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ACC PM 11/25/2015
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(ACC Mentioned) Polypropylene Prices Still on the Rise
Nov 25, 2015 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American polypropylene resin prices have increased by an average of 2 cents per pound since Nov.1, as the market continues to struggle with tightness for the material. -
Echa PBT Expert Group Discusses UVCB Substances
Nov 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
Substances of unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products or biological materials (UVCBs) were a key subject of discussion at Echa’s persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) expert group meeting on 17-18 November. -
Foxx Guardedly Optimistic for Long-Term Highway Bill
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Ariel Wittenberg
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx yesterday said he is cautiously optimistic that Congress may pass the highway reauthorization bill being considered in conference committee. -
Oil Train Safety Concerns Cast Shadow Over Cross-Border Rail Deal
Nov 25, 2015 | The Sacramento Bee
By Curtis Tate
Concerns about the safety of crude oil trains loom over a proposed rail takeover that would create the largest rail system in North America. -
Atlantic Coast Drilling Foes Look to Exploit Growing Opposition
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
Local government officials and business interests are seeing a groundswell of opposition to the Obama administration's proposal to open parts of the outer continental shelf off the Atlantic Seaboard to oil and gas drilling... -
Offshore Drilling Rules Driving Technology Development
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
With oil prices no longer propelling technological innovation in offshore drilling, companies can rely on another driver for the time being: government fiat. -
N.C. Attorney General Rips Governor for Joining EPA Suit
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Josh Kurtz
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) yesterday began attacking Gov. Pat McCrory (R), whose job he is seeking, for suing U.S. EPA over the Clean Power Plan. -
Huge Southern Calif. Methane Leak Not Covered by Climate Regulations
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
A massive natural gas leak in Southern California won't be accounted for under California's current greenhouse gas regulations, officials said. -
White House 'Can Swallow' WOTUS Rider -- Lobbyists
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
Industry lobbyists see rolling back U.S. EPA's Water of the U.S. rule as a viable policy rider for the omnibus appropriations measure under assembly, according to a recent conference call that was secretly recorded and leaked yesterday. -
Former EPA Official Fears ESPS Compliance Could Trigger NSR Permitting
Nov 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
A former EPA official is warning that power plants making efficiency upgrades to comply with EPA's greenhouse gases rule for existing utilities could trigger costly Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) permitting mandates for the conventional pollutants emitted from efficiency technologies. -
2015 Was a Breakthrough Year for the Environment. Here's Why.
Nov 25, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Fred Krupp
While data suggests that 2015 will likely go down as the hottest year on record, this has also been a year when we’ve made extraordinary environmental progress in five key areas. We have the numbers to prove it. -
Everything You Need to Know About the Climate Summit
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
Much is riding on the climate change talks that kick off Monday in Paris.
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(ACC Mentioned) Polypropylene Prices Still on the Rise
Nov 25, 2015 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American polypropylene resin prices have increased by an average of 2 cents per pound since Nov.1, as the market continues to struggle with tightness for the material.
The 2 cent hike is the second consecutive monthly price hike, following a 3 cent increase in October. These increases have reversed a trend that had seen regional PP prices fall for three straight months. Even with the November increase, regional PP prices are down a net of 13 cents per pound so far in 2015.
Houston-based LyondellBasell Industries — the region’s largest PP maker — declared force majeure on PP on Oct. 7, two days after a power outage hit the firm’s plant in Bayport, Texas. The plant has annual production capacity of almost 1.6 billion pounds. The outage — combined with strong domestic demand — has limited the availability of PP throughout North America.
The PP demand picture has been more positive, with North American sales up 4.9 percent through September, according to the American Chemistry Council in Washington. Domestic growth of 5.5 percent was lessened by a 13.6 percent drop in export sales during that nine-month period.
Among individual end markets, regional PP sales into injection molded consumer and institutional products — including furniture and housewares — were up just over 13 percent through September. In that same period, regional PP sales into sheet — including thermoformed packaging sheet — surged almost 10 percent.
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Echa PBT Expert Group Discusses UVCB Substances
Nov 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
Substances of unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products or biological materials (UVCBs) were a key subject of discussion at Echa’s persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) expert group meeting on 17-18 November.
Three of the substances, brought to the meeting by member states, were classified as UVCBs:resin acids and rosin acids, hydrogenated esters with pentaerythritol;resin acids and rosin acids, hydrogenated esters with glycerol; and1-(2-hydroxy-5-nonyl(branched)-phenyl)ethanone oxime.
Finland contributed the first two, and Spain the third.
Vice chairwoman Johanna Peltola-Thies said: “UVCB assessment is very complex because there may be hundreds of constituents within the registered substance. The registration needs to address these and we were pondering how to go further.”
“The constituents are often not known well enough to have an EC number or a structural formula and that is not normally necessary. But in the PBT assessment they need to be identified and the fractions known to such a level that it is possible to carry out the assessment,” Ms Peltola-Thies said. “In many cases, you can’t carry out a risk assessment on all constituents individually, which would be an enormous effort. But we need to find a way to identify the most efficient test strategy.”
“UVBCs are done on a case-by-case basis,” chairman Peter Lepper said. “But, generally, you have to go down to level of 0.1% weight-by-weight to ensure that these substances are not persistent, bioaccumulative or toxic. This might be done on the basis of a Qsar, for example.”
Role of enhanced ready biodegradability tests
Another issue, considered by the expert group, was the role of enhanced ready biodegradability tests for measuring persistence. Echa and the working group are going to revise the PBT-related guidance, including the OECD TG 301 and TG 310 tests. Germany is currently working on the topic more closely.
Ms Peltola-Thies said that Echa was planning a consultation on revised guidance in May 2016, with the update to be published before May 2017.
Other substances discussed by the expert group were:dodecamethylpentasiloxane;bis(dimethylbenzyl) peroxide;tetrabromo-4,4’-isopropylidenediphenol;perfluorohexane-1-sulphonic acid; and6,6’-di-tert-butyl-4,4’-thiodi-m-cresol.
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Foxx Guardedly Optimistic for Long-Term Highway Bill
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Ariel Wittenberg
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx yesterday said he is cautiously optimistic that Congress may pass the highway reauthorization bill being considered in conference committee.
"It looks like we may be on the cusp of getting a long-term surface transportation bill done," he told reporters. "I say 'looks like' because there is still ongoing work by the conferees, and nothing is done until it's done."
The highway and surface transportation conference committee is racing against the clock to iron out differences between House and Senate versions of the $325 billion package, with staffers working through the Thanksgiving recess with the goal of having a final bill ready by Monday. The current short-term transportation reauthorization expires Dec. 4.
"I don't want to declare victory before victory -- there is still a lot of time to screw this up," Foxx said.
Passage of the bill would be significant. The last time Congress authorized surface transportation programs for more than two years was in 2005. Foxx has spent the 2½ years since taking office advocating for a longer-term package.
One of the largest sticking points for the conference has been how long to reauthorize highway programs and at what levels. Republicans have been holding firm to the idea of a six-year reauthorization, while Democrats have been pushing to shorten the authorization period in order to increase annual investment.
But Foxx said the debate presents a "false choice between time and resources."
"If you're going to go through the brain damage of a long-term bill, you might as well make it worthwhile," he said. "What I'd like for the average American to see as a result of a new bill is something better than what they've got."
Foxx lamented that Congress had not taken up a $478 billion proposal from the Obama administration, with lawmakers instead writing their own bill.
While that legislation will provide more certainty for an industry grown accustomed to short-term stopgap reauthorization measures, Foxx said, the nation's highway system will continue to degrade if status-quo funding remains. Congress needs to "push the emergency button now and do something about it," he said.
"If you have been studying for the tests and making good grades, you might be able to study a little less hard right now, but the reality is we have been kind of flunking the tests, and now we need to, like, study really hard to get a passing grade," he said. "It would be one thing if we had had a string of six-year bills along the way, and the certainty had been there, but we are really in a ditch, and the country's got to dig out of it."
Despite his criticisms, Foxx acknowledged that passage of any long-term reauthorization would be better than the current situation, noting that many thought it would be impossible for Congress to do this year with many lawmakers facing 2016 elections.
He credited a DOT "barnstorming" effort to raise awareness about transportation infrastructure in town halls across the country this year as helping to change the tone.
"When Americans have light shed on why it is they are in this teeth-grinding traffic, and know where to point the finger, it starts to get everyone focused," he said. "I think the voices of America have raised up enough so that members of Congress feel that they have confidence that if they take this on and if they do something about it, they will be supported by the American people, and that's very important," he said.
He also praised lawmakers including Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and ranking member Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), as well as House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) and ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), for working together on the effort.
"You've got a spirit of bipartisanship that has stayed in the transportation space," he said. "I think the country is hungry for folks to agree on something, and that's also playing a role here, too, which is that both Democrats and Republicans have ample amount of pressure to make government work."
He added, "One of the most apple-pie parts of government is getting a transportation bill done."
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Oil Train Safety Concerns Cast Shadow Over Cross-Border Rail Deal
Nov 25, 2015 | The Sacramento Bee
By Curtis Tate
Concerns about the safety of crude oil trains loom over a proposed rail takeover that would create the largest rail system in North America.
Last week, Alberta-based Canadian Pacific made public its plan to acquire Virginia-based Norfolk Southern. The $28.4 billion deal would need to be approved by company shareholders and federal regulators, a process that could take at least 18 months.
The railroads are key players in the transportation of crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale region to East Coast refineries. Currently, Canadian Pacific transfers the shipments toNorfolk Southern at Chicago. The combined company could offer a seamless path the entire distance to the East Coast.
Though both companies have so far escaped the most serious crude by rail incidentsinvolving spills, fires and mass evacuations, they are likely to face fresh scrutiny of their safety practices and relationships with communities if they agree to a deal.
In Wisconsin, the railroad has clashed with environmental groups and elected officials over the condition of its aging bridges. And in spite of calls from members of Congress and the Federal Railroad Administration, the railroad refuses to share its bridge inspection documents with local officials, citing “security concerns.”
“I’ve reached out to (Canadian Pacific) personally to try to get them to be better neighbors,” said Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis. “The response hasn’t been that good.”
Two Canadian Pacific trains derailed earlier this month in Watertown, a city of 24,000 about an hour west of Milwaukee.
The first occurred on Nov. 8 when 13 cars of an eastbound oil train bound from North Dakota to Philadelphia derailed and spilled about 500 gallons. About 35 homes were evacuated for more than a day. Then on Nov. 11, a second train derailed at the same spot as the first. Though no one was injured, the back-to-back incidents shook residents.
“If safety was really important, you wouldn’t have two trains derail in one town in one week,” said Sarah Zarling, a mother of five who lives a few blocks from the track and has become an activist on the issue.
In a statement, Canadian Pacific spokesman Andy Cummings said the railroad was the safest in North America for 12 of the past 14 years.
“It is good business for us as a railroad to operate safely,” he said, “and the statistics clearly show we are doing that.”
In downtown Milwaukee, Canadian Pacific’s oil trains cross a 99-year-old steel bridge over South 1st Street that shows visible signs of deterioration. Some of beams supporting the structure are so badly corroded at the base that you can see right through them.
In Watertown, just west of the derailment site, the railroad crosses Main Street on a bridge with crumbling concrete supports embedded with its date of construction: 1906.
Cummings said both bridges are safe and that their appearance doesn’t indicate their ability to safely carry rail traffic. Still, he said the company is working on a website that would explain its bridge management plan and offer a way for the public to raise concerns.
“We do understand that we have an obligation to reassure the public when questions arise about our bridges,” he said.
Railroads carry out their own bridge inspections under the supervision of the Federal Railroad Administration. In September, Administrator Sarah Feinberg sent a letter to railroads urging them to be more open about their bridge inspections and conditions.
Addressing a rail safety advisory panel in early November, Feinberg said her phone was “ringing off the hook” with concerned calls from the public and lawmakers.
“They are frustrated, and frequently they are scared,” she said, “because the absence of information in this case leaves them imagining the worst.”
Much of the concern about the condition of rail infrastructure stems from series of derailments involving crude oil and ethanol. Including the Watertown derailment this month, there have been 10 derailments with spills or fires this year in North America.
In the worst example, an unattended train carrying Bakken crude oil rolled away and derailed in the center of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013. The subsequent fires and explosions leveled dozens of buildings and killed 47 people.
Canadian Pacific was the only company among roughly two dozen that declined to contribute to a $340 million settlement fund for the survivors. The railroad denies any responsibility in the disaster, though it transported the derailed train from North Dakota to Montreal, where a smaller carrier took control.
While the railroad last month dropped its opposition to the settlement, it could still be in court. A Chicago law firm has threatened to bring wrongful death lawsuits against the railroad in the next 18 months.
Cummings said the company “will continue to defend itself in any future lawsuits.”
While it’s not clear what issues will ultimately decide the fate of proposed merger, the federal Surface Transportation Board, which reviews such transactions, has been sympathetic to concerns from the public about the impacts of industry consolidation.
In 2000, the three-member panel rejected a similar cross-border bid by Canadian National and BNSF Railway to create what would have been the largest North American railroad at the time. The deal failed partly because a series of mergers in the 1990s had created a colossal rail service meltdown.
Because of those problems, and complaints from shippers and members of Congress, the Surface Transportation Board imposed a moratorium on new railroad mergers. There hasn’t been a major rail deal since.
In a cautious statement earlier this month Canadian Pacific’s offer, Norfolk Southern responded that any consolidation of large railroads would face “significant regulatory hurdles.”
But speaking to a conference of transportation companies in Florida this month, Canadian Pacific CEO Hunter Harrison sounded confident that shippers would not oppose the deal and that the decision to press forward was largely in the hands of shareholders.
“If the shareholders want it, it’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s just that simple.”
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Atlantic Coast Drilling Foes Look to Exploit Growing Opposition
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
Local government officials and business interests are seeing a groundswell of opposition to the Obama administration's proposal to open parts of the outer continental shelf off the Atlantic Seaboard to oil and gas drilling, and they want everyone inside the Washington, D.C., Beltway to know it.
That's the message a group of elected officials and small business owners brought to Capitol Hill, the Interior Department and the White House's Council on Environmental Quality last week as the administration deliberates its controversial five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program, which would open waters from Virginia to Georgia to drilling (Greenwire, Jan. 27).
"It's really a no-brainer for us," Frank Knapp, president of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, said last week during a breakfast with reporters at the Washington headquarters of Oceana, an environmental group fighting the proposal.
He noted that the coastal region's economy hinges on tens of thousands of tourism-related jobs that in turn depend on a healthy ocean ecosystem. Given that the hydraulic fracturing boom has propelled the United States to the top ranks of global oil and gas producers, Knapp said the push to open the Atlantic drilling isn't worth the risks.
"What's the rush?" he asked. "We're swamped with oil."
That view is shared along the South Carolina coast, where advocates say every coastal incorporated community has now adopted resolutions or statements opposing drilling. According to Oceana, 89 East Coast municipalities; more than 600 elected officials at the federal, state and local levels; and more than 300 businesses have come out against drilling, which they say threatens about 1.4 million jobs and the $95 billion that tourism contributes to the region's economy.
The growing chorus of opposition has prompted some members of Congress to change their mind on drilling. Earlier this month, Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) reversed course and came out against Atlantic drilling, although he still supports seismic testing of oil and gas reserves.
In doing so, Rice told a reporter for the Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., that he was heeding the call of local officials. "My title is representative," the paper quotes him as saying. "I'm supposed to represent the people and if they don't want it, I don't want it."
Rice's reversal follows that of fellow South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford (R), who earlier this year switched gears and came out against drilling as well, in part because of local opposition, the Post and Courier reported.
Still, industry and many lawmakers have been highly critical of the administration's proposed leasing plan, which they argue doesn't go far enough (E&E Daily, April 16).
Advocates have more work to do when it comes to other regional lawmakers who favor drilling, including Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who embraced drilling in 2007 as governor, when he drafted the state's first energy plan.
Kaine told Greenwire last week he hasn't changed his mind on drilling -- provided it comes with a greater sharing of federal revenues with coastal states -- but acknowledged the growing opposition.
"It does seem like there is some changing of opinion on it in the Hampton Roads area, but there's still some, I think, pretty strong support for it," Kaine said, adding that he respects and listens to drilling opponents.
If there's been an uptick in opposition to drilling among North Carolina residents, GOP Sen. Richard Burr said last week he hasn't noticed.
"I support it, and I think most of the coastal towns support it with an appropriate royalty" to help coastal areas replenish beaches and dunes and upgrade intercoastal waterways, Burr toldGreenwire, emphasizing that, like Kaine, his support "absolutely" depends on greater revenue-sharing.
Burr is seeking a third term in 2016, and it isn't yet clear how vigorous a challenge he'll have on his hands.Acting locally
Advocates say opposition in North Carolina to drilling runs deep as well, but it's not absolute. Carteret County's Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution in support of drilling, bucking other local governments, reported WCTI-TV.
But for at least one North Carolina elected official, support for opening coastal waters to drilling may have cost him his political career. Kure Beach residents this month voted Mayor Dean Lambeth out of office in a race where drilling was a major factor.
Mayor-elect Emilie Swearingen, who joined drilling opponents at last week's fly-in, said Lambeth's support for drilling was out of step with the voters of this small coastal town on a spit of land in southern North Carolina.
"We have 'no drill' signs all over this town," Swearingen said by phone yesterday.
In a meeting that included Interior Department chief of staff Tommy Beaudreau -- a former head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management -- as well as BOEM's current director, Abigail Ross Hopper, Swearingen said drilling critics felt like "they were open to hearing from us."
Although the public comment period on the five-year plan closed earlier this year, Swearingen said Interior officials encouraged drilling critics to continue to contact the department with their concerns.
BOEM spokeswoman Connie Gillette yesterday noted there are multiple opportunities for residents to weigh in on the plans.
The department is currently developing the proposed program and a draft programmatic environmental impact statement for the proposed areas. "We expect to publish those documents in early 2016 and will encourage public participation in that next step which will include comment periods and public meetings in areas included in the Proposed Program," Gillette wrote in an email, adding that the whole process generally takes two-and-a-half to three years to complete.
Matt Price, a developer in the tiny Outer Banks hamlet of Duck, N.C., said last week's meetings seemed to make an impression on the federal officials and staff they met with.
"We were really able to put a face on what's at stake to some of these people," he said by phone yesterday.
During a meeting with Council on Environmental Quality staff, Price said, drilling critics were complimented on their advocacy.
"They kind of point-blank said we were doing a good job getting the grass-roots opposition level voice to be heard," he said.
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Offshore Drilling Rules Driving Technology Development
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
With oil prices no longer propelling technological innovation in offshore drilling, companies can rely on another driver for the time being: government fiat.
Back when international crude oil prices were more than $100 a barrel, interest in offshore drilling intensified, pushing companies to advance technological capabilities to deeper and more remote offshore locations. As oil prices fell, the push was to develop cost-saving technologies and solutions to efficiency gains.
Now that crude prices are 60 percent off past summer 2014 highs, there's little interest in breaking new ground offshore. Services provider Baker Hughes noted last week that the Gulf of Mexico lost three more rigs in the midst of subdued drilling activity.
But government requirements are keeping some businesses alive as they develop the technologies that companies will need to meet new regulatory requirements for offshore drilling. A startup has even formed in Houston in anticipation of more stringent offshore safety rules pending by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).
Enter BOP Technologies, a small sub-sea engineering outfit that got its start just in time for the oil bust. The company is undeterred, moving forward to get the word out that it offers a blowout preventer (BOP) design that will keep the offshore sector compliant with whatever new requirements BSEE throws at it.
Ken Wells, a consultant for BOP Technologies at Lifeline Strategies, said the new firm is still busy getting itself established ahead of the final proposal from BSEE on new BOP requirements. He said the company's principals are closely watching the rulemaking and are in contact with government regulators to let them know what the technological capabilities they can offer are.
"We're trying to convince regulators that there are options," Wells said.
One investigation into the 2010 Macondo rig explosion and oil spill by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) concluded that the Deepwater Horizon's BOP failed to stem the flow of crude because of a faulty design. The blind shear ram of the BOP could not seal the pipe completely because buckling under pressure moved the pipe off center, allowing the Macondo oil to flow freely.
CSB warned that this design flaw is likely found throughout the Gulf of Mexico. Those findings were expected to influence BSEE's decisions on how equipment reliability safety in the Gulf should be enhanced over the next decade (EnergyWire, June 6, 2014).
BOP Technologies officers point to other problems with existing system designs. Standard BOPs are not capable of cutting and crimping everything that runs through them during drilling operations, they note. BOP Technologies founder Jay Read sees existing BOPs as mostly incapable of handling joints on drill pipe, rendering the equipment useless about 10 percent of the time.
"The ram blowout preventer is designed to shear the drill pipe and seal off the well bore if a blowout is imminent," he said.
"However, as the drill pipe descends through the blowout preventer and into the ground, each length pipe is held together by connectors called tool joints," the company said in a recent prospectus. "Tool joints are much thicker than the drill pipe, too thick to be cut by conventional blowout preventers."Emissions drivers
Wells said the company is hopeful that the new BOP rules coming next year will help business take off. The firm has designed what it calls the Circular Intensifier RAM Blowout Preventer (CIRBOP). Its design is smaller and lighter.
The engineers also promise a flatter-profile BOP with fewer moving parts, and a more powerful tool. Wells said BOP Technologies has designed a system that can shear through anything. Wells said the firm is hopeful that the pending regulatory changes will help the company grow as the Gulf's offshore operators gradually phase in more advanced capacity BOP systems over a decade or more.
The industry's determination that another Macondo incident will never happen would also help. "The industry needs to be challenged to do its best," Wells added.
Darron Craig, a business development officer at Corvus Energy, says industry ambition and regulatory bodies are helping to move things forward for his firm, as well, despite the oil price downturn.
Corvus specializes in energy storage equipment for marine propulsion systems, including dynamic positioning technologies. That company recently announced an investment partnership with Norwegian oil and gas power Statoil.
The technology Corvus will be supplying will help Statoil run more efficient offshore equipment and reduce emissions, Craig explained. He credited not only Statoil's environmental commitments for keeping the business partnership alive during the downturn but also efforts by the European Union and the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
"Our core business is making big work boats, including the offshore oil and gas vessels, more efficient," Craig said. "They're the most efficient and produce the least amount of emissions also."
He acknowledged that there is greater impetus on the part of the offshore industry to improve engine and dynamic positioning power efficiency when oil and fuel prices are higher. With weaker oil pricing now the reality, the company is banking on European regulations tackling greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants in near-shore emissions control areas. Vancouver, British Columbia area-based Corvus could see other business in the near future even if oil prices should stay low as rules on emissions for IMO-designated emissions control areas in the United States, Canada and Europe are tightened.
"The [return on investment] is based on fuel savings mostly, so when oil drops in half, it significantly affects our life," Craig conceded. "There's another big driver, especially in northern Europe, and that's emissions reductions."
New BOP rules for the Gulf of Mexico should be finalized sometime early next year, possibly January, according to BSEE spokesman Gregory Julian. Wells said his clients are confident that their advanced BOP technology will see the oil and gas industry readily comply with whatever newer, tighter regulations are thrown at it.
"Our problem is the industry," he said. "We've got to convince industry."
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N.C. Attorney General Rips Governor for Joining EPA Suit
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Josh Kurtz
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) yesterday began attacking Gov. Pat McCrory (R), whose job he is seeking, for suing U.S. EPA over the Clean Power Plan.
Cooper's campaign issued an email blasting McCrory and the state Department of Environmental Quality for joining with 26 other states in a lawsuit to kill the Clean Power Plan, EPA's rule for reducing carbon emissions at existing power plants.
"Protecting our clean air or playing political games -- can you guess which Governor McCrory chose?" the email begins. It goes on to accuse McCrory administration officials of deciding "to make a political point -- instead of doing their job."
In three different sections, the email urges readers to sign an electronic petition to "tell Governor McCrory and the Department of Environmental Quality to quit playing political games with our air and water."
Cooper, whose office is not participating in the state's lawsuit against EPA, goes on to lecture McCrory.
"He should know how this could likely turn out -- and it won't be good," Cooper says. "In fact, the Governor's position could backfire so spectacularly that North Carolina could be forced to follow a federal plan instead of using our own. But if Governor McCrory thinks this stunt will help him score enough points to win next November, you can be sure he'll keep wasting valuable time that could be spent protecting our land, air, and water."
This is not the first time Cooper and the McCrory administration have clashed on the environment.
In recent weeks, EPA has threatened to take over environmental regulation in North Carolina, criticizing the state's contention in several recent court cases that citizen groups did not have standing to challenge air and water quality permitting decisions. But officials at the state Department of Environmental Quality have blamed Cooper's office for mishandling the court cases and confusing EPA.
The warning from EPA of a possible takeover brought a rebuke of the McCrory administration Saturday from the editorial board of Raleigh's The News & Observer.
"Republicans have long complained that environmental protection rules hurt business, and when they took over the General Assembly in 2011 and the governor's office in 2013 they couldn't wait to dismantle environmental regulation in the name of making the state 'business friendly,'" the editorial said.
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Huge Southern Calif. Methane Leak Not Covered by Climate Regulations
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
A massive natural gas leak in Southern California won't be accounted for under California's current greenhouse gas regulations, officials said.
The leak, which occurred Oct. 23 at a Southern California Gas Co. natural gas storage facility in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles, has been emitting methane into the air for more than a month. Methane -- the chief component of natural gas -- is a powerful contributor to short-term global warming, at up to 72 times the potency of carbon dioxide.
Southern California Gas has offered temporary housing to people living near the spill and Monday estimated it could take several months to stop the flow of gas by installing a relief well to reduce pressure.
Meanwhile, the company has been trying to suppress the gas by pumping fluid down the well and has begun spraying chemicals to tamp down the methane odor. At current concentrations, the methane does not pose a health risk to residents, the company said.
The rupture has increased California's methane pollution by roughly a quarter compared with normal methane emissions over the past month, state regulators said last week. When translated into carbon dioxide, the leak has added about 800,000 metric tons of global warming pollutants to the atmosphere -- equal to about 0.2 percent of California's annual CO2 emissions.
"The relative magnitude of emissions from the leak compared to other sources of methane in the state underscores the urgency of stopping the gas leak," the California Air Resources Board (ARB) said.
While ARB has a statewide cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions, it doesn't cover "fugitive," or unintended, emissions, a spokesman said. The leak is about twice as big as normal, compared with expected leaks from all oil and gas production and transport in the state over the same time period.
"Industry emissions are generally covered under cap and trade, but these would be considered fugitive emissions," spokesman Dave Clegern said. ARB is in the midst of developing a strategy to deal with short-lived climate pollutants, including methane, black carbon and fluorinated gases. It's also developing regulations specifically for the oil and gas industry. Draftregulations released in April would require fugitive leaks to be repaired in two to seven days.
ARB's analysis was based on airborne emissions monitoring on Nov. 7 and 10. On Nov. 7, the emissions rate was about 44,000 kilograms of methane per hour, increasing to about 50,000 kilograms per hour on Nov. 10.
Environmentalists called for Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to shut down the facility. They also said the leak underscored their longer-term campaign to ban unconventional forms of natural gas and oil extraction because the activity increases the possibility of other leaks.
"Governor Brown must not only shut down this facility, he must ban fracking and other extreme forms of oil and gas extraction, and accelerate the Golden State's transition from fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable energy," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch.
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White House 'Can Swallow' WOTUS Rider -- Lobbyists
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
Industry lobbyists see rolling back U.S. EPA's Water of the U.S. rule as a viable policy rider for the omnibus appropriations measure under assembly, according to a recent conference call that was secretly recorded and leaked yesterday.
The call, which apparently took place last week, was organized by the Edison Electric Institute to strategize on pushing back against the WOTUS plan by inserting a rider in the omnibus.
The participants do not identify themselves during the call, so at times it's unclear who is speaking and which groups they represent. But according to The Intercept, which firstreported on the call, it included representatives from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, American Forest and Paper Association, National Association of Home Builders, and American Farm Bureau.
One lobbyist argued that industry should focus its efforts on a rider targeting WOTUS, which she said should be viewed differently from the multitude of other policy provisions included in the House and Senate appropriations bills because a federal appeals court has stayed the regulation nationwide.
"You have to distinguish yourself from the other things that folks are trying to get on there," said the lobbyist. "And so to the extent you can say, 'Look, I get that there are some things like a Clean Power Plan rider would get a veto, that would shut down the government if you stuck to your guns on it,' but we can explain how there may be a path forward on something that may be a little bit of a compromise language, the courts are already saying this is coming down. This is in a different place than these other riders and we think there's a way to get this into an [omnibus] and it won't create a veto situation. That to me is a conversation that is worth having."
There's no further discussion of what a compromise WOTUS rider may entail, but other lobbyists on the call agreed that the issue is the "most achievable" for inclusion in the omnibus.
"This is the one the White House can swallow," said another official on the call. "I think they know that."
Participants also said the controversy over bringing Syrian refugees to the United States may help their case.
"We're suddenly not the big issue," said one lobbyist. "I mean this is all going to turn on refugees."
"I think that probably helps us," said another.
One official said congressional staffers had expressed surprise over the outcry on the refugee issue, which has sparked more pushback than any other issue in eight years.
"They were all completely shocked," the lobbyist said.
Another official said the staying power of the refugee issue could be measured in the outcome of last Saturday's runoff election for Louisiana's gubernatorial race. "If it's enough to bring David Vitter across the finish line on Saturday, we'll know," the official said.
Vitter was soundly beaten by Democrat John Bel Edwards in the race and later announced he will retire at the end of next year (Greenwire, Nov. 23).
An official with the American Farm Bureau Federation noted that he's urged top state officials to contact key lawmakers to reinforce the need for a WOTUS rider.
"I'm calling my states specifically and saying, 'I need you to touch these chairman,'" the lobbyist said. "At the end of the day make sure they can't say, 'I didn't hear from back home.'"
On the call, some participants also appeared to question how committed Republican leaders are to fighting for a WOTUS rider.
"If we have any weakness, it's with the speaker and the majority leader," said one lobbyist, who later walked back the comment. "Weakness may be too strong. ... [I]t's uncertainty."
"I don't think they are as committed to this because they think they have another tool in the [Congressional Review Act]," one official said, in an apparent reference to the Senate's vote to block WOTUS earlier this month (Greenwire, Nov. 4). "And they may be laboring under the delusion that a political victory instead of a real change is OK."
Another responded, "I thought we were in a better place with McConnell," referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
One lobbyist wondered whether it's worth asking McConnell's staff to pressure the staff of newly minted House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on the issue.
"We have a new player in Ryan, so I just think it's just important to reinforce that," the official said.
Another recalled a recent conversation with Matt Kellogg, whom LegiStorm lists as a senior policy adviser to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
"When I mentioned to Matt that we don't want the CRA right now, he immediately shot back, 'We need to hear from more than the homebuilders,'" the lobbyist said.
The call comes as Washington scrambles to assemble an omnibus to replace the continuing resolution that expires Dec. 11. While EPA critics see WOTUS as a rider that the White House may be willing to live with, former Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) last week said he did not expect the administration to yield on the matter (E&E Daily, Nov. 19).
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the call. EEI and NAHB declined to comment on the call, while the Farm Bureau did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokeswoman for AF&PA confirmed that a staffer listened in on the call "but did not actively participate in discussions." A NRECA spokeswoman said a non-lobbying staffer listened to the call but "did not participate in or contribute to the discussion."
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Former EPA Official Fears ESPS Compliance Could Trigger NSR Permitting
Nov 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
A former EPA official is warning that power plants making efficiency upgrades to comply with EPA's greenhouse gases rule for existing utilities could trigger costly Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) permitting mandates for the conventional pollutants emitted from efficiency technologies.
William Wehrum, acting EPA air chief during the Bush administration and now partner with law firm Hunton & Williams, told a recent law conference that major efficiency projects might not qualify as "routine" upgrades exempt from NSR, forcing them to install additional technologies to reduce emissions of both GHGs and conventional pollutants.
Alternatively, the agency might project that a more-efficient plant is likely to be used, or dispatched, during high power demand and therefore have more potential to emit pollutants over the NSR threshold.
Either situation means a power company could face the dilemma of how to resolve energy efficiency upgrades to reduce GHGs and comply with the existing source performance standards (ESPS) while avoiding NSR, a requirement utilities aim to avoid because it can impose expensive controls on facilities to reduce conventional pollutants.
Many in the coal industry are also concerned that NSR requirements could make it difficult to advance carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. The National Coal Council, a group that advises the Energy Department, recently met to discuss a draft report that urges policymakers to ease NSR rules because the requirements are a barrier to installing CCS technology.
"If we are to reduce CO2 emissions from existing facilities in the U.S., government policy must eliminate this uncertainty in order to encourage rather than discourage installation of CO2 emission control equipment," says the draft report, which was discussed during a Nov. 12 coal council meeting.
While the dilemma over NSR rules is not new, Wehrum told the American Law Institute-Continuing Legal Education event in Washington, D.C., last month that the issue will rise in importance as the ESPS compliance deadline nears.
In order to comply with state plans crafted to implement the ESPS, it is widely expected that electric utilities will seek to upgrade or replace their existing equipment, such as old combustion turbines. This will help them make the power plant heat rate improvements that states might require to comply with the ESPS, a key element of the administration's climate agenda.
NSR Review
However, Wehrum warned that turbine replacements that boost efficiency will trigger review under the Clean Air Act's NSR or related Prevention of Significant Determination (PSD) permit programs, with likely additional complications and costs for companies, according to EPA's current policy on permit review.
This is because EPA regards more-efficient power plants as more likely to be dispatched than inefficient ones, given that the costs to the operator and resulting cost of electricity generated is lower than the running costs of less efficient plants. And plants that run more or at higher capacity will, EPA reasons, pollute more.
But Wehrum said that for a variety of reasons, some power plants are already being dispatched as much as they can be, so EPA's analysis is flawed. The agency currently assumes there will be a lot of efficiency upgrades under the ESPS, but the lingering NSR problem calls this assumption into question, he said.
Wehrum cites two documents as the basis for the agency's current stance. The first is the "Detroit Edison Determination," a 2000 decision from EPA that subjected the Michigan utility's"Dense Pack" project -- intended to upgrade combustion turbines at a facility -- to NSR.
The determination by Francis Lyons, then-EPA Region 5 administrator, found that contrary to Detroit Edison's position, the project, at the company's plant in Monroe County, MI, did not qualify for an exclusion from NSR as routine maintenance, repair or replacement, because the project was not routine.
"The purpose of the Dense Pack project, to significantly enhance the present efficiency of the high pressure section of the steam turbine, signifies that the project is not routine," Lyons wrote. "The nature and extent of the work in question -- replacement of the entire high pressure sections of the steam turbines for Units 1 and 4 at Monroe" also suggests it was not routine, he said.
Lyons said in his determination that having considered whether the project qualified for an exclusion as routine, the question becomes, does it increase emissions of "criteria" pollutants such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) or nitrogen oxides (NOx). If emissions do not rise, PSD permitting review is not triggered, he said.
Although Lyons in the determination accepted Detroit Edison's assertion that the project would not increase emissions, he warned that there was the potential for it to do so. "In general, a physical change in the nature of the Dense Pack project, which provides for the more economical production of electricity, would be expected to result in the increased utilization of the affected units, and thus, increased emissions," Lyons wrote.
"Notwithstanding the fact the Monroe units may be high on the dispatch order, the Dense Pack project would allow Detroit Edison to produce electricity more cheaply per unit of output, thereby creating an incentive to run Units 1 and 4 above current levels. Even a small increase over current normal levels in the utilization of the affected units would result in a significant increase in actual emissions of criteria pollutants," he added.
Court Ruling
Wehrum also cited a 2010 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, United States of America and State of New York v. Cinergy Corporation, rejecting EPA's method of calculating emissions increases for NSR/PSD permitting purposes.
In the complex case, the court ruled against EPA's position on certain issues but also reiterated its argument from earlier litigation that Cinergy, owner of a coal-fired power plant in Wabash, IN, and several other plants, wrongly advanced a definition of increased generating capacity -- and therefore increased potential to pollute -- based on hourly generating capacity.
"Cinergy's hourly-capacity interpretation would if adopted give a company that had a choice between making a physical modification that would increase the hourly emissions rate and one that would enable an increase in the number of hours of operation an incentive to make the latter modification even if that would produce a higher annual level of emissions. For that modification would elude the permit requirement and thus shelter the company from liability for the increased emissions. It would also distort the choice between rebuilding an old plant and replacing it with a new one," said Judge Richard Posner in his unanimous opinion for the court.
Posner said that an approach that counted total annual emissions, based on the total hours a plant ran in a year, was preferable. The court nevertheless found for Cinergy on this issue, because the hourly-rate interpretation was incorporated for SO2 into an EPA-approved state implementation plan (SIP) governing permitting in Indiana.
Hence, EPA must abide by the SIP the agency itself approved. "The blunder was unfortunate but the agency must live with it," Posner wrote. The court's ruling therefore left the hourly emissions rate approach to determining PSD applicability in effect.
Further complicating the picture, the court rejected EPA's assertion in the case that an increase in generating capacity necessarily results in an increase in emissions. Posner said this assumption might hold true for a "baseload" power plant that operates near-continuously, but does not apply to an old plant, such as the Wabash facility, which operates intermittently to help meet peak electric demand.
"Cinergy's Wabash plant is old; old plants are more costly to operate than new ones; the Wabash plant is therefore operated as a cycling rather than a baseload plant and so does not operate at full capacity. There can be no presumption that an increase in its annual capacity would result in a proportionately equal increase in its output," Posner wrote.
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2015 Was a Breakthrough Year for the Environment. Here's Why.
Nov 25, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Fred Krupp
While data suggests that 2015 will likely go down as the hottest year on record, this has also been a year when we’ve made extraordinary environmental progress in five key areas. We have the numbers to prove it.
1. Most Americans now want climate action – and they’re being heard
The Clean Power Plan, finalized this year, puts the first-ever national limits on pollution from United States power plants – our single largest source of greenhouse gases.
The numbers show the plan is a win on multiple fronts, and another data set offers further encouragement: An October poll found that 76 percent of Americans believe climate change is happening, including 59 percent of Republicans. That’s up from 47 percent among Republicans as recently as March.
As my colleague Keith Gaby noted recently, the fight over climate change or the Clean Power Plan isn’t over. But with the changing attitudes among Americans everywhere, the shift in the political landscape is clear.
We’re finally moving in the right direction.
2. Nations step up to the plate to cut emissions
When it comes to sheer numbers, it’s hard to top China, with the world’s largest population and the most greenhouse gas emissions of any nation.
Seven carbon trading pilots are now underway in five cities and two provinces in China, covering 250 million people and a quarter of China’s gross domestic product. These markets are giving the nation’s top leadership the experience and confidence it needs to launch a national carbon market in 2017.
Getting the emissions numbers right is key to viable markets, however, and in 2015 we saw China taking important steps toverify this crucial data. The country also standardized calculations of greenhouse gas emissions from 10 major industries.
Data will also be the foundation of a successful climate agreement in Paris – and what comes after Paris. Today, we’re seeing countries prioritizing good baseline emissions data in a way they haven’t before, all with the goal of meeting their climate targets.
3. A new era between the U.S. and Cuba brings relief for troubled ocean
The normalization of political relations between the U.S. and Cuba began to yield another data boon as our countries embarked on a project to map and inventory marine life in the Florida Straits and the Gulf of Mexico.
With new and high-quality data, scientists from both countries are able to better manage fish populations and critical habitats in a collaborative way. Boosting marine science in our shared waters is of vital interest to both countries.
4. Sensor technology shows the way
In 2015, a new generation of electronic sensors continued to make what used to be invisible, visible – resulting in some remarkable developments.
Last spring, I was among 28 people who wore a special wristband for a week to detect chemicals in my environment. The results were troubling. For example, 24 of the wristbands detected various types of toxic flame retardants, seven kinds in all.
Sensor technology such as these simple wristbands could be powerful and actionable, particularly when combined with the best chance in a generation to update our toxic chemicals policy.
5. Methane data inspires change, business growth
Five years ago, there was a critical lack of data on emissions ofmethane, a potent and rapidly growing greenhouse gas. So my colleague Steven Hamburg organized a massive collaboration with more than 100 academic institutions, think tanks and energy companies to conduct a series of 16 research projects.
The data that surfaced led last year to Colorado’s first-in-a-nation rules to slash methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by more than 30 percent.
This and other state efforts, in turn, prompted the Obama administration in early 2015 to set a goal to reduce U.S. methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, which was followed by a proposal for the first-ever national rules to directly regulate this potent pollution.
A burgeoning methane mitigation industry is now turning methane data into high-paying jobs.
Just the beginning
We want to attach a data-driven market cost to climate pollution, clear the thicket of regulations to open markets to clean energy entrepreneurs, and get the incentives right so that the market rewards farmers and fishermen who become stewards of land and water.
Such stewards include not only the farmers on 750,000 acres in 12 states who have cut fertilizer loss by an average 25 percent over the past decade, but also several international food companies that stepped up efforts in 2015 to improve growing practices for their products.
In all, these companies have pledged to cut fertilizer runoff and soil loss on 23 million acres across the continent by 2020, which will improve water quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
2015 was a year data helped drive progress in all these areas. What’s in store for 2016? Stay tuned for my next post.
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Everything You Need to Know About the Climate Summit
Nov 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
Much is riding on the climate change talks that kick off Monday in Paris.
After years of planning and months of preliminary negotiations, parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, will converge on the City of Light for a two-week summit they hope will produce a deal on emissions, financial assistance to poor countries, and a plan for future action that will place the world on a trajectory to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels and pave the way for adaptation.
Leaders in the talks are keeping expectations managed but high. The agreement that will emerge toward the middle of next month will not be a silver bullet to stem warming, they warn. More work will be required in the coming years in order to deliver on the convention's mitigation and adaptation goals. And there are legal restrictions to how an agreement can look in order to cover major emitters, including the United States.
But if 2015 doesn't see the adoption of a meaningful agreement that is universally applicable to all nations, the consequences will be serious.
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, wrote in a column in the LondonGuardian last month that Paris must be "a decisive hour when a historical event occurs, when a decision must be made, when we have understood that the consequences of the past need us to intentionally and decisively redefine the future."
Figueres says if the Paris summit fails to deliver on its promises, it may be a decade before the world tries again. And by then, the window of opportunity to prevent warming will have closed further.
U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern said on a call yesterday with reporters that he doesn't want to think about that possibility.
"We don't want to kick things over for the next time. Now is our time, and we want to seize it," said Stern. A successful agreement will include a plan for future action but will itself be ambitious, he said.
"The stars are more aligned right now to reach agreement than I have ever seen them -- than I have ever seen happen before," he said. Unlike the lead-up to the talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, six years ago -- the last major climate summit -- countries have put forward their post-2020 pledges and progress has already been made on the negotiating text, he said. But countries now must show enough flexibility to steer the talks into the "landing zone," he said, where an agreement is possible.
"That has been happening," he said. "It has to happen more. But we can get this done."Mitigation
The goal of the talks is first and foremost to produce an emissions deal that will help the world avoid the worst impacts of climate change and that will pave the way for eventual carbon neutrality.
Such a deal must include the United States, which did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol after 1997 despite taking an active role in its negotiation. And it must cover emissions from major developing economies like China and India, which the UNFCCC has not historically required.
Mitigation is at the heart of the agreement that parties hope to cobble together in Paris, but it is not expected to be one of the most controversial elements. That's because the deal that is taking shape will build on commitments that countries put forward themselves, rather than ones assigned to them by the UNFCCC.
Paul Bodnar, National Security Council senior director for energy and climate change, said on a call yesterday that the administration has "absorbed the hard lessons of Kyoto and heeded bipartisan concerns."
"We concluded that climate targets should be set by countries themselves, not imposed on them; that all countries should be expected to act even though developing countries faced unique challenges; and that we should expect strong transparency and accountability from all countries," he said. "That's the deal this administration has been fighting for."
More than 160 countries submitted so-called intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) ahead of the conference, collectively covering upward of 90 percent of global emissions. The U.N. body and the French presidency asked that these submissions be made well in advance of the conference because they hoped to avoid the fate of the 2009 talks in Copenhagen, which saw blocs of countries still grappling with their positions even as the meeting drew to a close -- and which ultimately failed to produce an agreement.
And where President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were involved in last-minute negotiations in Copenhagen, the same is unlikely to occur in the French capital. Obama and nearly 120 other heads of state arrive to formally open the first day of talks Monday, but organizers say their role is to inspire rather than to hash out the details.
The United States formally submitted its emissions commitment to the UNFCCC in March: a pledge to cut greenhouse gases between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. Obama administration officials including U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will be on hand in Paris, too, to make the case that -- contrary to what delegates may hear from visiting Republican lawmakers -- those commitments are built on a solid foundation of environmental regulations that are unlikely to be reversed.
But U.S. politics will likely make their mark on the deal's legal form, if not the ambition of its targets. The Obama administration has long warned that if the talks produced a legally binding treaty, the State Department would be required to submit it to the GOP-controlled Senate, which would reject it (see related story).
To avoid that outcome, U.S. negotiators are pushing for a hybrid legal form, originally put forward by New Zealand, that would make some procedural elements of a deal binding under international law while emissions reductions and monetary pledges would remain political commitments.
The Obama administration says it can enter into that form of agreement using authorities Congress has already allowed, but Senate Republicans want a say in an agreement with any binding elements.
The hybrid option is not what some of the most pro-climate-action parties to the convention have sought. The European Union and some developing countries would have preferred to make countries accountable under international law for their reduction targets and hoped for that kind of agreement out of Copenhagen. But few think such an outcome is possible from Paris.
Stern said in his briefing this week that binding targets would not necessarily make for a stronger outcome.
"We are quite convinced that there are many countries who would be inclined to put in a lower target than they're really capable of if they were worried about the legal -- legally binding nature of the targets themselves," he said, referencing conversations he had held "in the corridors and in private rooms" of previous conferences.
Another thing that has changed since 2009 is the expectations of developing nations -- especially major economies like China and India. While these countries still favor rhetoric about developed countries' historical responsibility for warming, China, in particular, has spent the past year rolling out unconditional pledges that Western negotiators see as evidence that the world's largest emitter is ready to shoulder some of the burden for making reductions. China has promised in the last 12 months to peak its emissions by 2030, introduce an economywide cap-and-trade program next year and begin drawing a substantial share of its power from non-fossil-fuel technologies -- all commitments advocates have hailed as substantial.
India is seen as more of a loose cannon in these talks. It is strongly reliant on coal and has said the deal should not include language calling for dramatic reductions in its use. The country did pledge to cut its emissions intensity by 33 percent or 35 percent as part of its INDC, but the submission was panned by some as insufficient, and it does not give a date by which it will stop increasing emissions.Adaptation
One of the most contentious issues in Paris is likely to be the way developed countries help poor ones cope with the impacts of warming.
Vulnerable developing countries and nongovernmental organizations -- especially those based outside the United States -- want the West to guarantee funding for both adaptation and mitigation.
Their request builds on a promise the developed world has already made to collectively raise $100 billion a year by 2020 in public funds and leveraged private capital. Poor countries and their advocates warn that private investment will skew toward green energy and other mitigation efforts rather than helping poor populations prepare for the effects of warming. Those investments often must come in the form of foreign aid, and poor countries want firm pledges.
They insist that the $100-billion-per-year promise that Clinton unveiled in Copenhagen in 2009 should be a floor, not a ceiling, and that it should come in addition to aid the West is already providing.
But developed countries, including the United States, are constrained by domestic political situations. The Obama administration and Congress are preparing to go head to head over fiscal 2016 funding during the next two weeks, while the climate summit is in progress. And while the president has promised to make a down payment of $500 million to the United Nations' Green Climate Fund for poor countries this fiscal year, that has become a bone of contention. Republicans say they won't consider approving climate aid unless Obama agrees to submit a Paris deal to the Senate (ClimateWire, Nov. 19).
U.S. environmentalists say Congress will ultimately be unable to stop the administration from contributing to the GCF. But the fact that Republicans are targeting the relatively small line item shows that the United States is unlikely to roll out sweeping new financial commitments in Paris.
Negotiators from developed countries present the Copenhagen pledge as the sum of many different funding streams. Stern said yesterday that while he sees "robust financing continuing" through Paris, it would come from "all channels," including private businesses, bilateral aid, and national contributions to the World Bank and other financial organizations.
He also hailed China's September announcement that it would make more than $3.1 billion available to poor countries -- a pledge slightly higher than the $3 billion the United States has pledged to the GCF by 2020.
"So it's going to be a world where the base of donors is going to expand," said Stern, adding that "specifics and dollar numbers and all of that will be part of these negotiations."Loss and damage
Finance in general is likely to be a hot topic in Paris. One of the sharpest fault lines in the negotiations has been over whether Western countries that grew rich while emitting CO2 should compensate poor countries that have been affected by warming.
Proposals for how "loss and damage" would be addressed vary. Some developing nations want a mechanism by which wealthy countries are assessed monetary damages for driving climate change, but any discussion of liability is a non-starter with Western delegations, especially the United States. Other poor countries want free access to technology to boost their green energy supply.
Preliminary discussions last month in Bonn, Germany, made little headway on this issue, and it is expected to be one of the last things settled in Paris. There is broad agreement that the deal should acknowledge the impact climate change has had on certain vulnerable populations.
"Especially vulnerable countries like small island states need assurance that the severe, irreversible impacts they face will somehow be addressed," said Elliot Diringer, vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
The best way to do that, he said, is to make permanent the loss-and-damage mechanism that was created two years ago during the 2013 talks in Warsaw, Poland (ClimateWire, Nov. 26, 2013). The mechanism's purpose is to look for ways to address irrevocable losses linked to climate change.
"But developed countries will only agree if it's clear it's not a means of assessing liability and awarding compensation," Diringer said, adding that a surer path would be to consider ways of providing insurance.
But climate justice groups say vulnerable countries are due compensation for losses sustained from sea-level rise, drought and other climate-driven disasters not of their making.
Oxfam released a report earlier this month arguing that the need for climate aid and compensation has risen since six years ago. By 2050, developing countries could face adaptation costs of nearly $800 billion a year, the advocacy group states. That amount is about 50 percent more than they would have paid if a deal in Copenhagen had succeeded in containing warming to 2 C.
"Most developed countries are likely to have something in reserve to help push through the deal but have been reluctant so far to play their hand," Oxfam states. It urges rich countries to make pledges of additional aid early in the conference. "Sitting on commitments until the final night is not a winning strategy -- it will not help to build trust and bring new contributors on board."Future action
The only legally binding part of an agreement is likely to deal with what happens after Paris.
The estimated net effect of countries' commitments will be to limit warming to 2.7 degrees above preindustrial levels, which is a significant improvement on the nearly 5-degree rise expected under a business-as-usual scenario -- but not enough to avoid the worst impacts of warming.
To fill that gap, U.S. negotiators are pushing for an agreement that would mandate that countries periodically submit fresh contributions identifying new steps they will take to bring their emissions down further.
The United States wants countries to come back to the table every five years. But this plan is complicated by the fact that other countries -- China and India in particular -- have chosen to submit targets for 2030 rather than 2025, as the United States has done. They may be reluctant to ratchet up those commitments in 2020 and may balk at an agreement that obligates them to do so.
Stern said yesterday that countries are likely to see more potential to limit their emissions in five years' time than they do today. As technology progresses, he said, it will become clear that more ambitious goals are compatible with economic development.
If countries submit longer-term pledges, he said, "there should still be at least a requirement that countries restate, resubmit, revisit a longer target if they have one in each five-year increment."
Those pledges would then undergo a "facilitative" review that would assess whether the country is on track to meet its targets or whether more action would be needed.
"Nobody is thinking here of a punitive review," Stern said.
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