The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
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As lawmakers plan to vote on an anti-carbon tax resolution from House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), another Republican is expected to roll out carbon tax legislation as early as next week.
According to a draft copy obtained by ClimateWire, Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) is preparing to introduce legislation that would eliminate the federal gas tax and impose a $23-per-ton tax on carbon emissions from energy industry operations. Some portion of the proposed tax, Bloomberg BNA reports, could be dedicated to increasing incentives for carbon capture and storage and clean technology and to assistance for low-income families affected by an uptick in energy costs related to putting a price on carbon.
“It really attempts to capture the political energy of the moment,” said Curbelo, who would not go into details about the pending legislation. “We know that infrastructure investment is highly popular in our country. It’s probably the only issue that [President] Trump and [Democratic nominee Hillary] Clinton agreed on in 2016.”
Tuesday, in a meeting of the House Rules Committee, the pending Curbelo bill came up during a debate over the Scalise and McKinley anti-carbon-tax resolution, which the committee passed in a 7-3 vote along party lines. A vote on that resolution by the House could come as early as Thursday.
A special issue in the journal Energy Economics highlights carbon tax modeling studies conducted through the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum Project. The issue includes an overview of the results co-authored by Brian Murray of the Duke University Energy Initiative and a faculty affiliate at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and an article on carbon tax implications for market trends and generation costs by my Nicholas Institute colleague Martin Ross. Comparison of the modeling studies’ results revealed similar conclusions: that a carbon tax is effective at reducing carbon pollution, although the structure of the tax and rate at which it rises are important, and that a revenue-neutral carbon tax would have a modest impact on gross domestic product. Even the most ambitious carbon tax was found to be consistent with long-term positive economic growth.
China, EU Renew Commitments to Meet Paris Climate Commitments
China and the European Union (EU) on Monday reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement to limit global warming, issuing a joint statement in which they also vow to work together in that pursuit. Amid fear that U.S. withdrawal from the agreement could undermine global cooperation on climate change, the statement issued at the 20th EU-China summit in Beijing said the climate accord is proof that “multilateralism can succeed in building fair and effective solutions to the most critical global problems of our time.”
The statement included plans to push for an agreement on a rulebook for the Paris Agreement after negotiations stalled this year; to release long-term, low-carbon development strategies by 2020; and to increase each side’s efforts before 2020; and to exchange knowledge on clean energy.
Notably, the joint statement extends cooperation on emissions trading schemes. China’s carbon market, which launched late last year, will, when fully implemented, be the largest in the world, covering an estimated 4 billion metric tons of emissions.
China, which has already met its 2020 target for carbon intensity, and the EU, which has met its 2020 emissions reduction target, also renewed their commitment to create a mechanism to transfer $100 billion a year from richer to poorer nations to assist them with climate change adaptation.
California Beats 2020 Emissions Target; Work Left on Transportation
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) released data revealing a decrease of approximately 2.7 percent in the state’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2016—a decrease that dropped the state’s emissions below 1990 levels four years earlier than the state’s 2020 target date specified in Assembly Bill 32.
The emissions reductions owe to a mix of state-level measures that include a mandate that a certain fraction of electricity come from renewable resources, regulation of vehicle emissions, and a carbon pricing and trading program shared with Quebec.
There was an exception to the downward emissions trajectory. The state’s transportation emissions continue to rise. Right now, the Trump administration has plans to ease the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE standards. California has vowed to stick to its own, stricter standards authorized under the Clean Air Act, but if miles-per-gallon targets for the state are rolled back, California’s transportation emissions could rise further.
For months, the state has been in conversations with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about its vehicle emissions rules, which several other states (most recently, Colorado) follow. Earlier this week, the newly nominated EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler met with top California officials about the matter. Although CARB Chair Mary Nichols called the meeting “pleasant,” she said “in terms of if there is a difference between Wheeler and Pruitt on these issues, I have yet to see any. It’s not better or worse; it’s the same.”
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
Editor’s Note: The Climate Post will not circulate next Thursday, April 26. It will return on Thursday, May 3.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a nine-state carbon cap-and-trade program, continues to help lower emissions of carbon dioxide and benefit local economies, according to a new study by the Analysis Group. The study estimates that RGGI states gained $1.4 billion in net economic value from program during 2015–2017.
“I think this provides evidence of the fact that you can design a carbon-control program in ways that really are avoiding a drag on the economy and, in fact, actually helping to put more dollars in consumers’ pockets,” said Sue Tierney, a senior advisor with the Analysis Group and a member of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions Board of Advisors.
RGGI, the first market-based regulatory program in the United States, is a cooperative effort implemented through separate authorities in Maryland, New York, Delaware, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont to create a “cap” that sets limits on carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector—a cap lowered over time to reduce emissions. Power plants must purchase credits or “emissions allowances,” either from the regulators at auction or from other entities that can over comply, but the entire pool of such allowances is limited to the cap.
The study suggests that carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the nine-state region have dropped by more than 50 percent since the program was launched in 2009. In the last three years, the program “has helped to lower the total amount of dollars member states send outside their region in the form of payments for fossil fuels by over $1 billion,” report authors write. “RGGI has lowered states’ total fossil-fired power production and their consumers’ use of natural gas and oil for heating.”
Brian Murray, a Nicholas Institute faculty affiliate and director of Duke University’s Energy Initiative, published a study in the journal Energy Economics in 2015 that had similar findings. It concluded that even when controlling for other factors—the natural gas boom, the recession, and environmental regulations—emissions would have been 24 percent higher in participating states without RGGI.
Nuclear Plants’ Economic Woes Could Threaten Clean Energy Growth
An analysis released by think tank Third Way explores the effect of three potential levels of premature nuclear plant closures (20 percent, 60 percent and 80 percent) on carbon emissions in the U.S. power sector. It finds that much of the shuttered generation will likely be replaced by natural gas, increasing emissions. Even if the lost capacity was entirely replaced by renewables, the analysis finds that the U.S. would still suffer a setback in its clean energy growth.
Failure to prevent early retirements of nuclear plants, it says, could unwind years of climate progress achieved by the U.S. power sector and jeopardize the Obama-era goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent of 2005 levels by 2050.
Some 20 percent of U.S. electric power, and 60 percent of our zero-carbon electricity, comes from nuclear generation. Nearly half of U.S. nuclear plants are at or near the end of their 40-year licensed operating lives. These units have received 20-year license extensions, but starting around 2030 they will reach their 60-year limits. At this point, they must receive a second license extension or retire.
Nuclear power struggles to compete in an era of cheap natural gas and renewables. A few weeks ago, FirstEnergy announced that three nuclear plants will be prematurely deactivated by 2021. The utility asked for an order, under Section 202 of the Federal Power Act, to save them. On April 5, President Donald Trump said he would consider issuing just such an emergency order through the Department of Energy (DOE)—a move opposed by the American Petroleum Institute in a letter to the president, after the DOE opened an unofficial comment period on the matter last week.
If nuclear power is to be part of a U.S. climate change strategy over the next century, The Third Way argues that policymakers must address its increasingly precarious economics.
Their analysis concluded that more state-level policy efforts and expansion of zero-emissions credits programs could help curtail nuclear plant closures and incentivize growth in the clean energy source.
I recently wrote in The Conversation that extending federal tax credits to nuclear recognizes the societal benefits offered by that generation source and that without mechanisms for monetizing social benefits from carbon-free generation, new nuclear power plants are unlikely to be constructed. Such mechanisms could include a carbon tax to penalize high-carbon fuels and reward low-carbon and carbon-free sources and aggressive promotion of mature new nuclear reactor designs that could take up some demand currently met by retiring plants.
Emissions Standards Could Have Big Impact on California, Other States
Earlier this month, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Scott Pruitt, announced that greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light duty trucks should be revised. Although he did not indicate how far the rules should roll back, only that the EPA would begin drafting new standards for 2022–2025 with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, he did call out California, which is authorized under the Clean Air Act to set its own fuel standards. The move could spark a legal battle between the EPA and California about standards.
Privately, officials from the Trump administration and California, along with representatives of major automakers, may be searching for a compromise, The New York Times reports. Although a lawsuit is under consideration, Mary Nichols, the chair of the California Air Resources Board, said Tuesday she sees hope for a deal with the Trump administration over fuel economy and emissions standards.
“Reason could prevail,” Nichols said at Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Future of Energy Summit in New York. “There’s a way to get to success, unless your goal is to roll over California and not allow us to have any standards.”
She told the Detroit Free Press that “if there are ways to eliminate things that aren’t contributing to overall environmental performance, we’re absolutely open to talking about them.”
For California, and the other states with transportation sectors that emit at least twice as much carbon as power plants—Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington––what happens with the vehicle emissions standards could affect states’ overall greenhouse gas emissions targets, reports ClimateWire.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
In a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry proposed that FERC change its rules to help coal and nuclear plants compete in wholesale power markets. The change would mandate that plants capable of storing 90 days of fuel supplies at their sites get increased payments for electricity. The plan may represent the Trump administration’s most consequential attempt to reshape the electricity market to date.
Perry proposed the rule change in the name of electric grid resilience, which he said is threatened by recent coal and nuclear plant closures. With the letter, he enclosed a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking directing FERC to either take final action to implement the change within 60 days of the notice’s publication in the Federal Register or to issue the proposed rule as an interim final rule. The notice includes legal justification for FERC’s authority to issue the proposed rule without an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement.
The proposed rule, which fits with the Trump administration’s stated intention to support fossil fuels, is not the first attempt to alter wholesale electricity markets in light of changes in the electricity sector. The PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that operates the grid and electricity market in 13 eastern U.S. states, is exploring ways to make wholesale electricity markets and evolving state policies work better together. A range of perspectives on PJM’s proposed responses to state subsidies for various generation sources were reflected last week at an event, co-hosted by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and the Great Plains Institute, on harmonization of state energy policies and PJM’s markets.
Energy analysts and energy regulators, including former FERC commissioners, have criticized Perry’s proposal, saying it could increase customer costs and power sector pollution while actually doing little to enhance system resilience.
Perry’s proposal presents no evidence of immediate dangers to the nation’s grid from retirements of marginal coal and nuclear plants, according to a broad group of energy companies that made a joint filing urging FERC to reject Perry’s push for fast action. In an updated motion filed Tuesday, the 11 groups asked for an extension of FERC’s comment deadline.
According to EnergyWire, the proposal appears to contradict a report from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), which it cites. The report makes no claim of a grid in crisis and notes that essential reliability services—typically furnished by retiring coal and nuclear plants—are within the capacity of gas, renewable power and electricity storage to provide.
Nor does the proposal completely align with a DOE-ordered study, cited in the 11 energy associations’ joint filing, on the reliability of the nation’s electric grid that was released in August. That study conceded that the rapid increase of renewables has not undermined the power network, though it, too, called for changing electricity pricing rules, along with loosening of pollution regulations, to protect the coal industry.
Proposal Suggests Ending Clean Power Plan, While Court Orders Methane Rules Move Forward
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will propose a repeal of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which sets state-by-state carbon reduction targets for power plants, reports Reuters.
An EPA document distributed to members of the agency’s Regulatory Steering Committee indicated that the EPA “is issuing a proposal to repeal the rule.” It went on to say it intends to issue what it calls an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to solicit input as it considers “developing a rule similarly intended to reduce CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel electric utility generating units.”
But Gina McCarthy, who served as EPA administrator under former President Barack Obama starting in July 2013, says that pronouncements don’t equal the law and that moves to undo Obama’s climate legacy will not withstand legal challenges.
“You really have to work hard to show the prior administration made a mistake when it made the rules,” said McCarthy. “Did we get the science wrong? The law wrong? The facts different? I think you’re going to see we did a good job, so it’s going to be a long time in discussions in the courts, and I think in the end things will continue to move forward.”
A Trump administration review of the Clean Power Plan is expected to be finalized this fall, according to an EPA court filing.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday ordered that the Trump administration acted unlawfully when it delayed a separate emissions rule designed to reduce leaking, venting and flaring of methane emissions from oil and gas drilling activity. This week the Trump administration announced another proposal to stall standards until 2019, but EnergyWire reports that the district court’s order means the rule will now take effect.
Carbon Dioxide Emissions Flat for Third Consecutive Year
Earth-warming carbon dioxide emissions remained static in 2016, according to data from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA). Of the world’s biggest carbon emitters, only India experienced an increase (4.7 percent). China and the United States, the top two emitters, experienced decreases (0.3 percent and 2.0 percent, respectively), resulting primarily from reduced coal use.
2016 marks the third year in a row that carbon dioxide emissions have not increased. That’s an unprecedented trend at a time when the global economy is growing, according to NEAA. Yet, their amount—upward of 35 billion tons last year—is still enough to raise global temperatures to dangerous levels. In some big countries, these emissions are still increasing, suggesting that they are not guaranteed to remain flat or to decrease in the future.
Importantly, the NEAA report also found that greenhouse gas emissions other than carbon dioxide rose by approximately 1 percent. Moreover, the report did not account for carbon dioxide emissions from land use changes, which are more difficult to estimate and vary significantly from year to year.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
The U.S. Department of Energy, on Wednesday night, released its electric grid reliability study, finding that the greatest driver of baseload power plant retirements was cheap natural gas followed by flat power demand, environmental regulations and the growing penetration of renewables on the grid.
Requested by U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry in April, the study was intended to report on whether the U.S. electric grid can handle the retirement of aging coal-fired and nuclear power plants and the “market-distorting effects of federal subsidies that boost one form of energy at the expense of others.”
It found that “the biggest contributor to coal and nuclear plant retirements has been the advantaged economics of natural gas-fired generation.”
It offers recommendations to boost coal and nuclear. It suggests that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ease rules for resources such as coal, nuclear and hydropower and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission likewise ease permitting rules for nuclear plants. It also suggests that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) expedite efforts to reform the way prices are set in wholesale markets and how those markets value reliability. Finally, it recommends that the Department of Energy should prioritize research and development for grid resiliency, reliability, modernization and renewables integration technologies be promoted.
Notably absent from the grid study was any mention of climate change, the focus of a 15-member panel disbanded Friday by the Trump administration. The panel had been charged with helping officials and policy makers evaluate a separate federal report, the National Climate Assessment Report. Its members warned that the move leaves the public to deal with what amounts to a data dump with its impending release.
Established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2015, the Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained Climate Assessment included members of government, industry, academia and non-profits. The group was charged with helping evaluate the National Climate Assessment Report, a portion of which [the Climate Science Special Report] was widely publicized in its draft form earlier this month.
The charter for the committee expired Sunday. A note on the committee’s website offers that “per the terms of the charter, the Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment (Committee) expired on August 20, 2017. The Department of Commerce and NOAA appreciate the efforts of the committee and offer sincere thanks to each of the committee members for their service.”
NOAA Communications Director Julie Roberts said “this action does not impact the completion of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which remains a key priority.”
The Climate Science Special Report is due in its final form in November; the larger congressionally mandated document, the Fourth National Climate Assessment, is scheduled for publication in late 2018.
The National Climate Assessment integrates and evaluates current and projected global climate change trends, both human-induced and natural, and analyzes the effects of current and projected climate change. It has been published three times since passage of the Global Change Research Act of 1990, a law mandating its publication every four years.
Court Directs FERC to Consider GHG Impacts of Pipelines
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2-1 decision issued Tuesday, found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) failed to adequately consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from burning the fuel flowing through the Southeast Market Pipelines Project when it approved the project in 2016. FERC’s failure under the National Environmental Policy Act to adequately discuss the downstream effects of carbon emissions from natural gas transported through the pipelines in the project’s environmental impact statement was grounds for the court’s vacatur and remand.
Judge Thomas Griffith wrote that FERC’s environmental review “should have either given a quantitative estimate of the downstream greenhouse emissions that will result from burning the natural gas that the pipelines will transport or explained more specifically why it could not have done so.”
Griffith went on to write that “greenhouse-gas emissions are an indirect effect of authorizing this project, which FERC could reasonably foresee, and which the agency has legal authority to mitigate. Quantification would permit the agency to compare the emissions from this project to emissions from other projects, to total emissions from the state or the region, or to regional or national emissions-control goals. Without such comparisons, it is difficult to see how FERC could engage in ‘informed decision making’ with respect to the greenhouse-gas effects of this project, or how ‘informed public comment’ could be possible.”
The project comprises three natural gas pipelines under construction in Alabama, Georgia and Florida that are intended to bring natural gas to Florida to fuel existing and planned power plants.
Trump Denies Coal Exec Plea as EPA Reviews Toxic Waste Limits from Coal Power Plants
As part of a legal appeal, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt filed a letter Monday with the Fifth Circuit U. S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans in which he indicated that he will seek to revise the 2015 guidelines mandating increased treatment for wastewater from coal-fired power plants.
The rule, originally issued by the Obama administration in 2015, aimed to reduce toxic water discharges into lakes, rivers and streams from coal-fired power plants and coal ash dumps.
In the letter, Pruitt said he “decided that it is appropriate and in the public interest to conduct a rulemaking to potentially revise the new, more stringent Best Available Technology Economically Achievable effluent limitations and Pretreatment Standards for Existing Sources in the 2015 rule that applies to bottom ash transport water and flue gas desulfurization wastewater.”
The 2015 rule has faced some scrutiny, with opponents saying it could lead to the closure of coal-fired power plants and economic harm for small utilities.
Also this week, the Trump administration denied a request by coal industry executives from Murray Energy Corporation and FirstEnergy Solutions Corporation to provide them relief for plants they say are overburdened by environmental regulations and market stresses, by pushing forward a rarely used emergency order protecting coal-fired power plants.
“We look at the facts of each issue and consider the authorities we have to address them but with respect to this particular case at this particular time, the White House and the Department of Energy are in agreement that the evidence does not warrant the use of this emergency authority,” said U.S. Department of Energy spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes.
The department did not address assertions by Murray Energy Corporation CEO Bob Murray in letters that Trump told him multiple times in July and August that he wanted Energy Secretary Rick Perry to invoke the emergency authority.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
Last week President Donald Trump’s bid to rescind the Clean Power Plan (CPP), which seeks to regulate emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants, was made easier by a Court of Appeals ruling that put a 26-state lawsuit challenging the plan on hold for 60 days without deciding on the plan’s legality. That decision followed a Department of Justice request—amid objections of 18 states, several cities and other groups—to halt the case. The court also granted a similar request to halt a regulation setting emissions limits for future power plants.
The ruling was a win for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt, who is working on the president’s behalf to review the Clean Power Plan. But it did not give him his desired unlimited hiatus, or “abeyance,” which would have put the case on hold while the EPA decides what to do about controlling carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants—an EPA mandate, under the Clean Air Act, that the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld. Instead, the litigants were given two weeks to submit briefs on whether the Clean Power Plan should be “remanded”—sent back to the EPA in lieu of the court deciding the case.
An EPA spokesperson acknowledged Pruitt’s partial victory.
“Pursuant to the president’s executive order, Administrator [Scott] Pruitt has already announced that EPA is reviewing the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan,” said J.P. Freire. “We are pleased that this order gives EPA the opportunity to proceed with that process.”
Others acknowledged that the court will probably never rule on the Clean Power Plan’s legality and that today’s order probably hastened the regulation’s demise.
“If the court had upheld the rule, it wouldn’t have prevented the new administration from revoking it, but it might have made this effort harder,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a partner at Bracewell and a former EPA air chief (subscription). “At the very least, today’s ruling means that it will not take as long for the administration to undo the Clean Power Plan.” He added that “I don’t think the D.C. Circuit has ever gone ahead and decided on the legality of a rule when a new administration says it plans to rescind or revise it.”
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who leads the CPP defense, vowed to fight on in court, stating that “Today’s temporary pause in the litigation does not relieve EPA of its legal obligation to limit carbon pollution from its largest source: fossil-fueled power plants.”
Executive Order Could Expand U.S. Offshore Drilling
Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that initiates the process of undoing former President Obama’s restrictions on offshore oil and natural gas drilling. The action could expand offshore energy development by issuing a multi-year review of oil and gas drilling in federally prohibited waters as well as an evaluation of the status of marine sanctuaries. Specifically, the America-First Offshore Energy Strategy instructs the Interior Department to revise the Obama administration’s five-year plan for leasing federal waters and the Commerce Department to refrain from naming or expanding marine sanctuaries and to review existing ones.
At the signing ceremony, Trump emphasized that he is rescinding Obama’s executive action to indefinitely put much of U.S. Arctic waters and some of the Atlantic off limits to drillers.
“It reverses the previous administration’s Arctic leasing ban. So, you hear that? It reverses the previous administration’s Arctic leasing ban,” said the president.
But whether the Trump administration can actually reverse this separate offshore drilling ban is unclear. In issuing the ban, Obama used an obscure provision of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. That act does not explicitly allow a president to get rid of a designation.
Also unclear is the impact of the order, which comes as low oil prices and soaring onshore production have significantly dampened industry demand for offshore leases.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke emphasized that the order won’t immediately open up the outer continental shelf to drilling but that it will trigger a two-year public process to reconsider which areas are suitable for leasing for oil, gas and wind development. He also added that he was uncertain how the plan would take into account melting Arctic ice.
“I have not thought about climate change,” Zinke said. “I’m sure we’ll look at that.”
EPA, DOE Temporarily Spared Big Cuts, But Not Climate Info on Government Websites
A bipartisan government funding deal unveiled Monday by congressional leaders to avert a government shutdown tomorrow would make much smaller cuts in climate and energy programs (subscription) than those proposed by President Donald Trump for the remainder of the 2017 fiscal year. Instead of a $247 million cut, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will get a $81 million cut. The deal actually increases clean energy and science funding by $17 million, increases the Department of Energy’s Office of Science funding by $42 million, and increases funding for Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, a program Trump wants eliminated, by $15 million (subscription). But funding for renewable energy programs was reduced by $808 million compared to the Obama administration’s budget request.
The Trump administration is not waiting for the 2018 fiscal year budget battle to make other cuts reflecting its budget priorities: on the eve of Saturday’s People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities, where tens of thousands of demonstrators sounded warnings about the Earth’s warming climate, the administration began diminishing climate-related information on government websites, deleting, for example, a climate change portal from the EPA website and adding new information about “energy independence.”
Notably, statements that “the evidence is clear” on climate change and that human activity is the phenomenon’s main driver—language that ran counter to the view EPA head Scott Pruitt put forth during an appearance on CNBC in March—were replaced by a message that the EPA website “is being updated.”
A web page on the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s regulation for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuel-fired power plants, now routes visitors to an “energy independence” page focused on the Trump administration’s efforts to undo the plan.
“The first page to be updated is a page reflecting President Trump’s Executive Order on Energy Independence, which calls for a review of the so-called Clean Power Plan,” the agency stated. “Language associated with the Clean Power Plan, written by the last administration, is out of date. Similarly, content related to climate and regulation is also being reviewed.”
Although some of the deleted pages are still available through EPA’s search engine, they are no longer organized under a climate-change heading.
President Trump has also reflected his budget priorities with recent energy and environmental post appointments, most recently tapping Daniel Simmons, who has questioned the value of promoting renewable energy sources and curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, to oversee the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Simmons will serve as acting assistant secretary until someone is confirmed by the Senate for the post.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
President Donald Trump announced in Detroit Wednesday that standards requiring automakers to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 will be reviewed. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed the standards as a single program alongside the Department of Transportation’s fuel economy rules, popularly known as Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards. They were put in place by the Obama administration not only to eliminate atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide but also to save a projected 12 billion barrels of oil.
Last year, the Obama administration speedily conducted a midterm review of whether the stricter 2022-2025 targets would be achievable. The review, which was required to be complete by 2018, found that the industry could easily meet the stricter standards.
“Today I am announcing we are going to cancel that executive action,” said Trump. “We are going to restore the originally scheduled midterm review and we are going to ensure any regulations we have protect and defend your jobs, your factories. We’re going to be fair.”
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt added that the standards “are costly for automakers and the American people,” noting that the EPA will work with the Department of Transportation “to take a fresh look to determine if this approach is realistic.”
Rolling back the standards will take more than a year of legal and regulatory reviews by the EPA and the Department of Transportation, The New York Times reports.
Trump did not take steps Wednesday to revoke a waiver that allows California and a dozen other states to enforce emissions standards more stringent than those of the EPA, Reuters reports. If those regulations remain intact, automakers will still be compelled to produce more fuel-efficient cars regardless of any changes at the federal level.
Pruitt: Let Congress Figure Out If the EPA Should Regulate Carbon Dioxide
In the same CNBC interview in which he doubted the contribution of carbon dioxide to global warming, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt said Congress, not his own agency, should decide whether the EPA has the power to regulate greenhouse gases.
“Nowhere in the equation has Congress spoken,” said Pruitt. “The legislative branch has not addressed this issue at all. It’s a very fundamental question to say, ‘Are the tools in the toolbox available to the EPA to address this issue of CO2, as the court had recognized in 2007, with it being a pollutant?’”
The comment appeared to be a reference to Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the Supreme Court found that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act. That ruling prompted the EPA to promulgate the first-ever greenhouse gas regulations for motor vehicles.
Taking a legislative approach, reports ClimateWire, would get around a protracted rulemaking process and legal challenges that might beset efforts to rewrite federal regulations addressing climate change (subscription). Congress could instead simply change the definition of an air pollutant to exclude carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, putting into question a range of federal regulations from the Clean Power Plan to fuel economy standards.
That’s the intent of the Stopping EPA Overreach Act, which the U.S. House of Representatives introduced last week. H.R. 637 would amend the Clean Air Act so that the term ‘air pollutant’ does not include carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, or sulfur hexafluoride.
The proposal would nullify the EPA’s regulation of carbon pollution, stating that “no federal agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under current law” and “no attempt to regulate greenhouse gases should be undertaken without further Congressional action.”
The bill would also repeal the Clean Power Plan and a rule setting methane emission standards for oil and gas operations. If it were to become law, legal recourse would be unlikely because the Clean Air Act would be explicitly rewritten.
This week, 17 Republicans re-introduced a resolution acknowledging the problem of global warming.
Trump Unveils $1.1 Trillion Budget; Signs Another Executive Order
President Donald Trump unveiled his 2018 discretionary spending budget proposal Thursday, one that reduces many federal agency budgets. The largest cut of 31 percent is to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The move will result in the loss of 3,200 positions, or more than 20 percent of the EPA’s workforce, and terminates more than 50 EPA programs. It defunds the Clean Power Plan, which sets limits on carbon dioxide from existing fossil-fuel-fired power plants, and the Energy Star Program, which identifies and promotes energy efficiency in products.
“You can’t drain the swamp and leave all the people in it. So, I guess the first place that comes to mind will be the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. “The president wants a smaller EPA. He thinks they overreach, and the budget reflects that.”
The budget is only an outline, as Congress has the authority to set government spending levels and appropriate money.
Stating that he couldn’t “in good conscience be supportive” of the Trump administration’s major cuts to the EPA budget, Mustafa Ali stepped down as head of the EPA’s environmental justice office, which he helped found in 1992 to alleviate the impact of air, water and industrial pollution on poverty-stricken areas.
In a lengthy letter, Ali urged EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt not to kill the agency’s programs as Pruitt prepares to dismantle many in response to the Trump administration’s 2018 budget blueprint.
Setting the stage for the historic downsizing of federal agencies and the federal workforce in the budget proposal was an executive order signed Monday that requires government agencies to make themselves lean. The new White House review effort, the Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch, could identify additional areas for cuts within the EPA and the Department of Energy and Department of the Interior.
“Today there is duplication and redundancy everywhere,” said Trump. “This order requires a thorough examination of every executive department and agency to see where money is being wasted, how services can be improved and whether programs are truly serving American citizens.”
The order directs Mulvaney to “propose a plan to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies … components of agencies and agency programs,” according to the White House. Agency heads have 180 days to submit a reorganization plan.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
Shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration as 45th president of the United States, a revamped White House website announced the new administration’s intention.” That same day, Reuters reported that all references to climate change had been removed from the WhiteHouse.gov site, and the Wall Street Journal’s Amy Harder tweeted that the URL to the climate change page had gone dead.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration instructed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to remove its website’s climate change page, which contains links to climate research and detailed data on emissions. The news was reported to Reuters by staffers who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media. One of them said some employees were scrambling to save some of the information on the website (subscription).
“If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear,” an EPA staffer told Reuters.
Yahoo News reported that, late last year, scientists had begun backing up the climate data publicly available on government websites in fear that the data might disappear under Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax.”
But on Wednesday, the Trump administration walked back its directive.
“We’ve been told to stand down,” an EPA employee told E&E News, which reported that administration officials may have been prompted to change course because of the backlash that erupted over its previous instructions. The instructions didn’t go over well with agency employees, said the unnamed EPA staffer, adding that the information is “world class” data. “And it’s true.”
And at a press briefing Wednesday afternoon, President Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer commented on reports this week that the White House had curtailed social media use at the EPA, the Interior Department and the Energy Department.
“They haven’t been directed by us to do anything,” Spicer said of the restrictions. “From what I understand,” he added, staffers “have been told within their agencies to adhere to their own policies, but that directive did not come from here.”
Executive Actions Reflect About Face on Climate Change Action
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump acted on campaign promises to remove hurdles to domestic energy development by signing an executive action to advance the Keystone XL pipeline, which would run from Canada to Nebraska, linking existing pipelines to carry oil to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, and a memorandum calling for an expedited review and approval of the Dakota Access pipeline. Both were projects that the Obama administration blocked due in part to environmental concerns, including their influence on greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Trump said both pipelines would be subject to renegotiation and that the materials for them must be sourced from the U.S.
The impact of the orders is likely to be felt first in North Dakota, where Energy Transfer Partners wants to install the final 1,100-foot section of the 1,172-mile pipeline that runs under Lake Oahe, a route that sparked protests after the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe raised concerns about potential spills and leaks. The pipeline would carry oil from North Dakota to refineries and pipeline networks in Illinois. The Keystone XL pipeline would also reach those refineries along its route.
Revival of the two pipeline projects (subscription) was Trump’s first action to make good on his America First Energy Plan, presented on a new WhiteHouse.gov web page that has replaced the Obama administration’s climate change web page.
The Climate Action Plan, introduced by Obama in June 2013, outlined plans for the U.S. to cut its carbon pollution, prepare for the effects of climate change, and lead international efforts to address global warming. The brief America First Energy Plan goes in another direction.
“For too long, we’ve been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry,” it reads. “Lifting these restrictions will greatly help American workers, increasing wages by more than $30 billion over the next 7 years.”
Trump’s plan encourages the burning of coal and the use of shale oil and gas. It does not reference solar, wind, or other sustainable energy sources but does offer up a commitment to “clean coal technology.” That term sometimes refers to plants outfitted with “scrubbers” or having the capacity to capture and store carbon emissions, which has reportedly not been demonstrated to work in a cost-effective way.
Trump Cabinet Nominees Acknowledge Some Influence of Humans on Climate Change
At Senate confirmation hearings, President Donald Trump’s picks to run some key federal agencies have said that the climate is changing and that human activity is a factor. The extent of human influence on climate change, they say, is up for study and debate, along with policies that might be needed.
The Washington Post reports that transition officials say that there has been no coordination to get these candidates—Ryan Zinke, Jeff Sessions, Scott Pruitt and Rex Tillerson—on message. “This is an accurate reflection of what they believe, and Cabinet nominees are encouraged to give their opinion on questions when they’re asked,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In opening remarks at his Senate confirmation hearing last Thursday, Rick Perry, Trump’s Energy Secretary pick, acknowledged that his call for the Department of Energy’s elimination, made during his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, was in error.
“My past statements made over five years ago about abolishing the Department of Energy do not reflect my current thinking,” said Perry. “In fact, after being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the Department of Energy, I regret recommending its elimination.”
Like many of Trump’s other cabinet picks, he softened his earlier position on climate change.
“I believe the climate is changing. I believe some of it is naturally occurring, but some of it is also caused by man-made activity,” said Perry. “The question is how do we address it in a thoughtful way that doesn’t compromise economic growth, the affordability of energy or American jobs.”
At his confirmation hearing, Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, Scott Pruitt, indicated he would give the power to apply environmental rules back to states. However, he also stated that he would review a federal waiver under the Clean Air Act allowing California to set emissions standards for vehicles. The state mandates that 15 percent of new cars by 2025 have zero emissions—a standard that’s stricter than anywhere else in the country.
“That’s what would be evaluated, it’s very difficult, and we shouldn’t prejudge the outcome,” said Pruitt.
There are some hints that in this case giving the power back to states may not align with the new administration’s objectives. On Tuesday Trump told auto executives to increase U.S. production and boost American employment and said that he would cut regulations and taxes to make operating in the U.S. more attractive.
“We’re bringing manufacturing back to the United States big league, we’re reducing taxes very substantially and we’re reducing unnecessary regulations,” Trump said, calling himself an environmentalist, but indicating that environmental regulations are “out of control.”
Some states vowed not to let the new administration roll back environmental efforts. Gov. Jerry Brown stated Wednesday that “California is not turning back. Not now, not ever.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, won approval in a 11–10 vote along party lines from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His nomination now moves to the full Senate, where he needs the support of 51 members for confirmation. That final vote could come as early as next week.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
Climate change has entered a new phase, said the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Monday. The WMO reported that concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) “surged again to new records in 2016,” and it predicted that the annual average for CO2 would remain above 400 parts per million (ppm), 44 percent higher than before the Industrial Revolution, for generations.
The 400 ppm threshold, a symbolic red line in the methodical march of greenhouse gas concentrations, was continuously breached for the first time in 2015—a rise driven largely by fossil fuel emissions and aided by a strong El Niño, which “triggered droughts in tropical regions and reduced the capacity of sinks like forests, vegetation and the oceans to absorb CO2,” the WMO said. Last year’s jump in carbon dioxide was the largest annual increase on record (subscription).
“The year 2015 ushered in a new era of optimism and climate action with the Paris climate change agreement,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. “But it will also make history as marking a new era of climate change reality with record high greenhouse gas concentrations.” “The El Niño event has disappeared. Climate change has not . . . Without tackling carbon dioxide emissions, we cannot tackle climate change and keep temperature increases to below 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Paris Agreement does indeed enter into force well ahead of schedule on 4 November and that we fast-track its implementation.”
Taalas added that improvements in the climate will be seen by 2060 if countries begin to lower their carbon dioxide emissions now.
Between 1990 and 2015, Earth experienced a 37 percent increase in radiative forcing—the warming effect on the climate—because of greenhouse gases from industrial, agricultural, and domestic activities, according to the WMO.
WMO’s announcement comes within a week of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s report that found September was the 11th consecutive month to set record high temperatures.
Study: Glacier Melt in Antarctica Could Help Predict Global Sea Level Rise
A number of research studies have suggested Antarctica’s ice is melting faster than previously thought, but two new studies may help better predict future Antarctica ice loss and global sea level rise. The studies examined the Pope, Kohler, and Smith glaciers—part of the Dotson and Crosson ice shelves—in West Antarctica.
“Our primary question is how the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica will contribute to sea level rise in the future, particularly following our observations of massive changes in the area over the last two decades,” said University of California Irvine’s Bernd Scheuchl, lead author on the first of the two studies published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “Using satellite data, we continue to measure the evolution of the grounding line of these glaciers, which helps us determine their stability and how much mass the glacier is gaining or losing. Our results show that the observed glaciers continue to lose mass and thus contribute to global sea level rise.”
A second study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications found that a significant portion of Antarctica is subject to “intense unbalanced melting” revealing high rates of ice loss from glaciers’ undersides. It also blames receding glacial grounding lines for the ice loss—spurred by an influx of warm ocean water beneath the ice shelves.
The glacier that saw the most melt, the study says, was Smith. It lost about 1,000 feet of ice between 2002 and 2009, which authors think is “a strong piece of evidence” that these glaciers, along with the larger Amundsen region, were subjected to a large influx of warm ocean water during that period.
“If I had been using data from only one instrument, I wouldn’t have believed what I was looking at, because the thinning was so large,” said author Ala Khazendar, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noting how the work shows how important it is to understand both the ocean circulation and seabed topography when determining future melt and sea level rise.
IEA: Significant Renewables Growth Expected by 2021
The renewable energy market is growing around the world, according to a study by the International Energy Agency (IEA). IEA raised its estimate of the amount of renewable energy on power grids 13 percent from its 2015 forecast. It forecasts a 825 gigawatt boost in capacity by 2021 (a 42 percent increase from today).
“We are witnessing a transformation of global power markets led by renewables and, as is the case with other fields, the center of gravity for renewable growth is moving to emerging markets,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.
The growth will mostly be driven by four countries: China, the U.S., India and Mexico. China is the leader.
“About half a million solar panels were installed every day around the world last year,” according to the report. “In China, which accounted for about half the wind additions and 40 percent of all renewable capacity increases, two wind turbines were installed every hour in 2015.”
In the United States over the next five years, renewable capacity is forecast to grow to 328.2 gigawatts from 221.1 gigawatts. During this period, solar PV is forecast to nearly triple—from 26.1 gigawatts to 77.5 gigawatts—and wind to grow nearly 71.5 percent.
“Renewables are and still remain dependent on policies … to create the right market rules and the right framework to attract investments,” said Paolo Frankl, head of the IEA’s renewable energy division.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
On Saturday nearly 200 nations adopted an amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, agreeing to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), refrigerants that contribute to climate change and that are thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide. According to the White House, the deal inked in Kigali, Rawanda, should reduce HFC use by more than 80 percent over 30 years, avoiding warming of up to 0.5 degrees Celsius by 2100.
Secretary of State John Kerry said adopting the amendment “is likely the single most important step that we could take at this moment to limit the warming of our planet.”
HFCs were introduced in the 1990s to replace chlorofluorocarbons, which were destroying the ozone layer. Scientists have been concerned that a forecast global explosion in the use of air conditioning could result in so much HFC leakage by century’s end that the global temperature would overshoot warming thresholds outlined in the Paris agreement.
The phase-out process outlined in the Montreal Protocol amendment groups countries into categories with different baselines and timelines (subscription). Richer economies, including the United States, will start limiting use of HFCs within a few years. Some developing countries, nations in Latin America and island states, will do so beginning in 2024. Other developing countries will reduce use in later years—China in 2029 and India in 2032, for example.
United Nations Says Climate Change Could Make Millions Food Insecure
A new report from the United Nations (U.N.) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned that the number of people living in poverty could rise “by between 35 and 122 million by 2030 relative to a future without climate change.” Sub-Saharan Africa would be hardest hit due to its population’s high dependence on agriculture.
The report comes on the heels of Sunday’s World Food Day, which the U.N. used to highlight the links among climate change, sustainable agriculture, and food and nutrition as well as the need to address climate change to meet the U.N. sustainable development goal of ending hunger by 2030.
“Unless action is taken now to make agriculture more sustainable, productive and resilient, climate change impacts will seriously compromise food production in countries and regions that are already highly food-insecure,” said FAO director-general Jose Graziano da Silva. “Hunger, poverty and climate change need to be tackled together. This is, not least, a moral imperative as those who are now suffering most have contributed least to the changing climate.”
The 2016 edition of The State of Food and Agriculture urges countries to help their farmers reduce reliance on natural resources and more efficiently use water and fertilizer. That’s because agriculture is second only to the energy sector in warming the planet.
“Agriculture is contributing itself to about one fifth of the global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases,” said Rob Voss, director of the FAO team that produced the report.
To create a robust food system, Voss said the agriculture sector must switch to more sustainable practices, such as using heat-tolerant and drought-resistant crop varieties; increasing the capacity of soils and forestry to sequestrate carbon; reducing food losses and waste; and shifting diets away from animal-sourced foods.
World Bank: Carbon Trading Is Key to Cutting Climate Change Mitigation Costs
By 2030, large-scale carbon trading could reduce the cost of implementing climate change mitigation goals spelled out in countries’ national climate plans under the Paris Agreement by 32 percent, according to a World Bank report released Tuesday. By 2050, that cost could be cut by more than 50 percent said the report.
“The more we cooperate through carbon trading, the larger the savings and the greater the potential to increase ambition by countries in the short term,” John Roome, the World Bank’s senior director for climate change, said of the report’s findings, which indicate that cost-effectively limiting emissions reductions to meet a 2 degrees Celsius or lower warming limit will be difficult absent increased carbon trading.
In a blog post, Laura Tuck, the World Bank’s vice president for sustainable development, discussed carbon pricing’s potential to unlock the financing necessary to deliver on the Paris Agreement.
“Amid the enormous challenge ahead,” Tuck wrote, “I want to emphasize the transformative economic opportunity that putting a price on carbon pollution presents.”
Although noting the increase in carbon pricing initiatives, which resulted in $26 billion in revenue in 2016—a “modest” amount but up 60 percent from the year before—Tuck said she is “concerned that not enough governments, particularly in middle and low income countries, are aware of the transformative potential presented by carbon pricing.”
Last Presidential Debate: No Questions on Climate Change
In Las Vegas Wednesday night, candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took the stage for the last presidential debate—absent were any questions about climate change and energy policy. That’s four debates—including the vice presidential debate—in which the environment was mentioned only in passing (if at all).
Wednesday night, climate change received a mention from Hillary Clinton: “New jobs in clean energy, not only to fight climate change, which is a serious problem, but to create new opportunities and new businesses,” she said during a segment on the economy. Donald Trump discussed neither energy issues nor climate change.
Mother Jones reports environmental issues spanned just five minutes, 27 seconds in the three 2016 presidential debates.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
By 2030, half of the energy produced in the state of New York will come from renewables, according to a new policy adopted Monday by the state’s public service commission. The move is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels (80 percent by 2050) and to attract billions in clean energy investment.
“New York has taken bold action to become a national leader in the clean energy economy and is taking concrete, cost-effective steps today to safeguard this state’s environment for decades to come,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “This Clean Energy Standard shows you can generate the power necessary for supporting the modern economy while combatting climate change. Make no mistake, this is a very real threat that continues to grow by the day and I urge all other states to join us in this fight for our very future.”
The plan calls for New York to retain its nuclear reactors—though The Washington Post reports that those facilities don’t count as part of the 50 percent renewables target. According to New York regulators, doing so might cost $965 million over two years but could lead to net benefits of $4 billion due to avoided carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution. While supporters of this provision applaud New York’s effort to retain its emissions-free nuclear generation, opponents are likely to challenge the nuclear subsidies on the grounds they are discriminatory, hurt markets, and intrude on federal authority.
New York is not the first state to announce an ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target. In April 2015, California announced it planned to cut those emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels in the same time frame with renewables increases. Like California, New York plans to phase in its renewables increase; 31 percent of its energy is to come from renewables by 2021 and 50 percent by 2030. Those targets are meant to give utilities and clean energy companies time to develop their business models.
The only states with higher renewables standards are Vermont, which set a target of 75 percent renewable power by 2032, and Hawaii, which set a target of 100 percent renewable power by 2045.
White House to Federal Agencies: Consider Climate Change Impacts
In an action with broad implications for thousands of projects, including energy and mineral development on public lands, natural gas import and export facilities, and transportation projects, the Obama administration issued final guidance on how federal agencies should consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts when conducting reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (subscription).
“Focused and effective consideration of climate change in NEPA reviews will allow agencies to improve the quality of their decisions,” the guidance states. “Identifying important interactions between a changing climate and the environmental impacts from a proposed action can help Federal agencies and other decision makers identify practicable opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve environmental outcomes, and contribute to safeguarding communities and their infrastructure against the effects of extreme weather events and other climate-related impacts.”
The guidance, the product of a six-year effort by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, advises agencies to quantify projected greenhouse gas emissions of proposed federal actions whenever the necessary methodologies and data are available. It also encourages them to draw on their experience and expertise to determine the appropriate level and extent of quantitative or qualitative analysis required to comply with NEPA and to consider alternatives that would increase the climate-change resilience of the action and affected communities.
“From the public standpoint, we are now going to know what all of our decisions add up to in terms of impacting climate change,” said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the Council on Environmental Quality. “You can think of all the different federal decisions, and how they all add up. We have numbers where we can actually say, ‘this is a huge decision, given the amount of greenhouse gases coming out of it.’ And that gives the public a chance to really weigh in on decision-making.”
Several media outlets pointed out that because the White House guidance is not a regulation, agencies are not legally bound to follow it.
Clean Power Plan Analysis: National Costs Low, State Costs Varied
Wednesday marked one year since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally rolled out the Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon emissions from power plants. Even with the February stay by the U.S. Supreme Court, which halted implementation of the plan pending resolution of legal challenges, some say the plan is having an impact while others are finding more reason to explore the legality of the rule (subscription).
Should the rule survive judicial review, a new paper by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions uses the Nicholas Institute’s Dynamic Integrated Economy/Energy/Emissions Model to evaluate Clean Power Plan impacts on the U.S. generation mix, emissions, and industry costs. It indicates that industry trends are likely to make Clean Power Plan compliance relatively inexpensive, with cost increases of 0.1 to 1.0 percent. But policy costs can vary across states, which might lead to a patchwork of policies that, although in their own best interests, could impose additional costs nationally.
“The answer is not the same for everyone in terms of what’s going to be the least-cost way for a particular state to approach this policy,” said lead author and Nicholas Institute Senior Economist Martin Ross. “Nationally, it would make the most sense to have a broadly coordinated policy where you can take advantage of the usual economic [tools] to spread the cost reductions around and pick up the most cost-effective sources for reducing emissions.”
Similar findings were presented at a conference of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Because of lower-than-expected natural gas prices, renewable power, and extended federal tax credits for that power, the country as a whole is set to meet the Clean Power Plan’s early goals, reports ClimateWire.
The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
