bill targeting the Obama administration’s carbon rules for power plants after Democrats walked out over unrelated legislation.
Democrats walked out of the Environment and Public Works Committee markup to protest Republicans’ plan to vote on a separate EPA pesticides bill that had not had a hearing. Ranking member Barbara Boxer said she would be willing to hold a vote on the carbon rule bill but not the pesticides legislation before leaving the room.
EPW Chairman Jim Inhofe said the committee would vote on final passage of the carbon bill, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s ARENA Act, off the Senate floor during votes scheduled for 2 p.m. Committee rules mean all 11 Republicans would need to be present to reach a quorum and approve legislation.
Before the markup fell apart, Republicans voted down a number of amendments from Democrats, whose lengthy remarks at times visibly frustrated Inhofe. -
Dem Poll: Climate Rule has Broad Support
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A poll from a progressive group shows broad public support for the Obama administration’s new climate rule for power plants.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents to an Americans United for Change poll said they support the Clean Power Plan, the group said Wednesday, with 40 percent opposed.
The poll — a survey of 4,517 registered voters in a handful of swing states — included positive and negative descriptions of the plan, which looks to cut carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Americans United’s poll looks to give the Clean Power Plan’s supporters a bit of political cover. More than 60 percent of the voters in every state the group surveyed said they would have a more favorable or neutral view of elected officials that support the plan rather than oppose it.
Respondents to the poll also said they consider climate change a problem, especially Democrats (77 percent) and independents (55 percent).
The poll also showed waning support for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) call for the nation’s governors to ignore the Clean Power Plan by refusing to write proposals for cutting carbon pollution. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said states should comply with the rule.
The Obama administration finalized the climate rule on Monday, prompting legal and legislative responses from foes and publicity pushes from green groups, like Americans United, to defend it. The group launched a weeklong campaign on Monday against the Republican state attorneys general who have already promised to sue over the plan.
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EPA Rule Earns Ridicule in Oil and Gas Country, But Some Support Percolates
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Edward Klump
If there's one thing traditional oil and gas states don't like, it's being told how energy policy should work.
Consider the ferocity of comments from three of the country's most prominent energy-producing states that followed this week's release of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the federal government seems "hell-bent on threatening" principles of a free market. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) called EPA's plan "one of the most expansive and expensive regulatory burdens ever imposed on U.S. families and businesses." Louisiana Attorney General James Caldwell (R) said EPA's move "will lead to fewer jobs and higher utility bills."
These energy states are among the most vocal opponents of the Clean Power Plan, even as their jurisdictions could see benefits from increased wind, solar or natural gas used in generating U.S. electricity (E&ENews PM, July 24, 2014).
"The idea that the EPA is announcing regulations that all the states have to comply with puts the hair up on the back of the Texas neck," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in the Dallas area. "Even though it's telling us to continue moving in the direction that we're already moving, it's setting standards that we must meet."
That means the reaction is, according to Jillson: "We'll mind our own business down here. You guys leave us alone."
He called Oklahoma and Texas "classic" energy states, while Louisiana is a little different. But the Pelican State does have Gov. Bobby Jindal as a Republican presidential candidate, which Jillson said comes with a desire to promote states' rights.
To be sure, deep concerns about prices and changes to the electric market have been raised.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state's main grid operator, said last year that EPA regulations, including the Clean Power Plan, could lead to the retirement of thousands of megawatts of coal-fired generation while possibly raising prices and affecting reliability (EnergyWire, Nov. 18, 2014). The operator said it's reviewing the final rule.
Still, the reality is different in this region than in states such as West Virginia and Kentucky, which are synonymous with coal.
Texas leads the nation in installed wind capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association. And the state is considered poised to add substantial solar power. Oklahoma also has boasted of its renewable potential. Those states, as well as Louisiana, are known for ties to natural gas, including production and processing businesses.
But Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at SMU, said that when it comes to an agency such as EPA, Texas businesses might fear that "if you give 'em an inch, they're going to take a mile." He said the final carbon rule may have been an overreach by the Obama administration, and he said there's concern about control of large segments of the economy from Washington, D.C.
"I don't think the natural gas producers want to be a part of that any more than anybody else does," Bullock said.State responses
The Clean Power Plan seeks to reduce carbon emissions from power plants 32 percent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. That's a deeper cut than the 30 percent figure proposed previously. Targets vary by state, and an interim date has been pushed a couple of years to 2022. States can develop a response or face a possible federal plan.
Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana have somewhat less stringent interim and 2030 goals compared with earlier proposed figures, according to state fact sheets from EPA, while groups and officials continue to comb through details of the plan. The final Clean Power Plan also has shifted toward renewables and somewhat away from natural gas (ClimateWire, Aug. 4).
John Fainter, president of the Association of Electric Companies of Texas, said companies have variations in fleets and fuel mixes that affect their outlooks. In the end, Fainter said he hopes Texas takes part in any discussion even as litigation is expected.
"I think the state is better off being at the table bargaining with the federal government than saying 'we're not going to do that' and we end up with a federally mandated program," Fainter said.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said concerns remain over legal and practical aspects of the Clean Power Plan, while the state has questions on issues such as usurping states' authority.
"We will review the final rule against those concerns and determine the appropriate response," the commission said in a prepared statement.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has left little doubt about a plan for litigation over the Clean Power Plan. He said this week that Texas won't "back down in fighting this aggressive overreach in court."
Paxton does face a possible distraction in the form of being charged with securities fraud, as reported by the Associated Press and other outlets. AP has said the attorney general is expected to plead not guilty.
In Oklahoma, Fallin signed an executive order earlier this year that sought to prevent the state from submitting a state implementation plan. Scott Pruitt (R), the state's attorney general, has vowed to continue fighting EPA's plan after earlier litigation attempts.
Caldwell, the Louisiana attorney general, has been part of efforts in litigation, and he said another attempt would be coming.
Mike Reed, a communications director for Jindal, said the carbon plan "undermines the role of states in the federal Clean Air Act in an effort to realize a radical, liberal agenda that will lead to increased energy costs." He said the plan should be withdrawn and that the state is considering its options, although the next governor may have to deal with the issue further.
Entergy Corp., a major Louisiana-based power company, said it is reviewing the rule but continues to have concerns about the legality of the approach.Different calculations
David Spence, a professor of energy law and regulation at the University of Texas, Austin, said there likely will be a "tsunami" of litigation over the carbon plan.
That's in part because of the level of change it seeks in the power sector, including with coal, he said. Then there's the ideological factor, he said, as challenges are smart politically in certain areas. Spence also said the rule could be stretching the Clean Air Act, and courts will have to face points of interpretation.
He said a company with a large amount of gas-fired generation might wonder "what my elected representatives are thinking" in their responses. The same might be true for some gas producers, Spence suggested.
But he said a large oil and gas company might think, "What industry are they going to come after next?" The answer could be refineries, he said.
"It's a different calculation for each player, but certainly for the small gas producers who don't own downstream facilities like refineries, they stand to gain a lot from this," Spence said.
John Hall of the Environmental Defense Fund in an online piece outlined what he considers opportunities for Texas through the Clean Power Plan.
"We have an abundance of wind, sun, and natural gas -- plus the transmission infrastructure to get them on the grid," Hall wrote. "We've barely begun to tap into the potential of resources that help households and businesses reduce their utility bills, like energy efficiency and demand response."
Jillson said the plan would "put the federal thumb on the scale against coal ... and in favor of natural gas and even more in favor of renewables." That also could put some Texas coal-fired plants in the crosshairs.
Luminant, a power producer whose fleet includes coal and nuclear generation, said it's reviewing the final plan before commenting in detail, but it noted the importance of having a mix of generation sources. In the past, the company has raised issues with how the carbon proposal could affect costs and reliability.
Calpine Corp., which has a number of gas-fired plants in Texas, has offered support for the Clean Power Plan.
"This flexible, market-based solution will reward the companies that invest and have invested smartly in cleaner generation," CEO Thad Hill said in a statement this week.
At CPS Energy, San Antonio's municipal gas and electric utility, there has been talk of a lower-carbon future and hope of Texas' engagement on the issue.
"We've kind of stayed agnostic to the political aspect of this conversation," said Rudy Garza, vice president of external relations at CPS, adding that "our strategy aligns with ... what the EPA is trying to do here."Room for discussion
Some leaders in neighboring Arkansas have indicated opposition to the final Clean Power Plan while leaving the door open to discussions.
"While we will continue to fight the final rule, we will also work with our industries and consumers to determine a lowest cost option to compliance," Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said in a statement this week.
The governor said he directed leaders at the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the state's Public Service Commission "to fully review this rule and develop the best response for our state."
In Oklahoma, Whitney Pearson of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign touted the potential of the Clean Power Plan as a way to reduce carbon emissions, adding that Oklahoma is a leader in developing renewable energy.
"Rather than blocking a state-developed plan, we should support a program that is created here in Oklahoma and works best for our state," Pearson said in a statement.
Casey DeMoss, CEO of the New Orleans-based Alliance for Affordable Energy, said Louisiana is vulnerable to sea-level rise and stronger storms, meaning that cutting carbon pollution should be important given the cost of potential destruction. She called for an open process to help work on the issue.
"This plan is critical toward meeting our country's global commitments to decrease carbon pollution," DeMoss said.
Al Armendariz, a former regional administrator at EPA, said President Obama "took a huge step" in showing that the United States is serious about the climate.
"From the perspective of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, unless we want even hotter summers and even more frequent drought, we have to deal with climate change," said Armendariz, who's involved in Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign.
He said the new rule will kick-start a transition away from coal toward renewable energy in Texas, meaning a number of coal-fired power units may retire.
Armendariz called for Texas to develop a transition plan to help replace jobs related to lignite that's burned in power plants, and he said it may turn out that Texas has to deal with a federal plan for the carbon rule.
As far as the potential for changes in generation, Armendariz said the Sierra Club prefers to move from coal to renewable energy and to use as little gas as possible.
"There could be an increase in the use of natural gas, and that might be good for certain Texas oil and gas producers, but I think EPA intentionally designed this final rule with longer timelines," he said, which could help maximize renewables. He said a shift from coal could see electric bills remain roughly flat or perhaps save people money.
In Houston, which often is called the energy capital of the world, climate action is on the agenda. Mayor Annise Parker (D) embraced the issue this week in a joint statement with the mayor of Los Angeles about action that's underway.
Still, state leaders in Texas won't necessarily fall in line with EPA's plan without a fight. That wouldn't be the Texas way, according to one observer.
"When the feds say white, we say black," said SMU's Jillson. "When they say black, we say white."
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Resource Planning Put TVA 'Well Ahead of Most Others' on EPA Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Kristi E. Swartz
Critics of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan argue that the rule disrupts an electric utility's traditional resource planning process where the lowest-cost electricity options rule the day.
But it is Tennessee Valley Authority's long-term planning that has prepared the nation's largest publicly owned utility to meet new federal requirements to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants, clean energy advocates argue.
The utility already has cut emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels. It is on track to reach 40 percent by 2020, CEO Bill Johnson said while discussing the utility's quarterly earnings yesterday. EPA's rule calls for a 32 percent reduction in greenhouse gases from existing power plants by 2030, but each state's target is different.
TVA's efforts don't mean that meeting federal goals will be easy, but Johnson is optimistic because of the utility's previous efforts to transition away from coal. He touted a new nuclear reactor, closing coal units in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee, and replacing those with natural gas or renewable energy.
The final Clean Power Plan, released Monday, shifts its focus away from natural gas and raises the targets for renewable energy. TVA's own long-term energy plan doesn't call for adding any significant baseload power for a while, but if it does, the utility will do so with natural gas.
"We still have quite a bit of work to do between now and the end date of that plan, but we're well ahead of most others," Johnson said. "I think we're very well-positioned to comply with this."
Southeast environmental groups lined up to praise TVA for making more plans to cut carbon emissions in its draft integrated resource plan (IRP) released in March. The organizations also said they were frustrated when it came to renewable energy and energy efficiency, saying TVA mispriced both when running models (EnergyWire, March 10).
The recently released IRP lists opportunities for hydro, demand response and energy efficiency. More than 3,000 megawatts of large-scale solar could be added by 2033, and 500 to more than 1,700 MW of wind could be added in that time, the utility said (EnergyWire, July 14).
The carbon pollution reductions are a result of long-term planning, not federal mandates, some renewable advocates point out. Earlier criticism aside, TVA's steps send the perfect message to other states and utilities that cleaner forms of electricity can be cheaper, they said.
"Under every strategy that TVA examined, they are planning to keep the system costs low and the lights on, and that has the additional benefit of carbon reduction," said Jonathan Levenshus, Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign representative in Tennessee. "They are showing and demonstrating to other utilities that this is a path and a portfolio that will include lower polluting sources."
This puts TVA ahead of its regional peers, Levenshus said in an interview withEnergyWire.
"They are in a leadership position as a utility, they are in a leadership position regionally, and they can demonstrate national leadership."Incentives for renewables
The Clean Power Plan's incentives for early investment in renewables and energy efficiency will encourage TVA to meet those targets more quickly instead of waiting, said Amanda Garcia, a staff attorney in the Southern Environmental Law Center's Nashville office. The incentives are stronger if the utility focuses on energy efficiency goals in low-income communities, she said.
"Since TVA was planning to make those investments, this may just incentivize TVA to do that sooner rather than later," she said. "I think there is an opportunity there to reduce bills for our most vulnerable citizens."
A study released last week from the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Public Policy said states will be able to transition away from coal and add cleaner sources of electricity without the consequence of higher electricity bills. The report argues that a larger focus on energy efficiency will push off the need to build natural gas plants, which would eventually lead to higher bills.
Marilyn Brown, one of the authors and a TVA board member, said she will share her findings with the board, which is having committee meetings starting today.
"We meet the compliance targets and electricity bills go down," she said. "The absence of any of these policies, the forecast is that electricity bills will rise."
Brown was first appointed to the board in 2010. At the time, she said TVA already was idling coal-fired plants and planned to shut 18 units. She called this a massive step forward.
"In my opinion, there is always more to be done, but I do think they are a leader certainly in the Southeast," she said.
TVA serves most of Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia. Some of those states already have said they will sue EPA, arguing the agency has overstepped its bounds. Others may adopt a "just say no" plan, which means EPA will implement its own.
One of TVA's obligations is to follow federal rules and laws. Johnson told EnergyWire the utility will do its best to do that despite outside issues.
One of the things it has yet to figure out is if it's best to develop a plan for each state or across the entire system, he said. Johnson said TVA will work with each state and the region to develop the best way for the system and for customers.
"We don't have the great detail on that, I think that's on Page 950," he said, showing a sense of humor about the 1,500-page rule that was released just days ago.
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Senate Markup on EPA Rules Sparks Interstate Brawl
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
A Senate Environment and Public Works Committee debate over legislation that would scuttle U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan turned into a fight between coastal Democrats and Republicans from states that rely heavily on fossil fuels.
Each side asserted the other didn't care about their constituents' economic pain.
The committee is the first to take up legislation on President Obama's effort to clamp down on power-sector emissions since rules for new, modified and existing power plants became final Monday. The committee was working through many of the 16 Democratic messaging amendments at Greenwire deadline.
Being marked up by the committee was West Virginia Republican Shelley Moore Capito's S. 1324, which aims to hamstring the EPA rule by making it easier for states to opt out of compliance.
Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) declared the rules "not a good deal for the American people" -- the product of "backdoor negotiations with environmentalists." Committee Republicans released a staff report yesterday that contends EPA colluded with environmental groups in planning and writing the rule (E&ENews PM, Aug. 4).
Capito noted that the final version of the rule would assign her state an emissions-reduction target that is nearly twice as stiff as the one it faced under the draft, which she and other West Virginia leaders also opposed (Greenwire, Aug. 4).
By boosting West Virginia's responsibility from a 20 percent to a 37 percent cut in emissions, the final rule demands that the state retire a substantial share of its coal-fired generation, she said, worsening unemployment and undermining public health.
"Poverty is a contributor to ill heath," Capito said. "I think there is a cost and a benefit to everything, and I think in this case it will be more cost then benefit."
But Democrats offered amendment after amendment highlighting the risks climate change poses to the United States. Each highlighted threats to his or her own state.
One of the most passionate pleas came from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who recounted in emotional terms the toll Superstorm Sandy took on her state's coast in 2012, flooding communities and costing the lives of two children who were pulled away from their mother and drowned. Senior citizens in New York drowned in their beds, she said.
"This is not an issue of money, this is an issue about lives," Gillibrand said in support of an amendment that would prevent the Capito bill from going into effect if research agencies determine it would contribute to sea-level rise.
"Your states are not affected. Our states are deeply affected," she told supporters of the Capito bill. "Please consider the whole country when you write legislation."
Capito responded by reminding the committee that EPA didn't hold a listening session in coal-mining states to explore how its rules would affect people's jobs.
"It's not about money; it's about families, too, where I live," she said. "There's equal passion on both sides."'We're not getting anywhere'
The Capito bill and a similar version that has already cleared the House would allow all states to defer submitting implementation plans for the rule on existing power plants until judicial review ends. Governors could opt out of compliance even then if they determined the rule would jeopardize the reliability of the power grid or lead to rate hikes for consumers -- questions state leaders could decide without outside input.
In either case, EPA would be barred from stepping in with its federal implementation plan (FIP), which it proposed yesterday and which would offer a choice of two emissions-trading programs. The FIP will be finalized next summer after a public comment period.
Gillibrand's assertion that the Capito bill neglects vulnerable states was echoed by many of the panel's Democrats, all of whom -- with the exception of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) -- represent coastal states.
"We're the downwind states, we're the coastal states. It's really happening to us," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
He said he found it "hard to take" when states that run mostly on coal-fired generation -- like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's Kentucky -- lament the economic costs they will pay to limit emissions that have long affected health and livelihoods in other states.
That is particularly true, he said, because states like his own that have participated in programs like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have not seen their economies take a hit from it.
"From my experience, the threat that this is going to be an economic harm that is going to cause poverty runs exactly counter to the experience we have had in the Northeast," he said.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said Delaware Bay's beaches were being chewed up by rising seas. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) tallied costs in sea walls and water infrastructure repairs due to saltwater intrusion. And Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) decried the effect climate change is having in fueling more forest fires.
"Please accept how important this is to us and how very sound the science is," Whitehouse said.
But Inhofe said he doesn't accept that science. Moreover, he said, the markup was not about climate change, it was about preventing EPA from seizing control of the nation's power grid.
He moved several times to limit debate on the Democratic amendments, accusing the minority of trying to shut down the markup and prevent business from being completed in the final week before August recess.
"We're not getting anywhere," he lamented, noting the panel has other business before it, including votes on other bills related to the Clean Water Act, federal buildings and other issues.
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Ads Use National Parks as Props to Attack EPA Ozone Plan
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
Most industry campaigns opposing U.S. EPA's proposal to tighten the national ground-level ozone limit have argued that a lower standard is not necessary and would cause widespread economic ruin.
But an ad launched last week by the National Association of Manufacturers puts a different spin on the Obama administration proposal. Airing in the Washington, D.C., television market, the ad opens with a shot of Yosemite National Park, then takes the viewer on a tour of other iconic Western parks.
An announcer touts the parks' "pristine" air quality as soothing background music plays.
Then music screeches to a halt and the announcer says the Obama administration's proposed ozone standard would put the parks in violation of the Clean Air Act.
Experts who study political advertising said NAM's strategy of using national parks has the potential to resonate more than its ads that focus solely on big economic costs, especially among citizens outside the Beltway who are not intimately familiar with the details of the ozone proposal.
Evan Tracey, an adjunct professor in political communications at George Washington University, said the parks ad's strategy is to spin EPA's complex ozone proposal into an "absurd" proposition.
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"It's really about being able to create an ad or message in some way that shows the ozone standard in somewhat of an absurd way," Tracey said in an interview. "You're trying to go at people's trust and plant some doubt in them."
EPA in November proposed to lower the national air standard for ozone to between 65 and 70 parts per billion from 75 ppb set during the George W. Bush administration. The agency says the tougher standard would shield the public health from ozone, a component of smog.
Industry groups opposed to a tighter standard have ramped up their attacks on it in the past week. NAM yesterday launched another television ad in the D.C. market that opens with a shot of the White House and warns that EPA's proposal would stifle economic growth and kill jobs.
NAM released the parks ad -- called "What Does the Elk Say" -- last week in the D.C. market, just as many people were planning their summer escapes to those parks. NAM plans to expand it to other markets in the next month (E&E Daily, July 28).
"The fact that it is using such a nonobvious argument could be in its favor," said Edward Maibach, a communications professor at George Mason University.
The ozone issue is complicated. Ground-level ozone -- a pollutant -- is chemically identical to compounds that protect humans from the sun's harmful rays in the upper atmosphere.
Ground-level ozone is not directly emitted but forms when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds react in sunlight.
The regulatory regime for ozone pollution is also complicated. It involves more than one standard and allocates some duties to EPA and others to state and local regulators.
And there is yet another complication: In the West, there's "background ozone," which falls from the upper atmosphere, which is transported from overseas or is caused by lightning and wildfires.
"The problem is when you start to break it down to rank-and-file Americans, ozone is not going to register on a poll," Tracey said. "To the extent that you can connect the regulations back to something that people care about, then you get them more interested."
Advertising that focuses mainly on large-scale economic impacts of the ozone standard may not register with voters if they cannot connect those impacts to their everyday lives, Tracey said. Something like ozone is more abstract than a gasoline tax, for example, which affects consumers directly every time they fill up at the pump.
The national parks ad is "trying to use something that people wouldn't necessarily connect and use that essentially as a metaphor to get people to care about this issue," he said.
Maibach, who directs George Mason's Center for Climate Change Communication, objected to the ad's content.
"We love our national parks. We do want to believe that they are pristine places," he said. "Regrettably, they aren't pristine places, often because of the coal-fired power plants in the neighborhoods."Group slams, NAM defends ads
Last week, as NAM released the ad, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) unveiled a report that found three-quarters of national parks at times experience air that's unhealthy, defined as "moderate" or worse air pollution under EPA's Air Quality Index (Greenwire, July 28).
"The most prized national parks including Grand Canyon, Zion and Yosemite struggle with significant air pollution, and to suggest otherwise is fallacious and not in the best interest of America's parks or their millions of annual visitors," association Chief Operating Officer Theresa Pierno wrote in an open letter in response to the NAM ad.
In its report, NPCA found that visibility-impairing haze also affects parks and that people, on average, lose 50 miles of view due to haze.
Stephanie Kodish, head of NPCA's air program, said NPCA is working with its allies to get its report's content out on public media. The conservation organization is also seeking to direct the public to EPA data and other tools that let people know the quality of their air on a daily basis.
"When you throw millions of dollars behind ads that are saying that, you have sort of a weight of attention to deliver on a message, which doesn't make it accurate. It just makes it more in your face," Kodish said.
"My hope is that accurate information, even if it's not backed by millions, will make its way to the light so that these absurd ads can be dismissed for what they are: ridiculous propaganda," she said.
NAM yesterday launched another television ad that opens with a shot of the White House and warns that EPA's proposal would stifle economic growth and kill jobs.
The national parks ad is aimed not only at the public but also at policymakers, according to Ross Eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources policy at NAM.
NAM, he said, is trying to raise awareness of EPA's ozone proposal outside the Beltway after meeting with local officials who had no knowledge of the agency's bid to tighten the standard.
The manufacturing group's campaign was also partly meant to coincide with the start of the congressional recess and to make sure ozone remains "on top of their issue priority list" as members go back to their home districts for the month.
"The entire target audience of that ad," Maibach said, "might be one or two members of Congress who they hope will ridicule [EPA's proposal] using the line 'our pristine national parks.'"
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ClearView Energy's Book Discusses Impact of Rule on Energy Markets
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - TV
How could changes made in U.S. EPA's final Clean Power Plan affect natural gas markets and infrastructure development? Where do the greatest challenges exist to meeting the plan's renewable energy goals? During today's OnPoint, Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, discusses how the final rule will impact utility planning and investments.Transcript
Monica Trauzzi: Hello, and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. With me today is Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners. Kevin, nice to have you here as always.
Kevin Book: Great to be back, Monica.
Monica Trauzzi: So, Kevin, EPA managed to cause quite a stir in environment and energy circles this week with a final Clean Power Plan that included some pretty significant changes to what we saw in their draft proposal. What do you consider the biggest headline?
Kevin Book: Oh, I think the biggest headline far and away is natural gas. The bridge got cut a lot shorter. Whether or not you think about the broader legacy questions of what the fuel is going to be that replaces coal in the generation mix, natural gas was doing a pretty amiable job of it. It was getting along well with other fuels, it was playing nicely, and it was effectively the president's climate policy. It seems like he's changed policies.
Monica Trauzzi: Why do you think they did this?
Kevin Book: Well, if you're going to go green, I guess you're going to go for sending an indelible signal to renewables and to clean sources that they've got a home in the generation mix. It's harder to do than just to put out a rule. You also have to contend with markets and with the infrastructure buildout and all of the related and supporting efforts that have to go with it, but this certainly seems like a decisive effort to say that the president is looking for more than fossil fuels.
Monica Trauzzi: So what impact, then, do these changes have on natural gas markets, pipeline infrastructure and all the natural gas planning that's been happening?
Kevin Book: Well, if you looked at the projections that EPA had for the initial stage of the rule, the interim target for 2020, that was going to induce somewhere between 2.3 and 4.9 billion cubic feet per day of utility-sector, power-sector natural gas demand. The new projections are a lot lower, a fraction of that, between three-quarters and a little over one bcf a day. And then, relative to baseline, the demand is actually not induced, but destroyed. So if you're thinking about making big investments predicated upon satisfying tomorrow's generation mix, you may be revisiting exactly how you're going to do it. the resource of which we have so much readily available and close to the demand centers, relatively easily built power generation facilities, that's no longer the favorite fuel of the Obama administration.
Monica Trauzzi: Building Block 3, it seeks to increase generation from renewable sources. There's this Clean Energy Incentive program that was created to help states ramp up their use of renewables. Does the technology and infrastructure exist to support that?
Kevin Book: Well, part of what EPA seeks to do, and they've done this in other proposals and rules in the past, is to essentially be technology driving, to force a market to mature to meet a regulatory standard. We've seen where that can work and where it can't. Acid rain, it works. Ethanol, for a second-generation biofuels, not so much. So if you ask can this be done, the answer's almost certainly yes. The technology is maturing rapidly, but at what price? To do this, to achieve the kind of reliability and the diversification of the resource geographically, to achieve this kind of continuity, this kind of buildout, it may not be as affordable as it seems right now, particularly if incentives roll off. Monica, we're about one Republican president away from renewables having to decide whether or not they're really a trend or whether they were just being subsidized.
Monica Trauzzi: So that's the other big question. Does the PTC remain necessary and relevant long term if you have a program like the Clean Energy Incentive program in place?
Kevin Book: Well, implicitly the idea of a cap-and-trade system was that you could monetize the buildout for renewable infrastructure by selling forward these valuable allowances that would be effectively fiat currency minted by the EPA or by the government. This is a little bit less clear. It's not obvious to what extent the value of these CEIP credits, these ERCs and these megawatt and gigawatt equivalents, are going to be useful in actually stimulating and replacing the financing that drove the buildout of wind and solar to this point.
Monica Trauzzi: Under the final plan, coal's expected to hold 27 percent of the market in 2030. So then is the rule a coal killer?
Kevin Book: I think it's unmistakably a coal killer. It's part of a suite of coal killers. If you look at the coal generation fleet 10 years ago, 330 gigawatts of infrastructure, the Obama administration's rules, MATS and the Clean Power Plan effectively taking out a third of that in the space of a decade, 15 years' time. That's hard to describe another way. Whether you want to call it a war on coal or not, it is a decisive portfolio switch away, and if you look at the supply side and what it means at the mine mouth, it's a very significant downturn for producers here in the U.S.
Monica Trauzzi: My colleague, Rod Kuckro, suggests that this is essentially the all-of-the-above energy policy. You have a mix of natural gas, coal, renewables and efficiency. Do you agree with that?
Kevin Book: I mean, that's certainly the rhetorical stance that's been put out. We've tended to refer to it as more of a give a little, take a little energy policy. Some things are essentially accommodated by the Obama administration that were surprising, but this seems like it's more takes than gives. The natural gas support that we'd seen from the administration does seem to be fading in this rule, and so when you think about which of those all-of-the-above fuels you're going to get, it's not so clear that it's as inclusive as it once was.
Monica Trauzzi: And this is kind of an energy policy and a climate policy all rolled into one.
Kevin Book: Well, the two are hard to separate. My colleague, Christi Tezak, handles the electric power side for us, and I handle the upstream, but the two connect very much in a policy like this one. You cannot disconnect the upstream supply and all the incentives for demand that come from a program like this from the downstream consuming sectors. And here in the U.S., we actually have a very robust source of energy in natural gas, and so it's sort of surprising to think that it wouldn't be the first resort and maybe sort of backload some of these other technology-leading ideas for the future.
Monica Trauzzi: Reliability was a huge concern going into the release of this final rule. Do you think the agency sufficiently addressed the reliability concerns with the additional time that they're giving states and also that reliability safety valve?
Kevin Book: Well, reliability concerns are a function of demand stress. If we look ahead at the future and we ask is demand really going to grow as meekly as the EPA projects that it will, it may turn out that it does, or even declines as it does in some of the EPA scenarios, but it might also turn out that it looks more like California in the early 2000s when projections of demand were vastly outstripped by realities. There's some hilarious stories, some things that -- that you wouldn't think of as demand drivers. Marijuana growers in Denver, for example, putting load on the grid that you see in the news. But this is the stuff of American consumption. We like our devices, we like our gadgets, they're labor-saving. It's hard to imagine electric power being as flat as EPA is doing. So reliability becomes much more of a concern in a faster-growing demand scenario.
Monica Trauzzi: There are still elements of Building Block 4 throughout the rule, so how significant is the removal of that building block?
Kevin Book: Well, it's been removed but not retired. The building block has been removed in a tacit admission that the EPA cannot actually work through the PUCs and the generators to change customer behaviors. That seemed like an easy setup for a lawsuit, and they've dodged it. But it's still very much a part of attaining a compliance mechanism that's affordable to the end users. And there's always room for skepticism about energy efficiency. Every abatement supply curve you've ever seen and sort of the climate doctrine where there's the sources listed from lowest to highest cost along the way always shows these negative costs for efficiency gains that could be realized, but is there such a thing as a negative cost? Is there free money on the ground that we've been failing to pick up? There's usually structural impediments that make it very hard, sometimes infrastructure, sometimes economic limitations. We'll have to see whether or not that can be realized.
Monica Trauzzi: Let's talk about the states. The agency made some changes to the way they determine state targets, including sort of this uniform standard for looking at power plants. Which states fared the best following Monday's release?
Kevin Book: Well, the upticks in rebasing for some of the Western states that really would have been poised to get much, much lower targets in rate terms means that they essentially have more inventory to sell into a regional trading program. So if you're a clean state now and you've been given an uptick -- Connecticut, California, Washington state -- in some cases, that's a net benefit for you. Some of the more coal-fired states, including some that have increased their generation share of coal -- Nebraska, North Dakota, Iowa -- they've actually see that their rates have been tightened and, for that matter, their mass budgets tighten. So from their perspective, they're actually facing a much more dire circumstance thanks to the rebasing of the program.
Monica Trauzzi: How does that FIP look to you?
Kevin Book: Well, you know, we'll have to see what the FIP looks like when the FIP comes out. It seems still more generic than tailored. I think there's been a lot of question about whether or not the next administration is going to have the same enthusiasm for federal override of states that want to say no.
Monica Trauzzi: All right. We're going to end it there. Thank you for coming on the show. A lot to watch in the coming months.
Kevin Book: Thanks so much.
Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
[End of Audio]
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EPA Rule Includes 'Panoply' of Changes to Help States Trade Carbon Emissions
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Emily Holden and Elizabeth Harball
U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan does far more than the draft proposal to support states pursuing carbon trading, offering a "panoply" of tools, in the rule's words.
States can still choose to write plans to direct individual carbon-cutting actions, from burning more natural gas to building renewable power.
Or they can tell power plants to meet emissions rates -- to reduce the amount of carbon they emit with each unit of energy they produce -- or buy credits to make up for the difference.
States that pick the second option have new resources at their disposal.
"There are a lot of questions still to be answered, but they've definitely made it a lot easier for states that are interested in trading," said Kate Zyla, deputy director of the Georgetown Climate Center, which has been organizing Clean Power Plan meetings among states.
The final rule allows states to write "trading-ready" plans without creating formal multi-state proposals. EPA has rewritten state goals based on uniform emissions rates for power plants, which should make it easier to trade.
EPA set one rate for coal-fired power plants and another one for natural gas plants. The rates are the same in every state.
In a blog post yesterday, EPA air chief Janet McCabe said "relying on the performance rates is one way that a state can put its power plants in a position to use emissions trading" inside and outside their own states.
"The rates are achievable because no power plant has to meet the rates on its own," McCabe said. "It can use the fact that it operates on an interconnected grid to access a range of low- or zero-emitting energy resources to come into compliance."
That means fossil fuel power plants can purchase credits or allowances from cleaner energy sources, like wind and solar power.
EPA's rule says this sort of trading is an "integral" part of its "best system of emissions reduction" analysis, which is used to set state goals. But states don't have to use trading.
The agency's reliance on trading is "simply a recognition of the nature of this industry and the long history of trading as an important regulatory tool in establishing regulatory regimes for this industry and its reasonable availability to states in establishing standards of performance," according to the rule.Who will run a trading platform?
"EPA hit a lot of the high points," said Sarah Adair, a senior policy associate at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. "They've resolved the ambiguity about what exactly you'd be trading." EPA is calling the trading unit an "emission rate credit," or ERC, she said.
Jonas Monast, climate and energy program director at the Nicholas Institute, said the rule "provides a lot of detail that streamlines the approaches for the states that want to allow their regulated units to have the option to trade without the state having to design the trading program."
In another move to promote carbon emissions trading, EPA offered to provide "resources and capacity" to create a tracking platform for states to trade carbon credits.
The final Clean Power Plan set much more even goals for states. The draft rule required emissions rate changes ranging from 11 percent to 72 percent. The final rule goals range from 7 percent for Connecticut to 47 percent for Montana.
Franz Litz, a program consultant with Minneapolis-based think tank the Great Plains Institute, said the less disparate goals will make trading easier.
"In the sense, EPA has leveled the playing field more," Litz said. "If you are a state and you are thinking about whether to allow trading with another state, it makes it much easier to say 'Yes, I'll allow trading' if that other state is shouldering a similar burden."
The rule also provided mass-based goals for states that want a system similar to cap and trade. Mass-based standards would cap the total amount of carbon that the entire state's power sector could emit each year.
Experts say mass-based standards would be simpler to employ than rate-based standards.
Zyla said states still have sufficient leeway to avoid using an emissions trading program.
"It's still just one option, so they've made it easier for states to choose trading, but by no means have they required it," Zyla said. "States will still choose whatever approach they want -- some may choose trading and some may not choose trading, and it's just one of the suite of things they get to use, but now there's a good model to work from."
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Memos May Open Obama Rule to Legal Assault From Left
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Annie Snider
The biggest threat to the Obama administration's ambitious water rule may come not from industry foes or states challenging what they call a federal power grab, but from greens suing under one of the country's foremost environmental laws, legal experts say.
Internal Army documents first reported by Greenwire last week show the Army Corps of Engineers' on-the-ground experts had major concerns about the final U.S. EPA-Army Waters of the U.S. rule, particularly about limits to Clean Water Act protections that were added toward the end of the process (Greenwire, June 27).
Those concerns are likely to fuel legal challenges under a number of laws. But it was a call for a more thorough assessment of the rule under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that corps experts repeatedly sounded in the memos -- and that ultimately went unheeded by their Pentagon policy bosses.
"This is not quibbling over little things within EPA's discretion," said Patrick Parenteau, an environmental law expert at Vermont Law School who has testified on Capitol Hill in support of the rule. "NEPA is a mandate. NEPA is a clear, clean procedural requirement, so if the Corps of Engineer experts are saying the way you've drawn this line excludes certain waters that we've historically regulated under [the Clean Water Act] and have all sorts of value, that sets off alarm bells for me."
Environmental groups that have been preparing lawsuits against the rule, which they see as too weak, say the corps memos validate their concerns (Greenwire, June 15).
"They definitely confirm a lot of the issues that we have raised with the final rule, and raised with the proposed rule, and they indicate that the corps internally had a great deal of concern about what was being proposed," said Kelly Foster, senior attorney for the Waterkeeper Alliance.
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Brett Hartl with the Center for Biological Diversity, which is part of the lawsuit with Waterkeeper, said the memos also strengthen his concerns about the rule's potential endangered species impacts.
"The memos confirm that there will be significant losses of wetlands across the country, and unfortunately the Army Corps did not assess the ecological impacts on downstream waters," Hartl said by email. "This failure becomes even more problematic when coupled with the failure to consider impacts to endangered species."
Greens have said that they want to see the court make changes to strengthen parts of the final rule but that they support the regulation overall. Foster said she is confident the court "has the power to fashion an appropriate remedy."
But legal experts say making the NEPA argument could be playing with fire for environmentalists who don't want to see the entire rule scrapped.
"It's not like fine brain surgery. You can't just go in there and excise the part of the rule you don't like," Parenteau said. "If they win the NEPA argument, they are going to bring the whole rule down."Internal call for 'robust analysis'
Signed into law in 1970, the NEPA requires federal agencies to weigh the environmental effects of actions they are contemplating.
If the proposed action is minor, the agency can complete a relatively simple environmental assessment, but if the action stands to have a "significant" impact on the environment -- either positive or negative -- the agency must take a more detailed look in an environmental impact statement, which can take months or even years to complete.
Because EPA's mission is to protect the environment, the agency is exempt from NEPA in many cases, including for Clean Water Act moves.
The Army is not exempt.
So under NEPA, the key question is whether the water rule -- which redefines which streams and wetlands get protection under the Clean Water Act -- will significantly change the status quo, said James McElfish Jr., a senior attorney at the Environmental Law Institute.
"What EPA and the corps said they were engaged in was interpreting existing law," McElfish said. "I think what each of the agencies would assert is going on is very much at the margins -- clarifications -- as opposed to adopting new policy."
Indeed, EPA and the Army officially estimate that the final rule will result in only an "incremental" increase in federal jurisdiction -- between 2.8 and 4.6 percent.
But in the internal memos, corps technical experts argue that estimate is flawed because the agencies examined only the streams and wetlands that had previously been outside Clean Water Act protections to see how many would get counted in under the new rule. They failed to look at which previously covered waters would no longer be protected.
Doing a rough analysis, corps experts estimated that changes made in the final rule could put as much as 10 percent of wetlands that have been protected under the Clean Water Act beyond its reach. But the experts said the corps does not systematically collect the type of geographical data the new rule keys off of, so they don't have a clear picture of exactly what the new limits would mean.
For that reason, they called for a full environmental impact statement.
"To verify the exact portion of the 10% of currently jurisdictional waters that would be lost to Federal jurisdiction as a result of adoption of the draft final rule in its current form, the Corps would need to complete a robust analysis of its data that would yield statistically significant and reliable results," regulatory chief Jennifer Moyer said in an April 24 memo, while the rule was undergoing final White House review.
"This is precisely the type of research and analysis that would be undertaken in completing an Environmental Impact Statement," her memo states.
But with political leaders racing to get the final rule out the door before presidential politics ramped up this summer, only an environmental assessment was completed.
That document, produced primarily by staffers in the office of the Army's assistant secretary for civil works, maintained the same approach of looking only at which streams and wetlands would get newly counted in under the rule, with no additional analysis of what would now get counted out.
The assessment does acknowledge that some protections could be lost because of a new 4,000-foot outer limit on jurisdiction but estimates that it would be minor.
In making that estimate, the document cites the experience of the agencies, despite the fact that the corps experts who are responsible for the lion's share of on-the-ground calls about which streams and wetlands are covered strongly disagreed.
"In the agencies['] experience the vast majority of wetlands with a significant nexus are located within the 4,000 foot boundary," the assessment states. "It is anticipated that the incremental decrease in jurisdictional determinations for wetlands outside the 100 year floodplain or 4,000 feet of the high tide line or ordinary high water mark of jurisdictional waters would correspondingly be small."'Amazing'
Whether a judge will get to consider the corps' concerns about the final rule when weighing the 12 separate challenges that have been lodged against it in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals is an open question.
The agencies have not publicly said whether the memos will be made part of the administrative record for the rule.
Jamison Colburn, a former EPA litigator who now teaches at Penn State Law and runs awebsite focused on NEPA issues, said the fact the memos have been made public could encourage the court to add them to the record if the agencies do not do so themselves.
But even with the corps memos, NEPA challenges will not be easy, he said.
The corps has successfully argued in the past that changes of scope like those made in the water rule do not themselves affect the environment. That is to say, while the rule will determine which streams and wetlands are regulated under the Clean Water Act, it is subsequent, individual permit decisions that will determine the actual impact on the environment.
"The Justice Department lawyers can rightly argue that the chain of causation isn't direct," Colburn said.
But those permit decisions later tend to be smaller and more individual, he noted, meaning they are less likely to cross NEPA's threshold for significance.
"That's where you get to: Justice delayed is justice denied," Colburn said. "There really is a kind of obscuring of the real issue, which is, did anybody think about the big policy shift and what it means to the environment overall?"
And environmentalists are not alone in raising concerns about whether the agencies adhered to NEPA requirements in the final rule.
In a lawsuit that includes more than a dozen states, North Dakota's attorney general has already alleged that the agencies violated NEPA requirements by failing to do an environmental impact statement and not considering a wider range of alternatives in the environmental assessment. But the substance of his argument is the opposite of the corps' -- that the final rule will significantly increase federal jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, opponents of the water rule who would rather see Congress intervene to kill the regulation than duke it out with the agencies in court are also touting the corps memos in the political arena.
They contend that the documents back up their concerns about the process for developing the rule, even though the substance of the memos argues the opposite of their take on what the rule would do (E&E Daily, July 31).
All this has left some greens feeling jaded.
Jan Goldman-Carter, senior manager for wetlands and water resources at the National Wildlife Federation, has backed the Obama administration throughout its work on the water rule. She argued that the memos just show the ugly sausage-making behind tough policy decisions, not any legal or policy missteps.
Moreover, she said she found it ironic that the corps -- an agency that conservation groups like hers have challenged any number of times over environmental damage from their flood control, lock and dam, and other projects -- was raising the concerns.
"It sounds a lot like the pot calling the kettle black," she said. "These are the same types of criticisms and complaints that we have of the corps on many of their permit reviews and civil works projects."
Parenteau, the Vermont Law School professor, has brought lawsuits against the corps over wetlands protections for decades and said he, too, was dumbstruck by the corps memos.
But he said the revelations convinced him that EPA went too far with changes in the final rule and that a NEPA challenge could have real traction.
"You can't appreciate how amazing this turn of events is with the Corps of Engineers," Parenteau said. "This is the agency that had to be sued to protect wetlands.
"Now you have, 40 years later, the Corps of Engineers is saying EPA is giving away the store."
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