Tag: Clean Power Plan

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Draft Rule to Replace Clean Power Plan Moves Ahead

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Monday that it sent a proposed rule to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, a standard step before a proposal’s public release and comment.

The proposed rule would replace the Clean Power Plan, which was finalized in 2015 to regulate emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants by setting state-by-state reduction targets. Although not yet publicly released, early reports indicate the new rule will adopt a narrower assessment of the means available to reduce greenhouse gases and therefore will implement less aggressive emissions reduction targets.

In October 2017, the Trump administration issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that called for the Clean Power Plan to be repealed. In December 2017, EPA put out a notice asking the public to submit ideas for a replacement to the rule, which most agree the agency is obligated to produce. The Clean Air Act instructs the EPA to set “standards of performance for any existing source for any air pollutant,” and requires these standards to reflect “the degree of emission limitation achievable through the application of the best system of emission reduction.”

Since April 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has extended a temporary stay of the Clean Power Plan five times as the Trump administration contemplates a replacement.

The Monday nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy could influence how litigation over this rule plays out. Kennedy was often the deciding vote in environmental cases brought before the court, including the landmark Massachusetts v. EPA climate change lawsuit in 2007 that laid the legal groundwork for federal action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Kavanaugh voiced some skepticism that the EPA has the authority to limit greenhouse gases when his court heard oral arguments on the Clean Power Plan in 2016.

“Global warming isn’t a blank check” for the president to regulate carbon emissions,” he said during oral arguments. “I understand the frustration with Congress,” Kavanaugh added. But he said the rule, rather than Congress, was “fundamentally transforming an industry.”

Pruitt Resigns from the EPA

Scott Pruitt has resigned as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Andrew Wheeler, who was confirmed by the Senate as the deputy administrator of the EPA in April, will now serve as the agency’s acting administrator. Wheeler, largely identified by the press as a coal industry lobbyist, began his career as an EPA employee and then oversaw the agency for years as chief of staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for Chairman James Inhofe.

Pruitt left the EPA facing more than a dozen inquiries into his spending and self-dealing practices and amid debate over his revisitation of six pollution policies during his 17 months. He cited in his resignation letter that these “unrelenting attacks” had taken a toll.

“It is extremely difficult for me to cease serving you in this role first because I count it a blessing to be serving you in any capacity, but also, because of the transformative work that is occurring,” Pruitt wrote.

What’s next is uncertain, but Wheeler has suggested that the EPA likely won’t change its priorities after Pruitt.

“If the environmentalists think [Trump is] going to make promises and we’re going to do the opposite, then there’s not a lot of common ground to work on,” said Wheeler. “I’m going to continue to move forward with those” priorities Pruitt laid out on behalf of Trump.

The Washington Post reported that although policy priorities are expected to remain the same, what may change is the way the EPA talks about deregulatory work.

Culturally, Wheeler also may bring change. In his opening speech with EPA employees, Wheeler reassured agency staff, saying “[t]o the employees, I want you to know that I will start with the presumption that you are performing our work as well as it can be done. My instinct will be to defend your work, and I will seek the facts from you before drawing conclusions.”

Study Finds Coal Bailout Proposal Could Increase Premature Deaths, Carbon Dioxide Emissions

A working paper released by the independent think tank Resources for the Future finds that if  President Donald Trump’s proposed bailout of coal-fired power plants goes into effect in 2019 and 2020 it could lead to the pollution-related deaths of 353 to 815 Americans. The paper indicates that each year the policy could cause 1 death for each 2 to 4.5 of the estimated total 790 coal-mine jobs estimated to be supported by the bailout.

According to the authors, delayed retirement of coal that have announced they will close by the end of 2020 could cause these deaths due to their additional sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. The paper’s modeling simulations show that over the two-year period the policy would increase carbon dioxide emissions by 22 million tons, or about the amount emitted by 4.3 million cars in a year. Applying the policy to nuclear generators would prevent only 24 to 53 premature deaths and 9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the period.

The authors call these mortality estimates “conservative” in part because the number of plants prevented from retiring could be larger than the number modeled.

The assessment, which assumes that the Trump administration’s possible action would delay closure of some 3 percent of U.S. coal-fired generation capacity and 1 percent of U.S. nuclear capacity, is one of the first examinations of the evolving plan to prop up coal and nuclear power plants that are struggling to compete with power plants using cheap natural gas and renewable electricity.

That proposed bailout, outlined in a memo in May, would use a Cold War-era law to keep aging coal and nuclear plants from shuttering. On June 1, Trump ordered U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take immediate action to keep those plants open.

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

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Court Delays Clean Power Plan Again

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

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Court Delays Clean Power Plan Again

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an order placing litigation on the Clean Power Plan in abeyance for another 60 days. The court also rejected a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) request for indefinite suspension of the litigation and ordered the EPA to provide status updates every 30 days.

The Clean Power Plan, which was finalized in 2015, seeks to regulate emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants. This is the fifth time since April 2017 that the court has issued a temporary stay of the plan—as the Trump administration eyes rolling back or replacing the rule.

Following the order, judges have come forward to say they would no longer vote to keep litigation on the Clean Power Plan on hold.

In the order, the judges—Wilkins, Tatel and Millett—express their reluctance to abide further delays. Judge Tatel, joined by Millett, wrote:

“ … I have reluctantly voted to continue holding this case in abeyance for now. Although I might well join my colleagues in disapproving any future abeyance requests, I write separately only to reiterate what I said nearly a year ago: that the untenable status quo derives in large part from petitioners’ and EPA’s treatment of the Supreme Court’s order staying implementation of the Clean Power Plan pending judicial resolution of petitioners’ legal challenges as indefinite license for the EPA to delay compliance with its obligation under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases.”

Study: Methane Leaks from U.S. Oil and Gas Industry Higher Than Thought

A newly released study in the journal Science indicates that, the United States oil and gas industry emits fugitive emissions of methane at a rate of 13 million metric tons per year. The study suggests that methane, a powerful driver of global warming and the main ingredient in natural gas, is 60 percent higher each year than estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“This paper shows that the emissions of methane from the oil and gas industry are a lot higher than what is currently estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Ramón Alvarez, a study author from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). According to EDF, the researchers found that 2.3 percent of total production per year is leaked into the air. EPA estimates a 1.4 percent leak rate.

“The fact is that the magnitude of emissions are so large that it has a material impact on the climate impact of natural gas as a fossil fuel,” he said.

The authors suggest that the discrepancy owes to the way that the U.S. oil and gas industry measures and monitors methane emissions—at known intervals and at specific parts of equipment—without verification of the leak volume at a given facility as a whole. This methodology means that the industry does not count surprise leakage events, which the authors find are relatively common.

According to the study, methane leaks from natural gas facilities have nearly doubled the climate impact of natural gas. The authors suggest that the 13 million metric tons of methane emitted each year by U.S. oil and gas operations is equal to the climate impact of carbon dioxide emissions from all U.S. coal-fired power plants operating in 2015.

The study, which used infrared cameras and involved more than 400 well sites, suggests that methane leaks from operator errors and equipment failures, unless controlled, might lessen the effectiveness of switching to gas from coal as a climate strategy.

Ontario Plans Exit from Carbon Market

Doug Ford, Ontario’s incoming premier, plans to deliver on his campaign promise to scrap Ontario’s cap-and-trade scheme and leave the North American carbon trading program. Ford announced that he intends to block participants in California and Quebec from trading allowances with Ontario entities after he takes office June 29.

The withdrawal from the joint market would leave Ontario out of the next carbon allowance auction, scheduled for Aug. 14. The news has left California, which began holding joint auctions with Ontario and Quebec in February, exploring its options.

“Pulling them out in a formal way is actually going to take a regulatory change,” the head of California’s cap-and-trade program, Rajinder Sahota, said at a California Air Resources Board workshop. Ontario’s involvement in the program expanded the size of the market by about a quarter.

California said it may take steps in its current carbon market rulemaking package to address Ontario’s planned withdrawal.

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

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Report Says Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions on the Rise

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) first Global Energy and CO2 Status Report, released last week, had two major findings: preliminary estimates for 2017 suggest that global energy demand rose 2.1 percent—more than twice the previous year’s rate—and carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.4 percent, the first time they’ve increased in three years. Although emissions increased in most countries, they decreased in the United States and several other countries largely due to renewable energy deployments.

“The significant growth in global energy-related in 2017 tells us that current efforts to combat climate change are far from sufficient,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, who identified “a dramatic slowdown in the rate of improvement in global energy efficiency” as one of the causes.
That improvement in energy efficiency slowed from a rate of 2.3 percent a year over the last three years to 1.7 percent last year. Meanwhile, some 70 percent of 2017’s increased energy demand was met by fossil fuels. Emissions decreases in the United States, the U.K., Japan, and Mexico were insufficient to cancel out the increases in China and India.

According to the report, global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions reached a historical high of 32.5 gigatons in 2017, and current efforts to curb them are insufficient to meet Paris Agreement targets to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Global emissions need to peak soon and decline steeply to 2020; this decline will now need to be even greater given the increase in emissions in 2017,” the report says.

Some of the report’s other findings:

  • Oil demand grew by 1.6 percent, more than twice the average annual rate over the past decade, driven by the transport sector and rising petrochemical demand.
  • Natural gas consumption grew 3 percent, the most of all fossil fuels, driven by China and the building and industry sectors.
  • Coal demand rose 1 percent, reversing declines over the previous two years, driven by an increase in coal-fired electricity generation, mostly in Asia.
  • Renewables had the highest growth rate of any fuel, meeting a quarter of world energy demand growth.
  • Electricity generation increased by 3.1 percent, much faster than overall energy demand, with India and China accounting for most of the growth.
  • Fossil fuels accounted for 81 percent of total energy demand, continuing a three-decades-long trend.

Decision on Tailpipe Emissions Standards Expected

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is up against an April 1 deadline to determine whether to loosen vehicle tailpipe emissions standards for the years 2022 to 2025, leave them unchanged, or increase them. Reports in the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets suggest the decision is likely to indicate that future vehicle emissions standards should be eased.

The rules, negotiated with the vehicle industry in 2011, presently require automakers to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

“The draft determination has been sent to OMB [Office of Management and Budget] and is undergoing interagency review,” said Liz Bowman, an EPA spokeswoman. “A final determination will be signed by April 1, 2018, consistent with the original timeline.”

Unclear is how a decision to ease standards might affect California, which can set its own fuel standards and is authorized to do so under the Clean Air Act. The state has suggested it may withdraw from the nationwide program if the EPA eases regulations.

“California is not the arbiter of these issues,” said Scott Pruitt, EPA administrator, in an interview with Bloomberg. The state “shouldn’t and can’t dictate to the rest of the country what these levels are going to be.”

“We have not seen the document in question, and California had no input into its content,” said California Air Resources Board spokesman Stanley Young. “We feel strongly that weakening the program will waste fuel, increase emissions and cost consumers more money. It’s not in the interest of the public or the industry.”

EPA Holds Final Clean Power Plan Hearing

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wrapped up public hearings concerning its repeal of the Clean Power Plan—an Obama-era regulation that sets state-by-state carbon emissions reduction targets for power plants—in Wyoming on Tuesday. All public comments on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan are due April 26.

Dialogue in Tuesday’s hearing followed the trend of the EPA’s three other public hearings, with some arguing that the Clean Power Plan is needed to combat climate change and others questioning its effectiveness in achieving climate goals. One point of contention is how the costs and benefits of the rule were calculated. Opponents say the benefits were inflated and the costs were minimized. Supporters say the rule actually undercounts the additional benefits of reducing hazardous air pollutants.

The EPA was expected do away with the signature climate regulation, which the Supreme Court stayed in early 2016 and which would require the U.S. electricity sector to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by up to 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. But the Trump administration might consider a replacement at the urging of power companies fearful that a repeal could trigger courtroom challenges that would lead to years of regulatory uncertainty.

Any replacement rule may be affected by the EPA’s plans to propose measures to limit which studies the EPA can use in pollution rules—measures that could potentially reduce calculation of the health benefits that come along with controlling carbon dioxide emissions.

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.

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FERC Rejects Proposed Grid Resiliency Rule, Issues New Order

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

The five members of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Monday unanimously rejected a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking from the Department of Energy (DOE) to change its rules to help coal and nuclear plants in the electricity markets FERC oversees (subscription). Instead it opened a new proceeding in which it calls on regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) to submit information to FERC on certain resilience issues and concerns within 60 days (subscription).

Since Sept. 28, when DOE Secretary Rick Perry proposed mandating that plants capable of storing 90 days of fuel supplies at their sites get increased payments for providing “resiliency” services to the grid, a broad array of power sector stakeholders have raised concerns about the legality and vagueness of the proposed rulemaking and the short timetable to implement it.

In voting against the DOE proposal, FERC found that neither the proposal nor comments on it revealed a problem with existing market rules.

“While some commenters allege grid resilience or reliability issues due to potential retirements of particular resources, we find that these assertions do not demonstrate the unjustness or unreasonableness of the existing RTO/ISO tariffs,” FERC wrote. “In addition, the extensive comments submitted by the RTOs/ISOs do not point to any past or planned generator retirements that may be a threat to grid resilience.”

FERC went on to note that even the DOE’s own grid reliability study, cited to justify the DOE proposal, “concluded that changes in the generation mix, including the retirement of coal and nuclear generators, have not diminished the grid’s reliability or otherwise posed a significant and immediate threat to the resilience of the electric grid.”

FERC’s Jan. 8 order means electric grid operators must answer questions from the commission about how they define resilience, what they do to ensure it and how they evaluate threats to it.

Although FERC could issue a new order after receiving that information, The Washington Post suggests that the language in the current order would support the trend toward free competitive electricity markets.

One issue not raised in the debate, which centered on market concerns, was changes to the electric system to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. Researchers at Resources for the Future projected significant emissions increases and negative effects on social welfare had the DOE Notice of Proposed Rulemaking gone forward.

Trump Administration Unveils Plan to Vastly Increase Oil Drilling Off U.S. Shores

The Trump administration revealed a draft plan that would greatly expand oil drilling to areas in the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans that were previously protected.

“This is a start on looking at American energy dominance,” said U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, adding that the proposal would make the United States “the strongest energy superpower” (subscription).

Previous administrations had largely limited offshore oil and gas production to the Gulf of Mexico, but Zinke’s proposal would make more than 90 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf open for leasing. His proposal includes 47 lease sales from 2019 to 2024 in 25 of the nation’s 26 offshore planning areas. Among them: 19 sales off the coast of Alaska, 12 in the Gulf of Mexico, 9 in the Atlantic, and 7 in the Pacific (some off the coast of California).

“Today’s announcement lays out the options that are on the table and starts a lengthy and robust public comment period,” Zinke said (subscription). “Just like with mining, not all areas are appropriate for offshore drilling, and we will take that into consideration in the coming weeks.”

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which would oversee the leasing process, will hold a 60-day public comment period on the plan.

Although embraced by oil and gas industry groups, the proposed plan is expected to face opposition from governors of many coastal states and many U.S. lawmakers.

On Tuesday, a group of 37 senators called the proposal “the height of irresponsibility” (subscription).

“This draft proposal is an ill-advised effort to circumvent public and scientific input, and we object to sacrificing public trust, community safety, and economic security for the interests of the oil industry,” the senators wrote in a letter to Zinke.

The proposal follows an April 2017 executive order by President Donald Trump requiring that the Interior Department reconsider former President Barack Obama’s five-year offshore drilling plan.

If finalized, the proposal would reverse Obama’s ban on drilling on the Atlantic coast and in the Arctic, but, in addition to Florida waters which Zinke this week closed to drilling, it would keep off-limits the waters near Alaska’s far-western Aleutian Islands, which were protected by former President George W. Bush.

People’s Hearings on Clean Power Plan Begin

Several “people’s hearings” planned by states to discuss the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) repeal of the clean Power Plan took place in New York, Maryland and Delaware this week. Proposed to be repealed in October, the rule aimed to set state-by-state carbon reduction targets for power plants.

The hearings follow an announcement last month by the EPA that it will hold three more hearings on its proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan—in California, Wyoming and Missouri—after criticism for not conducting a transparent review process and previously holding only one public hearing over two days in Charleston, West Virginia.

Transcripts and comments associated with the hearings will be sent to the EPA as part of its rulemaking—EPA is presently taking input on what should replace the rule. In an interview with Reuters, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt listed replacement of the Clean Power Plan as one of his top 2018 priorities—alongside plans to greatly reduce EPA staff and rewrite the Waters of the United States rule.

“A proposed rule will come out this year and then a final rule will come out sometime this year,” Pruitt said of the Clean Power Plan’s replacement.

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.

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China Announces Long-Awaited Carbon Market Plan

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Editor’s Note: The Climate Post will not circulate next week in observance of the holiday. It will return on January 4, 2018.

China, the world’s top polluter, unveiled plans for an emissions trading scheme on Tuesday.

This carbon market, which would allow facilities to trade credits for the right to emit planet-warming greenhouse gases, would initially start with China’s power sector. It would include approximately 1,700 utilities that each emit more than 26,000 tons of carbon a year—adding up to more than 3 billion tons of carbon emissions annually. Experts indicate it will take at least a year for the program to get underway, although the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) gave no hard deadlines for launch. Over time, China is expected to gradually tighten annual allocations to force up the emissions credit price.

“Everything is gradual, step by step,” said Li Junfeng, a senior government adviser on the carbon market plan.

Nine regions and cities, including Jiangsu, Fujian and seven regions with pilot schemes, will coordinate to establish the program, the NDRC said.

Although details of the market’s expansion have not yet been released, once the market is fully operational, it is expected to cover eight sectors: power; iron and steel; non-ferrous metals, such as aluminum; chemicals; petro-chemicals; paper; building materials; and civil aviation. Designed to encompass as much as 40 percent of the nation’s total emissions, the program aims to be more than twice the size of the European Union’s emissions trading scheme.

Efforts to Replace the Clean Power Plan Underway

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Clean Power Plan Monday, asking the public to comment on what a replacement rule might look like. In October, the Trump administration proposed repealing the Obama-era rule, which sets state-by-state carbon reduction targets for power plants.

“EPA is considering proposing emission guidelines to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing electric utility generating units (EGUs) and is soliciting information on the proper respective roles of the state and federal governments in that process, as well as information on systems of emission reduction that are applicable at or to an existing EGU, information on compliance measures, and information on state planning requirements under the Clean Air Act (CAA),” the notice reads.

The notice followed an announcement Friday that the EPA plans to terminate the rule in 10 months. The agency has suggested that it could have a replacement by October 2018. The news came as part of a broader Trump administration agenda to retract many environmental and other regulations.

Studies Strengthen Link between Human-Caused Climate Change and Some Extreme Weather

On the heels of an announcement by the Trump administration that climate change would be removed from the list of national security threats, new studies are pointing to further connections between global warming caused by human activities and past extreme weather events such as heat, drought, flooding and wildfire outbreaks.

A United Kingdom Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) analysis of 59 studies published in the last two years examined the influence of climate change on extreme weather. It suggests that warming worsened that weather in 70 percent of cases.

A separate group of studies published last week in Explaining Extreme Events in 2016 from a Climate Perspective, a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), analyzed 27 extreme weather events from 2016, the hottest year in recorded history, and found that human-caused climate change was a “significant driver” for 21 of them.

Many of the BAMS studies found a strong likelihood of a human influence on extreme weather events but stopped short of saying they were outside the realm of natural variability, and not all of the studies linked 2016’s extreme events to human activity.

But it’s the first time in BAMS history that scientists have found some events that could not have occurred in the absence of global warming. According to the new reports, the three definitively human-caused extreme events in 2016 were the overall global temperature increase; record heat in Asia; and marine hot spots in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea (where a mass of warm ocean water has been dubbed “the Blob”) and off the coast of northern Australia.

“For years, scientists have known humans are changing the risk of some extremes,” said Jeff Rosenfeld, BAMS editor in chief (subscription). “But finding multiple extreme events that weren’t even possible without human influence makes clear that we’re experiencing new weather, because we’ve made a new climate.”

 

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.

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Decisions on Nuclear Plant Construction, FERC Directive Could Affect Grid’s Generation Sources

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

Over the last decade, market upheavals and the technological advances underpinning them have placed pressure on existing electric generation units and driven deployment of non-baseload generation, creating significant uncertainty about existing business and regulatory models. This uncertainty calls into question the fate of nuclear. The Georgia Public Service Commission on Monday said it will decide December 21 whether to allow construction of two new nuclear reactors at the Plant Vogtle site to proceed or to call for the project to be canceled. Plagued by delays and escalating costs, the Vogtle reactors represent the only large-scale nuclear construction underway in the United States since abandonment of two reactors this summer by South Carolina Electric & Gas and Santee Cooper.

Those earlier plant cancellations and the looming Vogtle decision highlight the uncertain future of the U.S. nuclear industry. As much as 90 percent of nuclear power could disappear over the next 30 years if existing units retire at 60 years of operation—the current maximum length of operating licenses. A study by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions explores how the potential loss of existing nuclear plants in the Southeast interacts with the region’s other electricity sector challenges—among them, increasing natural gas dependence, demand uncertainty, and emerging technology—and proposes steps states can take to address these challenges.

Nuclear plants, along with coal plants, would get a boost in wholesale power markets if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approves a proposal by Department of Energy Secretary Rick that would mandate that plants capable of storing 90 days of fuel supplies at their sites get increased payments for providing “resiliency” services to the grid. Proposed by Perry on September 28, the directive to FERC to change its rules was set to expire this week, but Perry has granted FERC 30 more days to make a decision on the proposal.

The extension request, made by newly sworn-in FERC chairman Kevin McIntyre, divulged that the agency’s public comment request resulted in more than 1,500 pieces of feedback from a wide array of energy stakeholders.

“[T]he Commission has sworn in two new members within the last two weeks. The proposed extension is critical to afford adequate time for the new Commissioners to consider the voluminous record and engage fully in deliberations,” McIntyre wrote in the letter to Perry.

Studies: Arctic Warming Unprecedented; Most Accurate Climate Models Predict Greatest Warming 

Two new studies point to the accelerating threat of climate change. One, an annual assessment of the Arctic released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), finds that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, a pace that holds national security and economic implications. The other, a study comparing the results of simulations from multiple climate models to satellite observations of the actual atmosphere, finds that climate models predicting the greatest warming are more accurate than those predicting less warming.

According to the Arctic Report Card, 2017 was the second-warmest year on record in the Arctic, behind 2016; sea ice maximum set a new record low; and the permafrost rapidly warmed. Most worrying to scientists, though, was the pace of change.

“The current observed rate of sea ice decline and warming temperatures are higher than at any other time in the last 1,500 years, and likely longer than that,” the report states.

The changes will affect the entire planet, but especially the Northern Hemisphere, by altering weather patterns, leading to reduced wind power and increased drought.

“The changes that are happening in the Arctic will not stay in the Arctic,” said co-author Jeremy Mathis, director of NOAA’s Arctic Research Program. “These changes will impact all of our lives. They will mean living with more extreme weather events, paying higher food prices and dealing with the impacts of climate refugees.”

The NOAA report comes on the heels of a study published in the journal Nature suggesting that international policy makers and authorities are relying on projections that underestimate future warming—and, by extension, are underestimating the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions needed to avert catastrophic climate change. According to that study, global warming projections for the end of the century could be up to 15 percent higher than previously thought.

“The basic idea is that we have a range of projections on future warming that came from these climate models, and for scientific interest and political interest, we wanted to narrow this range,” said study co-author Patrick Brown of the Carnegie Institution for Science. “We find that the models that do the best at simulating the recent past project more warming.”

According to the study, global temperatures could rise nearly 5 degrees Celsius by century’s end under the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s business-as-usual prediction for greenhouse-gas concentrations. Moreover, the analysis increases the odds that temperatures will rise more than 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, placing odds at 93 percent, up from 62 percent.

Clean Power Plan Alternative; More Hearings on Horizon

During his first congressional hearing since taking office in February, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that he is working on a replacement to the Clean Power Plan. Proposed to be repealed in October, the rule aimed to set state-by-state carbon reduction targets for power plants. No new details about the replacement rule were pressed for by the six subcommittee members, however.

If the EPA does not issue a replacement for the Clean Power Plan, it could hint that Pruitt might open up a legal battle over the 2009 carbon endangerment finding. During the hearing, Pruitt hinted that he may be skeptical of the analysis backing the finding, which found that greenhouse gases endangered public health and welfare and required the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

“In fact there was something done in 2009 that in my estimation has never been done since and was never done before,” said Pruitt. “[The EPA] took work from the U.N. [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC] and transported it to the agency and adopted it as the core of the finding.”

But as ClimateWire reported, the finding was informed not only by reports from the IPCC, but also from the U.S. Global Change Research Program, U.S. Climate Change Science Program and National Research Council as well as studies and reports from other independent research groups. In 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rebuffed a criticism that the EPA had “improperly delegated its judgment” to the IPCC and other organizations in the endangerment finding.

In written testimony submitted to the subcommittee, Pruitt elaborated the three goals of his Back to Basics agenda: “Refocus the Agency back to its core mission. Restore power to the states through cooperative federalism. Lead the Agency through improved processes and adhere to the rule of law.”

Following Pruitt’s subcommittee hearing, this week, the EPA announced it will now hold three more hearings on its proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan—in California, Wyoming and Missouri—after the EPA was criticized for not conducting a transparent review process and holding only one public hearing over two days in Charleston, West Virginia.

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.

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Virginia, New Jersey Could be the Next States to Link with RGGI

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

The Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board recently unanimously approved draft regulations to cut carbon emissions from power plants and to link the state with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a nine-state carbon cap-and-trade program, in 2019. The draft plan aims to cap emissions from the state’s electricity sector beginning in 2020 and to reduce them 30 percent by 2030.

“The threat of climate change is real, and we have a shared responsibility to confront it,” said outgoing Gov. Terry McAuliffe at the time of the order. “As the federal government abdicates its role on this important issue, it is critical for states to fill the void.”

The draft rule proposes two starting levels for Virginia’s carbon cap: 33 million or 34 million tons, starting in 2020—decreasing by roughly 3 percent each year. The state’s Department of Environmental Quality aims to finalize and present the rule to the air control board for final approval next year.

The rule, which is expected to deliver a boost to renewable and energy efficiency in the state, could increase average residential bills by about 1 percent, commercial bills by 1.1 to 1.4 percent, and industrial bills by 1.3 to 1.7 percent by 2031, according to modeling work conducted on behalf of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.

New Jersey, a state that Gov. Chris Christie withdrew from RGGI in 2011, is expected to rejoin the group when Gov.-elect Phil Murphy takes office.

EPA Holds Hearing on Repeal of Clean Power Plan

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hosted a two-day hearing in West Virginia this week on its proposal to terminate the Clean Power Plan, which sets state-by-state reduction targets for power plants. The West Virginia hearing is the only one of its kind scheduled on the proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan, though written public comments are being accepted by the EPA through Jan. 16.

Finalized by the EPA in 2015, the plan sought to reduce emissions from power plants to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. But the Supreme Court stayed the plan after energy-producing states sued the EPA, saying it had exceeded its legal reach.

More than 250 people were signed up to present opposing and supporting views for the plan’s repeal, as speakers delivered comments simultaneously in three hearing rooms.

In the heart of coal country, there were many coal supporters who said the Clean Power Plan would cost utilities billions of dollars, raise energy bills and result in the loss of coal mining jobs. Others spoke out against the repeal, citing concerns over health and the acceleration of climate change if the plan did not take effect.

Trump Administration Issues Permit for Arctic Drilling

For the first time in two years, the federal government issued a permit to for drilling in the Arctic Ocean. The permit allows the Italian oil and natural gas company Eni U.S. Operating Company Inc. to begin exploratory drilling from a man-made island off Oliktok Point in the Beaufort Sea as soon as next month.

“Achieving American energy dominance moved one step closer today with the approval of Arctic exploration operations on the Outer Continental Shelf for the first time in more than two years,” said the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

Just weeks before leaving office, former President Barack Obama used the rarely invoked Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to ban new offshore leasing in large swaths of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. But the Trump administration has worked to reverse that and other rules reining in the energy sector—issuing an executive order in April to review the Obama plan.

Granting of the permit to Eni comes as the Trump administration considers opening up Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. The Senate Budget Committee approved the measure Tuesday in a 12–11 party line vote.

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.

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Trump Administration Repeals Clean Power Plan

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

The Trump administration on Tuesday issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that calls for the Clean Power Plan, which sets state-by-state carbon reduction targets for power plants, to be repealed.

“The Obama administration pushed the bounds of their authority so far with the CPP that the Supreme Court issued a historic stay of the rule, preventing its devastating effects to be imposed on the American people while the rule is being challenged in court,” said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt. “We are committed to righting the wrongs of the Obama administration by cleaning the regulatory slate. Any replacement rule will be done carefully, properly, and with humility, by listening to all those affected by the rule.”

Former Obama-era EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy was surprised that the Trump administration issued a repeal without a proposal for a new rule.

“… I was surprised that they decided to repeal the rule without proposing anything else in its stead, because, as the science dictates and as the law dictates, the EPA’s obligated to regulate carbon pollution from this sector,” McCarthy said. “So it surprises me that they weren’t a little bit more sensitive to the court challenges and what the courts have been telling EPA for many years, which is, you need to regulate this.”

The notice argues that the Obama administration exceeded the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act when it issued the Clean Power Plan in 2015. But in doing so, the Trump administration’s proposal appears to push off the EPA’s obligation to regulate greenhouse gases in the near future. It proposes to withdraw the rule to avoid a D.C. Circuit Court decision on precisely the question that is used to justify the withdrawal—whether it can set targets for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act based on efforts that can be made outside of the power plant. The addition of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adds an additional administrative step that only delays action further.

To avoid unnecessary delays surrounding how to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, I stated that the D.C. Circuit Court could rule on the legality of the Clean Power Plan. If a new Trump rule were finalized, the same issues would once again come before the same court, but with the parties switching places, with the defenders of the Obama rule challenging the Trump rule, and vice versa. A decision now would clear up any dispute over the extent of EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The rule was stayed by the Supreme Court in February 2016 before it took effect. Dozens of states, however, are already making progress toward Clean Power Plan emissions targets. New analysis from the research firm Rhodium Group breaks down which states appear to be still on track to meet their Clean Power Plan targets even after repeal and which are not. Nationwide, the group projected that emissions from electricity would fall 27 to 35 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 even without the plan—but they could have declined even further if the rule had gone into effect.

Wheeler Nominated to EPA

President Donald Trump nominated Andrew Wheeler as deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A former top aide to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and lobbyist for energy companies, Wheeler has been the long-rumored pick to fill the EPA’s number two job.

“Andrew will bring extraordinary credentials to EPA that will greatly assist the Agency as we work to implement our agenda,” said EPA head Scott Pruitt in the White House announcement. “He has spent his entire career working to improve environmental outcomes for Americans across the country and understands the importance of providing regularity certainty for our country.”

Wheeler spent six years as the Republicans’ chief counsel and staff director on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which Inhofe chaired. He also served at the EPA during the early 1990s.

Until he de-registered himself in August, Wheeler was a lobbyist for Murray Energy, the nation’s largest privately owned coal company. It’s not clear if his lobbying status will require a waiver by the EPA—Trump signed an executive order in January that prevents registered lobbyists from participating in “any particular matter” on which they lobbied in the past two years. But the executive order says the administration can grant a waiver.

As Pruitt Calls to End Renewables Credits, Study Showcases Oil Industry’s Dependence on Subsidies

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Monday called on legislators to put an early end to tax credits for renewables (subscription).

“I would do away with these incentives that we give to the wind industry,” Pruitt said. “I’d let them stand on their own and compete against coal, natural gas and other sources. Let utility companies make real-time market decisions on those kinds of things, as opposed to being propped up through tax incentives and other types of credits that occur both at the federal and state level.”

Pruitt was referring to two tax credits approved by Congress in 2015: a 2.3-cent-per-kilowatt hour wind industry tax credit expiring in 2020 and a 30 percent solar industry tax credit expiring in 2022. He did not mention that competing energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas also benefit from billions of dollars in tax credits.

A study published in the journal Nature Energy finds that at the current price of $50 a barrel, nearly half the as-yet-to-be-developed crude oil fields in the United States are profitable when otherwise they would not be.

“Our analysis suggests that oil resources may be much more dependent on subsidies than previously thought, at least at prices near US$50 per barrel,” said the authors.

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.

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DOE Secretary Proposes Rule to Aid Coal, Nuclear Plants

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.

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Federal Science Report Finds Human Activity Does Influence Climate Change

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

A draft report on the science of climate change estimates that it is “extremely likely” that more than half of the rise in temperatures over the past four decades has been caused by human activity. This activity, it estimates, is responsible an increase in global temperatures of 1.1 to 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1951 to 2010.

“Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse [heat trapping] gases, are primarily responsible for the observed climate changes,” notes the Climate Science Special Report, which was available on request during a public comment period earlier this year but which received little attention until it was reported on by The New York Times this week. “There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate,” said the report.

Penned by scientists at 13 federal agencies this year, the draft report is a special science section of The National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and it now awaits permission from the Trump administration to officially release the document.

The draft report suggests that even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would warm at least an additional 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit (0.30 degrees Celsius) over this century compared with today. More greenhouse emissions will lead to higher temperatures.

The draft study follows reports by The Hill that staffers at a U.S. Department of Agriculture were told earlier this year to avoid the term “climate change” in communications and to use phrases like “weather extremes” instead.

“We won’t change the modeling, just how we talk about it,” Bianca Moebius-Clune, the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s director of soil health, wrote in an e-mail to staff.

On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the United States experienced its second warmest year to date and 10th warmest July on record.

Court Extends Delay on Clean Power Plan; Vacates HFC Rule

In a 2–1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found Tuesday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have the authority to enact an Obama-era rule ending the use of hydroflurocarbons (HFCs). The 2015 EPA rule banned 38 individual HFCs or HFC blends in four industrial sectors—aerosols, air conditioning for new cars, retail food refrigeration and foam blowing—under the Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program (subscription).

A lawsuit—Mexichem Fluor, Inc. v. EPA—challenged EPA’s use of SNAP, saying that HFCs do not deplete the ozone. On Tuesday, the court found that because HFCs are not ozone-depleting substances, the EPA could not use section 612 of the Clean Air Act to ban them.

“However much we might sympathize or agree with EPA’s policy objectives, EPA may act only within the boundaries of its statutory authority. Here, EPA exceeded that authority,” Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court. “Indeed, before 2015, EPA itself maintained that Section 612 did not grant authority to require replacement of non-ozone-depleting substances such as HFCs. EPA’s novel reading of Section 612 is inconsistent with the statute as written. Section 612 does not require (or give EPA authority to require) manufacturers to replace non-ozone depleting substances such as HFCs.”

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit instituted a new 60-day abeyance of the long-running legal battle over the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which would require reductions of carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector. The court order, which also directs the EPA to file status reports every 30 days, reminds the Trump administration of the 2009 endangerment finding, which means the EPA has an “affirmative statutory obligation to regulate greenhouse gases.”

In late April, the court granted an initial delay of the litigation as the White House considers how to replace it.

United States Formally Announces Intention to Withdraw from the Paris Agreement

Last week U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told U.S. diplomats to sidestep questions about conditions for the Trump administration to re-engage in the Paris Agreement, according to a diplomatic cable published yesterday by Reuters. But the communication leaves no doubt about President Trump’s intentions: “there are no plans to seek to re-negotiate or amend the text of the Paris Agreement.” Moreover, the August 4 cable instructs diplomats to let other countries know that the United States wants to help them use fossil fuels.

The cable was sent on the day that the United States formally announced its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement but said that it will continue to participate in international climate change negotiations during the three-year withdrawal process. The earliest date for the United States to completely withdraw from the agreement is November 4, 2020.

President Donald Trump “is open to re-engaging in the Paris Agreement if the United States can identify terms that are more favorable to it, its businesses, its workers, its people, and its taxpayers,” said the State Department memo, which noted the U.S. role in future climate talks.

“The United States will continue to participate in international climate change negotiations and meetings . . . to protect U.S. interests and ensure all future policy options remain open to the administration,” the State Department said. “Such participation will include ongoing negotiations related to guidance for implementing the Paris Agreement.”

A United Nations statement acknowledging receipt of the notice from the United States reiterated Secretary-General António Guterres’ disappointment in the decision.

“It is crucial that the United States remains a leader on climate and sustainable development. Climate change is impacting now,” said Guterres spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.

Signatories to the Paris Agreement vowed to keep the worldwide rise in temperatures “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial times and to “pursue efforts” to hold the increase under 1.5 degrees Celsius. The U.S. pledge, under former President Barack Obama, was a cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of as much as 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.

Prior to release of the climate policy guidance cable, the Trump administration’s reiteration of plans to depart from the Paris climate deal had raised questions about what “re-engaging” in the deal meant and how U.S. participation in climate talks could play out (subscription). With regard to negotiations, the Trump administration could adopt an obstructionist role by pushing for measures to enable reduction of emissions-cut ambitions. Or it could play a constructivist role by advancing rules for transparency (the United States and China co-chair the working group writing those rules). Other areas in which the Trump administration could exert its influence include emissions reporting requirements, monitoring land-use change and developing market mechanisms.

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.