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ACC AM Dec 15
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(ACC Mentioned) Americans Waste Billions Of Tons Of Food. This Congresswoman Is Doing Something About It.
Dec 14, 2015 | Climate Progress
By Natasha Geiling
Food waste is a big problem in the United States — nearly 40 percent of the food produced in the country is wasted each year, costing consumers $161 billion annually. A lot of that waste also tends to end up in landfills, where it decomposes and releases methane, a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide. -
Udall Hopeful TSCA Reform Bill Could Get Senate Vote Before End Of Year
Dec 14, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), a lead sponsor of pending legislation to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), believes the Senate could hold a vote on the bill before the end of the year, after lawmakers agreed to a tentative plan for resolving a fight over the Land & Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) that had stalled the TSCA bill. -
Burr Says He Will Lift TSCA Hold With Temporary LWCF Extension
Dec 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
Sen. Richard Burr today said he would lift his hold on a bipartisan chemical reform bill if the Land and Water Conservation Fund is authorized for more than a year in a year-end omnibus spending deal. Details remain in flux, but the North Carolina Republican predicted the LWCF would be reauthorized for... -
U.S., Canada Focus on Five Chemicals for Risk Assessment
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
U.S. and Canadian officials are developing case studies to evaluate similarities and differences in how they would assess the risks of five chemicals or groups of chemicals, according to a webinar held Dec. 14 by Environment Canada, the Environmental Protection Agency and Health Canada. -
EPA's Solid Waste Office Renamed to Reflect Mission
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Environmental Protection Agency's office that oversees management of the Superfund program, solid and hazardous waste, and emergency response is changing its name to more accurately reflect its duties, according to a notice scheduled to appear in the Federal Register on Dec. 15. -
New Lawsuits Target EPA's Power Plant Standards
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
A utility trade group and a coal mining company filed lawsuits Dec. 14 challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's carbon dioxide emissions standards for power plants (Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1448, 12/14/15; N. Am. Coal Corp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1451, 12/14/15). -
POLITICS: E.P.A. Broke the Law by Using Social Media to Push Water Rule, Auditor Finds
Dec 14, 2015 | The New York Times
By Eric Lipton and Michael D. Shear
The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” in violation of federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the general public to support President Obama’s controversial rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded. -
EPA Broke Law by Lobbying on Water Rule, GAO Says
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The Environmental Protection Agency violated anti-lobbying laws by using social media to promote and discuss a rule clarifying Clean Water Act jurisdiction, a Government Accountability Office investigation concluded Dec. 14. In a letter to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the GAO affirmed what the senator said he suspected all along... -
GAO Faults EPA's Campaign To Promote CWA Rule
Dec 14, 2015 | InsideEPA
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says EPA's campaign to promote its Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule violated two legal restrictions on the agency's use of appropriations, saying EPA should report the violation to President Obama and Congress and determine the total cost spent on the campaign. -
Broken Process Imperils Obama EPA Nominees' Chances
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Delays in confirming executive branch nominees have gotten worse during the Obama administration, and that fact makes it increasingly unlikely that additional Environmental Protection Agency officials will earn the Senate's stamp of approval this presidency, academics and other observers told Bloomberg BNA. -
Clean And Market-Competitive Energy
Dec 14, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By J. Winston Porter
Debate has raged for years about the best way to reduce U.S. carbon emissions. As illustrated in the U.N. climate talks in Paris, few realize that U.S. carbon emission levels are falling faster than those in other industrialized nation, and we are doing this as our economy grows. -
N.J. Lawmakers Offer Bill To Revive 'Polluter Pays' Tax
Dec 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
New Jersey lawmakers rolled out a bill today aimed at reviving the "polluter pays" tax that once funded Superfund cleanups. Speaking at the Garfield Ground Water Superfund site in Garfield, N.J., Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez and Reps. Frank Pallone and Bill Pascrell touted new legislation to bring back the tax... -
White House Says Climate Deal Will Stand The Test Of Time
Dec 14, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The sweeping climate agreement reached in Paris over the weekend will last beyond the Obama administration, the White House predicted Monday. “We will see in the years ahead that there is a powerful economic incentive in the United States for us to follow through on our commitments and make sure that other countries are doing the same”... -
EPA Defends Campaign To Promote Water Rule
Dec 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
EPA is defending its promotional campaign around its controversial water rule in the face of a government watchdog's conclusion that it broke federal law. "We disagree with their assessment, and we will fulfill whatever reporting requirements are necessary," EPA spokeswoman Monica Lee said in a statement. -
U.S. Gets Win on Transparency in Paris Climate Deal
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The U.S., European Union and other countries got most of what they wanted in making sure the Paris climate change deal set out a single set of transparency requirements to verify nations are making good on their pledges to take action, while it leaves a little wiggle room for small developing nations. -
Republicans Vow Rigorous Oversight of Paris Climate Deal
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Top Republican lawmakers told President Barack Obama they were unimpressed with the international agreement on climate change that emerged from two weeks of negotiations in Paris and pledged to closely examine U.S. promises included in the deal. Though Democrats and environmental advocates have hailed... -
Congress Inches Toward Completed Spending Bill
Dec 14, 2015 | The New York Times
By David M. Herszenhorn
Congressional negotiators worked Monday night to complete a $1.1 trillion spending bill for 2016, and an accompanying package of up to $750 billion in tax breaks for businesses and low-income workers. Negotiators have largely been hung up on disagreements over an array of policy amendments that Republican...
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Dec 14, 2015 | Climate Progress
By Natasha Geiling
Food waste is a big problem in the United States — nearly 40 percent of the food produced in the country is wasted each year, costing consumers $161 billion annually. A lot of that waste also tends to end up in landfills, where it decomposes and releases methane, a greenhouse gas more powerful than carbon dioxide.
When people hear those statistics, they tend to feel an urge to act — according to a poll by the American Chemistry Council, 70 percent of Americans are bothered by the amount of food wasted in the country.
Earlier this year, the USDA and EPA teamed up to release the country’s first official national goal for reducing food waste, hoping to cut food waste in half by 2030. Still, despite widespread public support for addressing food waste, it’s an issue that has largely been championed by businesses and activists rather than politicians.
Now, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) is trying to change that. On Dec. 7, Pingree introduced the Food Recovery Act, a comprehensive bill that seeks to address food waste from the farm to table.
“We wanted … to have people be able to talk about all ways of looking at the problem, from restaurants and at home to municipalities and government,” Pingree told ThinkProgress. “We want to give people a chance to understand it better, how much food in this country is wasted, what they can do as individuals, what we can do to help.”
The bill contains nearly two dozen provisions aimed at curbing food waste across the entire economy, from farm-level waste to food that is wasted at restaurants.
At the consumer level, one of the easiest things to do, Pingree said, would be to reevaluate the “Best By” labels included on most food products.
“That’s one of those things that over time you get used to having on anything you buy, but most people don’t realize there is no corresponding science to what the date is,” Pingree said. Currently, there are no federal laws regulating the dates that can be used on products. Under the bill’s provision, companies wanting to print a “Best By” label would need to include the words “Manufacturer’s suggestion only” in letters of equal size to the “Best By” date.
At the farm level, Pingree’s bill would support the installation of anaerobic digesters on rural farms, which could help turn crop waste into energy, and would also incentivize composting at the farm level. The bill also calls for a deeper study of the incidence of food waste that happens at the farm level, since food waste that happens on the farm is notoriously difficult to track. The USDA does not keep track of post-harvest food waste data, and most studies have been, until now, anecdotal, with numbers and practices ranging from farmer to farmer. An NRDC investigation that looked at post-harvest waste in California found numbers as low as 1 percent and as high as 30 percent, but food waste activists argue that strict cosmetic standards required by supermarkets lead farmers to throw away a great deal of nutritious but aesthetically imperfect produce.
Pingree’s bill would also support restaurants, grocery stores, and schools in cutting food waste, by expanding tax credits for grocery stores that want to donate leftover products and establishing an Office of Food Recovery meant to coordinate federal programs to measure and reduce food waste.
“We see [food waste] as an economic issue, a humanitarian issue, an environmental issue,” Pingree said. “This is one of those things where everyone’s grandma told them not to waste food. It’s not partisan.”
Pingree said that she hopes to pass some of the bill’s provisions before the session ends for the year — the tax breaks for farms and businesses that donate unused produce, for instance, could end up in a tax extender bill making its way through Congress. For the rest of the bill, Pingree hopes to break it down provision by provision and work to enact them individually.
“A lot of our goal is to get a public dialogue going,” she said. “It’s a popular issue, people are interested in it, and sometimes they just want to know what they should do.”
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Udall Hopeful TSCA Reform Bill Could Get Senate Vote Before End Of Year
Dec 14, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), a lead sponsor of pending legislation to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), believes the Senate could hold a vote on the bill before the end of the year, after lawmakers agreed to a tentative plan for resolving a fight over the Land & Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) that had stalled the TSCA bill.
“The last obstacle in the way of TSCA reform passing the Senate is an unrelated hold due to the lapse in authorization for the Land and Water Conservation Fund,” Udall said in a statement to Inside EPA, referencing the LWCF impasse. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) has blocked the unrelated TSCA bill, S. 697, from receiving a floor vote until senators agree to allow him to offer an LWCF reauthorization amendment to the TSCA legislation.
But lawmakers are said to have reached a deal on including a rider in the pending omnibus fiscal year 2016 bill that would temporarily reauthorize the fund -- which may clear the path for a vote on S. 697.
“I strongly support reauthorizing and funding LWCF on its merits -- it has made possible important recreation and conservation projects and created jobs and boosted the economy in communities throughout New Mexico -- and I'm hopeful for a positive outcome in the omnibus that will allow us to move beyond those objections and pass TSCA reform by the end of the year,” Udall said in the statement to Inside EPA.
While Burr is pushing for reauthorization of the LWCF, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and other GOP senators oppose reauthorization of the fund without changes to how it operates and vowed to fight any amendment on the issue. That fight divided the broad bipartisan support for the TSCA bill. The omnibus bill -- which Congress must approve by Dec. 16 under an extended deadline -- could help end that dispute.
If the TSCA bill does receive a floor vote in the coming day, it is expected to easily clear the upper chamber given that it has more than 60 declared co-sponsors. That gives the bill enough support to overcome any potential filibuster threat from some Democrats who have concerns about various provisions in the measure.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), ranking member on the Environment & Public Works Committee, had previously vowed to block the bill. She had concerns about language that the senator believed would broadly preempt existing state chemicals programs, such as regulations in place in California.
However, revisions to the bill that were agreed to earlier this fall led to Boxer agreeing to let the bill come to a floor vote -- though she is withholding her support for S. 697 pending additional changes.
If the Senate does approve the TSCA bill before the end of the year, attention would shift to a conference committee to reconcile S. 697 with the House's version of TSCA version. The lower chamber's bill, H.R. 2576, cleared the House in a 398-1 vote in June. The bill is narrower than the Senate version, so a conference committee would aim to resolve the differences and craft a final version of TSCA reform on which both chambers would then vote.
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Burr Says He Will Lift TSCA Hold With Temporary LWCF Extension
Dec 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
Sen. Richard Burr today said he would lift his hold on a bipartisan chemical reform bill if the Land and Water Conservation Fund is authorized for more than a year in a year-end omnibus spending deal.
Details remain in flux, but the North Carolina Republican predicted the LWCF would be reauthorized for "longer than a year" as part of the deal, and that would be enough for him to end a hold on legislation to update the Toxic Substances Control Act.
"If I'm certain that LWCF with some reauthorization is in the omnibus bill then I'll let them go ahead and do TSCA by voice," Burr said. "I know what I'm hearing but I gotta see it in black and white."
Reauthorizing the fund has been among Democrats' requests in exchange for a GOP push to lift the ban on oil exports in the omnibus.
Sen. Tom Udall, one of TSCA's lead sponsors, earlier today said he hoped that LWCF language in the omnibus will "help clear the way" for the TSCA bill. The House has passed a narrower TSCA bill that would still need to be reconciled with the Senate plan.
House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop, who has refused to consider a permanent LWCF reauthorization without changing how the program operates, said last week he was open to a short-term extension as part of a larger omnibus deal. Burr said he would continue pushing for a permanent reauthorization next year.
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U.S., Canada Focus on Five Chemicals for Risk Assessment
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
U.S. and Canadian officials are developing case studies to evaluate similarities and differences in how they would assess the risks of five chemicals or groups of chemicals, according to a webinar held Dec. 14 by Environment Canada, the Environmental Protection Agency and Health Canada.
The five chemicals and groups of chemicals are 4-tert-octylphenol, triphenyl phosphate, phthalic anhydride, cyanide compounds and molybendum compounds, said Tala Henry, director of the risk assessment division within the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.
Henry and other officials from Environment Canada, the Environmental Protection Agency and Health Canada discussed tasks they have undertaken through the Regulatory Cooperation Council, which seeks, where possible, to bring consistency to regulatory and related activities of both governments. The countries hope to ease North American trade by making practices more consistent where possible.
The Dec. 14 webinar focused on chemicals management. The regulatory officials, who did not consistently identify themselves during the webinar, discussed initiatives on risk assessments of chemicals in commerce.
They also discussed bringing consistency to reporting requirements for new uses of chemical substances. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act includes Significant New Activity (SNAc) provisions that require notices to be sent to Canadian authorities, while the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act authorizes Significant New Use Rules, or SNURs, which impose a similar requirement.
Issues for Risk Assessment Case Studies
The case studies will explore issues such as ways the U.S. and Canada:
• fill data caps;
• use environmental monitoring;
• define a group of chemicals that can be assessed together;
• use biomonitoring data; and
• gather, review and use ecotoxicity data to develop a predicted no-effect concentration (PNECs), which is used as an ecological dose presumed to cause no harm.
Initially, the case studies will seek to identify similarities and differences between the two countries' approaches, but eventually they will determine whether some collaboration would help reduce some of these differences.
A final report highlighting such opportunities is to be released by December 2017.
New Use Regulations
Regarding SNAcs and SNURs, the two countries will see if they can develop a common understanding of terms they both use, such as “consumer product,” and they will see if they have a common understanding of items they often exclude from new use regulations, such as manufactured articles.
Industries and nongovernmental organizations in both countries also have urged the three agencies to focus on supply chain communication, which they will do.
Publication of a final summary document outlining findings, recommendations and plan for short-term and long-term implementation activities is expected by December 2016, with a workshop on final results planned for January 2017.
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EPA's Solid Waste Office Renamed to Reflect Mission
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Environmental Protection Agency's office that oversees management of the Superfund program, solid and hazardous waste, and emergency response is changing its name to more accurately reflect its duties, according to a notice scheduled to appear in the Federal Register on Dec. 15. The Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response will be named the Office of Land and Emergency Management, as of Dec. 15. Mathy Stanislaus, EPA assistant administrator of the office, told Bloomberg BNA in October the change was being made because the office today is a multi-dimensional one with a role in restoring land, preventing releases and conserving resources (210 DEN A-13, 10/30/15) The Federal Register notice is available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2015-31061.pdf. More information is available from Patricia Derkasch of the EPA at derkasch.patricia@epa.gov.
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New Lawsuits Target EPA's Power Plant Standards
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
A utility trade group and a coal mining company filed lawsuits Dec. 14 challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's carbon dioxide emissions standards for power plants (Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1448, 12/14/15; N. Am. Coal Corp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1451, 12/14/15).
The Utility Air Regulatory Group, a power company trade association, filed its lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit targeting the EPA's new source performance standards (RIN 2060-AQ91), which set carbon dioxide emissions limits for new and modified power plants. North American Coal Corp.'s lawsuit, also filed in the D.C. Circuit, challenges the Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), which sets similar carbon dioxide emissions limits on existing power plants.
UARG's lawsuit will likely be consolidated with similar challenges brought by North Dakota, Peabody Energy Corp., Murray Energy Corp., the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers & Helpers and the AFL-CIO.
North Dakota has indicated it plans to challenge the EPA's determination that carbon capture systems are adequately demonstrated control technologies for the purposes of Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act (North Dakota v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1381, statement of issues filed 11/27/15; 230 DEN A-19, 12/1/15).
North American Coal Corp.'s lawsuit will join other challenges brought by 27 states and several industry groups. Petitioners in that litigation have already asked the court to set an expedited briefing schedule that would see the case argued by May 2016 (West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1363, motion filed 12/8/15; 237 DEN A-2, 12/10/15).
The Utility Air Regulatory Group is represented by attorneys at Hunton & Williams LLP while the North American Coal Corp. is represented by attorneys from Jones Day.
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POLITICS: E.P.A. Broke the Law by Using Social Media to Push Water Rule, Auditor Finds
Dec 14, 2015 | The New York Times
By Eric Lipton and Michael D. Shear
The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” in violation of federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the general public to support President Obama’s controversial rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded.
The ruling by the Government Accountability Office, which opened its investigation after a report in The New York Times on the agency’s practices, served as a cautionary tale to federal agencies about the perils of getting too active in using social media to push a cause. Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda.
It also emerged as Republican leaders moved to block the so-called Waters of the United States clean-water rule through an amendment to the enormous spending bill expected to pass in Congress this week.
“GAO’s finding confirms what I have long suspected, that EPA will go to extreme lengths and even violate the law to promote its activist environmental agenda,” Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma and chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee who is pressing to block the rule, said in a statement Monday. “EPA’s illegal attempts to manufacture public support for its Waters of the United States rule and sway Congressional opinion regarding legislation to address that rule have undermined the integrity of the rule-making process and demonstrated how baseless this unprecedented expansion of EPA regulatory authority really is.”
Thomas Reynolds, a former communications director at the Environmental Protection Agency, moved to add political campaign-style tactics to the agency’s public relations operation. Credit Alex Wong/Getty Images
The E.P.A. rolled out a social media campaign on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and even on more innovative tools such as Thunderclap to counter opposition to its water rule, which imposes new restrictions on how land near certain surface waters can be used. The agency. said the rule would prevent pollution in drinking water sources. Farmers, business groups and Republicans have called the rule flagrant government overreach.
But in the E.P.A.’s counterattack, the G.A.O. says agency officials engaged in “covert propaganda” on behalf of Mr. Obama’s water policy by concealing the fact that its social messages were coming from the E.P.A. The agency essentially became lobbyists for its cause by including links that directed people to advocacy organizations.
Federal agencies are allowed to promote their own policies, but they are not allowed to engage in propaganda, which means covert activity intended to influence the American public. They also are not allowed to use federal resources to conduct so-called grass-roots lobbying — urging the American public to contact Congress to take a certain kind of action on pending legislation.
As it promoted the Waters of the United States rule, also known as the Clean Water Rule, the E.P.A. violated both of these laws, a 26-page report signed by Susan A. Poling, the general counsel to the G.A.O., concluded, in an investigation requested by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
“EPA appealed to the public to contact Congress in opposition to pending legislation in violation of the grass-roots lobbying prohibition,” the report says. In a letter to the G.A.O. as the review was underway, Avi S. Garbow, the E.P.A.’s general counsel, said the agency had looked back at its social media campaign and concluded that it had complied with all federal laws, calling it “an appropriately far-reaching effort to educate the American public about an important part of EPA’s mission: protecting clean water.”
The rule in question has been adopted by the agency, but its implementation was suspended nationally in October by a federal appeals court, after opponents of the plan, who argue that it vastly increases the control of the federal government over land near surface waters, filed a lawsuit challenging it.
The G.A.O. report details two specific violations that took place as the E.P.A. was preparing to issue the final rule. The first violation involved the Thunderclap campaign in September 2014, in which the E.P.A. used a new type of social media tool to quickly reach out to 1.8 million people to urge them to support the clean-water proposal. Thunderclap, described as an online flash mob, allows large groups of people to share a single message together at the same time.
“Clean water is important to me,” the Thunderclap message said. “I support EPA’s efforts to protect it for my health, my family, and my community.”
The effort violated federal law, the G.A.O. said, because as it ricocheted through the Internet, many people who received it would not have known that it was written by the E.P.A., making it covert propaganda.
The agency separately violated the anti-lobbying law when one of its public affairs officers wrote a blog post saying he was a surfer and did not “want to get sick from pollution,” and included a link button to an advocacy group urging the public to “tell Congress to stop interfering with your right to clean water.”
The G.A.O. has instructed the E.P.A. to find out how much money was spent by staff involved in these violations and to report back.
Such findings by the G.A.O. are infrequent but not unprecedented. The G.A.O. concluded similarly that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid violated the anti-propaganda act in 2004 when it covertly paid for news videos distributed to television stations without disclosing that it had funded the work. The Department of Education, in 2005, was also found to have violated the same law when it hired a public relations firm to covertly promote the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
Thomas Reynolds, who as communications director at the E.P.A. moved to add political campaign-style tactics to the agency’s public relations operation, has recently moved to the White House. Liz Purchia, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said the agency had not yet seen the report, which was issued Monday morning, and could not comment on it yet.
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EPA Broke Law by Lobbying on Water Rule, GAO Says
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The Environmental Protection Agency violated anti-lobbying laws by using social media to promote and discuss a rule clarifying Clean Water Act jurisdiction, a Government Accountability Office investigation concluded Dec. 14.
In a letter to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the GAO affirmed what the senator said he suspected all along: The EPA violated publicity, propaganda and anti-lobbying restrictions in two appropriations laws during fiscal years 2014 and 2015 by promoting the rulemaking, known as the waters of the U.S. rule (WOTUS) (RIN 2040–AF30).
At issue are campaigns the EPA used on social media sites, including Twitter, to promote the rule. It created the hashtag “#DitchtheMyth” to address what it said was misinformation, for example, about ditches that would be regulated. The agency used the hashtag “#CleanWaterRules” to ask followers to show why “clean water rules.” The EPA also used the Thunderclap campaign site to coordinate supporters in sharing the same message supporting the rule all at once.
The agency responded that educating the public about its regulations and other activities is an important part of its mission.
John Wonderlich, policy director for the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation, told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 14 that the difference between promotion and grassroots lobbying might get harder to distinguish as communications go online.
The rulemaking, also called the Clean Water Rule, was jointly issued by the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers June 29 (80 Fed. Reg. 37,054). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has stayed the rule nationwide, pending its ruling on which court will hear multiple challenges to the rule (236 DEN A-1, 12/9/15).
‘Thunderclap' Campaign Singled Out
According to the GAO, Section 718 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act of 2014 (Pub. L. No. 113-76) prohibited the EPA's use of appropriated funds for “unauthorized” propaganda or publicity purposes, while Section 715 of the same law prohibits the EPA from using appropriated funds to engage in indirect grassroots lobbying for or against pending legislation. The GAO also said Section 401 of the Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2015 also had similar prohibitions on the EPA's use of appropriated funds for lobbying purposes.
“The EPA's use of Thunderclap constituted covert propaganda, in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition,” said the GAO. The government watchdog agency defined “covert propaganda” as communications that fail to disclose the EPA is the source of information.
The GAO said the #DitchtheMyth and #CleanWaterRule campaigns didn't violate the propaganda prohibitions but did appear to violate the indirect grassroots lobbying campaigns by including hyperlinks to webpages of environmental groups that were directing people to contact members of Congress.
The EPA, however, disagreed with the GAO's assessment, saying Dec. 14, “At no point did the EPA encourage the public to contact Congress or any state legislature.”
Educating the public about the work EPA does is an “an integral part of our mission,” the agency said. “We have an obligation to inform all stakeholders about environmental issues and encourage participation in the rulemaking process. We use social media tools just like all organizations to stay connected and inform people across the country about our activities.”
Inhofe sought the investigation in May shortly after the New York Times reported on the possibility of a federal lobbying violation by the EPA.
“GAO's finding confirms what I have long suspected, that EPA will go to extreme lengths and even violate the law to promote its activist environmental agenda,” Inhofe, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and is an opponent of the rule, said in a press release.
Under Inhofe's leadership, the Senate took up a vote on the Federal Water Quality Protection Act (S. 1140), a bill that would require the agencies to rewrite the rule no later than Dec. 31, 2016, and to include only streams that have enough flow to transport pollutants at levels that would impair traditional navigable waters. The bill failed on a procedural motion.
Another resolution seeking to nullify the rule did pass the Senate on a simple majority (214 DEN A-20, 11/5/15).
Public Education is Part of EPA Mission
The GAO said the EPA cannot dissociate itself from content it linked to on the websites of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Surfrider Foundation.
“Both webpages contained clear appeals to the public to contact members of Congress when legislation to prevent WOTUS implementation was pending,” GAO General Counsel Susan Poling wrote in the report.
The Environment and Public Works Committee did not respond when asked how the Republican-led Congress plans to respond to the GAO findings.
Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the Sixth Circuit already has issued doubts about the rule in issuing a nationwide stay.
“Now that it has become clear that the agency used illegal tactics to manufacture ill-informed support for the rule, Congress should act immediately to prohibit implementation of this rule, which is the product of an unlawful and misguided process,” Stallman said in a Dec. 14 statement.
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GAO Faults EPA's Campaign To Promote CWA Rule
Dec 14, 2015 | InsideEPA
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says EPA's campaign to promote its Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule violated two legal restrictions on the agency's use of appropriations, saying EPA should report the violation to President Obama and Congress and determine the total cost spent on the campaign.
“EPA argues that its campaign did not include any appeals to contact Congress regarding pending legislation,” writes GAO General Counsel Susan Poling in a Dec. 14 legal opinion. “But this argument necessarily turns on acceptance of the agency's view that it has no responsibility for linked content -- an argument that we reject.”
In response, EPA in a statement said, “We disagree with their assessment, and we will fulfill whatever reporting requirements are necessary.”
Under federal appropriations laws and EPA's fiscal year 2015 funding bill, the agency is prohibited from using its appropriations for unauthorized publicity or propaganda purposes and for indirect or grassroots lobbying in support of or opposition to pending legislation.
But GAO, who conducted the investigation at the behest of Senate environment panel Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK), found that EPA's use of hyperlinks to Natural Resource Defense Council and Surfrider Foundation in an April 7 Office of Water blog post constituted lobbying because EPA associated itself with content that urged the public to contact lawmakers that opposed the CWA rule.
GAO also found that EPA's “Thunderclap” social media program to promote the then-pending CWA rule did not properly identify EPA's role to the campaign's 1.8 million viewers. The legal opinion says “EPA identified a particular message that it wanted to convey and sought supporters to authorize Thunderclap to deliver that message using their social media accounts.”
However, GAO found that EPA's #CleanWaterRules campaign and #DitchtheMyth campaign did not violate appropriations restrictions,saying the campaigns did not amount to covert propaganda or self-aggrandizement because EPA's promotion of the rule did not have the goal of engendering praise for the agency.
GAO says that EPA should report the violation to President Obama and Congress, as required by the Antideficiency Act, along with a determination of the cost associated with the prohibited conduct.
“GAO’s finding confirms what I have long suspected, that EPA will go to extreme lengths and even violate the law to promote its activist environmental agenda,” Inhofe said in a Dec. 14 press release.
EPA in its statement on the legal opinion says, “We maintain that using social media to educate the public about our work is an integral part of our mission. We have an obligation to inform all stakeholders about environmental issues and encourage participation in the rulemaking process. We use social media tools just like all organizations to stay connected and inform people across the country about our activities.
“Our social media activity simply directed the recipient to the general webpage about the Clean Water Rule. EVERY stakeholder and EVERY stakeholder group --- whether they supported or opposed the rule --- was provided the same link to the general webpage on education and outreach materials, emails, and presentations, and were told the deadline for submitting public comments and how to do so. At no point did the EPA encourage the public to contact Congress or any state legislature.”
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Broken Process Imperils Obama EPA Nominees' Chances
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Delays in confirming executive branch nominees have gotten worse during the Obama administration, and that fact makes it increasingly unlikely that additional Environmental Protection Agency officials will earn the Senate's stamp of approval this presidency, academics and other observers told Bloomberg BNA.
Eight of the 14 slots requiring Senate confirmation at the EPA are unfilled or staffed with acting officials, including the deputy administrator and high-profile positions in the air and water offices. While the agency has forged ahead with major regulations, acting officials suffer from a perception they lack proper authority, and the failure to confirm presidential selections suggests strong dissatisfaction toward the agency itself, academics said.
Both the administration and Senate shoulder part of the blame for the breakdown in the confirmation process, observers say, but they note the problem is not unique to the Obama administration. High vacancy rates were seen in federal agencies during the last years of the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations as well.
“This is a perennial issue, reaching back into at least the mid-1980s,” Sarah Binder, congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution, told Bloomberg BNA of the struggles to confirm nominees late in administrations. “As a president's term winds down, there are very few incentives for senators to confirm the opposite party nominees to high-profile vacancies.”
But the problem is getting worse. The White House has taken progressively longer to nominate officials and turn in required paperwork, while the Senate is on track this year to confirm the fewest executive branch nominees in decades (170 DEN A-5, 9/2/15).
On Aug. 1, 2013, the Senate approved by voice vote Jim Jones to head the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and Avi Garbow to be general counsel. Those are the last two EPA nominees to get OK'd by the chamber.
Fewer Confirmed, Longer Process
According to a study published in the Duke Law Journal in 2015, the percentage of the president's nominees not confirmed has risen steadily over the last three decades and those that do make it through the process are waiting much longer.
For example, 28 percent of President Barack Obama's nominees through 2014 were ultimately not confirmed by the Senate compared to a 17.5 percent failure rate for President Ronald Reagan.
Obama's picks have also waited longer for Senate action. While the average executive branch nominee between 1981 and 2014 waited 88.5 days for Senate action, the current president's selections have lingered an average of 127.2 days.
Specific examples at the EPA show the arduous path nominees face. Ken Kopocis, first nominated to be the agency's top water official in June 2011, left the agency in November without ever receiving a Senate vote. Janet McCabe, currently serving as the acting top air official, was first formally nominated to her role in January 2014.Administrator Gina McCarthy won confirmation in July 2013 after an unprecedented wait of 136 days, despite little criticism of the nominee herself. “My vote against Gina McCarthy is a vote against the administration's lack of any serious attempt to develop an energy strategy for America's future,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on the Senate floor as an explanation for his vote.
“I think Congress's orientation toward EPA and its mission has deteriorated, and this is one iteration of that,” Jonathan Cannon, law professor at the University of Virginia and a former general counsel at the agency, told Bloomberg BNA. “It's not about the nominees and their qualifications.”
The lengthening waiting periods are not limited to the EPA. John Cruden, current head of Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, waited almost a year for the Senate to confirm him by voice vote in December 2014, while his predecessor Ignacia Moreno made it through the process in five months.
Administration ‘Remarkably Disinterested.'
Republicans have a different view of the current confirmation process. A spokesman for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees EPA nominations, told Bloomberg BNA “this administration has been remarkably disinterested in obtaining Senate confirmation for its nominees.”
Once selected by the president, nominees must complete a basic committee questionnaire, undergo a background check and provide financial disclosures. After the committee receives the paperwork, it proceeds with a confirmation hearing, panel vote and then ultimately full Senate consideration.
But just three of the seven nominees selected by Obama have completed the routine first step of submitting the paperwork. The committee is still, for example, awaiting the documents from deputy administrator nominee Stan Meiburg despite the fact he was nominated in January.
“More broadly, we are also looking into the administration avoiding filling vacancies altogether,” the EPW spokesman said. “This failure runs afoul of the Federal Vacancies Act and undermines the ability of agencies to perform their functions.”
Asked why it had not returned the basic paperwork yet, an EPA spokeswoman said the EPW committee had “yet to act on a number of pending nominations” that have been awaiting Senate action for multiple years.
Questions about administration buy-in to the confirmation process have arisen recently. McCabe's nomination effectively died last Congress after the EPA waited nearly seven months to return questions for the record to the EPW committee (69 DEN A-2, 4/10/15).
Some observers of the process said it makes sense, given the slow pace of Senate action, that the administration would not push as hard to get its nominees through the process.
“The administration wisely says ‘we only have a certain amount of political capital and this is not how we're going to spend it.' ” David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Bloomberg BNA. “The most damaging thing is if this starts being viewed as business as usual.”
EPA Defends Acting Officials
All of the nominees currently awaiting confirmation serve in acting or deputy roles at the EPA.
“We remain fully committed to having them confirmed,” Melissa Harrison, spokeswoman with the EPA, told Bloomberg BNA. “We're aware that confirmations may not happen, but we're very happy to have these individuals serve in their current capacity and we are fortunate to have their talent and commitment at EPA.”
Nominees faced a much clearer path to Senate confirmation early in the Obama administration, admittedly, when the Democrats controlled the Senate with the 60 votes needed to survive any filibuster attempt.
Officials tapped to fill all 14 spots requiring Senate approval at the EPA passed the chamber by voice vote, almost always within weeks of their formal selection by the president. Lisa Jackson, the first Obama administration EPA chief, finished the process in three days.Impact on Agency Operations
Less quantifiable to academics and other observers is what impact lengthy vacancies have on the agency's ability to properly function.
“I think acting officials often do not carry the same functional authority in an agency even if they have the same formal power as a confirmed official,” Anne Joseph O'Connell, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail. “I also think acting officials are disadvantaged in discussions with White House and congressional overseers.”
Academics said there are no significant questions surrounding the legal authority of the acting officials—ultimately the administrator makes the final calls on agency policy—but said they suffer by lacking the perceived legitimacy Senate confirmation bestows.
“For various reasons career folk are going to be more reluctant to push the envelope on issues because the career people don't have the imprimatur of the presidential directive,” Cannon, who withdrew from consideration as EPA deputy administrator in 2009, said. “It's just a different aura that surrounds them and questions that sometimes arise that wouldn't arise with a Senate confirmed appointee.”
‘Serious Problems' for Agencies
Nina Mendelson, law professor at the University of Michigan, agreed that large numbers of vacancies can create “serious problems” for government operations by depriving agencies of leadership and resources.
“The agency may be less likely to undertake important projects, simply because a lead manager is missing,” Mendelson told Bloomberg BNA in e-mail. “Even if an acting official may be appointed, the person is likely to be less effective.”
Several observers said the lengthy confirmation process made it harder to attract qualified officials to serve in an administration. Nominees frequently must give up more lucrative private-sector employment for public service and are increasingly more reluctant to do so if they are unsure about the fate of their nomination.
“It has a very bad effect on recruiting people for these jobs,” Dan Blair, president and chief executive officer of the National Academy of Public Administration, told Bloomberg BNA. “The individual is often giving up a good position in the private sector and how long do they want to wait?”Not all aspects of having acting officials fill agency roles are negative, according to academics. O'Connell and Mendelson have both written that career public servants may be better qualified for certain actions than political appointees, temporary officials may spur innovative ideas and leadership opportunities may reduce turnover among lifetime agency workers.
Frustration From All at Delays
Regardless of the impacts of long-term vacancies, both parties have in the past complained about obstructionism and delays at confirming officials to federal government roles, depending on who controls the White House.
“The confirmation process has turned into a never ending political game, where everyone loses,” President Bush said during a February 2008 press conference. “When the Senate fails to [act], it leaves important positions in our government vacant for months at a time, and it makes it harder for future presidents to be able to attract good people to serve.”
At the time of those remarks, Bush said approximately 90 of his nominees had been waiting more than 100 days for Senate action, more than 30 had languished for over a year and nine nominations had gone without a vote for more than two years.
Seven years later, with roles flipped and Democrats seeking confirmation of Obama's nominees, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took to the Senate floor in November to criticize the Republican-led Senate for blocking “more of this president's nominations than all the preceding presidents in the history of our country.”
“Let's move forward with votes on these qualified consensus nominees as we have done historically,” Reid said. “It wasn't until this Republican crowd arrived in the Senate that they started doing it. We have never had this before. We may have held somebody up for a while, but they basically put a stamp of disapproval on anything that President Obama wants to do.”
Few, if Any, Confirmations Expected
Academics and other observers agreed that few, if any, of the Obama administration's picks for slots at the EPA would make it through before the end of his term in January 2017.
“I remain fairly confident you will not see new people coming into the administration except in ways that avoid confirmation,” Michael Gerhardt, law professor with University of North Carolina, told Bloomberg BNA. “You are seeing vacancies in areas that tend to be lightening rods for the parties such as environmental law and the Justice Department.”
Others predicted some less controversial positions within the agency, such as the heads of the Office of Environmental Information, Office of International and Tribal Affairs and Office of Research and Development, might get through the Senate but cautioned that other officials would likely create new openings by departing the agency.
“I do expect some of the current vacancies to be filled with confirmed officials but there will also be new openings,” O'Connell said.
Goldston, of the NRDC, said the delays were a “sign of a larger breakdown” in the confirmation process and called them a further sign of increased political polarization.
“The system isn't supposed to work this way for a reason,” Goldston said. “People are supposed to have full, unquestioned authority. You're not supposed to have to be doing work-arounds.”
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Clean And Market-Competitive Energy
Dec 14, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By J. Winston Porter
Debate has raged for years about the best way to reduce U.S. carbon emissions. As illustrated in the U.N. climate talks in Paris, few realize that U.S. carbon emission levels are falling faster than those in other industrialized nation, and we are doing this as our economy grows.
The reason is simple: America has largely bought into shale gas “fracking”, which is both clean and inexpensive. On the other hand, coal is cheap, but not very clean - while wind and solar are clean, but expensive.
Thus, U.S. utilities are moving away from coal and towards natural gas. Renewables are growing somewhat, but require governmental mandates and taxpayer subsidies. Another problem: wind and solar are only intermittent energy sources.
The shift to greater use of natural gas for electricity generation has been a climate triumph. When generating electricity in place of coal, natural gas produces just half the carbon emissions. In 2005, coal produced more than 50 percent of our electricity. Today, it’s 35 percent and falling. The result: emissions from the nation’s power plants are at a 27-year low.
We are starting to see a model emerge that allows us to reduce emissions without wrecking our economy. The key to this approach is producing clean energy alternatives that are market-competitive. The shale gas revolution exemplifies this approach.
If we can combine a reliance on market-competitive clean energy with a surge in funding for critically important energy R&D, we just might be onto something. A promising step was the announcement at the Paris climate talks by Bill Gates, and other billionaires and governments, of a doubling in investment in clean energy research.
However, most current alternative energy technologies simply cannot compete in the marketplace. We lack the tools needed to address rising emissions on a global scale. Developing nations, India is an example, acknowledge the climate challenge, but refuse to deny hundreds of millions of people with little access to electricity, the cheap and reliable power provided by coal. In fact, India is looking to double its own coal production within a decade.
The bottom line: we have to make clean energy less expensive, rather than hoping developing nations will voluntarily choose more expensive, but lower-emitting energy options. Whether you live in Chicago, Beijing or Mumbai, consumers want to pay less for energy, not more.
Of course, many renewable energy advocates would like to see us abandon market principles altogether. They are pushing renewable energy mandates, subsides, and incentives. While President Obama has fallen for this line of thinking, it’s the wrong path forward. When governments pick energy winners and losers we not only drive up energy prices, but slow the pace of innovation.
Another case history is Germany’s mandated shift towards renewables , which exemplifies the perils of government intervention in the energy marketplace. German electricity rates are now nearly the highest in Europe, and households have been hit with an annual $250 surcharge to subsidize renewables. So, German industry is fleeing an increasingly bleak business environment. While renewables now generate about 30 percent of German power, electricity prices for a three person household have risen 68 percent since 1998.
It’s possible that electricity produced from wind and solar power will eventually be market- competitive. In some sun-drenched and wind-swept regions of the country it is getting closer, but with subsidies. As we wait for these technologies to mature, we should lean on the market-ready tools we already have, namely huge amounts of clean and inexpensive natural gas.
America can be the climate leader the world needs if we focus on energy innovation and reducing emissions through market principles, not heavy-handed governmental mandates and subsidies.
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N.J. Lawmakers Offer Bill To Revive 'Polluter Pays' Tax
Dec 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
New Jersey lawmakers rolled out a bill today aimed at reviving the "polluter pays" tax that once funded Superfund cleanups.
Speaking at the Garfield Ground Water Superfund site in Garfield, N.J., Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez and Reps. Frank Pallone and Bill Pascrell touted new legislation to bring back the tax, which expired in 1995. The push comes shortly after the program's 35th anniversary last week (Greenwire, Dec. 11).
"This bill corrects an inexcusable injustice and places the onus on polluting industries to restore Superfund sites back to safe, healthy areas that can attract investment and economic development," Booker said in a statement. The lawmakers were joined at the Garfield event by U.S. EPA Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck.
The "polluter pays" tax was an excise provision on polluting industries that funded the Superfund program. Supporters blame the expiration for the declining pace of Superfund cleanups, which now rely on congressional appropriations for funding.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the program's annual appropriations dropped by almost half -- from $2 billion to $1.1 billion -- between fiscal 1999 and 2013 (Greenwire, Oct. 27).
The issue has been of special interest to New Jersey lawmakers, whose state has more cleanup sites on the National Priorities List -- 113 -- than any other. The lawmakers didn't release the text of the bill, but it was described as a reintroduction, and a news release failed to change the name of the bill from last year's "Superfund Polluter Pays Restoration Act of 2014" (E&ENews PM, July 29, 2014).
As before, the bill also would expand the scope of the original tax to make crude oil derived from oil sands and shale subject to the same levies that were once applied to oil producers.
Still, there is little indication that Congress intends to reinstate the tax, which would face opposition from industry groups and Republicans.
Susan Bodine, senior counsel of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a former assistant administrator for solid waste and emergency response during the George W. Bush administration, said last week Congress has little interest in altering the Superfund program through legislation.
"Superfund is not, as a legislative item, is not on the radar screen," Bodine said. "It's actually not much on the radar screen from an oversight capacity, either. It really is not getting a lot of congressional attention right now."
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White House Says Climate Deal Will Stand The Test Of Time
Dec 14, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The sweeping climate agreement reached in Paris over the weekend will last beyond the Obama administration, the White House predicted Monday.
“We will see in the years ahead that there is a powerful economic incentive in the United States for us to follow through on our commitments and make sure that other countries are doing the same,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. “That will create a tremendous opportunity for American businesses.”The climate deal — a landmark agreement in which nearly 200 nations agreed to begin reducing their carbon emissions — was a top priority for President Obama.
Republicans have roundly criticized the deal as bad for the economy and say it should have been sent to the Senate for ratification as a treaty.
The agreement isn’t legally binding, which means a Republican successor to Obama could undo much of it.
But Earnest dismissed that possibility on Monday. He said much of the formal pledges Obama made as part of the Paris deal are already beginning to kick in, including regulations on power plant emissions the Environmental Protection Agency finalized this fall.
He said the agreement will mean big business opportunities for companies working in the renewable energy sphere and that those companies might push back against future efforts to undo the deal.
“The president has long recognized that reaching an agreement like this, ultimately, can be a very powerful benefit for the U.S. economy,” Earnest said Monday.
“Ultimately you have companies here in the U.S. that have made important investments and important gains in renewable energy and now they have customers all around the world, because now we have countries all around the world that are seeking to invest in technologies to meet the goals they have laid out.”
United Nations negotiators in Paris clinched the climate change deal on Saturday. Under the deal’s terms, nations will look to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to begin tackling climate change. The United States, for example, will look to cut its emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.
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EPA Defends Campaign To Promote Water Rule
Dec 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
EPA is defending its promotional campaign around its controversial water rule in the face of a government watchdog's conclusion that it broke federal law.
"We disagree with their assessment, and we will fulfill whatever reporting requirements are necessary," EPA spokeswoman Monica Lee said in a statement.
In a report released this afternoon, the Government Accountability Office concluded that certain aspects of the agency's media blitz for the Waters of the U.S. rule violated federal law blocking agencies from grassroots lobbying. The report came as lawmakers considering a policy rider to block the rule, also known as the Clean Water Rule.
Lee argued that the agency uses social media the same way any other organization does, and never directed the public to contact lawmakers.
"We maintain that using social media to educate the public about our work is an integral part of our mission," she said. "We have an obligation to inform all stakeholders about environmental issues and encourage participation in the rulemaking process."
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U.S. Gets Win on Transparency in Paris Climate Deal
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The U.S., European Union and other countries got most of what they wanted in making sure the Paris climate change deal set out a single set of transparency requirements to verify nations are making good on their pledges to take action, while it leaves a little wiggle room for small developing nations.
The Paris agreement approved Dec. 12, the first time developed and developing nations have formally committed to tackling climate change, backs an “enhanced transparency framework for action and support” to verify that nations are curbing greenhouse gas emissions and taking other actions to address climate change. But it also touts a great deal of “built-in flexibility” to take into account the varying technical capabilities among nations, particularly for developing countries.
The agreement means that for all practical purposes, China and the U.S.—the world's two largest emitters—will be treated the same under the transparency requirements in the Paris deal, and will, along with the bulk of the world's nations, have to submit detailed reports every two years.
The deal also sets in stone for the first time a pledge made by developed nations at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit to provide $100 billion a year beginning in 2020 to help developing nations adapt to climate impacts and pursue low-carbon development.
Six years later, negotiators in Paris essentially signed off on that commitment, with the amount to come from public and private sources.
Finance Pledge Pushed Into COP Decision
The finance commitment—which is to be reviewed for possible strengthening before 2025—is not in the broad Paris deal but a related decision document, largely in deference to concerns from the Obama administration. The U.S. feared that putting it into the overall deal could be interpreted as a legally binding funding commitment.
Thus, most of the details of the pledge including the pre-2025 review are tucked into the related technical document issued alongside the Paris deal by the Conference of the Parties, the high-level body of United Nations negotiators for nearly 200 nations at the talks.
The climate agreement clinched in Paris was the culmination of roughly two decades of progress in fits and starts to forge a global response to climate change.
The deal, which is designed to curb rising greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change, is to enter into force in 2020.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who oversaw the Paris talks, quoted Nelson Mandela earlier in the day Dec. 12 in urging countries to reach a deal that would end on a high note two weeks of talks that had spilled into the weekend.
“None of us, acting alone, can be successful,” the French minister said. “We can only be successful by working together.”
The Paris deal, Secretary of State John Kerry said at the COP plenary after the deal was reached, is one “that will help the world to prepare for the impacts of climate change that are already here—and those we know are headed our way inevitably.”
Hard to Argue China Isn't Covered
Getting consensus on the Paris deal's transparency and verification rules was a key goal going into the two-week summit that began Nov. 30 because so much of the agreement is rooted in essentially voluntary pledges of actions countries put on the table over the last year.
The transparency and reporting agreements also were addressed in both the broad Paris agreement and further detailed in the COP decision. Negotiators found a “sweet spot” on the verification requirements, particularly in responding to smaller developing nations' calls for technical assistance and more flexibility, Alden Meyer, who tracked the talks for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Bloomberg BNA.
“There's more flexibility for developing countries—but it would be hard for China in particular to argue that it doesn't have the capability and the ability” to meet the same requirements the agreement applies to developed nations, Meyer said.
Small Island Nations Given ‘Discretion.’
Small island nations, as well as least developed nations, “may submit this information at their discretion,” according to the COP decision.
The transparency section states that those slower developing nations “shall be provided flexibility in the implementation” of the transparency provisions, including in designing “the scope, frequency and level of detail” for such reporting.
There is broad agreement the nation-by-nation pledges to cut emissions—for example, the U.S. vowed to cut its emissions 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025 from 2005 levels—need to be strengthened further because taken in total, the national actions are insufficient to prevent significant climate impacts in the coming decades.
The deal “does more than stitch countries' goals together,” according to Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “It requires them to report regularly on their actions and their emissions, so we know if they're sticking to their promises,” to address climate change, as put forth in their pledges, he said.
Finance Update in 2025
Getting agreement on the $100 billion-a-year pledge by developed nations in climate finance was a key ingredient to getting the Paris climate deal.
The broader Paris deal is relatively broad in making that commitment, stating that developed nations “should continue to take the lead in mobilizing climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments and channels, noting the significant role of public funds,” while also “taking into account the needs and priorities of developing country” parties.
Long-Sought Mention of REDD Effort
Forest advocates also scored a victory in what appeared earlier in the two weeks of talks to be an uphill battle: Getting global forest protection efforts, and in particular, a fledgling UN program to cut deforestation, in the broad Paris agreement.
Preserving forests is key to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in heavily forested developing nations such as Brazil and Indonesia. Globally, emissions from deforestation and other land use account for about one-quarter of the global total.
The specific reference to the UN program, known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries, or REDD+, “means we have gotten the highest political and explicit recognition of REDD and the relative importance of forests tackling global climate challenge,” Pipa Elias, senior policy adviser for the Nature Conservancy who tracked the issue at the talks, told Bloomberg BNA.
Taken together, the broad Paris deal and the related UN Conference of the Parties agreement also incorporate progress on the program that dates to the 2005 Montreal climate summit, when forest protections efforts first started getting traction as a way to get progress on climate change—even as the world struggled to launch a truly global effort.
The Paris deals also acts as a high-level endorsement of decisions reached at the 2013 UN climate summit in Warsaw, which included accounting and measurement requirements, known as the Warsaw Framework for REDD+.
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Republicans Vow Rigorous Oversight of Paris Climate Deal
Dec 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Top Republican lawmakers told President Barack Obama they were unimpressed with the international agreement on climate change that emerged from two weeks of negotiations in Paris and pledged to closely examine U.S. promises included in the deal.
Though Democrats and environmental advocates have hailed the historic nature of the international agreement, leading congressional Republicans downplayed its importance and impact domestically.
Doug Andres, a spokesman for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 14 the agreement would not change the House's focus on environmental and energy issues.
“This agreement does not bind Congress in any way, and we will continue to focus on an energy policy that promotes America's abundant natural resources,” Andres said.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and an outspoken climate change doubter, said he would conduct rigorous oversight of the deal in early 2016.
Republican House and Senate leaders have supported efforts not to finance the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations climate change fund of $100 billion annually in combined private and public money beginning in 2020 to help developing nations adapt (226 DEN A-11, 11/24/15).
The criticism from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other senior Republicans came after nearly 200 nations reached what's being called the first universal agreement to address climate change Dec. 12 (see related story).
Democrats hailed the progress at addressing climate change, though some echoed the criticism—strong in some parts of the environmental community—that the deal was too weak.
‘Does Not Bind Congress.'
But the bulk of ire came from Republicans. McConnell said in a Dec. 12 statement that the administration's efforts would harm the U.S. economy, cost jobs and rely on domestic regulations that are likely illegal. He also cautioned the agreement could be abandoned if Republicans take back the White House in 2016.
“The president is making promises he can't keep, writing checks he can't cash, and stepping over the middle class to take credit for an ‘agreement’ that is subject to being shredded in 13 months,” McConnell said of the deal reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Few Republicans running for president commented about the international climate deal, though the issue could come up during a Dec. 15 primary debate. Democrats, both on and off Capitol Hill, praised the agreement and vowed to stand strong against attempts in Congress to undermine it.
‘Historic Step Forward.'
Hillary Clinton, the current Democratic front-runner and former secretary of state, hailed what she called a “historic step forward” and said she would build upon Obama's efforts if elected president.
“We cannot afford to be slowed by the climate skeptics or deterred by the defeatists who doubt America's ability to meet this challenge,” Clinton said in a Dec. 12 statement. “That's why as president, I will make combating climate change a top priority from day one, and secure America's future as the clean energy superpower of the 21st century.”
John Kerry, Clinton's successor as secretary of state, acknowledged a Republican could attempt to undo the climate deal if elected but said U.S. citizens want a president committed to tackling the problem.
“Frankly, a lot of members of Congress are on the wrong side of history, and I don't believe you can be elected president of the United States if you don't understand climate change and you're not committed to this kind of a plan,” Kerry said on ABC's “This Week” Dec. 13.
‘Nowhere Near Far Enough.'
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Clinton's chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, acknowledged the progress on addressing climate change but said the deal went “nowhere near far enough” to adequately tackle the problem.
“We need bold action in the very near future and this does not provide that,” Sanders said in a Dec. 12 statement. “We've got to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and fight for national and international legislation that transforms our energy system away from fossil fuel as quickly as possible.”
Despite the dissent from some, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) summed up the general reaction from her party to the news from Paris, calling the agreement a “truly a monumental moment in the history of the world.”
“With the Paris Agreement, the world has come together to affirm that clean energy is the future,” Pelosi said in a Dec. 12 statement. “We will continue to advance the landmark Clean Power Plan that reduces carbon pollution, lowers energy bills, and protects the air our children breathe.”
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Congress Inches Toward Completed Spending Bill
Dec 14, 2015 | The New York Times
By David M. Herszenhorn
Congressional negotiators worked Monday night to complete a $1.1 trillion spending bill for 2016, and an accompanying package of up to $750 billion in tax breaks for businesses and low-income workers.
Negotiators have largely been hung up on disagreements over an array of policy amendments that Republican lawmakers want to attach to the must-pass spending bill; the White House has opposed these amendments.
Republicans want to block some Obama administration environmental regulations and to stop a new Department of Labor rule tightening rules for financial advisers who manage retirement funds. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Congress Approves Short-Term Spending and Clears Way for More TalksDEC. 11, 2015 End of Crude Oil Export Ban Is PossibleDEC. 10, 2015 Lawmakers Rush to Cram Pet Projects Into Spending Deal Ahead of New DeadlineDEC. 9, 2015 News Analysis: Not Even Catharsis Is Seen in Senate Vote to Repeal Health LawDEC. 4, 2015
Congress was already forced to extend a Friday deadline for completing the spending measure until midnight Wednesday, when stopgap funding is set to expire. Some Congressional aides said they believed the text of the spending bill could be ready on Tuesday. It was unclear if votes could be completed quickly enough to meet the Wednesday deadline, or if the stopgap funding would need to be extended.
In brief remarks on the Senate floor on Monday, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, said the negotiations were not quite done. “We’ll continue to consult and engage with colleagues as we make further progress on these last two significant items we must complete this year,” Mr. McConnell said.
The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said that lawmakers and their aides had worked through the weekend, but that a deal was still not finalized.
“Everybody is working hard toward a bipartisan compromise on the omnibus and the so-called tax extenders legislation,” Mr. Reid said on the Senate floor. “We’re not there yet. Keeping the federal government open and funded is a congressional responsibility. I am confident we will fulfill that most basic constitutional duty.”
While few details of the deal have emerged, officials said that negotiators had tentatively agreed to end the 40-year ban on the export of crude oil, a priority for many Republicans and some Democrats — although the repeal is opposed by the White House.
At a news briefing on Monday, the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said the administration was willing to negotiate in pursuit of a deal, and of other priorities, perhaps including tax breaks for renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
The spending and tax package presents a challenge for Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin. Rank-and-file Republicans have generally opposed spending measures in recent years, forcing House Republican leaders to rely on the votes of Democrats to keep the government financed and open.
Mr. Ryan has pushed for greater Republican unity and has sought to increase the participation of rank-and-file members in decision-making as a way of bringing more votes on board. It seems unlikely, however, that he would be able to approve the spending measure solely with Republican votes.
At the same time, the House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, has expressed strong opposition to the tax package, which she says unfairly favors Republican “special interests.” Ms. Pelosi warned Friday that she would urge Democrats to oppose the package if Republicans combine the spending measure and the tax proposal.
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