What's the Most Expensive Climate Policy? Doing Nothing

Policymakers are right to ask about the cost of climate change policy. But which path is more expensive: solving climate change or ignoring it? There is a growing understanding that ignoring climate change is the most costly and dangerous course for our economy.

But don't take our word for it. See what others are saying:

"Agriculture faces serious decline from global warming."
Center for Global Development report, 9/13/07

"Climate change impacts will place immense strains on public sector budgets."
University of Maryland study, 10/16/07

"If you don't take action on climate change, you can be sure that our economies will go down the drain in the next 30 years."
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker

"Global warming threatens roads, rail lines, ports, airports and other important infrastructure." National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, 3/12/08

"Climate change poses a serious threat causing widespread political instability."
Center for Naval Analysis report, 4/16/07

US oil imports will be $20 billion higher each year without action to cap greenhouse gas pollution. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) analysis, 2/25/08

In confronting climate change, there is no option without costs. But we do have choices. We can invest a modest amount now - less than 1% of GDP in 2030, according to a survey1 of independent economic analyses - and get cleaner air, greater energy security, new energy jobs, and a brighter future for our children.

Or, by choosing to do nothing, we can pay much more later in rising insurance rates, greater government spending to maintain public infrastructure, agricultural damage from droughts, the spread of insect-borne disease, increased international instability, and more intense hurricanes and storms.

Acting now will allow us to manage those economic risks, while also enabling the U.S. to win the race for the clean energy jobs and technologies that will power the 21st Century. The most expensive thing we can do about climate change is nothing. It's time to cap emissions.

Source: Environmental Defense Fund

EPA Celebrates National Volunteer Week

National Volunteer Week (April 27 – May 3) honors Americans who serve others in their communities through volunteerism and encourages all citizens to get involved in volunteer service. This year's theme is "Volunteer to Change the World." "America has a long and proud tradition of volunteer service. And now more than ever, volunteers are renewing their commitment to helping others and bringing us closer together," said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. "I encourage you to volunteer this week – and every week – to help make your communities and our environment a better place."

Throughout the year, EPA honors individuals who are answering the call to volunteer service, environmental education and pollution prevention with the President's Volunteer Service Award. In a recent ceremony at the White House, Administrator Johnson, along with President and Mrs. Bush, presented awards to students from across the United States who are making a difference in our environment. "Environmental responsibility is everyone's responsibility," said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. "These outstanding students have made protecting our planet an everyday commitment, and proven that together we can create a cleaner, healthier world."

EPA's Web site, www.epa.gov, is hosting several online features to mark National Volunteer Week including a Green Scene video and podcast. In addition, the EPA home page will highlight a history of National Volunteer Week with a link to the Agency's 2007 Volunteer Report. In other volunteer events, Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Marcus Peacock, today gave remarks and joined volunteers from EPA to help beautify and clean up the Anacostia Park along the riverbanks of the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. Home and Garden Television (HGTV) was on site to film the activities. For information, go to: http://www.epa.gov/ or http://www.volunteer.gov/

The Truth About Oil and Gasoline: An API Primer

To keep consumers and the economy supplied with the fuel they require, the nation needs energy policies that encourage efficiency, investment in long-term initiatives and advanced technologies, and the elimination of barriers to domestic oil and natural gas supplies.

“Our industry believes that the best way to deal with price volatility is to allow markets to function and follow well-reasoned, workable energy policies that enable oil and natural gas companies to attract the investment they need to meet U.S. energy needs,” said API President and CEO Red Cavaney.

To foster an informed public policy debate, API has produced The Truth about Oil and Gasoline: An API Primer. From the primer, consumers and policymakers can learn how a combination of factors has driven crude prices to record highs. See the primer here: The Truth About Oil and Gasoline: An API Primer.

Some of the factors shaping today’s crude oil and gasoline markets discussed in the API Primer include:

• Global demand, which is forecast to continue to grow in the decades ahead. The International Energy Agency estimates that sustaining an annual 3.6 percent rate of global economic growth to 2030 will require another 33 million barrels per day in oil supplies. Even with significant growth in renewables and improved efficiency, more than half the world’s primary energy demand in 2030 will be met by oil and natural gas.
  



• The depreciation of the U.S. dollar, which has helped push up prices for all commodities, including petroleum.
  



• The lack of access to potential supplies due to a shift in ownership structure abroad, causing about 80 percent of all reserves to be held by state-owned oil companies, and an inability to explore and develop potentially vital resources in the United States.

Source: API

SAN FRANCISCO HAS MORE RECYCLING TRUCKS THAN GARBAGE TRUCKS

San Francisco’s garbage companies now operate more recycling than garbage trucks, according to Sunset Scavenger and Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling. The city’s fleet includes 321 collection trucks—174 recycling, 147 garbage. All run on alternative fuel, and eventually the recycling trucks will outnumber garbage trucks 2 to 1.

Source: EnviroBiz Weekly Update

CURRENT AFFAIRS: EPA Scientists Complain of Political Interference

An outside survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists of EPA scientists found that 60% of the respondents complained of political interference, i.e., one instance of interference in the last 5 years (the negative responses were: 900 out of the 1,600 respondents in a 5,400 person survey.

PNL Stories (Current Affairs on 3/18/08) previously reported on the story of Dr. Deborah Rice accused by the Bush Administration of conflict of interest even as many of the EPA's panels are loaded with scientists who work for the very companies whose chemicals they are evaluating.

In 850 anonymous essays (optional in the survey), almost 100 scientists singled out the Office of Management and Budget for inserting pressure at early stages of the evaluation process and then delaying the release of studies until changes, more to its liking, are effected. On numerous issues—ranging from mercury pollution to groundwater contamination to climate change— political appointees of the George W. Bush administration have edited scientific documents, manipulated scientific assessments, and generally sought to undermine the science behind dozens of EPA regulations.

On a positive note, 1,282 scientists (81%) respected the integrity and professionalism of their direct manager or supervisor, while 686 (43%) said the same about the EPA’s senior leaders. A spokeswoman for the Union admitted that only those who are disgruntled might reply to the online survey, but stated that 900 responses was far too many to ignore. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) wrote to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson on Wednesday asking him to be prepared to respond to the findings at a hearing next month of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

EMISSIONS: LA Requires LEED Buildings, but with Lean Enforcement

LA mayor Villaraigosa used Earth Day to sign a new law that requires new and renovated buildings and residential towers bigger than 50,000 square feet to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards - approximately 150 buildings and 7.5 million square feet per year (most builders say that it will not increase the cost of construction). Los Angeles joins Connecticut and 14 cities in requiring LEED standards compliance of developers.


The City has an aggressive goal of reducing carbon emissions by 35% below 1990 levels by 2030. This new law will prevent about 85,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over 5 years (the equivalent of 15,000 cars off of the road).


The City of San Francisco is considering an even more aggressive ordinance (all structures over 25,000 square feet to a higher standard than LA's) with stricter enforcement. The Los Angeles law is light in enforcement - only every seventh application will be scrutinized for violations.

Carbon Finance Comes of Age

The cap-and-trade market for emissions - coming soon to America - is creating huge new opportunities for business.

If all goes according to plan, the business of buying and selling rights to pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases - carbon trading, as it is known - will curb global warming and save the world. That is its only purpose. Along the way, a lot of people will get rich.
Last year traders bought and sold about $60 billion worth of emissions allowances, mostly in Europe and Japan, where governments regulate greenhouse gases. If, as expected, regulation comes to the U.S., this country's carbon-trading market is expected to be worth $1 trillion annually by 2020. That's why investment banks, utilities, industrials, and hedge funds - among them GE, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, and AES - are rushing into the business of carbon finance. To succeed they will have to master what is surely the most bizarre, complicated, and controversial new industry of the 21st century. We'll try to break it down, beginning with a couple of things any Fortune reader can understand: a pile of pig manure and a private jet.

Daniel Co and his family raise about 10,000 pigs on a farm called Uni-Rich Agro Industrial in the province of Tarlac in the Philippines. Until recently pig manure was shoveled into concrete ponds, where it decomposed, emitting methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and a putrid smell. Daniel Co knew that he could install biogas technology to seal the ponds, trap the gas, and produce electricity, but he didn't want to spend the $200,000 or so it would cost until he heard that pig farms could collect money from Europe for capturing methane: He would be paid not to pollute. The Uni-Rich farm is a very small player in a very big global experiment that was set in motion when the Kyoto Protocol was ratified in 2005. Thirty-six industrial countries (but not the U.S.) have agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time; they can do so, in part, by financing "clean development" projects in the developing world. This has led to a global scramble for cheap ways to reduce emissions, like Daniel Co's biogas project; the invention of a new tradable commodity, called a Certified Emissions Reduction, or CER; the development of competing markets to buy and sell CERs; and the rise of an army of regulators to oversee the entire business.

Daniel Co got involved when he was approached by EcoSecurities, an Irish company that has developed more carbon-mitigation projects than any other firm. Its experts calculated that trapping his farm's methane would generate 2,929 CERs a year. A CER is created when the equivalent of one ton of carbon dioxide is prevented from entering the atmosphere. (Because methane creates more global warming than carbon dioxide, trapping one ton of methane generates 21 CERs.) CERs are sometimes called carbon credits.

EcoSecurities offered to pay Uni-Rich $4 per credit, or $12,000 a year, every year, until Kyoto expires in 2012, and to handle all the paperwork at the UN, which registered the project late in 2006. Uni-Rich then installed the methane digesters.

Now, thanks to the magic of carbon finance, Daniel Co and his family treasure their pig waste. They use it to produce electricity, which has reduced their utility bills by about $48,000 a year. They collect their $12,000 a year in carbon revenues. EcoSecurities, in turn, will sell the credits for about $18 each, or $54,000 a year, to a big French bank called Caisse des Dépôts. Caisse des Dépôts can hold onto the CERs as an investment, betting that their value will rise, or sell them to a client, most probably a European power generator or industrial firm that needs credits to meet its regulatory obligations.

Pig farmers are not alone in bringing home the bacon. Methane can be captured from chicken farms in India, landfills in Mexico, and coal mines in Thailand. Industrial gases can be destroyed at refrigerant and fertilizer plants in China. Carbon dioxide emissions can be avoided by building dams in Guatemala and wind farms in Mongolia. These are among the 4,000 clean development projects in the UN pipeline, and together they add up to real money.

What's more, everyone in the business thinks this is just a beginning. Virtually every new clean energy project in China is seeking carbon credits. As carbon finance evolves, it's possible that big emitters in the U.S. and Europe will pay landowners in Brazil and Indonesia to refrain from cutting down trees (nice work if you can get it). There's even talk of generating carbon credits from the use of energy-saving light bulbs in China, or efficient wood-burning stoves in Africa, or pills to influence the digestive systems of cattle so they emit fewer methane-producing burps or farts. Seriously.

And the jet planes? While carbon emissions by airlines aren't yet regulated, the European division of NetJets, a company owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), decided last year to become carbon neutral. It turned to EcoSecurities and now buys carbon credits from pig-farming neighbors of Daniel Co.

Click here to read the full Fortune Magazine article.

The Right Shade of Green...

The green marketing buzz has reached a roar, prompting all manner of marketing techniques. While the overall intent may be to increase market share and build brand, a poorly-crafted strategy can actually damage both. These green efforts can quickly take on a life of their own as marketing or communications departments charge ahead under the CEO's blessing.

Selecting the right shade of corporate green takes planning and a strategy that integrates a range of factors. But the very first step in any public pronouncement on greenness must start with the fundamentals, namely, a rock-solid environmental management system. Once this is accomplished, there are a number of tools to test whether a marketing plan is sound.

Click here for Richard MacLean's full article, 'Choosing the Right Shade of Green - Keeping your marketing programs in sync with the environment'.

Florida utility jumps into California solar market

Utility giant FPL has filed plans with California regulators to build a $1 billion, 250-megawatt solar power plant in the Mojave Desert. The move marks the first time that a major player — in this case a Fortune 500 — has jumped into the nascent Big Solar market.

Juno Beach, Fla.-based FPL’s renewable energy arm, FPL Energy, will operate the Beacon Solar Energy Project, which will connect to the transmission system operated by Los Angeles’ municipal utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. FPL Energy spokesman Steve Stengel declined to say whether the company had struck a deal with LADWP to buy the electricity produced by the Beacon project. “We are currently in discussions with a potential customer on a power purchase agreement for this project,” he wrote in an e-mail. “However, due to confidentiality considerations, I cannot elaborate at this time.”

California law requires the state’s investor-owned utilities — PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric — to obtain 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010 and 33 percent by 2020. But public utilities like LADWP only have to set green energy targets, 13 percent by 2010 and 20 percent by 2017 in Los Angeles’ case. Under California’s global warming law, the state’s greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020.

Those renewable energy mandates have been driving the market for large-scale solar power plants, but so far California’s Big Three utilities have placed their bets on startups like Ausra, BrightSource Energy and Stirling Energy Systems.

FPL Energy, however, is no stranger to the California solar market. It currently operates seven of nine “solar trough” power plants that were built by Israeli solar pioneer Luz International in the 1980s and early ’90s in the Mojave at Kramer Junction and Harper Dry Lake. The plants use long rows of parabolic mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on tubes of synthetic oil suspended above the arrays. The hot oil is used to create steam which drives electricity-generating turbines. The company’s new power plant (artist rendering above) will built on 2,012 acres of former farmland near California City and will also use solar trough technology.

FPL tends to be tight-lipped about its plans but in a recent interview with Green Wombat, FPL Energy senior vice president Michael O’Sullivan acknowledged the company is bidding on contracts with utilities throughout the Southwest. “We do not develop through the issuance of press releases,” he says, “and there’s a lot of thinly capitalized solar developers trying to get attention by running around the Southwest announcing projects.” Unlike competitors developing new solar technology, FPL is sticking with the tried and true. “One reason we’re focused on solar trough technology like we have out at Kramer is that it’s a proven, financeable technology,” O’Sullivan says.

In a letter accompanying the Beacon Solar application to the California Energy Commission, O’Sullivan estimated the project would create 1,000 jobs during the two-year construction phase and 66 permanent positions once it goes online in 2011.

Source: Fortune Magazine

REGULATION: EPA DNAPL website

The US EPA's Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation has constructed a website that compiles available information related to the cleanup of dense nonaqueous-phase liquids (DNAPLs) at hazardous waste sites. The website was developed in response to a recommendation of the EPA Ground Water Task Force, which identified a need for the creation of a comprehensive compilation of DNAPL resources. The Task Force purpose is:

• The task force will serve as the main technical/policy/communication/networking resource for OSWER on groundwater issues.



• The task force will promote cross-program coordination and communication on technical and policy issues related to the cleanup of contaminated groundwater.



• The task force will identify, prioritize and work to solve and/or provide guidance on groundwater issues and projects that will benefit multiple clean-up programs.

The Ground Water Task Force is one component of EPA's One Cleanup Program, which is integrating the assessment and cleanup efforts of solid and hazardous waste cleanup programs to increase the speed and efficiency of environmental cleanups and improve the sharing of information with affected citizens. Task Force efforts are conducted under Initiative I: More Effective and Consistent Cleanups of the One Cleanup Program.

Bush Sets Greenhouse Gas Emissions Goal

President Bush called Wednesday for the United States to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and challenged other countries, including major polluters like China and India, to abandon trade barriers on energy-related technology and commit to goals of their own.
The White House cast Mr. Bush’s announcement in the Rose Garden as an ambitious effort by a president determined to lead on the climate change issue, even with just 9 months left in office.

But critics — including environmentalists, scientists and lawmakers — said the effort was too little, too late. They accused Mr. Bush of trying to derail legislation that would curb emissions even further. And because he did not offer any specifics for how to reach his 2025 goal, they dismissed the speech as irrelevant.

“It is now time for the U.S. to look beyond 2012 and take the next step,” Mr. Bush said, a reference to his previously stated national goal, announced in 2002, of an 18 percent reduction in the growth of emissions of heat-trapping gases relative to economic growth by 2012. Mr. Bush said the nation was on track to meeting that target.

The speech was intended to influence an international conference on climate change, which is convening in Paris on Thursday. The conference is the outgrowth of a process Mr. Bush initiated last year, when he called together major polluting nations and urged them to come together by the end of 2009 around a common goal for the long-term reduction of emissions.

But Mr. Bush’s talk was also a slap at the Democratic-controlled Senate, which is about to consider legislation that would impose limits on emissions and allow companies to trade pollution credits — the so-called “cap and trade” approach. The White House vehemently opposes that approach, a point Mr. Bush restated on Wednesday.

“Bad legislation would impose tremendous costs on our economy and on American families without accomplishing important climate change goals we share,” Mr. Bush warned. But rather than outlining his own legislative proposal, Mr. Bush emphasized advances in technology, like clean-coal energy, wind power and farm-grown fuels like ethanol, as a means to achieving emissions reductions. As he has in the past, he said the route to reducing emissions was through the free market and incentives for companies to invest — as opposed to mandates or new taxes.

“The wrong way is to raise taxes, duplicate mandates, or demand sudden and drastic emissions cuts that have no chance of being realized and every chance of hurting our economy,” he said. “The right way is to set realistic goals for reducing emissions consistent with advances in technology.”

Click here to read the full NY Times article.

Technology Smooths the Way for Home Wind-Power Turbines

Wind turbines, once used primarily for farms and rural houses far from electrical service, are becoming more common in heavily populated residential areas as homeowners are attracted to ease of use, financial incentives and low environmental effects. No one tracks the number of small-scale residential wind turbines — windmills that run turbines to produce electricity — in the United States. Experts on renewable energy say a convergence of factors, political, technical and ecological, has caused a surge in the use of residential wind turbines, especially in the Northeast and California.

“Back in the early days, off-grid electrical generation was pursued mostly by hippies and rednecks, usually in isolated, rural areas,” said Joe Schwartz, editor of Home Power magazine. “Now, it’s a lot more mainstream.” “The big shift happened in the last three years,” Mr. Schwartz said, because of technology that makes it possible to feed electricity back to the grid, the commercial power system fed by large utilities. “These new systems use the utility for back up power, removing the need for big, expensive battery backup systems.”

Some of the “plug and play” systems can be plugged directly into a circuit in the home electrical panel. Homeowners can use energy from the wind turbine or the power company without taking action. Federal wind energy incentives introduced after the oil crisis of the late 1970s helped drive large-scale turbine use. But the federal government does not currently provide a tax credit for residential-scale wind energy, as it does for residential solar applications, according to the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group for wind-power developers and equipment manufacturers.

A number of states, however, have incentive programs. In New York, “we have incentive levels for different installations, but a homeowner could expect to get approximately $4,000 per electric meter for a wind turbine,” said Paul Tonko, president of the New York State Renewable Energy Development Authority, which administers the state’s renewable energy incentives. “That would cover about 30 to 40 percent of the project cost.”

Click here to read the full NY Times article.

EPA Increases Transpanency of Regulatory Development

EPA is making federal environmental regulation more transparent by providing on-line information as soon as the agency begins the development of a new rule. Starting today (April 14, 2008), EPA is using Action Initiation Lists (AILs) to notify the public about new rules and other regulatory actions. AILs will be posted on the EPA Web site at roughly the end of each month; each will describe those actions that were approved for commencement during the given month. Formerly, the public had to wait for EPA's Semiannual Regulatory Agenda, which is updated only every six months, to learn about new regulatory actions. The AILs provide summaries, agency contacts, and other information about the rules EPA has approved for development. For example, the March 2008 AIL announces the agency's plans to issue an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking for greenhouse gases in late spring. This notice will solicit public input as EPA considers the specific effects of climate change and potential regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary and mobile sources under the Clean Air Act. The March AIL also announces the agency's plans to propose a rulemaking that builds on EPA's existing renewable fuels standard program. The expansion of the program was mandated by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. The February and March 2008 AILs are now available. EPA expects to release the April AIL around April 30. Action Initiation Lists: http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/search/ail.html EPA's Semiannual Regulatory Agendas: http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/search/regagenda.html

Sizing Up the Utilities, if Carbon Caps Take Hold

FUEL prices and dividends are usually big drivers of the share prices of utilities. Now there is a new variable to consider: how much carbon their power plants emit. Federal regulations over the next few years could limit the carbon emissions of these companies, and Wall Street analysts have begun compiling lists of potential winners and losers, based on that possibility.

All of the leading presidential candidates say they favor such measures, and some kind of legislation affecting utilities is likely at some point after the November election, Citi Investment Research said in a January report.

If “carbon caps” — limits on carbon emissions — eventually become law, the winners may include operators of nuclear power plants (which don’t emit carbon), while the losers may include power companies that mainly burn coal, analysts say. Beyond that, who wins and who loses will depend on the details of possible future regulations, which can’t be predicted with certainty. Still, a cottage industry on Wall Street has begun to evaluate these questions.

“I think the time when you can keep your head in the ground is just over,” said Hugh Wynne, a senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

Some analysts have begun to evaluate the potential impact of carbon caps on stock prices.
“Carbon has been an ongoing issue for the investment community for the last three or four years,” said Brian Chin, an equity analyst at Citi Investment Research.

Federal carbon rules might be similar to regional efforts in the Northeast and California. These plans are to place emission limits on plants that emit carbon dioxide, and, in the case of California, on other greenhouse gases as well. Allowances or credits to emit a certain level of greenhouse gases are either auctioned or granted free.

Under such a system, called “cap and trade,” utilities that stay below emissions quotas can hold credits for the future or sell them on the open market. In Europe, the cost of one credit has averaged $25 a metric ton of carbon dioxide since January 2005, when the European Union's emissions trading plan began.

Companies like the Exelon Corporation, the Constellation Energy Group and the Entergy Corporation, which operate nuclear power plants, would benefit from cap-and-trade plans under consideration, like the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which is pending in Congress, Mr. Chin said.

“They all potentially get a very large benefit from higher power prices being pushed up by carbon,” he said.

Click here to read the full NY TIMES article.

Washington Road in Augusta,Georgia

Yes, if you are lucky enough to walk through the Masters'Gates At Augusta National Golf Club on Sunday, you will see winter blaze into colors of green grass to the pink azaleas to white dogwoods.It is place where you only observe one logo "Masters" and the beauty of many foot prints left by history.

As, I wonder if Tiger can bring home one more green jacket or will it be Trevor Immeiman first time to win a major. All the excitement that plays out on the course, I want to step back and appreciate the messages that comes from Augusta National Golf Club.

One logo, nature and beauty at it's best, respect for history, and mind set to save this event for future generations.

If we and our companies could adopt some of the same commitments to sustainability and life perhaps the next generation would be able to enjoy more than one Sunday a year in Augusta, Georgia.

Budman

The Human Side of Global Warming

Daniel Weiss and Robin Pam for The Center for American Progress have recently published an article that focuses on the human side of the global warming crisis.

They discuss the most severe health effects linked to global warming include the following:
1. More illness and death resulting from heat waves.
2. Worsening air pollution causes more respiratory and cardiovascular disease.
3. Vector-borne disease infections will rise.
4. Changing food production and security may cause hunger.
5. More severe and frequent wildfires will threaten more people.
6. Flooding linked to rising sea levels will displace millions.

The time to act is now.

EPA Launches Environmental Indicators Gateway

EPA today launched the Environmental Indicators Gateway Web site to provide enhanced public access to environmental and health information generated by EPA. Information is presented in the context of "environmental indicators," numerical values that provide insights into the status and trends of environmental and public health conditions over time. The Gateway establishes a single catalog of EPA's indicator work that allows browsing and searching among existing EPA Web sites and indicator materials. The site allows users to browse EPA's environmental indicator reports by geography, topic area, or time period. For each report featured on the site, users can find information on key details of the project including geography, project purpose, contact information, and data quality considerations. In addition to enhancing public access, the Gateway provides a resource for EPA and other federal agencies and partners to better coordinate their own environmental indicator work. By sharing key information and best practices among existing projects, EPA can improve its ability to generate environmental indicator information in the future. To better accomplish the goals of EPA's Environmental Indicators Initiative, EPA plans further enhancements to the site, which will improve coordination among existing indicator work and provide additional tools for accessing environmental indicators and information across EPA. New Environmental Indicators Gateway: http://www.epa.gov/indicators

Harnessing Biology, and Avoiding Oil, for Chemical Goods

The next time you stop at a gas station, wincing at the $3.50-a-gallon price and bemoaning society’s dependence on petroleum, take a step back and look inside your car. Much of what you see in there comes from petroleum, too: the plastic dashboard, the foam in the seats. More than a tenth of the world’s oil is spent not on powering engines but as a feedstock for making chemicals that enrich many goods — from cosmetics to cleaners and fabric to automobile parts.

In recent years, this unsettling fact has motivated academic researchers and corporations to find ways to make bulk chemicals from renewable sources like corn and switchgrass. The effort to tap biomass for chemicals runs parallel to the higher-stakes research aimed at developing biofuels. Researchers hope that the two will come together soon to help replace petroleum refineries with biorefineries.

“As petroleum prices go up and climate change becomes a serious concern, the economy will have no choice but to switch to a chemical base derived from plant materials,” said Dr. Richard Gross, director of the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing of Macromolecules at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn.

The chemical industry is beginning to make that transition, at least for a few products. One success story is a method developed byDuPont, with Genencor, to ferment corn sugar into a substance called propanediol. Using propanediol as a starting point, DuPont has created a new polymer it calls Cerenol, which it substitutes for petroleum-sourced ingredients in products like auto paints.

Click here for the full NY Times article.

CLIMATE: Followup to Kyoto Continues

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the group responsible for the Kyoto Protocols) held an Ad Hoc Working Group gathering in Bangkok last week. It was the first session following the December 2007 meetings in Bali (see our January 5, 2008 post for details).

As a followup to the Bali Action Plan from December 2007, at the session this week developing countries, led by China and India, requested the developed world (mainly the US and Europe) pay the bulk of the costs of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The argument goes: in the process of developing, western countries have contributed the bulk of carbon dioxide emissions to date. Representatives from the developed world balked and talks will resume in June in Bonn. As a side note, China brings another coal-fired power plant online each week!

In a related story, indigenous peoples from Latin America, Congo, and Indonesia, dubbed Forest Peoples, met in Amazonas State, Brazil to demand a seat at the table when the UN discusses greenhouse gas emissions and to discuss compensation (see a New York Times article). This was also a followup to the Bali conference in December 2007.

They want to be compensated for incentive to keep the forests intact. In Brazil, forest people own 12% of the country's land. In Bali it was agreed that deforestation accounts for 20% of carbon dioxide emissions in the world. The cost would be around $530 million a year by the tenth year of the agreement for developing countries. If this ever comes to pass, keeping the money out of the government's hands will also be a neat trick.

RECYCLING: Plastic Water Bottles

I realize that they're convenient, but if we're going to have conversations about energy, climate change, and resources then we have to consider plastic water bottles. I'm no Luddite, but the world moved along quite nicely without this convenience.

It requires 3 liters of water to produce one 1 liter bottle of water. The 25.5 million water bottles produced in the US each year cause 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, and use 17 million barrels of oil.

Consider other options when you intend to purchase bottled water, and tell two friends!

Tartan Day

If you can't be part of a parade tomorrow, April 6, then have a mini-celebration for Tartan Day. I'll be tipping a few wee McEwan's in honor of me Scottish heritage. On ya, Jimmy!

Renewable Energy Tax Credit Legislation

Wind- and solar-boosting folk are crossing their fingers that new Senate legislation will succeed in extending renewable-energy tax credits set to expire at the end of 2008. The Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act is framed as an economic boon: "If both houses of Congress don't pass a bill and the president doesn't sign it into law soon, we will start to see as much as $20 billion of anticipated investment in 2008 delayed or cancelled and more than 100,000 jobs lost," warns cosponsor Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). The bill has bipartisan support, in large part because, unlike previous failed legislation, it would not seek to fund clean-energy incentives by removing tax credits for oil companies.

Source: http://www.grist.org/

States Sue EPA to Comply With Year Old Supreme Court Ruling on Regulating Greenhouse Gases

A year after the US Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA, a case in which California was a lead plaintiff, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and facing defiance, delays, and stonewalling from the Bush administration in complying with that decision, California Attorney General Jerry Brown went to federal court yesterday to force the EPA to release a court-mandated determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health or welfare.

California is joined by 19 states and local governments in this legal action—a petition for a writ of mandamus-- including Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, District of Columbia, City of New York, Mayor and City Council for Baltimore. It was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and asks for a court order that would force the EPA to release its determination of endangerment within sixty days.

On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that the EPA must regulate greenhouse gas emissions after making a formal determination that such pollution threatens public health or welfare. The EPA itself described the Court's mandate as follows: "...the EPA must determine...whether greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution that endangers public health or welfare."

In a writ of mandamus filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Brown and seventeen other states and eleven national environmental groups asked for a court order that would force the EPA to release its determination of endangerment within sixty days.

"The EPA said it would take action to regulate greenhouse gases by the end of last year but then broke its word and ignored the Supreme Court's mandate," Attorney General Brown said. "The EPA has rejected the Supreme Court's order, an action which is outrageous and unlawful. We're taking the EPA to court to force it to do its job."

A recent investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform revealed that the EPA had already made its endangerment determination--including an extensive scientific review--and sent it to the White House Office of Management and Budget for final approval. Brown called EPA's inaction "a textbook case of unreasonable delay" because the agency already completed its endangerment determination last year and is simply refusing to release it publicly.

Click here to read the full ariticle on the California Progress Report.

Texas to sue EPA over clean air standards?

It looks like Texas might join other states in suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency over its new, more stringent ozone standards. Ozone, a lung-damaging irritant, is basically smog.
An email obtained by the American-Statesman that was sent this morning from Jeffrey Hunter at the National Association of Attorneys General asked chief deputies of attorney generals the following question:

“Mississippi would like to know if any other state AGs are looking into a possible suit against the EPA to stop enforcment of the new, more stringent Clean Air Act standards for ozone? They have been told that several states’ governors, possibly, AL, LA, TX, ARK, GA, SC, IN, may be interested in filing such a lawsuit.”

I asked Gov. Rick Perry’s office whether it would join in on a lawsuit: “We always keep our options open,” is the response I got from spokeswoman Allison Castle.
Perry is on the record opposing the new standards (announced in Mid-march), which it says will saddle businesses with higher costs.

On March 12 he issued the following statement: “The EPA’s decision to change ozone air quality attainment standards has Texas and other states chasing a moving target at the expense of taxpayers and our economy,” he said. “These new standards are particularly onerous on Texas and punish the state because it includes one of the most comprehensively controlled industrial complexes in the world.”

“Texas will continue to work toward meeting clean air standards through innovations in alternative fuels, technology and other improvements,” he continued. “I think it’s important, though, that federal standards balance a sound environmental policy with Texas’ growing economic engine that has produced the best business climate in the country.”
We’ll let you know more as this story develops.

The sort of interesting thing to me is that no one is that happy with the new standard, which could take years to go into effect, is 75 parts per billion ozone. (The old standard is 85 parts per billion.) Businesses say they’re too onerous, and environmental groups say they are not low enough. (An EPA science advisory panel had recommended even lower standards.)

Click here for the full article on the Austin American Statesmen.