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(ACC Mentioned) Regulators Vote to List BPA as Harmful to Reproduction
May 8, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
A panel of California regulators has signed off on listing the common plasticizer bisphenol A, or BPA, as a chemical known to the state to cause reproductive harm. -
US EPA Promulgates Snurs for 25 Substances
May 8, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has issued significant new use rules for 25 chemicals that were the subject of pre-manufacture notices under the Toxic Substances Control Act. -
EPA Power Plant Rule Enters Final Review
May 8, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has submitted the final version of its carbon emissions rule for new power plants to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. -
OMB Reviewing Final Carbon Rules for New and Modified Plants
May 8, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillén
The White House Office of Management and Budget has begun reviewing EPA's final rules for greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants and from modified and reconstructed units. -
EPA Sends Carbon Rule for New Power Plants to White House
May 8, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
U.S. EPA sent today its final rule limiting carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants to the White House for review. -
EPA Sends New Power Plant GHG Rule For OMB Review
May 8, 2015 | InsideEPA
EPA announced May 8 that it has submitted its final “Carbon Pollution Standards for New Power Plants” setting first-time greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for utilities to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for pre-publication review, and expects to issue the rule in final form by "mid-summer." -
EPA, States 'Scrambling' To Craft Alternative Emissions Transport Policies
May 8, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA and state air officials are "scrambling" to craft alternative policies to meet a Clean Air Act "good neighbor" requirement for states to curb interstate air pollution causing air quality problems downwind, sources say, as uncertainty lingers over the scope of the policies that could help areas meet a looming 2018 deadline to reduce ozone levels. -
The World is Doing a Lot on Climate Change — But That’s Not the Same as Doing Enough
May 8, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
Anyone watching the climate debate in the last year has seen an encouraging bustle of activity. From the U.S.-China agreement on emissions to Pope Francis’s coming encyclical on the environment, it’s really starting to seem that we’re racing toward progress — to be capped inParis in December, when nations of the world may finally reach a binding global accord on emissions. -
Can Pope Francis Shake the U.S. Climate Debate?
May 8, 2015 | Politico
By Darren Goode
Pope Francis and the U.S. Catholic bishops are escalating their call for political leaders to act on climate change, seeking to add a moral element — and the weight of the United States’ largest religious denomination — to a debate that has provoked a sharp rift between the Obama administration and the GOP-led Congress. -
E&E Daily's Juliano Discusses Emerging Compromise on Energy Bill
May 8, 2015 | E&E - TV
Is a bipartisan compromise on the horizon for Congress' energy bill? -
(ACC Mentioned) Rail-Shipper Groups Urge Senate to Return Elliott to STB
May 8, 2015 | Progressive Railroading
Two trade associations representing rail shippers issued statements earlier this week in response to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation's vote to confirm the nomination of Daniel Elliott III to a second term on the Surface Transportation Board (STB).
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
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Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
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(ACC Mentioned) Regulators Vote to List BPA as Harmful to Reproduction
May 8, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
A panel of California regulators has signed off on listing the common plasticizer bisphenol A, or BPA, as a chemical known to the state to cause reproductive harm.
A scientific panel of the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), which administers the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, commonly known as Proposition 65, voted unanimously yesterday to list BPA as harmful to the reproductive system, though the decision is expected to face a legal challenge.
California regulators have attempted to designate BPA as a threat to the reproductive system for years, but the action has been stalled by litigation from the chemical industry, which contends that the effort is not supported by science.
In 2013, OEHHA added BPA to the list of chemicals known to cause reproductive harm, citing its identification by the National Toxicology Program as toxic to the female reproductive system at high doses. However, the agency was forced to de-list the chemical after the American Chemistry Council sued over the designation under what's known as the "authoritative bodies" mechanism, one of four processes through which the agency is permitted to add new chemicals to the list. That process allows OEHHA to incorporate the findings of other scientific agencies as the basis for targeting a chemical under Proposition 65.
At a meeting yesterday, OEHHA's Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee, part of its Science Advisory Board, voted 7-0 to list BPA under its own authority to designate chemicals.
Steven Hentges, of the American Chemistry Council's Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group, noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority had found that there is not a health risk to consumers from BPA in the levels in which it's used. However, under California law, the agency is not required to defer to these authorities.
"The decision is not supported by the extensive scientific record presented to the committee and is completely contrary to explicit input provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration," Hentges said in a statement.
Public health groups, though, said the decision was a welcome move that would help consumers.
"This is an important step to protect children and families from a highly toxic chemical," Michael Green, executive director of the Center for Environmental Health, said in a statement. "BPA can alter the bodies' natural hormones and lead to serious reproductive problems. Parents and consumers have a right to know when they can be exposed to toxic chemicals like BPA."
Caroline Cox, research director at the Center for Environmental Health, said it is likely that the chemical industry will sue over the listing. The industry's previous legal challenge in 2013 delayed the agency's rulemaking until the decision was dismissed last year.
In December, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge dismissed the industry suit,ruling that the state acted properly when it relied on the NTP report to justify the decision (Greenwire, Dec. 22, 2014). The injunction preventing OEHHA from proceeding with the listing remained in place pending an expected appeal.
That legal barrier, though, does not prevent OEHHA from listing BPA under different justifications, such as by the panel of scientists.
Eventually, OEHHA will need to set a maximum exposure level for BPA, at which point manufacturers will be required to display warning labels on products or in settings in which consumers are likely to be exposed to the chemical at levels exceeding the threshold within a year.
In 2013, OEHHA proposed a maximum exposure level of 290 micrograms per day. At the time, the North American Metal Packaging Alliance, a trade group, said the level was likely high enough that warning labels would not be required on BPA-containing metal packaging, such as cans (Greenwire, April 12, 2013).
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US EPA Promulgates Snurs for 25 Substances
May 8, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has issued significant new use rules for 25 chemicals that were the subject of pre-manufacture notices under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Nine of them are subject to TSCA section 5(e) “risk-based” consent orders.
The action requires persons who intend to manufacture, import or process these substances for any activity that is designated as a significant new use to notify the agency at least 90 days beforehand.
The chemicals that are subject to the “risk-based” consent orders are those where the EPA determines that activities associated with them may present unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. The orders require protective measures to limit exposures, or otherwise mitigate the potential unreasonable risk.
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EPA Power Plant Rule Enters Final Review
May 8, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has submitted the final version of its carbon emissions rule for new power plants to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review.
The move is the final step before the rule is finalized and implemented, something the EPA says should happen by mid-summer.
The proposed rule, which the EPA circulated last year, set hard limits on carbon emissions from newly built fossil fuel plants. Under the proposal, the limits were 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour produced for coal plants, and 1,000 pounds or 1,100 pounds per megawatt-hour for natural gas plants, depending on the size of the facility.
Energy interests, and especially the coal industry, have slammed the proposal, saying it will raise costs and lead to job losses in the industry. The proposed rule assumed new coal-fired power plants could utilize an emissions reduction strategy called carbon capture, which is rarely used right now.
The rule is one of the core aspects of President Obama's climate change agenda. The EPA is still working on finalizing its emission reduction standards for existing power plants — the Clean Power Plan — something officials hope to finish later this summer.
"Together these actions will provide important public health benefits and address climate change, while ensuring reliable, affordable and clean power for American businesses and families," EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said in a statement.
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OMB Reviewing Final Carbon Rules for New and Modified Plants
May 8, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillén
The White House Office of Management and Budget has begun reviewing EPA's final rules for greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants and from modified and reconstructed units.
A notice on OMB’s site indicates the agency is reviewing both rules, each of which is promulgated under Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act. EPA confirmed that OMB is reviewing both rules.
EPA plans to release the rules — along with a regulation for existing plants — in “mid-summer,” EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said.
“The final standards are an important part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan and will put in place the first-ever national carbon pollution standards for new power plants,” she said in a statement.
The rule for modified plants — those undergoing major construction — will help coal-fired power plants making major changes to comply with EPA's mercury rule avoid being forced to retrofit carbon capture technology, a difficult if not impossible task.
In 2014 EPA proposed several different standards depending on the size of the modified coal-fired units, from 1,900 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour to 2,100 lb CO2/MWh. Gas-fired plants would be limited to 1,000 lb CO2/MWh to 1,100 lb CO2/MWh. It is unclear whether those requirements will change with the final rule. -
EPA Sends Carbon Rule for New Power Plants to White House
May 8, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
U.S. EPA sent today its final rule limiting carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants to the White House for review.
EPA is working toward finalizing the rule in midsummer, along with its Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. EPA also plans to submit a federal proposal for meeting the Clean Power Plan at the same time.
The new power plant rule, proposed under the Clean Air Act's New Source Performance Standards program, would require developers of coal-fired power plants to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions.
"The final standards are an important part of President Obama's Climate Action Plan and will put in place the first-ever national carbon pollution standards for new power plants," EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said in a statement.
EPA first released the proposed rule for new power plants in September 2013. The proposal would require future coal-fired plants to limit emissions of carbon dioxide to 1,100 pounds per megawatt-hour, while large combined-cycle natural gas facilities would have to meet a standard of 1,000 pounds per MWh. Small gas-fired units and single-cycle power plants would be limited to 1,100 pounds per MWh.
The proposal would require the most efficient coal-fired power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent, making it necessary for new plants to build systems to capture and store carbon dioxide underground.
The proposal replaced an earlier 2012 version by the agency. EPA had originally planned to finalize the rule one year after its publication in the Federal Register, but the deadline slipped as the agency received more than 2 million public comments.
EPA announced in January that it would finalize the new and existing power plant rules, as well as propose the federal plan, together in midsummer. EPA acting air chief Janet McCabe has said that issuing the rules at once would allow the agency to better address "crosscutting topics," such as how natural gas units would be treated (Greenwire, Jan. 7).
The coal industry has expressed strong opposition to the new power plant rule, calling it unrealistic and arguing that the requirement for carbon capture and storage would effectively end coal-fired power generation in the country. Coal industry advocates plan to challenge the rule, issued under Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act, as being legally unsound for EPA's determination that CCS is commercially ready.
EPA has argued that the rule would not greatly affect the construction of new coal-fired power plants, since few plants would be built anyway because market conditions favor natural gas.
Purchia said the package of rules slated for midsummer release would "provide important public health benefits and address climate change, while ensuring reliable, affordable and clean power for American businesses and families."
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EPA Sends New Power Plant GHG Rule For OMB Review
May 8, 2015 | InsideEPA
EPA announced May 8 that it has submitted its final “Carbon Pollution Standards for New Power Plants” setting first-time greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for utilities to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for pre-publication review, and expects to issue the rule in final form by "mid-summer."
"The final standards are an important part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan and will put in place the first-ever national carbon pollution standards for new power plants," says a statement from EPA. The president's plan also includes GHG standards for existing power plants, and utilities making modifications.
“We expect to finalize this rule for new power plants and guidelines to reduce carbon pollution from existing and modified power plants in mid-summer. In addition, EPA plans to propose a federal plan this summer for meeting Clean Power Plan goals. Together these actions will provide important public health benefits and address climate change, while ensuring reliable, affordable and clean power for American businesses and families,” EPA says.
OMB's website says it received the GHG new source performance standards for review May 7. Mandatory pre-publication review typically takes 90 days, but can take much longer or much less time depending on the rule. Once OMB completes its review, EPA can formally publish the rule in the Federal Register.
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EPA, States 'Scrambling' To Craft Alternative Emissions Transport Policies
May 8, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA and state air officials are "scrambling" to craft alternative policies to meet a Clean Air Act "good neighbor" requirement for states to curb interstate air pollution causing air quality problems downwind, sources say, as uncertainty lingers over the scope of the policies that could help areas meet a looming 2018 deadline to reduce ozone levels.
One source close to states' deliberations on the issue doubts that states will have time to produce innovative emissions reduction solutions of their own that would obviate the need for an EPA-crafted "backstop" rule that would impose mandatory, enforceable cuts in emissions. "Ultimately, you have to have enforceable reductions" in pollution, the source says, limiting the options of creative solutions that some states are currently weighing.
But EPA has indicated that it is putting the onus on states to craft plans for complying with the good neighbor requirement, a break from EPA's earlier decision to impose federal transport plans on states through its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) which is going back into effect after a lengthy legal fight over the rule.
The uncertainty means it is unclear what approach states and EPA will rely on to ensure the good neighbor provisions are met by a 2018 deadline. The agency's 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) -- which tightened the limit to 75 parts per billion (ppb) from the 1997 limit expressed as 84 ppb -- triggered the compliance deadline for reducing ozone pollution that hinders air quality in downwind states.
With time running short to meet the compliance deadline, EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards Director Stephen Page in a Jan. 22 memo to regional agency air directors acknowledged the tension between allowing states to craft their own solutions, and what to do if they miss the deadlines.
"While our goal is to facilitate" development of state implementation plans (SIPs) for cutting pollution, "the EPA also recognizes its backstop role in the SIP development process -- that is, our obligation to develop and promulgate federal implementation plans, as appropriate," Page wrote. "[I]t is our intention that any federal rule developed to satisfy this obligation would provide ample opportunity for states to pursue alternatives."
But the source close to states' talks on the issue says that there is no definitive state strategy emerging that could reduce the need for EPA to intervene with new federal mandates to cut pollution.
"States are scrambling, EPA is scrambling," the source says, adding, "What can we get done by 2017?" -- the year prior to the July 2018 attainment deadline for areas in "moderate" nonattainment and the last year in which states can demonstrate compliance. "Not a whole heck of a lot."
Page's memo identified states that, according to EPA air quality modeling, will likely need to submit good neighbor SIPs, including many of the 28 states covered by air emissions trading program for power plants established by CSAPR, and for the first time some Western states including Arizona, California, Utah and Wyoming.
The memo suggested EPA would prefer a state-led solution, rather than EPA prescribing all aspects of a trading program as it did with CSAPR. The new approach is consistent with prior statements by top agency officials that states should craft their own SIPs, rather than EPA directly imposing federal implementation plans (FIPs) on states first, as it did in CSAPR -- a "FIP-first" approach that critics challenged in federal court.
EPA successfully defended the legality of that approach before the Supreme Court last year, arguing that states had missed by years their air-law mandated deadlines to provide acceptable air transport SIPs.
Litigation over some CSAPR-related issues continues on remand in EME Homer City Generation v. EPA, now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, although none of the issues are expected to lead to a vacatur of the rule, underscoring EPA's power to issue FIP-first trading programs.
Emissions Policies
Despite EPA's high court victory, the agency's apparent deferral to states on crafting policy solutions for meeting the 2008 NAAQS puts the onus on state and local air officials to develop answers. However, while states have floated a range of ideas, none of them appear to be close to finalization and adoption.
Eastern states covered by CSAPR are pursuing a "collaborative" approach to the air transport problem, championed by Maryland and New Hampshire. Sources say this has accomplished a significant degree of common understanding of technical issues among upwind states and the downwind neighbors to which they contribute air pollution.
However, the hope that this could produce a policy solution -- for example, a package of coordinated good neighbor SIPs from multiple states that would avoid the need for federal regulation -- seems to be fading.
Therefore, EPA is preparing a backstop rule that would impose FIPs in the absence of EPA-approved state plans. The key question in this new iteration of CSAPR will be pollution allowance prices, the source says.
Currently, emissions allowances that can be used to comply with trading programs are so cheap, that power plants in upwind states find it cheaper to buy allowances than to run their existing pollution controls, sources in East Coast states say. This exacerbates spikes in ozone on hot summer days, state regulators say.
In an April 14 presentation to an event hosted by the New Jersey Clean Air Council state advisory body, EPA Region 2 air official Richard Ruvo confirms that EPA intends to propose the "backstop" rule later this year.
The rule will incorporate the results of new computer air quality modeling to be completed this summer. Ruvo also says the statutory deadline for states to submit good neighbor SIPs for the 2008 ozone standard passed in March 2011.
A source with the Midwest Ozone Group (MOG), representing Midwestern industrial interests, says current EPA projections and those made by Maryland and MOG itself show that in fact, most of the area covered by CSAPR will attain the 2008 ozone NAAQS by 2018 with existing regulations that are either in effect or planned.
Presentations given by Ruvo and Maryland's air policy director George 'Tad' Aburn at the Clean Air Council event show that many areas in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast that have historically experienced ozone attainment problems will either attain the 2008 NAAQS or come close to attaining it by 2018, dependent on a series of measures coming into effect at both the federal and state levels designed to curb ozone-forming emissions.
Aburn's presentation showed that continued pollution reduction efforts will be required on the local level by states to reducing ozone-forming emissions, while federal initiatives already in place -- such as reductions in nitrogen oxides emissions from ships and cars -- should help states meet the NAAQS.
One problematic area could be Connecticut, but even there, emissions cuts from the nearby states of New York , New Jersey and Pennsylvania will be key to attainment, according to a presentation to the New Jersey Clean Air Council meeting by Ric Pirolli with Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Conservation.
The MOG source argues that these projections show that a successor rule to CSAPR is unnecessary. "EPA is looking at a new transport rule, but there is a real question in our mind if they are going to see any nonattainment."
Stricter NAAQS
However, EPA has proposed to tighten the ozone NAAQS to a level within a range of 65 ppb to 70 ppb and will issue a final rule by Oct. 1 under a settlement agreement deadline. The agency is widely expected to toughen the standard to at least 70 ppb, in line with the advice of its scientific advisors.
Such a tougher standard would again place many more parts of the country into nonattainment and trigger the need for more good neighbor SIPs. The MOG source concedes that in this situation, "the Northeast comes back into nonattainment quite extensively," requiring fresh conversations about pollutant transport.
However, any future transport rule must address mobile source emissions, the source says, as power plants -- covered by CSAPR -- represent a dwindling portion of the remaining ozone-forming emissions.
An industry legal source says that EPA leaning toward a second phase of CSAPR rather than looking to SIPs to meet transport obligations for the 2008 ozone NAAQS "is not inconsistent with things I have heard."
But the source adds, "I would be a little disappointed if EPA jumped out now with a CSAPR 2.0 based on a 75ppb standard, when the much larger challenge" is how to deal with a likely tougher ozone NAAQS. Observers say a standard at 70 ppb or lower will place many areas of the United States out of attainment with the limit, requiring them to craft more pollution control measures in order to attain the standard.
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The World is Doing a Lot on Climate Change — But That’s Not the Same as Doing Enough
May 8, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
Anyone watching the climate debate in the last year has seen an encouraging bustle of activity. From the U.S.-China agreement on emissions to Pope Francis’s coming encyclical on the environment, it’s really starting to seem that we’re racing toward progress — to be capped inParis in December, when nations of the world may finally reach a binding global accord on emissions.
Indeed, not a week goes by in the United States, it seems, without some new form of climate action — most recently, the Agriculture Department pledging moves that would take a significant chunk out of U.S. emissions. Meanwhile, we’re also expecting a record year for domestic renewable energy growth and coal plant retirements.
[The Obama administration is taking on agriculture’s role in climate change. Here’s why that’s a big deal]
It all feels like so much progress — until, that is, you consult the hard numbers.
For instance, Chelsea Harvey reported in The Washington Post this week on a sobering study out of the UK’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, finding that when you take into account the United States’, China’s and the EU’s currently pledged emissions reduction goals, and add in a reasonable estimate of the rest of the world’s emissions as well, you’re left without much chance of avoiding 2 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels. There will simply be too many emissions.
But the 2 degree target is central to this entire process. “It seems likely that there will still be a significant gap between aggregate national intentions and a pathway that is consistent with avoiding global warming of more than 2°C,” notes the paper.
[Report: Global emissions goals still aren’t enough to prevent dangerous warming]
It is also important to underscore that many countries, and many scientists, do not believe that 2 C is even a tough enough target. The famed former NASA climate scientist James Hansen recently commented that “it’s crazy to think that 2 degrees Celsius is a safe limit,” remarking that such a goal could lock in major sea level rise.
The rumblings of the climate system lately have seemed to support what Hansen is saying. We’re seeing ominous melting of Antarctica, and now scientists have reason to fear that Earth itself will soon unveil a new source of added greenhouse gases — the soils of the Arctic region, which couldadd very substantially to global emissions totals by 2100, partially offsetting any policy progress.
When it comes to clean energy, meanwhile, the story is similar — a lot of encouraging steps, but not currently enough to rescue us, if you look at the hard numbers.
A report from the International Energy Agency this week, for instance, found that we need three times as much investment in clean energy innovation as we’re currently making, and we need the “decoupling” of carbon emissions from economic growth to proceed twice as fast as iscurrently occurring — all in order to hit the 2 C target.
That’s consistent with another recent report from the United Nations Environment Programme, which found accelerating global investments in clean energy — mainly wind and solar — but also noted that renewables still provide only 9.1 percent of the world’s total power. And that percentage is not growing fast enough.
“The chances of the world limiting the increase in average temperatures to less than two degrees Centigrade appear very slim,” it noted.
The point of this litany is not to make you depressed. Rather, it’s to make you aware.
If you’re an optimist, you may look at all this and think to yourself — yeah, but nobody can forecast all the technologically developments (and surprises) that we’ll see in the next 10 to 20 years. There will probably be a breakthrough — maybe in energy storage technology — that leads to a great leap forward for renewable energy. Meanwhile, countries will continually tighten their emissions targets to remain consistent with the developing science.
[Why Tesla’s announcement is such a big deal: The coming revolution in energy storage]
But you could also look at that climate system again and think to yourself — I don’t like what I’m seeing. Changes seem to be happening too fast. The Arctic is already transformed — and the Antarctic scares me. What if we’re not pessimistic enough?
It isn’t really possible, right now, to choose between these two options. But knowing they’re out there means anyone watching the climate debate should, at minimum, be vigilant, watching the latest science and the latest policy steps to determine whether we’re actually trending toward better or worse news.
That’s not fun, and it’s not a great way to live — under constant uncertainty and with constant outlook adjustments. But it’s hard to see how it could be otherwise, given the two major variables at play here: 1) a global civilization that is awakening late to the unprecedented experiment going on with its only living space; 2) the unprecedented experiment itself.
In such a context, one possible outcome — not what’s hoped for, not what we’re striving for, but still possible — would be that even though the world finally gets it, it still can’t get it together.
That’s the outcome that, as Paris approaches this year, we need to be guarding the most strongly against.
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Can Pope Francis Shake the U.S. Climate Debate?
May 8, 2015 | Politico
By Darren Goode
Pope Francis and the U.S. Catholic bishops are escalating their call for political leaders to act on climate change, seeking to add a moral element — and the weight of the United States’ largest religious denomination — to a debate that has provoked a sharp rift between the Obama administration and the GOP-led Congress.
Church leaders are hoping to use their moral suasion at a time when Catholics like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are high on the list of Republican presidential prospects. And the church’s increasing assertiveness, backed by Francis’ personal popularity, is delighting liberals and dismaying conservatives — a turnaround from past clashes between Democratic politicians and some Catholic leaders on issues like abortion.
The climate outreach will include a private meeting next week between U.S. bishops and senators, which top climate hawk Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is trying to help arrange. Meanwhile, Francis is expected to issue a papal letter, or encyclical, on the topic next month. And he’ll have another chance to raise the issue when he addresses Congress in September at the invitation of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who’s Catholic.
Next week’s Capitol Hill meeting will involve “the Church’s concerns and teaching on environmental stewardship, of which the pope’s encyclical will be a part,” a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said by email.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a Catholic who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said she’ll try to attend if her schedule permits. But she also stressed her own concerns this week, including the harm that states like hers could suffer because of efforts to cut greenhouse gases.
“It’s not like I don’t care about Planet Earth and our responsibility as good environmental stewards,” she told POLITICO. “If you want to say, ‘OK, it’s a moral imperative that we don’t have the less fortunate suffering from drought and famine and villages falling into the ocean,’ then think about also the moral imperative when our energy costs are such that you can’t afford to stay warm in a place like Alaska. What do we do then? So I want them to think about all sides of the coin here.”
Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, whose parishioners include Rubio and Bush, said he hopes Republicans will at least consider what Francis has to say.
“I would hope that they would read the pope’s document and that they will engage the arguments of the pope’s document,” Wenski said. “I don’t think they would out of hand reject this document, and I hope the people on the Democratic side do not either.”
A spokeswoman for Rubio, who worships at both a Catholic parish and an evangelical church, pointed to recent remarks in which the senator expressed doubt about humans’ role in warming the planet and warned that measures like cap and trade “would have a devastating impact on our economy.” But Bush had more encouraging comments for climate activists last month, telling an audiencein New Hampshire that the U.S. should “work with the rest of the world to negotiate a way to reduce carbon emissions.”
On paper, the pope’s words ought to have a big impact: An estimated 79.7 million Americans identify as Catholic, making up roughly a fourth of the U.S. population. Then again, American Catholics have a long history of picking and choosing which church teachings to follow on issues like divorce, birth control, the death penalty and same-sex marriage. And Catholic politicians have mainly followed the lead of John F. Kennedy, who said in 1960 that no public official should take “instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source.”
Still, the intersection of faith and politics has occasionally created discomfort for some Catholic office-holders. In recent years, conservative bishops urged priests to withhold Communion from Democrats like Rep. Nancy Pelosi and former presidential nominee John Kerry because of their support for abortion rights, while the liberal Nuns on the Bus have castigated Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) over fiscal policies that they said would harm the poor.
In turn, some Catholic conservatives have expressed dismay about Francis’ decision to weigh in on climate change. “Pope Francis — and I say this as a Catholic — is a complete disaster when it comes to his public policy pronouncements,” conservative pundit Steve Moore wrote for Forbes in January, after word of the upcoming encyclical came out. He accused the pope of adopting the words of “the modern pagan green religion.”
Still, Francis’ popularity with U.S. Catholics rivals that of his predecessor John Paul II, who led the church from 1978 to 2005 — and some supporters hope his involvement may both attract more young people to the climate debate and help modernize the church itself.
“He’s not just any old pope, he is the rock star pope,” said Robert Orr, a former assistant secretary-general at the United Nations who’s now dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. On climate change, Orr said: “The biggest constituency for this encyclical are people under 20. This encyclical is talking to them, and this issue is talking to them.”
In some respects, Francis is picking up where his immediate predecessor left off. Pope Benedict XVI, who served from 2005 to 2013, installed solar panels on the roof of the Paul VI Audience Hall, where the pontiff regularly receives thousands.
“Pope Francis isn’t talking out of a vacuum,” Wenski said.
Wenski helped draft a climate statement from U.S. bishops in 2001 that called “for a different kind of national discussion” in a climate debate that “seems polarized and partisan.” Climate change “is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures. It is about the future of God’s creation and the one human family,” that statement read.
“And I would say the pope is just catching up almost 15 years later,” Wenski said.
Still, the archbishop said, issuing an encyclical on the topic is significant. “Encyclicals have a pretty long shelf life. This is a little bit more than some think tank’s white paper.”
He noted that one encyclical from 1891, which Pope Leo XIII issued on the condition of workers in the industrial revolution, helped influence the expansion of unions in the decades that followed. John Paul II issued his own encyclical on its 100th anniversary in 1991, near the end of the Cold War, that refuted Marxism and communism.
The common thread — including other Vatican stances promoting immigration reform and opposition to capital punishment and abortion — “in all these teachings is that we should not reduce the human person into a problem,” Wenski said.
But Wenski said the pope’s message might also address concerns about how climate policies could affect people with lower incomes. For instance, that could include policies that raise the price of electricity, “and how we can mitigate any negative consequences for the poor.”
Vatican officials met in January with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy — a Catholic herself — who praised Francis’ work on the issue and described the Obama administration’s climate initiatives. Last month, Vatican City hosted a climate conference that included religious, business and political leaders, which ended with a declaration that “human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its decisive mitigation is a moral and religious imperative for humanity.”
At least some Catholic bishops are planning a 12-week effort to repeat the pope’s climate message to their respective congregations, the New York Times recently reported.
Whitehouse was hesitant to provide details Thursday about next week’s meeting between bishops and members of Congress. “I would like to get that done, but I don’t know quite what I’m allowed to say at this point,” he said.
Whitehouse said he hopes the broader climate push will not just aid the fight against global warming but will benefit the church itself — even though he’s Episcopalian.
“You go to a lot of parishes and there’s a lot of grey hair,” said the Rhode Island Democrat, who noted that the church has been at odds with many younger Catholics on issues like gay marriage and abortion. “To have another concern that young voters [and the Vatican] actually share is going to be a very good thing ,” he said.
But public opinion data suggest that the pope’s words may not have as much impact as greens hope. “I certainly wouldn’t assume that statements that the church might make about the environment will necessarily translate to support among Catholics,” said Greg Smith, associate director of religion research at the Pew Research Center.
On the whole, U.S. Catholics’ views on climate change mirror those of the broader public: Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults and 63 percent of Catholics believe that solid evidence exists that the Earth is warming, according to Pew data from March 2014, while 40 percent of both groups say it mostly stems from human activity.
Meanwhile, a study last year from the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment found that people were less likely to support action on global warming when religious leaders speak out on the issues — especially people who follow a different faith or have no religious affiliation. One reason might be that “business and religious leaders are not perceived to possess expertise regarding global warming,” the study surmised.
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E&E Daily's Juliano Discusses Emerging Compromise on Energy Bill
May 8, 2015 | E&E - TV
Is a bipartisan compromise on the horizon for Congress' energy bill? On today's The Cutting Edge, E&E Daily reporter Nick Juliano discusses moves in the House and Senate that could demonstrate a path to bipartisanship. He also talks about the most significant bills floated in both chambers.Transcript
The transcript for this video is currently not available. Please check back later.
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(ACC Mentioned) Rail-Shipper Groups Urge Senate to Return Elliott to STB
May 8, 2015 | Progressive Railroading
Two trade associations representing rail shippers issued statements earlier this week in response to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation's vote to confirm the nomination of Daniel Elliott III to a second term on the Surface Transportation Board (STB).
Consumers United for Rail Equity (CURE) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) both urged the Senate to confirm Elliott's nomination and pursue STB reform legislation that would address shippers' concerns over freight-rail shipping rates and service.
"ACC has joined with a large collection of trade associations representing a broad cross section of manufacturing, agricultural, and energy industries to urge Congress and the STB to enact reforms that will allow the board to operate more efficiently and effectively," ACC officials said in a statement.
"The STB is a three-member board, meaning that when there is a vacancy, a unanimous vote is needed to resource any pending matter. Given that most of the rate cases before the board are litigated over a number of years, it is important that we do not face any unnecessary delays especially those caused by a board member vacancy," said CURE President David Sauer, who is chief operating officer and senior vice president of Dakota Gasification Co.During his previous tenure as STB chairman, Elliott earned the respect and support of both shippers and railroads for his willingness to consider all sides of an issue and his extensive outreach, Sauer added.
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