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ACC PM 12/12/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) NASA, Industry Criticize EPA's Perchlorate Model Peer Review Plans
Dec 12, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and industry groups are critiquing EPA's plan to use a private contractor to peer review the model that will guide its efforts to propose a drinking water standard for the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate, calling for the review to include features used by the agency's Science Advisory Board (SAB). -
Biomonitoring Study to Monitor US Consumer Exposure to Chemicals
Dec 12, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
A crowdfunded biomonitoring study has been launched to help consumers learn which toxic chemicals are in their bodies. -
Trump Team Casts a Cold Eye on Renewables
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By David Ferris
President-elect Donald Trump loves fossil fuels, but what does he really think of renewable energy? Some early hints are found in the questions his transition team posed to Energy Department staff in a memo leaked last week. -
Tillerson's Art of the Oil Deal Primed for State
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold and Mike Lee
The CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., a shrewd negotiator of global oil deals and a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is in line to become the United States' next top diplomat. -
Top Energy Prospects Flood Trump Tower Today
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
President-elect Donald Trump is meeting in New York today with several leading contenders for top energy posts as he finalizes his Cabinet selections. -
Trump Team Lands at EPA, Makes Waves with DOE Memo
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President-elect Donald Trump's "landing team" touched down at U.S. EPA last week to lay the groundwork for a very different future at the agency. -
Perry to Discuss Potential Energy Nomination with Trump
Dec 12, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is meeting with President-elect Donald TrumpMonday to discuss a potential nomination to lead the Department of Energy. -
EPA Proposes New Rule to Reduce Emissions at Texas Power Plants
Dec 12, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Ryan Handy
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed a rule aimed at reducing carbon emissions from 14 Texas power plants, many of which have been part of a yearslong battle over air quality control in the state. -
EPA Issues New Rule for Texas Plants in Likely Test for Pruitt
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA is again seeking to impose new pollution control requirements on Texas coal-fired power plants under its regional haze program, potentially triggering a high-stakes test of the incoming Trump administration's attitude toward air quality regulation. -
Scientists Struggling to Understand Rapid Rise of Potent GHG
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Camille von Kaenel
Scientists are redoubling efforts to understand why concentrations of methane are rising faster now than at any time in the past two decades, unlike carbon dioxide. -
Bill Gates Launches $1B Clean Energy Fund
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and 19 other business leaders are launching a fund today that will invest at least $1 billion in new energy technologies that aim to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to "near zero." -
Arctic Drilling Advocates Draw Up Wish Lists for Trump
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
Shortly before this summer's Republican National Convention, Alaska's all-Republican congressional delegation sent a letter to Donald Trump describing the "incredible bounty" of rich energy and mineral resources waiting to be developed in the state — if only the federal government would get out of the way. -
How Trump Can Undo Power Plan and Paris and Navigate Endangerment Finding
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E TV
By OnPoint
With President-elect Donald Trump selecting Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as U.S. EPA administrator last week, how could the Trump administration and the next Congress work to undo the Clean Power Plan and the Paris Agreement? During today's OnPoint, Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, discusses energy and environment policy recommendations for the 115th Congress. Lewis' colleague Myron Ebell, who is now leading Trump's EPA transition team, contributed to these recommendations. -
Tillerson Seen as the Best of Many Evils for Paris Deal
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick and Benjamin Hulac
President-elect Donald Trump's expected nomination of Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson to lead the State Department will have an uncertain effect on continued U.S. involvement in the Paris climate deal. -
Interior Pick a Hydro Advocate But 'Disappointingly Vague' on Climate
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Brittany Patterson
Environmental groups are expressing strong reservations about Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from eastern Washington, as President-elect Donald Trump's expected secretary of the Interior. -
Science Advisors Continue to Question CCS' Role in EPA's GHG Plans
Dec 12, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Members of EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) continue to question the role and viability of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in the agency's greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction plans, reiterating doubts that the technology may not be able to achieve carbon dioxide emissions reduction goals detailed in EPA's landmark power plant rules. -
I was EPA Administrator. Advice for the Next One: Don’t Walk Back Environmental Progress.
Dec 12, 2016 | Washington Post
By Christine Todd Whitman
President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) to head the Environmental Protection Agency has drawn criticism because of Pruitt’s public stances against the agency’s authority and his numerous lawsuits to block agency regulations in his state.
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(ACC Mentioned) NASA, Industry Criticize EPA's Perchlorate Model Peer Review Plans
Dec 12, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and industry groups are critiquing EPA's plan to use a private contractor to peer review the model that will guide its efforts to propose a drinking water standard for the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate, calling for the review to include features used by the agency's Science Advisory Board (SAB).
Among the commentors' requests are for EPA to ensure that the peer reviewers' report requires consensus among the panel and is compiled by the reviewers themselves, rather than the contractor -- things that are not generally features of EPA's contractor-managed peer reviews.
NASA, for instance, questions EPA's plan for Versar to "summarize the peer reviewers' comments and draft the final peer review report. Generally, an independent peer review report is drafted by the participating members. EPA's approach with the lack of clear direction, support for open sharing of information and the peer reviewers' control over their deliberations presents a troubling approach that threatens to cripple the independent and informed nature of peer review for the proposed Perchlorate model."
Further, NASA adds in its Nov. 25 comments that "EPA is silent on whether the peer review serves as a majority report, delineating next steps or simply a collection of opinions (often referred to as a letter report) for EPA to consider. NASA again stresses the value of a rigorous, independent peer review to address outstanding scientific and technical issues in the development of sound policy and regulatory actions. We request EPA provide clear direction and transparency for a robust and effective peer review of the proposed Perchlorate model."
The chemical industry association American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the Chlorine Institute, representing users and makers of chlor-alkali, both reiterate these concerns about EPA's peer review plans. "Due to the complexity of the model and the SAB Perchlorate Panel's call for transparency, like the SAB process, the panel should be responsible for drafting the report, not the contractor Versar," the Chlorine Institute's Nov. 23 comments state.
"Additionally, it is unclear whether Versar has the necessary expertise to summarize the complex science and science policy questions involved with the [biologically based dose--response (BBDR)] model and therefore may not accurately reflect the issues, conclusions, and recommendations of the panel," the comments say.
EPA's Research
The trade association's comments reference an SAB panel that reviewed EPA's research supporting its 2011 determination to regulate perchlorate nationally in drinking water. In a 2013 report, SAB recommended that EPA do so using a BBDR model, based on perchlorate's unusually well-understood mode of action. The chemical inhibits the body's ability to uptake iodine, an essential nutrient that helps regulate proper thyroid function and hormone levels. Fetuses and infants are particularly susceptible to improper thyroid hormone function, which can disrupt proper development -- leading to EPA's focus on these lifestages in their analyses.
EPA's efforts to craft the recommended model, however, lingered over technical difficulties, causing the agency to miss a two-year statutory deadline to propose a drinking water standard. The agency now has a court-ordered deadline of Oct. 31, 2018 to meet.
ACC, like NASA, in its comments says "EPA's peer review process should result in a consensus-driven report rather than simply reflect the individual perspectives of the panel members."
EPA announced in a Dec. 5 Federal Register notice that Versar has selected the eight experts on the final panel of peer reviewers, who will meet Jan. 10-11 in Arlington, VA.
Half of the panel members served on the SAB perchlorate panel that recommended EPA use a modeling approach to set its perchlorate health goal rather than the traditional algebraic approach, including Stephen Roberts, a toxicology professor at the University of Florida who also served as the chairman of the SAB panel. Roberts is joined by Hugh Barton, a research fellow at Pfizer, Inc. and Claude Emond of the University of Montreal, both modeling experts who served on the 2013 panel with Roberts and urged their colleagues to recommend using the BBDR modeling approach.
The fourth member of the new panel who served on the previous panel is Joanne Rovet, a senior scientist in the neuroscience and mental health program at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.
Stakeholders' Concerns
While stakeholders are generally praising EPA's effort to follow recommendations from its science advisors to craft the model, they are also raising concerns with what they see as the model's flaws.
The Chlorine Institute, for example, urges EPA to look to a newly published model from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) modelers who worked in the past with EPA scientists on the model soon to be under peer review. The document, known as Lumen et al. and published last month, describes "a population based pregnancy model that estimates iodine nutrition and thyroid status in late gestation pregnant women in the United States. The BBDR model accounts for a wider range of iodine deficiencies and homeostatic mechanisms. . . . The prevalence of iodine inadequacy for third-trimester pregnant women in the U.S. was estimated to be between 21% and 44%," the institute says.
In contrast, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in joint Nov. 25 comments say the BBDR model is an improvement over FDA's 2013 model but add they "have serious concerns that the model does not address the first and second trimesters of pregnancy . . . We maintain that in setting [a maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG)] EPA must consider the impacts on a pregnant women's fetus during the first two trimesters and on pregnant women with serious iodine deficiency and hypothyroidism . . ."
The groups say EPA in correspondence with them has said the first two trimesters are not included "due to data limitations," but this "means that the life stages of greatest risk are not modeled. EPA should specifically ask the expert reviewers to consider the implications for the model's relevance. As EPA moves forward with perchlorate drinking water regulations, this shortcoming must be addressed."
The environmentalists also raise concerns that the model does not address other chemicals that inhibit the body's ability to uptake iodine -- something that is also an issue for several of the industry groups.
"Nitrates and thiocyanates do not appear to be considered in any way in the model despite evidence that they also interfere with the same symporter affected by perchlorate," the environmentalists write. "EDF and NRDC maintain that EPA cannot ignore the cumulative effects of nitrates and thiocyanate on the transport of iodine into the thyroid. Pursuant to Section 1412(b)(4) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the [MCLG] 'shall be set at the level at which no known or anticipated adverse effects on the health of persons occur and which allows an adequate margin of safety.' If nitrates are in drinking water, they will increase the impact of perchlorate. To fulfill its responsibilities under the law, the safe level of perchlorate needs to be adjusted downward to address the contribution of nitrates and thiocyanates. . . . At a minimum, EPA must add a safety factor to account for the presence of nitrates and thiocyanate in the water and the diet."
A safety factor is a multiplier that EPA uses in its risk analyses to provide an extra margin of safety in its calculations, usually to address uncertainties of various types.
Draft Model
ACC also says it is concerned the model does not account for other chemicals besides perchlorate, as well as raising concerns that because the draft model "does not account for well-understood compensatory (homeostatic) control mechanisms that mobilize stores of iodine from the mother in the infant's thyroid," the model's "results may contribute to an unduly conservative [reference dose (RfD)]/MCLG."
NASA and drinking water utilities also question EPA's choice of endpoint and question whether the model's outputs are consistent with existing epidemiological studies, among other concerns.
For example, NASA writes, "The first major issue is EPA's fundamental assumption of using hypothyroxinemia as the end point. NASA understands that the SAB took this very conservative approach to target a specific condition not directly associated with a health impact. However, EPA's use of this endpoint in the proposed model lacks any substantiation in the available literature, especially for critical criteria, such as the Mode of Action (MOA), links to a disease state, or key thyroid endpoints."
And the American Water Works Association writes that while it is appropriate for EPA to focus on one or more sensitive subpopulations in developing a drinking water standard, choosing "a nutritionally deficient subgroup as the basis of a revised RfD, specifically, an iodine-deficient subpopulation of one of these sensitive populations may be a first."
"If EPA selects an iodine-deficient subpopulation of one of these sensitive populations as the basis for its RfD, then it should acknowledge that this choice is conservative, and further consider whether an uncertainty factor for within human variability is needed," the drinking water utility group adds.
And NASA urges EPA to either calibrate and validate the model, or provide documentation to the peer reviewers of having done so, noting that EPA lacks documentation to prove it has calibrated the model. "Questions over the proposed model's ability to track with results in existing literature further fuel the need for an independent validation," NASA says, urging EPA to "expand the peer review charge questions to explicitly ensure model validation with substantiating documentation."
The Chlorine Institute seconds this concern, arguing that "[i]f the appropriate data are not available to validate the model, then data must be collected from biomonitoring studies or generated in animal prior to use of the model to most accurately predict outcomes from exposures to perchlorate."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/nasa-industry-criticize-epas-perchlorate-model-peer-review-plans
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Biomonitoring Study to Monitor US Consumer Exposure to Chemicals
Dec 12, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Tammy Lovell
A crowdfunded biomonitoring study has been launched to help consumers learn which toxic chemicals are in their bodies.
The initiative is part of a national study by the scientific research organisation, Silent Spring Institute, to assess the US population's exposure to potentially harmful chemicals found in consumer items, such as personal care products, food packaging, and household cleaners. It aims to find out what types of chemicals people are exposed to, what their exposure levels are, and what the biggest sources of exposure are.
"Not only will participating in this study empower consumers to make healthier choices, the results will help us develop strategies for reducing people's exposures and inform policies that encourage manufacturers to adopt safer alternatives," said Ruthann Rudel, the institute's director of research and study lead investigator.
The study is being funded through the online crowdfunding platform, Indiegogo. People who sign up to participate will receive a "Detox Me Action Kit". This includes a urine test that detects the presence of ten chemicals:
bisphenol A (BPA);
bisphenol S (BPS);
benzophenone-3 (BP-3);
triclosan (TCS);
triclocarban (TCC);
2,4-dichlorophenol (24-DCP);
2,5-dichlorophenol (25-DCP);
butyl paraben (B-PB);
ethyl paraben (E-PB); and
methyl paraben (M-PB).
The institute says it chose these substances because they are "endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body's natural system of hormones and so raise concerns about reproductive problems, thyroid disorders, asthma, cancer, and other health effects."
After filling out a survey on their product use, participants can mail in two urine samples – one collected in the morning and one in the evening.
Once analysed, the institute will send each participant a digital report comparing their results with the collective data from all the participants.
The report also will contain information on the chemicals, the associated health effects, where they're found, and how to avoid them. For tips on reducing exposures, participants will be invited to download Silent Spring's mobile app Detox Me and then sign up to be tested again to see if their chemical levels go down.
Ms Rudel said: "We are especially interested in learning from participants with the highest levels of exposure about where those exposures are coming from. Then, as people change their behaviours and get re-tested, we'll be able to monitor changes in their exposures over time."
The Indiegogo campaign lasts 30 days, starting from 5 December. The researchers aim to get 100 people to sign up during that period. The ultimate goal is to enrol a thousand.
"People keep asking us what steps they should take to reduce their exposures to toxic chemicals. There's been a real surge in demand for this kind of information lately," said Ms Rudel. "With this study, we hope to find more answers to these questions so that we can create a healthier environment for everyone."
In January, the institute launched its Detox Me app. This allows consumers to scan product bar codes to receive a health rating and tips on how to reduce exposure to toxic substances. It was followed in April by the launch of the Healthy Living app from the Environmental Working Group (EWG). This rates health hazards associated with the ingredients in food and personal care products.
There are also several apps available to consumers in Europe. They include:
the ToxFox app , available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; and
the Danish Consumer Council's Kemiluppen app in Denmark.
https://chemicalwatch.com/51602/biomonitoring-study-to-monitor-us-consumer-exposure-to-chemicals
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Trump Team Casts a Cold Eye on Renewables
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By David Ferris
President-elect Donald Trump loves fossil fuels, but what does he really think of renewable energy? Some early hints are found in the questions his transition team posed to Energy Department staff in a memo leaked last week.
That document suggests that renewable energy will get greater scrutiny and a far tougher hearing at DOE after Trump comes to office.
The questions were directed to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a semi-independent arm of DOE that maintains essential energy data. Here are two that relate to renewable energy.
First question: EIA's assessments of levelized costs for renewable technologies do not contain backup costs for the fossil fuel technologies that are brought on line to replace the generation when those technologies are down. Is this is a correct representation of the true levelized costs?
Translation: Here, Trump's energy people are implying they want to tweak a popular means of comparing one source of energy versus another — the levelized cost, which is all of the plant's costs divided by its power output. They believe that the cost of renewables, like wind and solar plants, ought to also account for the fossil fuel plants that need to run when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.
This applies an "externality" to renewable energy, which is a cost that factors in not just the expense of making a thing but other associated costs. Which externalities get counted and which ones don't is where energy data get political.
This externality is apparently high on the Trump team's list.
"This is something the EIA should do to create a complete cost picture," said Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). Policy thinkers at CEI are leading Trump's transition at U.S. EPA, where a fierce EPA critic, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), has been nominated to lead the agency under Trump.
Saul Griffith, San Francisco-based clean-energy inventor who has received multiple grants from the Obama administration to commercialize new technology, begged to differ (Energywire, June 4, 2015).
"Fossil fuel technologies don't contain backup costs of manufacturing and mining fossil fuels. They don't contain externalities such as health impacts," he said. "This is a hilariously hypocritical 'externalities' question."
Second question: Renewable and solar technologies are expected to need additional transmission costs above what fossil technologies need. How has EIA represented this in the AEO [Annual Energy Outlook] forecasts? What is the magnitude of those transmission costs?
Translation: Analysts said the incoming Trump administration has in this case identified another externality — the location of power plants.
Coal or natural gas plants can be built inside city limits, but large solar farms and wind farms are more often found in the countryside, where there is space. Distance from population centers equals higher transmission costs, since the farther electricity travels, the more losses it experiences.
But experts say the opposite may be true for rooftop solar panels, which are right over a consumer's head. Those transmission costs could be lowered even further with energy storage, which would allow solar power to join the grid at opportune times. A workable solar-plus-storage solution is currently the Holy Grail of the clean-energy industry.
Today's EIA doesn't factor in the location of a power plant into its energy math. That is unlikely to change, since most of EIA's basic data sets persist from administration to administration. EIA, founded after the oil shocks of the 1970s, is meant to operate independently from DOE's political arms.
"Ultimately, they believe that the cost of renewable energy should be higher," Steve Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, said of the Trump camp. "That seems to be what they're implying there."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047003
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Tillerson's Art of the Oil Deal Primed for State
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold and Mike Lee
The CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., a shrewd negotiator of global oil deals and a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is in line to become the United States' next top diplomat.
Rex Tillerson is expected to be President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the State Department, signaling that Trump intends to dramatically transform the icy relationship between the United States and Russia.
If Trump nominates Tillerson, the 64-year-old careerlong Exxon man would bring to the State Department a wealth of experience in forging partnerships with foreign leaders. But Tillerson is expected to face tough questions during a Senate confirmation process about everything from his position on climate change to Exxon's reputation as a ruthless corporation that sidesteps U.S. foreign policy to secure resources and profit around the world — a "private empire," as a 2012 book on Exxon called it.
Exxon is in nearly four dozen countries and has operations on every continent except Antarctica. Valued at nearly $400 billion, Exxon is among the world's largest publicly traded companies.
Since 2006, when Tillerson replaced Lee Raymond as CEO and chairman, Exxon has continued to aggressively build a portfolio of global oil and gas reserves, including in North America.
To get there, Tillerson has been a master negotiator and a risk-taker, often pursuing multibillion-dollar projects in impoverished countries where corruption is rife.
Tillerson contends that Exxon's oil diplomacy and U.S. interests are aligned. Yet he's been willing to buck two presidents, and his views on free trade are in conflict with Trump, who took aim at U.S. trade deals during his campaign swings through the American Rust Belt.
"I think anything that promotes global energy security is in the U.S. national interest," he told talk show host Charlie Rose in 2013. "And so any steps we take to develop new resources, to promote trading relationships, to promote stability in countries from a socioeconomic and geopolitical perspective, that is all in the U.S. national interest."
When Tillerson retires from Exxon in 2017, he will own millions of shares of company stock.
As Trump's secretary of State, Tillerson could inflate or deflate the value of his shares by influencing the price of oil.
U.S. sanctions targeting Russia's oil and gas sector as a result of Putin's invasion of eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea threw a wrench in Exxon's plans to expand its footprint in Russia.
Exxon and the Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft signed a strategic cooperation pact in 2012 to explore the tight oil reserves in Siberia. U.S. sanctions against Russia essentially froze those plans.
In 2013, Tillerson was awarded the Russian Federation's Order of Friendship by Putin, a fact the company notes on its website. Almost two decades ago, Tillerson headed Exxon's Russian and Caspian Sea operations, establishing drilling and liquefied natural gas infrastructure on the island of Sakhalin in Russia's far east.
Eyeball to eyeball
Exxon is a descendant of the world's first oil monopoly, Standard Oil Co., which the Supreme Court split up in 1911. To this day, Irving, Texas-based Exxon is incorporated in New Jersey, where John D. Rockefeller ran his conglomerate. Exxon's largest corporate campus is near Houston.
Tillerson was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1952. He earned an engineering degree from the University of Texas, Austin, and he started his career at Exxon in 1975. Tillerson has worked there ever since, and he has no experience in the public sector.
Tillerson competed with another executive for the CEO job after the larger-than-life Raymond announced his retirement. Tillerson's commanding physical presence — he stands over 6 feet tall, with silver hair and an air of confidence — became a selling point at Exxon, said Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co.
"He is the kind of guy that walks into a crowded room and everyone will look at him and say, 'Who is this guy?'" Gheit said in an interview. "He commands attention."
Tillerson has likely spoken to more heads of state than the rest of Trump's Cabinet picks combined, and has built relationships by keeping his word over decades, said Gheit, who has followed Tillerson's career for 12 years.
That could prove to be a point of friction with Trump, he added. "Rex Tillerson wants a five-year budget, 10-year projections. Donald Trump [uses] one 15-character tweet to tell people what he thinks," he said.
Tillerson's compensation was $27 million in 2015, down from $33 million the previous year, according to corporate filings. In 2015, with oil in a steep decline, Exxon still booked a profit of $16.2 billion. When oil prices spiked to $140 a barrel in 2008, Exxon notched what was then the largest annual profit of any American corporation, $40.6 billion.
Tillerson owns 2.6 million shares of Exxon stock, which were worth $233 million at Friday's closing price. He has hundreds of thousands of shares that will vest over the next 10 years, according to company filings.
Exxon's stock price has gone up about 4 percent to $89 a share since Trump was elected, adding $9.3 million to the value of Tillerson's shares. If Exxon's stock rises to $94 a share, the peak during the 2008 oil-price spike, Tillerson's stake would be worth $246 million.
In the late 1980s, Tillerson headed operations in the south-central United States, including Texas and Oklahoma. Exxon shifted much of its attention to the Middle East, and then to Russia, by the late 1990s. In 1999, Tillerson was appointed executive vice president at ExxonMobil Development Co., the division that leads planning, designing and construction of its largest capital projects around the world.
The oil industry experienced a wave of mergers in the 1990s, with some of the largest U.S. oil companies combining to become vastly larger entities. Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999 to create the nation's largest publicly traded oil company.
Exxon has earned a reputation as a reclusive yet relentlessly plodding oil and gas colossus, unafraid to take on immense technical challenges in some of the most extreme environments on Earth.
Exxon's experience in the harsh climate and seas off the island of Sakhalin in the Russian sub-Arctic allowed it to open up offshore oil and gas production east of Canada's island of Newfoundland, in waters plied by icebergs floating south from Greenland every spring. Exxon is on the cusp of expanding its operations offshore from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Under Tillerson, the company also executed a technically complex LNG export project in Papua New Guinea. PNG LNG is up and running today.
The company is known to be fearless of political risk, as well, cutting deals with dictators and managing operations in politically volatile regions.
"All things come down to your personal relationships," Tillerson told Rose in the 2013 interview. "When you're going to make significant commitments, you have to look the head of state of that country eyeball to eyeball and say to them, 'I'm going to make this commitment. And I'm counting on you to meet your commitments, because I will be here a long time.'"
'Private Empire'
President George W. Bush once said of Exxon, "Nobody tells those guys what to do," according to the 2012 book "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power" by Steve Coll.
Under Tillerson and his predecessor, the idea that Exxon operated as a "private empire" became conventional wisdom. Securing access to oil meant forging partnerships and extraction deals with dictators the U.S. government either had condemned or had limited relations with.
Exxon was a key player in developing the tiny former Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea from a deeply impoverished backwater with a horrific human rights record into one of Africa's leading oil exporters. The current president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, assumed power by overthrowing his murderous uncle in a bloody coup d'état. Obiang himself was the target of a botched 2004 coup attempt by U.K. and South African mercenaries. The nation routinely tops the ranks of Transparency International's list of most corrupt countries. Exxon's Equatorial Guinea affiliate is today the leading oil producer there.
In 2010, Exxon established an office in Turkmenistan, where the nation's leader, Gerbanguly Berdimuhamedow, has been accused of creating a cult of personality around his presidency. Exxon established offshore projects in post-civil war Angola. The company is a major investor in war-torn Iraq, inking deals to refurbish operations in southern Iraq and a 2011 production sharing agreement with the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.
Not only did Exxon bypass the U.S.-backed Iraqi national government, but the company didn't tell the State Department about the deal until it was over, Coll wrote in "Private Empire."
After signing the deal with the Kurdish government, Coll wrote, Tillerson told State Department officials, "I had to do what was best for my shareholders."
Another Russian 'reset'
In the field of international oil diplomacy, Tillerson is best-known for thumbing his nose at State through his aggressive pursuit of opportunities in Russia.
The Obama administration's attempted diplomatic "reset" with Russia failed miserably almost at the outset, and the two governments' relationship began souring during former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's period as the nation's top diplomat.
The 2010 release of classified Department of State cables by the website WikiLeaks revealed how U.S. diplomats deemed Putin's government to be a cynical, hopelessly corrupt kleptocracy with ties to organized crime. A 2015 episode of the PBS TV documentary series "Frontline" alleges the same, adding that Putin may owe his rise to power in part to fostering ties to crime syndicates while serving in St. Petersburg's government.
The United States and Russia butted heads at the United Nations over North Korea's nuclear weapons tests and Iran's secretive nuclear weapons programs. But eventually they came together, passing Security Council sanctions regimes addressing both matters.
Those instances of cooperation would later prove to be exceptions.
Russia vehemently opposed NATO's intervention in Libya's uprising on the side of rebelling forces. Russia and Iran flocked to the defense of Syria's government when violence erupted there. The United States supports rebel forces attempting to overthrow the government.
None of this bad blood between the two governments deterred Tillerson's Exxon from pursuing major deals with Russia, right up until, and even after, Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In 2012, Tillerson flew to Russia to oversee the signing of agreements with Rosneft President Igor Sechin that would expand on plans to jointly develop new sources of crude oil in Siberia and the Russian Arctic. The agreements, signed with Putin in the room, also called for joint offshore energy exploration in Russia's Arctic (Energywire, June 18, 2012).
Ukraine's political crisis erupted less than two years later. Putin became further isolated from the West following the downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine skies, likely from a Russian-supplied surface-to-air missile fired by Ukraine anti-government forces.
Tillerson continued to defy State on its Russian policy well into this year with a move aimed at ending Putin's isolation.
In June, the Exxon CEO participated in a forum held in St. Petersburg with a delegation of executives and politicians, led by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Tillerson's participation defied a direct recommendation from the State Department. According to the Associated Press, Tillerson made light of the lack of U.S. government representation at the event.
On Iran, Tillerson has expressed more neutral views.
Trump has talked about reinstating sanctions on Iranian oil exports, which would require the cooperation of European powers. In a March interview with CNBC, Tillerson noted that U.S.-based oil companies are barred from doing business with Iran, leaving them out as European oil companies seek deals with Tehran. He said Exxon would look for opportunities in Iran if it could.
But he didn't see Exxon as "necessarily at a disadvantage" from the ban on U.S. company dealings with Iran.
"The history of Iran, in foreign investment in the past, their terms were always quite challenging, quite difficult," Tillerson said. "We never had large investments in Iran for that reason."
A sheen of crude
A lifelong oil man, Tillerson sees the world through a sheen of crude.
Under his tenure, Exxon has stood out from its supermajor peers by almost entirely shunning investments in renewable energy, aside from forays in advanced biofuels research. Executives there have long dismissed electric vehicle technology as a niche curiosity unlikely to challenge oil's dominance in global transportation anytime soon, if ever.
Tillerson's Exxon is well-known for taking an extraordinarily long-term view around investing. The International Energy Agency largely agrees with Exxon's view that fossil fuels, particularly oil and natural gas, will power the majority of the planet for some time to come.
But for more than a decade, Exxon and its peer group of companies have been plagued with problems that pre-date the recent oil price crash. The oil and gas multinationals have grown so large that they've found it difficult to maintain their reserves replacement ratio, a key metric used for valuing their businesses.
Exxon and other producers are constantly depleting their reserves as they pump oil, so they search relentlessly for new sources. Replacing 100 percent of its reserves means an oil company has maintained its overall size, neither expanding nor contracting. Several supermajor oil companies have struggled to do so.
When oil majors were flying high before the oil price crashed in 2014, cash flow declined as capital expenditures skyrocketed. Credit Suisse analysts blithely noted that "no major has covered themselves with glory" (Energywire, April 14, 2014).
Still, of the top eight European and U.S. oil companies, Exxon stood out as revenues outpaced its rivals.
But Tillerson's Exxon has warned shareholders that Securities and Exchange Commission rules could force it to drastically write down the value of its reserves this year.
Climate inquiries
Exxon has stood out as a lightning rod for climate activists and attorneys. It has resulted in inquiries by state attorneys general in New York and Massachusetts and by SEC investigators.
Under Raymond, Exxon contributed millions of dollars to a web of think tanks and foundations that argued against the idea of human-induced global warming.
Tillerson has expressed at least partial acceptance of the science underscoring the reality of climate change, and since he became CEO, Exxon has halted its funding of efforts to sow doubt on climate science. But Tillerson has said that he opposes government policies that would put strict regulations on emissions of greenhouses gases or limits on fossil fuel consumption, arguing that such measures would cause economic harm far in excess of any potential environmental benefits that might be derived.
Instead, Exxon and Tillerson view climate change as an engineering problem that can be managed by, for instance, protecting coastal areas from rising seas (Energywire, May 29, 2014).
"How do you want to deal with that great social challenge?" Tillerson said at Exxon's annual meeting in Dallas in 2013. "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers in the process of those efforts, if you don't know exactly what the impacts are going to be?" (Energywire, May 30, 2013).
Tillerson and Exxon have criticized the scientific models that link global emissions of carbon dioxide to rising global temperatures. At the 2013 shareholders' gathering in Dallas, Tillerson openly dismissed an audience member's assertion that scientists agree that concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere must be brought down to 350 parts per million or lower to avoid future catastrophe.
"I cannot conclude that there's something magical about 350, because that suggests these models are very competent, and our examination of the models are that they're not that competent," he said at the time. "To suggest that 350 versus 450 is somehow a known outcome is just not respecting the competency of the models."
Money into STEM
While at Exxon, Tillerson has encouraged philanthropy, in particular support for university-led research and development.
For instance, the company recently donated $15 million to Tillerson's alma mater. It committed funds to boost the University of Texas, Austin, Energy Institute's research aimed at "integrating renewable energy sources into the current supply mix and advancing traditional energy sources in ways that improve efficiency and reduce effects on water, air, and climate," the university said in a release.
The company is also well regarded for its efforts to encourage young girls and women to consider pursuing careers in so-called STEM fields, an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Each year, the oil giant hosts schoolgirls at corporate offices in Houston, where female Exxon scientists and engineers mentor them in projects.
Exxon announced in 2015 that Darren Woods, who previously was chief of the company's refining business, will likely succeed Tillerson in 2017.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047016
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Top Energy Prospects Flood Trump Tower Today
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
President-elect Donald Trump is meeting in New York today with several leading contenders for top energy posts as he finalizes his Cabinet selections.
On tap are meetings with former Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry (R) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), both of whom are considered top contenders to become Energy secretary. The president-elect is also slated to meet with Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), whom Trump has picked to lead the Interior Department, a source close to the transition told E&E News last week.
Perry is said to be the leading candidate for the Department of Energy post, Bloomberg reported, although Manchin, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Dallas investor Ray Washburne remain in the mix. Washburne was also seen in Trump Tower today, according to a pool report.
Perry became the butt of jokes after a 2011 presidential debate when he famously forgot the name of DOE when he intended to say it was among the agencies he would like to eliminate (Greenwire, Nov. 21).
Trump spokesman Jason Miller played up Manchin's energy credentials today during a conference call with reporters. "During his six years in the Senate, Senator Manchin has prioritized job creation, fiscal responsibility and energy independence, among other things," Miller said.
Miller didn't note energy issues, however, when describing the first meeting between Trump and Perry several weeks ago. They had an "in-depth conversation on homeland security, border patrol, illegal immigration and several other pressing issues," Miller said.
Trump is expected to soon officially announce McMorris Rodgers as his Interior pick. The selection has already prompted outrage from environmentalists, who warn that she would push for drilling on public lands and to sell off public lands to private interests.
Also on Trump's schedule today are meetings with Republican Reps. Raúl Labrador of Idaho and Ryan Zinke of Montana, both of whom could be in the running for administration energy jobs.
Labrador, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, has "great familiarity with interior issues," Miller told reporters. "He's also a national leader on immigration and criminal justice reform."
Zinke was an early Trump supporter and "is a strong advocate for American energy independence, and he supports an all-encompassing energy policy that includes renewables, fossil fuels and alternative energy," Miller said. "Congressman Zinke believes we need to find a way to cut through bureaucracy to ensure our nation's parks, forests and other public areas are properly maintained and used effectively."
Zinke recently told the Associated Press that he would consider challenging Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D) when Tester faces re-election in 2018.
Trump spokesman Sean Spicer suggested today that the president-elect hasn't yet made a formal decision about the secretary of State job, despite news reports that he had settled on Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson.
"The president-elect is getting close to making a decision" about the next secretary of State, Spicer said. "We expect that announcement to happen in the next coming days."
Trump met earlier today with Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and Trump's former rival for the GOP presidential nomination.
On Friday, Trump named Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris as the head of his administration's American Manufacturing Council. The president-elect also formally named retired Gen. John Kelly as his pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
Under Kelly's leadership at DHS, "America will be a tolerant, open and safe society," Spicer said today.
Meanwhile, the Trump transition's so-called agency landing teams are being dispatched broadly to departments. The transition has announced 216 members across 38 agencies, Spicer said, with another 39 names being formally added to those lists today.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047055
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Trump Team Lands at EPA, Makes Waves with DOE Memo
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President-elect Donald Trump's "landing team" touched down at U.S. EPA last week to lay the groundwork for a very different future at the agency.
The team is helmed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Myron Ebell, who disputes mainstream climate science, and includes experts and attorneys from a wide swath of conservative think tanks and activism groups that have spent the Obama years rebutting the science of warming and criticizing policies to contain it. Members took up residence at EPA headquarters Friday and developed a memorandum of understanding to share information with the agency.
Ebell is joined on the team by fellow CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner, who has used the Freedom of Information Act for years to investigate climate scientists. Other members include George W. Bush-era senior climate negotiator and special representative Harlan Watson; Heritage Foundation climate and energy expert David Kreutzer; former House Energy and Commerce Committee clerk Austin Lipari; David Schnare of the Energy & Environment Legal Institute; and David Stevenson of the Caesar Rodney Institute.
One team member with past EPA experience is George Sugiyama, who served under President George W. Bush before going to work for Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Republicans under Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.).
Sugiyama initially flouted the requirement that all political agency staff hand in their notice at the end of an administration. On Jan. 21, 2009, the day after Obama's first inauguration, the Bush appointee was still in his office.
The only female member of the group is Amy Oliver Cooke of the Independence Institute. Her biography on the think tank's website said she is known for statements like: "I'm an energy feminist because I'm pro-choice in energy sources."
The team arrived at EPA headquarters as environmentalists and federal employees grappled with news that the Trump transition team has sent a 74-question memo to Energy Department officials asking questions that seem to target Obama-era climate actions (Greenwire, Dec. 9).
Transparency, or a purge?
Requests for a list of names of DOE officials who attended U.N. climate conferences and interagency meetings to construct the controversial "social cost of carbon" estimate raised particular alarm, as staff members and greens worried that it might be a preview of Trump administration efforts to intimidate or edge out climate staff.
"The Trump transition team's attempts to single out Energy Department employees and contractors who have been involved in international climate talks is a witch hunt and a loyalty test all rolled into one," said House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). "This environmental McCarthyism is dangerous and should not be tolerated."
"Now we really know what Donald Trump means by draining the swamp," said one green, referring to the president-elect's campaign promise to reduce lobbyist influence.
GOP lawmakers have long sought a list of personnel from DOE and other agencies who constructed the 2010 and 2013 social cost of carbon updates, but the Obama administration declined, saying the models that were used in the revisions are a matter of public record.
The SCC seeks to measure the cost to society of each incremental ton of CO2 released. It appears in cost-benefit assessments for regulations but is not itself a regulation.
Sources familiar with the transition team's actions say it's a transparency exercise, not a warning shot about layoffs to come. But past and present personnel say they aren't sure.
"I think that there is something pernicious going on with this," said Dina Kruger, the former director of EPA's climate division, who added that she was in the SCC meetings herself in the early years of the Obama administration. Kruger is now an independent consultant.
But she said that if the Trump team hopes to cull staff who worked on Obama's Climate Action Plan, they'll discover that's not easy to do. Current law protects federal employees who have passed their probationary period from being fired without cause, even if the administration opposes the policies they've worked on. And workers with seniority can displace other workers if budgets are tight.
"You can't just fire somebody because they work on climate change," she said.
One advocate advises: Download data now
But that could change if a GOP-controlled Congress changes the law, and the agency's new leadership under Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), Trump's pick for EPA administrator, could create an environment that encourages staff members to leave voluntarily.
It is unclear whether other agencies have received similar questionnaires, though staff for EPA and the State Department said they didn't think they had.
Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the memo sent some ominous signals about the Trump team's possible plans for science as well as for personnel.
"This kind of questioning, it's important not to view it in isolation," he said.
He pointed to question 73, in which the transition team asks DOE to provide "a list of all websites maintained by or contributed to by laboratory staff during work hours for the past three years."
He noted that during the George W. Bush administration, scientists complained about federally maintained data being edited or erased apparently for political reasons. He said he advises scientists to download data they need before Jan. 20, because they're "better safe than sorry."
"When you see all of these people who have been waiting in the wings to pick apart the ability of the federal government to tackle climate science questions, the desire to create lists of people who work on climate change is extremely troubling," he said.
"I don't see it as intimidation or a witch hunt but more trying to get a better understanding of how action on climate change has infiltrated the department," said Nick Loris, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "There's obvious programs, but there may be unobvious ones, too. It would help to get a better understanding of those positions to determine if they are a legitimate function of the federal government."
The Trump transition team did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047011
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Perry to Discuss Potential Energy Nomination with Trump
Dec 12, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is meeting with President-elect Donald TrumpMonday to discuss a potential nomination to lead the Department of Energy.
Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller confirmed the meeting, which CBS News reported was set up over the weekend.
If Trump chooses Perry as Energy secretary and he is confirmed by the Senate, Perry would lead a 13,000-strong department whose main missions include funding energy research, overseeing the nation’s nuclear weapons and regulating energy efficiency.
Bloomberg reported Sunday that Perry is now Trump’s top choice for Energy secretary.
When he ran in the Republican primary for president in 2011, Perry famously forgot the name of the Department of Energy.
At a primary debate, Perry tried to list three federal agencies he wanted to eliminate. But after listing the departments of Education and Commerce, he stumbled, saying, “The third one, I can’t. Sorry. Oops.”
Perry currently sits on the corporate board of Energy Transfer Partners, which is developing the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline.
The Army Corps of Engineers is currently considering whether to grant the final easement Energy Transfer needs to build the line under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, facing strong international opposition from indigenous rights activists and environmentalists.
The Energy Department has no formal role in the Army Corps’s approval process.
Trump has also considered Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and investor Ray Washburne to be Energy secretary. Manchin is meeting with Trump Monday as well.
http://www.thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/309935-perry-to-discuss-potential-doe-nomination-with-trump
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EPA Proposes New Rule to Reduce Emissions at Texas Power Plants
Dec 12, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Ryan Handy
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed a rule aimed at reducing carbon emissions from 14 Texas power plants, many of which have been part of a yearslong battle over air quality control in the state.
The EPA mandates that states create a plan to address haze and pollution in national parks, but the agency found that Texas’ plan was inadequate, and has imposed its own rules on the state. But the agency scrapped its most recent rule after the owners of seven coal-fired power plants objected and asked a court to step in.
The new proposal also attacks sulfur dioxide emissions, which come mainly from coal-fired power plants. In a notice of the proposed rule, the EPA said it would require 14 power plants to adopt technology aimed at reducing emissions.
The technology would reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 180,000 tons, according to the Sierra Club, a national environmental advocacy group that supports the EPA’s plan. The rule is aimed at improving air quality in five national parks in Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas.
Texas has two national parks: Big Bend National Park, along the border with the Mexican state of Chihuahua, and Guadalupe Mountains National Park, east of El Paso.
The EPA will hold a public hearing on the rule Jan. 10 in Austin.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/12/12/epa-proposes-new-rule-to-reduce-emissions-from-texas-power-plants/
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EPA Issues New Rule for Texas Plants in Likely Test for Pruitt
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA is again seeking to impose new pollution control requirements on Texas coal-fired power plants under its regional haze program, potentially triggering a high-stakes test of the incoming Trump administration's attitude toward air quality regulation.
In a proposed rule released late Friday, EPA regional officials laid out a plan to require 14 plants to adopt "best available retrofit technology" (BART) to reduce sulfur dioxide and particulate matter emissions that interfere with visibility in large national parks. The proposal, required under a 2012 consent decree to a lawsuit brought by environmentalists, would apply to nine coal-burning plants, along with five others fueled by natural gas. EPA estimates that the required cleanups, which would all have to be completed within five years, would improve visibility in national parks and wilderness areas in Texas, Arkansas and New Mexico, as well as a wildlife refuge in Oklahoma.
The proposal "requires the operators of some of Texas' oldest and dirtiest coal plans to finally do something about" pollution that contributes to hazy conditions in national parks, Chrissy Mann, a senior representative of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, said in a news release.
Some of those same plants are covered by a separate haze reduction rule now tied up in litigation brought by utilities and Texas state officials. At the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which is among the challengers to the earlier rule, officials are reviewing EPA's latest proposal, spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said in an email.
Luminant Generation Co. LLC, which owns three East Texas plants — Big Brown, Martin Lake and Monticello — that could have to install or upgrade SO2 scrubbers under both the earlier rule and EPA's new proposal, is also reviewing the draft rule, according to a spokeswoman who otherwise declined to comment this morning. Luminant, which is Texas' largest power producer, is a branch of Vistra Energy.
The proposed rule will carry a 60-day public comment period when published in the Federal Register. EPA has already scheduled a combined Jan. 10 information session and public hearing in Austin, Texas.
Under the consent decree, EPA officials must have the final version in place by September, or about eight months after President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
During the election campaign, Trump complained of burdensome government regulations and at one point suggested that EPA should be abolished. Last week, he tapped Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) as his choice to head the agency.
Pruitt, who will need Senate confirmation to take the job, waged an unsuccessful three-year legal battle to block a related EPA haze plan for his state, arguing that it represented federal overreach and would drive up electricity rates. He has also joined in lawsuits challenging EPA's latest ozone standard and other air quality rules.
"We expect that there's going to be a fight to keep the [proposed haze rule]," Earthjustice attorney Mary Whittle said in an interview. Earthjustice represented the Sierra Club and other environmental groups in the lawsuit. But if a Republican-led EPA attempts to water down the proposal, Whittle said, agency officials will have to explain the reasons why, "and we will hold them to that."
The haze program, which dates back to 1999 in its current form, aims to restore natural visibility conditions to 156 large national parks and wilderness areas by 2064. It has led to repeated regulatory and legal clashes between states and EPA.
Under the earlier rule, which EPA published in January to meet "reasonable progress" goals under the haze program, eight coal-fired plants will have to upgrade or install SO2 controls. But in response to the lawsuits brought by the state and utilities, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed implementation of the rule. Earlier this month, facing the likelihood that the court will throw out the rule altogether, EPA attorneys asked for permission to voluntarily remand it (Greenwire, Dec. 5). As of this morning, that motion was pending.
EPA has projected that the "reasonable progress" rule will ultimately cut sulfur dioxide emissions by an annual total of 230,000 tons. State regulators and environmentalists generally agree that the compliance price tag will be around $2 billion.
The proposed BART rule released Friday does not include estimates on the combined compliance price tag for the plants in question or the total expected emission reductions. Based on data in the proposal, however, the Sierra Club projects that the tighter controls could cut SO2 releases by more than 180,000 tons per year, Mann said in an email.
In addition, EPA recently designated the areas surrounding the three Luminant plants as in nonattainment for the 2010 one-hour air quality standard for sulfur dioxide. Those designations, slated for publication in tomorrow's Federal Register, could eventually act as a separate lever to force Texas regulators to crack down on plant pollution or again risk federal intervention.
Under the BART proposal, EPA predicts visibility benefits in Big Bend and Guadalupe mountains national parks in Texas; the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma; the Caney Creek and Upper Buffalo River wilderness areas in Arkansas; and the Carlsbad Caverns National Park and the Salt Creek and White Mountain wilderness areas in New Mexico.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047054
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Scientists Struggling to Understand Rapid Rise of Potent GHG
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Camille von Kaenel
Scientists are redoubling efforts to understand why concentrations of methane are rising faster now than at any time in the past two decades, unlike carbon dioxide.
The uptick in methane, which has a powerful but short-lived greenhouse gas effect, over the past decade puts the world on a higher global warming trajectory. It is also one of the most lasting mysteries in earth sciences: Wetlands, ruminants and natural gas leaks all emit methane, but scientists are unclear which is the source of the recent increase.
International scientists seeking to perfect a "global methane budget" are bringing attention to the issue ahead of the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco this week with an editorial in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
"If [atmospheric methane concentrations] were to keep rising as they have in last couple of years, they could offset a large part of the mitigation activities for carbon dioxide," said Rob Jackson, an earth systems science professor at Stanford University and one of the authors of the letter. "Long-term CO2 is still the gas that should receive the most attention, but methane is second in importance for climate change. But it is more difficult to measure than carbon dioxide."
Methane has a greenhouse gas effect 84 times greater than that of carbon dioxide in the first two decades. A short-lived but potent greenhouse gas, it has been responsible for about 15 to 20 percent of global warming. After stagnating in the early 2000s, atmospheric concentrations of the gas increased rapidly since 2007, reaching a growth rate of nearly 10 parts per billion in 2015 for an annual average concentration of 1,834 parts per billion, according to the letter. The recent uptick is inconsistent with any global warming scenario but one that leads to a temperature increase of 4 to 5 degrees Celsius.
Much of the attention so far has focused on the role of methane leaks from the oil and gas industry. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to roll back new U.S. EPA and Bureau of Land Management rules on methane emissions from energy infrastructure.
Scientists are now highlighting and calling for more research into the other sources of methane emissions. The AGU meeting will focus on climate change and include several sessions on methane.
"Cattle is an important piece of the puzzle," said Jackson. "The oil and gas industry has received most of the scrutiny, but agriculture is just as big, even bigger of an opportunity for mitigation. ... Those changes are hard, though."
About half to two-thirds of global methane emissions are caused by humans through landfills or the fossil fuel, ruminant and rice industries. Because the sources of methane are diverse, so are the strategies, said Jackson. He suggested covering landfills, developing farm bio-digesters, changing rice agriculture practices, detecting and removing natural gas leaks, and even experimenting with animal feed.
The role of humans — and their cattle — in the recent uptick in methane, however, has divided scientists. A decrease in the gas that breaks down atmospheric methane could also be partly responsible.
Lori Bruhwiler, a physical scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory who was not affiliated with the letter but is part of a larger group refining a global "budget" for methane, said waste, wetlands and agriculture are likely to have played a much larger role than the increased U.S. energy production in the past decade.
Her most pressing scientific questions concern wetlands, which also have the greatest potential for technological breakthroughs next year.
"It's really hard to model wetlands, and most of the wetland models are relying on satellite products that show you where the surface is inundated, but inundation doesn't always mean large methane emissions," she said.
The improvements in remote sensing could also offer clues into any positive or negative feedback cycles between global warming and methane emissions from drying wetlands and melting permafrost, she added.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047021
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Bill Gates Launches $1B Clean Energy Fund
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and 19 other business leaders are launching a fund today that will invest at least $1 billion in new energy technologies that aim to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to "near zero."
The Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund is designed to finance emerging energy "breakthroughs" but also "engage in everything from seed and early-stage investments to commercialization," according to a fact sheet.
The fund is the next phase of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a group of billionaire investors spearheaded by Gates last year at climate talks in Paris to work in conjunction with Mission Innovation, a pledge by the United States and other countries to double their clean energy research and development spending within five years. Previously, the coalition's investment levels and strategy had been suggested but not outlined in detail.
The 20 investors of BEV include well-known names like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Chairman John Doerr, and Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures.
"Government research is not enough. The world needs the skills and resources of investors with experience driving innovation from a lab to the marketplace. The private sector knows how to take great research, turn it into a great product, and ultimately create a great company to bring a transformative technology to market," Gates said in an accompanying blog post today.
Gates did not specify which energy sectors would be targeted with the fund, but the coalition simultaneously released a "landscape of innovation" road map of technologies that it says deserve attention in five areas — electricity, transportation, agriculture, buildings and manufacturing. Within electricity, for example, the list includes technologies ranging from low-cost wind to nuclear fusion.
The coalition said the fund would have a 20-year life span and would evaluate success via regular technical milestones, as well as risk-adjusted returns. It outlined four criteria that would drive investment choices, such as a given technology's climate impact, scientific proof of concept and its ability to draw capital outside the fund.
The fund is an initial step, according to the coalition, which said it is working with partners like the University of California to build an investment pipeline for international research institutions and expand research collaborations.
"In addition to funding new ventures, Breakthrough Energy investors will help build a broader clean energy ecosystem. We'll explore new partnerships with governments, businesses, and institutional investors who want to be part of the global energy transition," Gates wrote.
The announcement comes at a challenging time for clean tech. Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a study on how venture capital is broken for clean energy technology after a boom-and-boost cycle between 2006 and 2011 (Greenwire, July 27).
Others have questioned whether wealthy investors like Gates should focus more on deployment of technologies rather than trying to find energy breakthroughs, considering the immediate challenges of climate change.
Congress also rejected most of President Obama's request to increase R&D funding in fiscal 2017 as part of Mission Innovation before the passage of the continuing resolution last week. The coalition said the fund would collaborate with governments, labs and corporate partners but did not specify in detail how it would do so.
In a statement on the new fund, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation senior fellow David Hart urged governments to do more.
"The public sector needs to invest more in R&D, reform tax incentives so that they drive clean-energy innovation, and develop more sophisticated regulatory tools to manage energy markets. The public and private sector have key complementary roles to take. Unless both play their respective roles, we are not going to get where we need to go," Hart said.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047051
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Arctic Drilling Advocates Draw Up Wish Lists for Trump
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
Shortly before this summer's Republican National Convention, Alaska's all-Republican congressional delegation sent a letter to Donald Trump describing the "incredible bounty" of rich energy and mineral resources waiting to be developed in the state — if only the federal government would get out of the way.
The letter, signed by Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young, all Republicans, accused the Obama administration of repeatedly slapping restrictive environmental controls on the Last Frontier's promising federal onshore and offshore oil fields.
The lawmakers argued that it's time to unleash "Alaska's natural resource potential through new oil, gas, mineral, and renewable resource development [to] create jobs, spur economic opportunity and strengthen our security."
Now President-elect Trump is singing the same song, promising to end "job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy" on public lands.
Those sentiments are shared by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who is expected to be nominated by Trump to head the Interior Department. Rodgers, chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, favors oil and gas development on public lands, opposes the Obama administration's climate policies, and has co-sponsored legislation to sell federal acreage to private interests.
To take advantage of the changing regulatory climate, Alaska's pro-development leaders and industry officials are drawing up wish lists of policy changes that they say would pave the way for much-needed new resource development in the nation's most oil-dependent state.
With roughly 60 percent of the state's lands owned by the federal government, Alaska is heavily controlled by Washington regulators. Industry supporters say the White House has imposed a web of burdensome executive orders and regulations that have discouraged oil drilling at a time when Alaska faces a multibillion-dollar financial crisis caused by low oil prices.
Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I) is asking the incoming Trump administration to scrap "the regulatory barriers that limit responsible resource development in our state." He said the state is "committed to working with the incoming administration to pursue shared priorities such as energy security, economic stability, and development of our resources. We are eager to responsibly develop our resources in order to provide for our people."
Alaska business leaders want the incoming administration to abolish dozens of environmental and land management restrictions that they say the Obama White House used to place millions of acres of land off-limits to economic development.
"There's been a lot of stepping over the legal boundaries during the Obama administration, at [U.S.] EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of Interior," asserted Rebecca Logan, general manager of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance.
Logan said the possibility of overturning those restrictions is invigorating. "You look at the fact that we actually have a House, a Senate and a president that could be friendly, and you think, 'Gosh, what do we do first?'"
A holy grail called ANWR
Alaska's oil companies are pressing Trump to provide greater access to oil-rich federal lands and cut government red tape that has increased the cost of drilling on the remote North Slope. They're encouraging Trump's appointees to immediately begin rewriting Obama's recent decision to block oil and gas leasing in the Arctic's Beaufort and Chukchi seas through 2022.
Revising the entire offshore leasing plan would take at least 18 to 24 months to complete. But by reopening the regulations, the new team could also consider oil development off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, proposals that were promoted by oil industry leaders but rejected by the Obama White House.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is also in the industry's crosshairs. State leaders have been trying to gain access to the 19-million-acre park for more than 40 years. But the northeast Alaska refuge has become the holy grail for environmentalists determined to protect the region's diverse wildlife and ecologically sensitive lands.
Early last year, President Obama asked Congress to preserve a large part of the refuge as wilderness. But thus far, neither the pro-development lawmakers nor the preservationists have been able to amass enough Senate votes to change the ground rules for ANWR.
Now the GOP electoral sweep has Alaska Republicans and oil industry supporters feeling confident about passing legislation to develop oil and gas in the refuge. In the days after the election, Murkowski, chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, suggested that ANWR is "certainly" back on the table.
However, industry's hopes of advancing energy development in the Arctic and in ANWR could be dashed if Obama uses his final weeks in office to impose tough new protections in those regions.
The Sierra Club and a handful of other environmental groups are lobbying Obama to permanently bar oil and gas development in the Arctic's Chukchi and Beaufort seas. They're also advocating that Obama protect ANWR's coastal plain by designating it as a national monument under the Antiquities Act.
"We think they're both longshots," said Athan Manuel, director of the lands protection program at the Sierra Club. "But we're pushing the Obama administration to be as aggressive as possible on Alaska issues."
But Alaska's congressional delegation is fighting back, warning Obama not to take any dramatic new actions to ban oil and gas development in the Arctic Ocean before he leaves office in January. Young accused the administration of seeking to solidify "its legacy with some of the most extreme environmental groups."
Despite those warnings, the White House angered Alaska lawmakers last week by barring oil and gas leasing in a 40,000-square-mile region of the Bering Sea, an area that hasn't been targeted for crude development since the 1980s.
The set-aside was outlined in Obama's executive order creating the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area. That 112,300-square-mile region is located along Alaska's western coast.
Even if Obama doesn't designate ANWR's coastal plain as a national monument, any steps to open resource development in the refuge are certain to reignite the long-smoldering battle over land preservation in that remote region.
Alaska environmental activists say they're adopting new strategies to protect ANWR, drawing lessons from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's ongoing struggle to stop construction of the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota.
Jessica Girard, program director for the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, said that much like the North Dakota campaign, Alaska tribal and environmental leaders see ANWR as a "sacred site" that deserves special protections.
"At Standing Rock, the Missouri River is the blood of Mother Earth," Girard said. "For Alaskans, the Arctic refuge is the birthing place of Mother Earth. We're not saying this just to hop on the public support. We're really putting it in language that indigenous people feel — that this is a sacred site."
Rolling back Obama policies
Facing the prospect of a protracted battle over ANWR, some Alaska business leaders say that for the near term, they'll focus their energy on rolling back the administrative controls put in place by the Obama White House.
"Access and regulation have always been our two biggest challenges with the federal government and federal regulatory agencies," noted Kara Moriarty, president of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association. "But the regulatory piece is something that we may find success with sooner than a larger politically charged question like ANWR."
The pro-oil groups are taking aim at the environmental executive orders and presidential memorandums that Obama has adopted over the last eight years. "We're pushing back against the massive regulatory burden that the president has put in place," asserted Marleanna Hall, executive director of the Resource Development Council for Alaska Inc.
Among their top priorities for the scrap heap are President Obama's complicated policies outlining how resource developers and others using federal lands must pay for damages they cause to protected species or habitat. That compensatory mitigation policy was laid out under a 2015 White House memorandum that applies to five federal agencies, including the Interior Department.
Alaska has been home to one of the early test cases of that policy. The Bureau of Land Management is drafting a regional mitigation strategy for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA). That project is being underwritten by an $8 million fund set up by ConocoPhillips Co. as a requirement of the company's federal permit to develop oil in the petroleum reserve.
Alaska state officials and industry also want the new Trump appointees to rewrite the federal management plan for NPRA to allow leasing throughout the 23-million-acre territory in northwest Alaska. The Obama administration's plan, adopted in 2013, permits oil and gas development in less than half of the NPRA.
Another top priority for the Alaska industry groups is a set of rules the Obama administration has imposed under the Endangered Species Act.
Under regulations finalized early this year, the federal government can take a broad view of which lands must be preserved as critical habitat to protect an imperiled species. In this case, regulators could impose new controls on lands that an endangered species could eventually move to, even if that animal or plant is not currently living in the region.
Currently, 18 states, including Alaska, are challenging those rules in court, arguing that the federal government could designate entire states as habitat for vanishing species.
Moriarty predicted that the industry will work closely with the Alaska's congressional delegation and state government officials to put a halt to the most burdensome environmental regulations. "This is one of those cases where the stars are aligned, if you will," she said.
But she cautioned incoming regulators to carefully write their new policies to ensure that they won't be overturned in the court challenges that will inevitably be filed by resource development opponents.
"We can't make these decisions immediately overnight, because if we go too fast, they may not be defensible in court," she observed.
Indeed, the environmental community is preparing for war against the pro-oil policies expected from the Trump administration.
"We have a lot of levers we could pull to push back on whatever actions they take," the Sierra Club's Manuel asserted.
"All the stuff that [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell and the other Republicans have done to slow down President Obama's agenda over the last eight years — we're going to adopt all of the same tactics to try and slow down the Hill," he explained. "And we'll have legal challenges to the anti-environmental moves."
Manuel also suggested that the continued low oil prices could make it more difficult for the oil industry to build public support for more drilling in Alaska.
"Typically, we've seen a push to drill in the Arctic refuge or offshore in Alaska when oil prices were high," he said, "because when oil prices are high, we definitely feel the grass-roots pressure."
"But you're not seeing a lot of fervor from the public about high gas prices," he added. "They're probably going to stay low for a while, and that hurts their side and helps our side."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047008
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How Trump Can Undo Power Plan and Paris and Navigate Endangerment Finding
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E TV
By OnPoint
With President-elect Donald Trump selecting Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as U.S. EPA administrator last week, how could the Trump administration and the next Congress work to undo the Clean Power Plan and the Paris Agreement? During today's OnPoint, Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, discusses energy and environment policy recommendations for the 115th Congress. Lewis' colleague Myron Ebell, who is now leading Trump's EPA transition team, contributed to these recommendations.
Transcript
Monica Trauzzi: Hello, and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. With me today is Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Marlo, thank you for joining me.
Marlo Lewis: I'm very glad to be here.
Monica Trauzzi: So, Marlo, each year, CEI releases an agenda for Congress. And this year the report is particularly significant, with President-elect Trump coming into office, and your colleague Myron Ebell contributing to the recommendations, and he's also heading up Trump's EPA transition. In your view, how is the landscape on energy and the environment about to shift over the next four years?
Marlo Lewis: I think it's going to shift dramatically. Because we not only have a Congress that is going to be of the same party as the president, but I think both the congressional majority and President Trump will be in favor of reining in regulatory overreach at the agencies, making sure that all regulations are promulgated pursuant to statutory authority, and also understands that the free market is really the generator of wealth and prosperity and rising living standards, and that one of the main functions of government should be to remove political barriers to wealth creation, entrepreneurship. What we like to say at CEI is, "lifting the rocks so the grass can grow."
Monica Trauzzi: President-elect Trump's pick to head up EPA is Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. Pruitt has led the charge against EPA's Clean Power Plan. It's expected that he'll work to undo the plan. The endangerment finding is still at play, though. So how does a Pruitt EPA navigate that?
Marlo Lewis: I think they'll navigate it very carefully. And it's certainly — I mean, in my speculation, it would not be an urgent priority. It might be a long-term priority. There are other kinds of reforms that would address the endangerment finding that would be probably easier to accomplish than actually reversing it through a rulemaking. One of them would be a congressional fix, which is simply legislation that clarifies that the 1970 Clean Air Act did not authorize EPA to make climate policy for the nation. Eventually, they could get around to the endangerment finding.
But, you know, if you put the kibosh on the Clean Power Plan and a number of other regulations that're in the pipeline that could be addressed, say, through the Congressional Review Act, you will make the U.S. economy safe from EPA overreach for the next couple of years. So I don't think this is something that they're going to try right out of the box. I mean, if they were asking me to be a strategist for them, I would say, "Don't do that first. Do these other things first." Like upending the Clean Power Plan is something that can be accomplished in multiple ways.
Monica Trauzzi: And do you think congressional action would be necessary there? Or can it all happen in Pruitt's EPA?
[Crosstalk]
Marlo Lewis: There could be an auxiliary role for Congress in that. Congress could defund any enforcement action on the Clean Power Plan. Which has already been suspended by the Supreme Court. It's been stayed. But EPA has been doing a lot of work on the Clean Power Plan in spite of that. In fact, Gina McCarthy boasted to her staff that "I'm not pausing. I'm not slowing down." So those sorts of actions at the agency could be restricted by Congress. And that would be helpful.
Monica Trauzzi: I want to go back to your suggestion that Congress essentially change the Clean Air Act. First off, does that have any legs? And also, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA. So how likely that Congress would go in and try to amend this law?
Marlo Lewis: Well, it's also a long shot, as is overturning the endangerment finding through a rulemaking. But you asked about going to the root of what EPA has been up to under Obama. I think it's pretty clear that even if the endangerment finding is retained, you can still get rid of the Clean Power Plan. EPA argues, "Oh, no. Massachusetts v. EPA changed everything. It now allows us to take a three-sentence provision and turn it into a mandate to restructure the U.S. electric power sector."
Monica Trauzzi: But you need to replace it with something.
Marlo Lewis: Replace what?
Monica Trauzzi: If they take away the Clean Power Plan, it'll need to be replaced with something, certainly, to meet the Paris Agreement.
Marlo Lewis: Right. Well, OK. We're gonna get into another topic there, which I'm glad to do. But basically, what the Trump administration could decide — what Trump's EPA could decide through a rulemaking — is that the 28 states that sued us were correct, and the only actions that EPA is authorized to require under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act are those which can be affordably implemented within the fence lines of the regulated facility. And so that would effectively limit the Clean Power Plan to asking utilities very nicely to become more efficient a little bit every year.
Monica Trauzzi: Which most of them are already doing.
Marlo Lewis: Right.
Monica Trauzzi: You wanna talk about Paris. [laughing]
Marlo Lewis: Oh, Paris, yeah.
Monica Trauzzi: You would like to see — you are recommending in this report that the U.S. exit the Paris Agreement.
Marlo Lewis: Yes.
Monica Trauzzi: How would the U.S. do that?
Marlo Lewis: Well, there are several ways. Some of them are complementary. As you know, under the terms of the Paris Agreement, a party can withdraw if it submits a notification of withdrawal three years after the agreement goes into effect. And then the notification itself becomes effective a year after that. Now, that's not an ideal exit if you're President Trump because that means, under the first four years, basically, of your term, the U.S. is a party to the Paris Agreement. The more dramatic way would be to submit a notification of withdrawal to the parent treaty, which is the Framework Convention. And because we're way past that three-years-effective deadline, that would become effective in one year.
What we would like to see in addition — I mean, we think it's a good idea for Trump to exit by going through the diplomatic formalities. But we also think it would be very important to engage the Senate. Because what we object to most about the Paris Agreement is that it was a deliberate strategy to cut the Senate out of treaty making, under Article 2, Section 2. As President Obama said correctly, this is the most ambitious climate agreement in history, which really means it's the most ambitious environmental agreement in history.
And yet the pretense here was that the Senate has nothing to say about it, and also has nothing to say about whether it should be engaged; that this is simply a unilateral judgment that the executive gets to make: "This is a treaty. This is not a treaty. This non-treaty is something you, the Senate, can say nothing about."
And so we would like Trump to submit the Paris Agreement to the Senate and ask for its advice and consent.
Monica Trauzzi: So that would mean that Trump would not make a decision on his own; it would be up to the Senate. Aren't there diplomatic considerations to make here as well? Exiting the Paris Agreement in any way could have some negative ramifications internationally.
Marlo Lewis: Sure, it could. But the Paris Agreement [laughing] could also have some very significant negative ramifications, not just on the U.S. economy, on the prospects for development of the world's poorest countries. There is a superb analysis that I highly commend done by my friend over at the U.S. Chamber, Steve Eule, who looked at what would be required, assuming consensus climatology, to actually reduce emissions enough to meet the 2-degree-warming target under the Paris Agreement.
And even if the developed world — the United States, Europe, Japan — reduced their emissions to zero by 2050, the developing world would have to reduce its emissions by about 35 percent. If, more realistically, we, the developed world, only reduce our emissions 80 percent, then the developing countries would have to reduce their emissions almost in half. And we're talking about a part of the world where over a billion people don't even have electricity, so —
Monica Trauzzi: And a big part of the Paris Agreement is working to get the developing world, in some cases, leapfrogging technologies, assisting them with adaptation and mitigation. So that is a big part of the Paris Agreement.
Marlo Lewis: It is, Monica. But I think it's very difficult to put your foot on the accelerator and the brake at the same time and actually accomplish anything useful. And so what the Paris Agreement — when you talk about leapfrogging, it's asking the world to somehow ensure that countries that have little to no modern energy all of a sudden become energy — or not all of a sudden, but by 2050 become energy-rich so that they have enough to conquer poverty and grow their economies, but at the same time, abandon all of the energy technologies that have brought the rest of the world into modernity and prosperity. And it's a high-risk project. And I think the way I would characterize it: putting an energy-starved world on an energy diet. And I think it easily becomes a cure worse than the alleged disease.
Monica Trauzzi: I want to get one final question in. Sen. Barrasso's work is cited in your recommendations that you're making for the 115th Congress. He will be the new chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee. And at the top of his agenda is rolling back regulations that he believes inhibit job growth and energy use. Is CEI working with him? If not, would you like to work with him on meeting his agenda?
Marlo Lewis: Well, of course. We want to work with anyone who shares our view that property rights and limited government are the best way to promote the health and welfare of the American people and the world. We do cite him. We cited him — at least, the citation that comes to my mind — maybe you were thinking of something much broader than this — was, he wants to defund the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is not just a treaty, but a U.N. agency. And in March of this year, the Framework Convention agency recognized Palestine as a state. And under existing U.S. law, if any U.N. body recognizes a non-state actor as a state, the U.S. cuts off funds to that agency. It's what we did with UNESCO.
So I know that that was referenced in our chapter on climate. Was that what you had in mind, or something - sounds like you had something in mind broader than that.
Monica Trauzzi: That was one of the references, yeah. And so going back to the original question, do you think that his thinking is in line with yours in terms of an agenda that we may see shaping up at EPW?
Marlo Lewis: Yes. We've always considered him a friend and ally.
Monica Trauzzi: OK. We'll end it there.
Marlo Lewis: OK.
Monica Trauzzi: Thank you for coming on the show.
Marlo Lewis: Thank you so much.
Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
http://www.eenews.net/tv/videos/2186/transcript
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Tillerson Seen as the Best of Many Evils for Paris Deal
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick and Benjamin Hulac
President-elect Donald Trump's expected nomination of Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson to lead the State Department will have an uncertain effect on continued U.S. involvement in the Paris climate deal.
On the one hand, the 64-year-old oilman, who was reported over the weekend to be Trump's pick for 69th secretary of State, will likely be the only incoming Cabinet member who accepts climate science. He almost certainly will be the only one to have endorsed the landmark climate agreement signed by the United States and nearly 200 nations. That paradox isn't lost on advocates.
"I think that, ironically, Rex Tillerson would hold the distinction of being the first appointee that Trump has chosen who is not a climate denier," said Shanna Cleveland, senior manager for the Carbon Asset Risk Initiative at Ceres.
If confirmed by the Senate, Tillerson would be thrust into guiding the United States through geopolitical disputes and conflicts in countries where Exxon has a large presence, as well as negotiating international climate accords and other environmental agreements.
Tillerson has spent his entire adult life working for Exxon, which he joined in 1975. For the last decade, he has led the company and protected its business interests in war-torn, benighted and volatile regions worldwide. He has no government expertise, and rumors of his nomination immediately raised questions about his close business and personal ties to Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.
The choice also triggered swift condemnation from climate activists, who say Exxon knew about the risks of global warming before many scientists and covered up internal studies.
"It is very clear now that Trump is a climate change denier, and that there is no room to put any sense in his head," said Wael Hmaidan, director of the Climate Action Network,which represents hundreds of environmental groups worldwide. "From his appointments so far, it looks like he is only president to benefit his billionaire friends. Trump is a global threat to human security, and it is up to world leaders to stand up against him."
Yet as recently as Nov. 4, the day the Paris Agreement entered force, Exxon Mobil called it "an important step forward by world governments in addressing the serious risk of climate change."
And Tillerson himself said at the Oil & Money conference in London in October that "we share the view that the risks of climate change are real and require serious action," the Financial Times reported.
Who directs the policy?
Analysts said it remains an open question how deeply held the CEO's climate convictions are — and whether Tillerson's apparently moderate positions will influence Trump or his burgeoning Cabinet of climate skeptics. Trump's pick for U.S. EPA administrator, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), has dismissed climate science and hinted about targeting climate scientists for legal retribution. Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, ran a news outlet that regularly decried climate change as a hoax. And as recently as yesterday, Trump himself declared in contravention of established science that "nobody really knows" whether climate change is real.
Harvard University economist Robert Stavins noted that Tillerson's statements about the Paris Agreement were made when President Obama was in office and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed likely to succeed him. Now, with Trump headed to the White House, the businessman's views may have "evolved," Stavins said.
And even if they haven't, he added, "that doesn't guarantee by any means that he will be free to pursue those views as policies and actions as secretary of State in the Trump administration."
Throughout the campaign, Trump pledged to "cancel" the Paris Agreement. Yesterday, he told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" that he is "studying" it.
"I do say this — I don't want that agreement to put us at a competitive disadvantage with other countries," Trump said. "As you know, there are different times and different time limits on that agreement. I don't want that to give China or other countries signing agreements an advantage over us."
China pledged to cap emissions and draw 20 percent of its energy from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2030. Republicans have characterized that as allowing the country to "do nothing" for 16 years. Experts say between now and 2030, China's vow would require it to build renewable infrastructure equal to the entire U.S. power grid.
Trump's policy positions are often characterized as malleable, but it is unclear who would wield the most influence where international agreements are concerned.
Kevin Book, the managing director of Clearview Energy Partners, said in a recent report on last year's Iran nuclear deal that he would expect Trump to consider his secretary of State's advice when deciding whether to withdraw from that deal. But he acknowledged that other Trump national security advisers would also have a say and might countermand the secretary of State's position.
Book posited that any of the top-tier candidates whose names have been floated for State would be unlikely to "accept a Cabinet post with a tight collar and a short leash," in which foreign policy was run out of the White House.
Yet while Trump has often been characterized as sounding like the last person he spoke to on policy positions, Stavins noted that a secretary of State would be unlikely to have the final word.
"The last person in the room is likely the chief of staff or, in this administration, probably the vice president," he said. "Or, again in this administration, Mr. Bannon."
Bannon, incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Vice President-elect Mike Pence all oppose the Paris Agreement.
Amy Jaffe, executive director of energy and sustainability at the University of California, Davis, agreed and said Tillerson's acceptance of the post would signal that he is ready to work to advance Trump's platform.
"Even though the secretary of State can be influential in Cabinet discussions, in the end, the president sets the policy," she said.
Conditional carbon tax support
Tillerson's own climate positions are complicated. While acknowledging that humans contribute to warming, he has questioned the extent of expected consequences. He also has said addressing climate change must be balanced against the needs of providing energy — fossil fuel-based — to developing nations (see related story).
Jaffe noted that Tillerson was responsible for reversing Exxon Mobil's official stance that man-made climate change is not occurring, as articulated under his predecessor, Lee Raymond.
Tillerson has also said that if the United States pursues a carbon reduction policy, it should come in the form of a revenue-neutral carbon tax. That's not a full-throated endorsement, and it comes with a demand that virtually all EPA carbon authorities be rolled back in exchange. But even conditional support for a carbon levy by a high-ranking U.S. official would show that a policy model that center-right think tanks have been kicking around for years might finally be gaining some limited traction.
"Picking Rex Tillerson shows that President-elect Trump certainly isn't allergic to people who acknowledge the reality of climate change and call for resolute action to deal with it," said Eli Lehrer, president of the R Street Institute, which supports a revenue-neutral emissions levy.
"Since the overwhelming majority of CO2 emissions and nearly all potential net future increases will be from outside of the United States, indeed, it's possible to argue that the secretary of State is the most important person involved in determining climate policy," Lehrer said.
But Exxon Mobil also has continued under Tillerson to support scientific and advocacy groups that buoy contrarian views on climate science, and has strenuously opposed elements of President Obama's Climate Action Plan.
Two state attorneys general, the Securities and Exchange Commission and lawyers behind class-action lawsuits are probing whether Exxon hid the risks of global warming from its investors as far back as the 1970s. And the #ExxonKnew movement is likely to crop up as Tillerson's confirmation is considered by the Senate (see related story).
"Sending an oil executive as the face of American diplomacy would signal loud and clear the abdication of our global leadership in protecting the planet and its people from the effects of climate change," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in a statement to E&E News.
Whitehouse led the charge in suggesting that Exxon could be liable for its past actions to obscure the state of the science on warming.
Meanwhile, conservative opponents of the Paris Agreement said they see nothing to fear from Tillerson's likely nomination or from the prospect of former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton as his deputy.
"Don't think that Trump will do anything to fulfill Paris 'commitments,' and the [nationally determined contributions] are unenforceable anyway," said Benjamin Zycher, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He dismissed Exxon Mobil's preference for a carbon tax over regulations as "not the choice now before us."
"Don't know if Trump will formally announce an exit from [the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change]," he said. "But it doesn't really matter."
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047019
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Interior Pick a Hydro Advocate But 'Disappointingly Vague' on Climate
Dec 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Brittany Patterson
Environmental groups are expressing strong reservations about Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from eastern Washington, as President-elect Donald Trump's expected secretary of the Interior.
As head of the sprawling Interior Department, McMorris Rogers would oversee more than 70,000 employees and 500 million acres, or one-fifth of the United States' landmass. Policies implemented by Interior, the steward of fossil fuel leasing on public lands onshore and offshore as well as of the protection of millions of acres of national parkland and wilderness, can have major climate change implications.
Activists have not charged McMorris Rogers with denying the mainstream scientific consensus on climate change outright. But her beliefs about whether human activity is warming in the planet are "disappointingly vague," said Nick Abraham, communications manager for Washington Conservation Voters, the state arm of the League of Conservation Voters.
"She's questioned climate change and waffled on the issue," he said.
In August, McMorris Rodgers demurred on the connection between forest fires and climate change at a news conference in Spokane, Wash., with Gov. Jay Inslee (D). Speaking first, Inslee urged lawmakers to "attack climate change itself" to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, something the state has become familiar with in recent years.
McMorris Rogers sidestepped the issue of climate change and limiting carbon emissions. Instead, she said, "The policy focus needs to be on healthy forests," according to an article in the Spokane Spokesman-Review.
McMorris Rodgers gave the GOP's rebuttal to President Obama's 2008 State of the Union address. Speaking calmly and earnestly, she touted her childhood experience of working on her family's apple orchard in Kettle Falls, a small town in eastern Washington, and showing animals in 4-H. The first college graduate in her family, the 47-year-old mother of three spoke about her son, who was diagnosed with Down syndrome.
Later that year, McMorris Rodgers gave a speech highlighting her "top 10 reasons it's good to be a Republican in 2008," according to The News Tribune, a newspaper based in Tacoma, Wash. She touted hydropower as a renewable resource but was critical of former Vice President Al Gore, who had recently won a Noble Peace Prize for his work on climate change.
"We believe Al Gore deserves an F in science and an A in creative writing," she said.
The League of Conservation Voters reports that she voted five times to block funding for climate change research.
McMorris Rodgers' office did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication on her environmental record.
Early support for hydropower
When McMorris Rodgers joined the House in 2005, after spending a decade serving in the Washington state Legislature, she initially drew support from environmental groups for her work to boost hydropower.
Bob Irvin, president of advocacy group American Rivers, said in 2013 his group worked with McMorris Rodgers on the bipartisan H.R. 267, the "Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2013." The legislation, which became law, allows small hydropower projects under 10 megawatts that use existing canals, pipelines or other conduits to move forward without the usual permitting by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (E&ENews PM, Jan. 16, 2013).
Fast-forward two years, and Irvin said McMorris Rodgers has sponsored and championed hydropower legislation "that would have dramatically undermined protections for clean water, tribes, and the role of state and federal agencies that protect rivers and streams and the clean water, fish and wildlife that Americans depend on."
On her website, McMorris Rodgers noted that she had received a National Hydropower Association Legislator of the Year award, and called the energy source an "opportunity for energy growth" in her state. "We owe it to the Pacific Northwest and to the rest of the country to expand an energy source that will not only lower energy costs for the working middle class, but create thousands of new jobs," she wrote.
But her record on environmental issues has largely drawn concern from environmental groups. She has a lifetime score of 4 percent on environmental issues, according to the League of Conservation Voters.
"She's taken a ton of money from the oil and gas industry; she's strongly pro-extraction and has denied climate science," said KC Golden, senior policy adviser for Climate Solutions, a nonprofit based in the Pacific Northwest. "She's clearly been for fossil fuel development, which looks more and more like the direction the Trump administration is going to take the Interior Department."
She has received more than $357,000 in campaign contributions from industry over her congressional career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog group.
During her 12 years in the House, McMorris Rodgers sponsored legislation that would have required Interior to sell about 3.3 million acres of lands to help reduce the federal deficit (E&E Daily, Oct. 26, 2011).
Worked to limit EPA authority
Her record has also included support for opening up federal lands offshore for drilling, and she voted to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration and production.
In 2011, at a House Republican leadership weekly press briefing, McMorris Rodgers blasted the Obama administration for using federal agency regulatory agendas to limit carbon pollution after a cap-and-trade effort failed to get through Congress.
"That is not the right process, and it's also not the right policy," she said.
She co-sponsored legislation that would have denied U.S. EPA the authority to limit greenhouse gases.
In recent years, however, McMorris Rodgers has shifted most of her legislative energy toward health care. She currently serves on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health.
Washington state-based environmental groups also sounded the alarm Friday that McMorris Rodgers' actions as head of Interior, should she move to open up more public lands for oil and gas development, could go against the wishes of her own constituents.
In Spokane, the second-largest city in the state and the center for McMorris Rodgers' district, the City Council placed a measure on the November ballot and then removed it that would have fined oil and coal trains that passed through town. In August, the City Council voted 6-0 that it believes the trains pose a risk to the city's water supply and infrastructure.
"There's been a huge outcry from the citizens of Spokane and around that region about the public health, public safety and environmental impacts of these trains," said Shannon Murphy, president of Washington Conservation Voters. "Increased oil and gas drilling, which she has shown to support, would send more explosive oil trains through our communities, leaving us with all the risk and no reward."
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/12/12/stories/1060047022
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Science Advisors Continue to Question CCS' Role in EPA's GHG Plans
Dec 12, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Members of EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) continue to question the role and viability of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in the agency's greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction plans, reiterating doubts that the technology may not be able to achieve carbon dioxide emissions reduction goals detailed in EPA's landmark power plant rules.
At a Dec. 1 meeting where agency staff provided a requested briefing on EPA's efforts to advance CCS and ensure the technology does not adversely impact human health and the environment, SAB members closely questioned EPA staff on whether there is sufficient CCS storage capacity, how much energy CCS requires and when the technology will be widely used.
For example, Peter Thorne, SAB's chairman and head of the University of Iowa's occupational and environmental health department, asked if EPA can "demonstrate the capacity to sequester sufficient CO2 under the objectives of the Clean Power Plan and other policies?"
"We can and we have," replied Mark DeFigueiredo, with EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, pointing to a technical support document in the administration record for the power plant new source performance standards (NSPS) and existing performance standards (ESPS).
The document "discusses in pretty great detail the geographic availability of CO2 and being able to sequester CO2. . . . . That's certainly something we've looked at."
He added that EPA staff have worked with Energy Department (DOE) colleagues to "develop an atlas of geologic formations where CO2 could be stored." When Thorne further queried American capacity for CCS, DeFigueiredo replied, "In terms of the potential available capacity ... compared to overall emissions from large stationary sources it's orders of magnitude of available capacity."
The exchange echoes long-running legal and political debates over the technology, which is considered the only end-of-pipe control option for fossil-based energy production. It's deployment has been slow and costly, with only one operating plant in North America -- though others, like Mississippi Power's Kemper plant, are slated to come on line in the coming months.
Proponents, including many in the coal industry and some environmentalists, say that policymakers need to provide significant tax and other incentives to make the technology viable and increase deployment -- especially given low prices for coal due to slumping demand.
Opponents, including other environmentalists, oppose incentives and increased use of the technology, saying it will perpetuate use of high-carbon fossil fuels that should be phased out.
Climate NSPS
EPA's NSPS -- which requires new coal-fired power plants to capture about 30 percent of their CO2 -- has drawn strong opposition from many state officials as well as coal and other industry groups, who charge the requirement is unlawful because the agency has not met the Clean Air Act standard that requires officials to show the technology is "adequately demonstrated."
But the fate of the NSPS, which is already subject to legal challenge, is in doubt as the incoming Trump administration is unlikely to defend it and will almost certainly take steps to roll it back given the president-elect's support for advancing coal.
The SAB has long featured in the debate over the NSPS. The board initially sought to review the science underlying the rule, given concerns about the technology's adverse environmental impacts, a move that would have bolstered opposition. But the agency persuaded the board to decline a formal review because, agency officials argued, CCS injection and permitting was governed by other rules.
The SAB's decision to decline a formal review of the science behind the NSPS disappointed industry and congressional critics of the regulation, potentially eliminating their argument that the agency had not considered the best available science in developing the rule.
While the board did not review the proposed rule, SAB officials continue to raise questions about the technology.
At the Dec. 1 meeting, another science advisor asked staff for an estimate of how much of a power plant's energy production must be devoted to the energy-intensive CCS process. "This is going to be very rough," replied DeFigueiredo. "Total CCS, with 100 percent capture, it's probably in the neighborhood of 25-30 percent total energy penalty," he said.
Another advisor, Denise Mauzerall, a professor in Princeton University's public affairs and civil and environmental engineering schools, asked staff, "What time frame is imaginable for widespread use of geologic storage?"
"It's available today," replied DeFigueiredo. "There's a large project in the North Sea in operation since 1996. A number of projects across the world. Technically it can be done, the issue is what other policy drivers" are in play.
Many of DeFigueiredo's examples seemed to be international. And Molly Bayer, with EPA's water office, presented slides listing the three facilities that EPA has permitted or is in the process of permitting for CCS activities. Of these, one -- the FutureGen power project in Illinois -- was closed after DOE withdrew federal funds, she said.
CO2 Storage
Mauzerall also raised concerns about whether land that has been subject to hydraulic fracturing would still be available for CO2 storage. She noted that there is growing use of hydraulic fracturing to produce oil and gas, and asked whether EPA has "any research going on now that may lead to some kind of regulatory initiatives in the future looking at the effect of all the hydraulic fracturing on potential geological storage in the future, as the fracking may make an impermeable layer more permeable?"
Bayer was unable to name any such research, saying that she "would again fall back on our regulatory approach. In the site characterization, one part of identifying the project area is to ensure that you have an appropriate induction zone . . . that can receive volume over a particular period of time, and it must have at least one combining zone that is free of faults and fractures . . . It would be expected that . . . the permit would characterize any past operations that have occurred . . . and would exclude projects where there would be potential for fluid migration due to . . . faults and fractures."
Mauzerall rejoined, "It seems like it would be important to keep track of that. You might be reducing the opportunities for future geological storage."
Bayer answered many questions by pointing to the agency's approach to permitting such projects to ensure that a proposed site is appropriate for CCS activities. "We're authorized and created under [the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)] to ensure protection of underlying sources of drinking water," she said.
One SAB member, Charles Werth, professor of environmental health engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, noted that he has been working on related research with DOE, which he says has been focused recently on microseismic activity. "On monitoring requirements, I was noticing there's nothing listed on microseismic monitoring," he said of Bayer's presentation. "That can be an indicator of opening up pathways to groundwater, or possibly an indicator of where the CO2 is going."
"The short answer is it is a part," Bayer replied. "Awareness of the risk of potential for seismicity . . . is part of the site characterization process. So a requirement for siting the project is that information is provided to the agency. . . . And then we would expect that a testing and monitoring strategy would appropriately, in a site-specific way, address that potential."
Bayer said that the permits EPA has issued incorporate a "stoplight approach . . . if there was an event of different magnitudes what would the operational changes, if any, be."
It is unclear what action SAB will take after the briefing, which the science advisors requested from the agency after their meeting last April, where the advisors decided not to review the science underlying any of a series of ongoing regulations -- including a renewable fuels standard (RFS) rule that would allow fuel producers to use CCS to help produce biofuel that would qualify as low-carbon.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/science-advisors-continue-question-ccs-role-epas-ghg-plans
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I was EPA Administrator. Advice for the Next One: Don’t Walk Back Environmental Progress.
Dec 12, 2016 | Washington Post
By Christine Todd Whitman
Christine Todd Whitman, EPA administrator from 2001 to 2003, is president of the Whitman Strategy Group environmental consulting firm and co-chair of the Clean & Safe Energy Coalition, which advocates for nuclear energy.
President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) to head the Environmental Protection Agency has drawn criticism because of Pruitt’s public stances against the agency’s authority and his numerous lawsuits to block agency regulations in his state. Given Pruitt’s obvious dislike for what the agency does, I am disappointed in his selection, but his appointment does not come as a surprise given the professed views of the president-elect and many of his closest aides.
As a former EPA administrator under a Republican president, I recognize that it is easy to hate regulations in general. After all, regulatory action causes people to spend money or change behavior, often to solve problems they do not believe exist. Regulations have certainly gone too far in a number of areas, but it’s important to remember that regulations are meant to be protective, and when it comes to the EPA, that means protecting human health and our world. Pruitt would be wise not to try to walk back the real progress that has been made.
Let’s not forget the atmosphere in which the EPA was created. The nation was experiencing great turmoil in 1969 and 1970, with riots on college campuses and in many cities. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire, and our air and water sources were being polluted by actors not required by any governing body to protect our citizens. People demanded that Washington protect them, and they got a Republican president to work with a Democratic Congress to establish the EPA and enact the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. To forget that the EPA was borne out of public demand is to invite a real backlash.
So I hope that Pruitt will take time to rethink some of his criticisms of the agency and also recognize the role of science in a regulatory agency such as the EPA. Pruitt has questioned“the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.” I have long said that activists have done themselves a disservice by stressing that humans have “caused” climate change. That claim to sole causation results in people like Pruitt dismissing the need to address climate change because they doubt that humans have done all of the damage. The climate has always changed — after all, we’ve had numerous ice ages without human influence — but human activity has undoubtedly exacerbated Earth’s natural trends beyond its capacity to adjust.
The New York-based Regional Plan Association reported last week that by 2050 the sea level along the Atlantic Coast could rise by an entire foot. This means every time there is a bad storm, more land will be susceptible to erosion and more of our coastline at risk for destruction. The cost in human lives and capital rebuilding will reach beyond the capability of any government or institution. The joint chiefs of staff and other military leaders view climate change as a national security issue; hopefully that fact demonstrates, even to those who are most skeptical, the gravity of the situation we are facing. To the extent that we can slow the process, we would be wise to do it.
There are very practical ways that the EPA and federal government can protect our environment, as well as human health and our infrastructure. To slow the rate of climate change, we need to reduce our carbon output; thankfully, there are ways to achieve that goal that have significant economic benefits as well. Promoting energy conservation and reminding people only to use what they actually need benefits household budgets. Building nuclear plants and other clean-energy sources creates good jobs for Americans. The EPA should also work with the Transportation Department to advance mass transit, which will get people out of traffic jams, saving time for them and massively reducing carbon emissions from idling cars.
Between 1990 and 2012, the population grew by 38 percent, and electricity demand increased by 27 percent, but we more than doubled our gross domestic product in real numbers while at the same time reducing pollutants by 67 percent. This is not a zero-sum game. President-elect Trump and EPA Administrator-designate Pruitt should recognize that it is a fallacy to believe we cannot have a healthy, thriving economy and a clean and green environment. The new administration can vigorously pursue its economic goals while allowing the EPA to do what it was created to do: protect the health of the American people and our land.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-was-epa-administrator-advice-for-the-next-one-dont-walk-back-environmental-progress/2016/12/12/da72ba08-be44-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.0779aa2268c0
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