Stimulus Money Puts Shovels In The Ground for the Environment

The recent stimulus package passed by Congress and signed by the President included money to aid existing Superfund cleanups, especially orphan sites, to the tune of $600M. This NY Times article discusses the situation by highlighting an orphan site in NJ.

Congress and the President intend to reinstate the defunct Superfund tax. Money from the tax would advance EPA's other missions of finding polluters, holding polluters accountable for their actions, and cleaning up sites. It will help relieve the financial burden from the taxpayers.

Regardless of the fate of the Superfund tax, it's good to see stimulus money putting shovels in the ground for the good of everyone.

Five Beginners’ Steps to a Greener Home

RECENT Amazon.com search for “green home” pulled up more than 15,000 book titles. Who has time to read them all? So this week, The Green Home tracked down Eric Corey Freed, the author of “Green Building & Remodeling for Dummies,” and asked him to distill this growing cottage industry of green advice into five must-do steps.

What’s the first and most important thing every green-minded dweller should do? Look at all the vampire loads that are sucking energy even when you’re not using them.

You mean like the toaster with a digital clock and the cellphone charger?
Yes. Anything with a ready light. Collectively, vampire loads cost Americans about $3 billion a year. The biggest culprits are stereos, DVRs, game systems and plasma TVs. Simply unplug them when they’re not in use. Or purchase smart power strips, which cost about $25 and shut off automatically.

What’s the second step for making our homes greener?
Take an empty two-liter soda bottle, wash it out, fill it with water, screw the lid on tightly and set it into your toilet tank, as far away from the flapper valve as possible. This prevents two liters of water from being used every time you flush.

Your third recommendation?
Install an ultra-low-flow shower head. A 1992 federal law requires all shower heads to be “low flow,” which means 2.5 gallons shoot out every minute it’s on. Switching to ultra-low-flow means you could go anywhere from two gallons all the way down to half a gallon a minute.

What’s No. 4?
Install a gray-water system that collects soapy water and diverts it to the toilet. Instead of clean water, you flush with soapy water. WaterSaver Technologies (watersavertech.com) makes AQUS, a $300 system that installs under the sink.

What’s the final step people should take?
This is probably the most important: replace old thermostats with a programmable one. It’s kind of like a TiVo of thermostats. It lets you turn the heat down when you sleep and back up before you wake. It can also tell the difference between Monday and Friday, so you can turn down the heat while you’re at work. A good one costs about $20, and saves about $180 a year on energy bills.

Click here for the full NY Times article.

EPA moving toward regulation of greenhouse gases

Agency will decide if emissions blamed for global warming are a danger to human health and welfare.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson says the agency is moving toward regulating the gases blamed for global warming.In an interview on Tuesday with the Associated Press, Jackson said the agency would decide whether greenhouse gases are a danger to human health and welfare, the legal trigger for regulation under federal law.

Jackson said the EPA owes the American people an opinion. "We are going to be making a fairly significant finding about what these gases mean for public health and the welfare of our country," Jackson said.Recent EPA decisions have hinted that the agency was leaning toward using the Clean Air Act to regulate the gases, a step the Bush administration refused to take despite prodding from the Supreme Court.Jackson took a different position Tuesday during one of her first interviews since winning Senate confirmation Jan. 23."

It is clear that the Clean Air Act has a mechanism in it for other pollutants to be addressed," she said."If EPA is going to talk and speak in this game, the first thing it should speak about is whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare," she said. "It is a very fundamental question."Jackson, a Princeton University-educated chemical engineer, headed the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection from 2006 until 2008.

Click here for the full LA Times article.

Southern California Edison Signs Solar Power Contract

Edison International's (EIX) Southern California Edison unit, the largest electric utility in California and a major U.S. purchaser of solar energy power, has contracted with privately-held BrightSource Energy for 1,300 megawatts of solar power, or enough to serve nearly 845,000 homes.

The first of the solar power plants could be operating within four years, said the utility, which serves a population of more than 13 million, signed two contracts on Tuesday for almost 2,000 gigawatt-hours of wind power. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The deal comes as the solar-power industry has become increasingly pessimistic about the sector's short-term future, with many in the industry cutting production or lowering their outlook to reflect lower demand. Clean energy's momentum is also being stalled by the financial meltdown and lower oil and gas prices. Still, longer term the companies are expected to profit as governments seek to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, demand for solar power in California is soaring despite the economic downturn, according to a report state regulators issued in late January. California homeowners, businesses and local government agencies installed 158 megawatts of solar panels in 2008, double the amount installed the previous year, the California Public Utilities Commission said.

Click here for the full CNN article.

HOUSE DEMS’ STIMULUS BILL INCLUDES $14 BILLION-PLUS FOR WATER, ENVIRONMENT

Democrats in the House of Representatives have introduced an $825 billion stimulus package that includes more than $14 billion for water- and environment-related programs, along with $32 billion for the development of a smart power grid and more than $20 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy projects. In the water and environment area, $6 billion would go to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF), $2 billion to the Drinking Water SRF, $4.5 billion for Army Corps of Engineers civil-works projects, $500 million for Bureau of Reclamation drinking-water projects, $224 million for the International Boundary and Water Commission’s water projects, $800 million for the federal Superfund program, and $300 million for the federal underground storage tank cleanup and brownfields cleanup programs.

According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the bill is just a first step in Congress’s development of a comprehensive economic stimulus package and is likely to go through several changes as the relevant House committees review it— to say nothing of the likely differences between the House’s final legislation and any forthcoming Senate package. The House Appropriations, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce committees are scheduled to vote on their portions of the package this week. Pelosi said that a floor vote will take place next week.

Article from EBJ's Weekly News Update.

Is Solar A Net Environmental Loss?

A growing concern in the solar energy market, specifically, and the green market, generally, is the fact that much of the manufacture, distribution, and disposal of solar photovoltaic cells causes environmental damage. It is argued that the manufacture and distribution of solar panels use more energy than the panels save in their lifetimes.

In addition, silicon is a hazardous material and many of the discarded panels could end up in landfills (whether at the end of their useful lives or when materials are replaced with upgrades). In this LA Times article, Solar energy's darker side stirs concern, many of these newly-realized concerns are explored.

When you're purchasing solar panels, take care to look for companies (like Tempe, Arizona's First Solar) who offer cradle to grave handling of panels or research the emerging market of 'organic' solar cells. Curbing greenhouse gas emissions through use of alternative energy is not the only reason to think and act green - there is the factor of environmental cost throughout a product's lifecycle.

Sustainable Development Practices Provide Meaningful Benefits to Developers and Local Communities in Challenging Economic Times

With ongoing economic uncertainty and a lagging real estate market, Brownfield redevelopment is just the latest example of a sustainable development practice that is showing measurable benefits for both local communities and developers.

Virtually every major city within the United States, today, is burdened by abandoned manufacturing facilities and industrial sites that are impacted by known or perceived environmental contamination, known as Brownfields. Historically, the contamination of existing buildings and surrounding lands has spawned environmental concerns, discouraging many developers from taking on Brownfield redevelopment. The cleanup and development of contaminated lands is further complicated by costly and strict environmental oversight.
However, thanks to current economic development and regulatory incentives to support sustainable development, Brownfield redevelopment activity is helping reduce urban decay and reignite growth and investment in local communities throughout the United States. In addition, with a new Administration on the horizon, the environmental movement and a trend towards sustainable development practices could soon dominate community development strategies at both federal and state levels.

"Brownfield redevelopment will undoubtedly be a hot button issue in 2009, particularly with respect to government incentives for sustainable development endeavors," said Robert Fabricant, Chair of Akerman's Environment and Natural Resources practice group and former General Counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "This could be a win-win situation for both communities and developers in an otherwise challenging economic time."
Federal agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Economic Development Administration (EDA) under the U.S. Department of Commerce have partnered in the mission to lead the federal economic development agenda by encouraging Brownfield redevelopment projects that enhance job creation and overall community revitalization. These collaborative efforts have led to innovative government incentives, including an environmental remediation tax incentive that was signed into law in October of this year and $1.5 million of funding for Brownfield Training, Research, and Technical Assistance Grants. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has also encouraged developers to utilize Brownfields in order to help achieve the coveted USGBC LEED certification.

Akerman was instrumental earlier this year in passing Florida legislation addressing Brownfield and voluntary cleanup tax credit issues that offer a range of economic, environmental, and public health benefits to communities in which Brownfields and contaminated sites are located.
"The new bill provides important incentives and tools to encourage the voluntary cleanup and restoration of Brownfields and contaminated sites throughout Florida and bring a range of added benefits to local communities," said Jason Lichtstein, Akerman Shareholder and recently elected President-Elect of the Florida Brownfields Association. "We are very pleased about this legislation and excited about what these enhancements will do for Florida's Brownfields program and growing the program in the future."

Recent Akerman Brownfield work also includes a California project where Akerman attorneys assisted a national developer with its proposal to acquire and construct a regional shopping center on a portion of a formerly hazardous waste landfill. In Florida, Akerman assisted a client with the development of a hotel that now sits on a former Brownfield site. And in New York, Akerman is currently helping to redevelop a Brownfield, located along the Hudson River, as the site for a hotel and conference center that is expected to meet the standards for USGBC LEED Gold certification.

Click here to view the full PR Newswire article.

The Energy Challenge: Nuclear Power May Be in Early Stages of a Revival

After three decades without starting a single new plant, the American nuclear power industry is getting ready to build again.

When the industry first said several years ago that it would resume building plants, deep skepticism greeted the claim. Not since 1973 had anybody in the United States ordered a nuclear plant that was actually built, and the obstacles to a new generation of plants seemed daunting.

But now, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 21 companies say they will seek permission to build 34 power plants, from New York to Texas. Factories are springing up in Indiana and Louisiana to build reactor parts. Workers are clearing a site in Georgia to put in reactors. Starting in January, millions of electric customers in Florida will be billed several dollars a month to finance four new reactors.

On Thursday, the French company Areva, the world’s largest builder of nuclear reactors, and Northrop Grumman announced an investment of more than $360 million at a shipyard in Newport News, Va., to build components for seven proposed American reactors, and more for export.

The change of fortune has come so fast that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which had almost forgotten how to accept an application, has gone into a frenzy of hiring, bringing on hundreds of new engineers to handle the crush of applications. Many problems could derail the so-called nuclear revival, and virtually no one believes all 34 proposed plants will be built. It is still unclear how many billions they would cost, whether the expense can be financed in a troubled credit market, and how the cost might compare with other power sources.
But experts who follow the industry expect that at least some of the 34 will be built.

Click here to read the full NY Times article.

Third Passaic River Symposium are Now Available on the Web

Full presentations (and abstracts) from the Third Passaic River Symposium are now available on the Symposium web site, http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/pri/symposium2008/
The program booklet, which includes all abstracts, is available on the web site as well.

The Symposium was organized by the Passaic River Institute of Montclair State University, held on October 16 2008 on the University campus. It featured the "Lower Passaic River Restoration Project" as well as projects and issues in the upper River and tributary watersheds such as flooding and phosphorus loading. Congressman Bill Pascrell gave opening remarks. The heads of three major agencies spoke (USEPA Region 2, NJDEP, US Corps of Engineers NY District), giving an update on Passaic Basin issues from their agencies' perspectives. The Symposium attracted about 280 participants.

You can read a wrap-up story about the Symposium on from the Montclair State web site,
http://www.montclair.edu/news/article.php?ChannelID=7&ArticleID=2761
This page also has links to media coverage of the symposium.

LEGISLATION TO SHIFT BURDEN OF FUNDING SUPERFUND FROM TAXPAYERS TO POLLUTERS

Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced legislation to renew support for the Superfund Trust Fund by reinstating fees to ensure that polluters provide a dedicated revenue source to fund the cleanup of the most contaminated toxic waste sites across the country. The Bush Administration shifted the burden of funding the Superfund from polluters to taxpayers when it allowed the trust fund to go bankrupt five years ago. As a result, the number of cleanups has dropped dramatically. Senators Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Barack Obama (D-IL), Joseph Biden (D-DE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Christopher Dodd (D-CT) joined as cosponsors of the legislation.

“New Jersey has more Superfund sites than any other state in the nation. Right now, the Superfund Trust Fund has run dry, stalling the clean-up of toxic chemicals in our communities,” Senator Lautenberg said. “It's critical we get these sites cleaned up and we need to make the polluters – and not taxpayers – foot the bill.”

“This administration has cared more about shielding polluters than protecting Americans from harmful toxic waste. Without a dedicated revenue source, the Superfund simply cannot effectively complete its important cleanup missions. This legislation will put the responsibility for cleaning up toxic sites back on polluters and off of the American taxpayers,” Senator Clinton said.

Senator Boxer said, “I am proud to join Senator Clinton and my other colleagues to ensure that polluters pay to clean up the most contaminated toxic waste sites.”

Originally signed into law in 1980, Superfund is the federal program for the clean-up of hazardous waste sites. At the heart of the law is the commitment to ensure that the polluters responsible for the contamination, and not the general public, pay for the cleanup.
In the mid and late 1990s, Superfund cleaned up an average of 86 sites per year, but this number fell dramatically under the Bush Administration. One important reason for the decline in cleanups is that President Bush has failed to support reinstating the fees on polluters that had long supported the Superfund. The Superfund Trust Fund ran out of money five years ago, and since then the program has been funded completely with general revenue.

Since losing that source of funding, the Superfund program has seen dramatic reductions in the number of cleanups of hazardous sites completed nationwide. The Environmental Protection Agency completed construction on only 24 sites in fiscal year 2007, far less than the 87 achieved in the final year of the Clinton Administration. More than 1250 toxic waste sites on the Superfund National Priority List still await cleanup, while more wait to even be listed for Superfund cleanup. New York has 86 sites on the Superfund list.

Click here for the full article.

House Approves Offshore Drilling Bill

Legislation to increase domestic energy supplies through expanded offshore drilling and investment in renewable energy and conservation won approval in the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday by a vote of 236-189.

If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, the Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act will allow oil and gas drilling in federal waters more than 100 miles off the coast and provide for drilling between 50-100 miles off the coast at the discretion of individual states. Senate approval before the November election is considered unlikely.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who has opposed offshore drilling in the past, now supports this bill, which she said Tuesday, "will be significant in ensuring American energy independence and strengthening our national security."

"This energy legislation is the result of reasonable compromise that will put us on the path toward energy independence by expanding domestic supply, protect consumers with strong action to lower the costs of energy and to protect taxpayers by making Big Oil pay for its fair share of our transition to a clean, renewable energy future, ensure a clean, green future through energy efficiency and conservation, and commit America to renewable energy and help create millions of good-paying green jobs."

Click here for the full Environmental News Services article.

Tapping Power From Trash

WHEN talk turns to alternative energy and global warming, let us not forget stinking piles of garbage. Buried in airless pockets deep inside landfills, the organic matter in these great mounds of waste is consumed by bacteria that give off gas rich in methane, increasingly used to generate electricity and heat.

In fact, power from landfill methane exceeds solar power in New York and New Jersey, and landfill methane in those states and in Connecticut powers generators that produce a total of 169 megawatts of electricity — almost as much as a small conventional generating station. The methane also provides 16.7 million cubic feet of gas daily for heating and other direct uses.

There is ample opportunity for energy-producing projects at more landfills, according to the EPA's Landfill Methane Outreach Program and officials and groups in the three states. As scouring for alternative energy intensifies, landfill methane is getting more attention from state, federal and local governments together with private energy and waste-management companies, landfill owners and energy entrepreneurs.

If it is not captured, the E.P.A. says, landfill methane becomes a greenhouse gas at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, when it rises into the atmosphere. The agency estimates that landfills account for 25 percent of all methane releases linked to human activity.



Click here to see the full NY Times article.

EPA: General Electric Must Revise River Clean Up Plan

General Electric's cleanup proposal for PCB contamination of the Housatonic River south of Pittsfield, Massachusetts raises more than 150 concerns, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The river sediment is polluted with polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, south of the GE property where the company formerly manufactured electrical equipment such as transformers and capacitors.

In comments sent to GE in a letter Tuesday, the federal agency details issues that are inadequately addressed in the company's Corrective Measures Study, especially regarding impacts on the river ecosystem during cleanup work, and impacts on aesthetic enjoyment of the area by local residents.

GE must now address the concerns raised by the agency and submit additional detailed information within 90 days. Following review of the revised GE proposal, the EPA will propose its own preferred clean up alternative for a final cleanup remedy.

"Cleaning up the portions of the Housatonic River south of Pittsfield is one of the most significant environmental challenges for this generation of New Englanders," said Robert Varney, regional administrator of EPA's New England office.

"It will be complicated and challenging for us to both remove elevated levels of PCBs from the river, while also protecting the valuable aesthetic and recreational values of this beautiful rural waterway," he said. "We can all agree that we need to do this work, and get it right."

During the review of the 700-plus page Corrective Measures Study, EPA received hundreds of comments from area residents and involved parties, including several state government agencies in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Varney said the public comments "reflected EPA concerns that the CMS as submitted did not adequately address impacts to the river ecosystem, to sensitive species, and to aesthetic, recreational and quality-of-life values of the river for area residents." He said the EPA also is concerned that the GE study does not provide adequate detail on potential placement of a landfill for consolidation of, or facilities for treatment of, the contaminated sediment that will be removed from the river.

Click here for the full Environmental News Service article.

Technology Review: How Obama Really Did It - The social-networking strategy that took an obscure senator to the doors of the White House.

Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign manager and Internet impresario, describes Super Tuesday II--the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island--as the moment Barack Obama used social tech­nology to decisive effect. The day's largest hoard of dele­gates would be contested in Texas, where a strong showing would require exceptional discipline and voter-education efforts. In Texas, Democrats vote first at the polls and then, if they choose, again at caucuses after the polls close. The caucuses award one-third of the Democratic delegates.

Hillary Clinton's camp had about 20,000 volunteers at work in Texas. But in an e-mail, Trippi learned that 104,000 Texans had joined Obama's social-­networking site, www.my.barackobama.com, known as MyBO. MyBO and the main Obama site had already logged their share of achievements, particularly in helping rake in cash. The month before, the freshman senator from Illinois had set a record in American politics by garnering $55 million in donations in a single month. In Texas, MyBO also gave the Obama team the instant capacity to wage fully networked campaign warfare. After seeing the volunteer numbers, Trippi says, "I remember saying, 'Game, match--it's over.'"

The Obama campaign could get marching orders to the Texans registered with MyBO with minimal effort. The MyBO databases could slice and dice lists of volunteers by geographic micro­region and pair people with appropriate tasks, including prepping nearby voters on caucus procedure. "You could go online and download the names, addresses, and phone numbers of 100 people in your neighborhood to get out and vote--or the 40 people on your block who were undecided," Trippi says. "'Here is the leaflet: print it out and get it to them.' It was you, at your computer, in your house, printing and downloading. They did it all very well." Clinton won the Texas primary vote 51 to 47 percent. But Obama's ­people, following their MyBO playbook, so overwhelmed the chaotic, crowded caucuses that he scored an overall victory in the Texas delegate count, 99 to 94. His showing nearly canceled out ­Clinton's win that day in Ohio. Clinton lost her last major opportunity to stop the Obama juggernaut. "In 1992, Carville said, 'It's the economy, stupid,'" Trippi says, recalling the exhortation of Bill Clinton's campaign manager, James Carville. "This year, it was the network, stupid!"

Click here for the full Technology Review article.

Corporate types getting into blogging

With the connection between new media and business development, many corporations have turned to blogging to try and better communicate with their customers. Project Navigator has developed a PRP blog, http://www.prpblog.com/, and uses this tool to facilitate information exchange with our own clients.

Excerpt from LA Times Article: Corporate types getting into blogging
Experts say it’s a useful tool for talking directly to customers or giving a personal touch to a big business. Jason Calacanis, who got into blogging early and big, has quit.

He co-founded a network of blogs called Weblogs in 2003, before the medium cracked the mainstream, and then sold it to AOL in 2005, working there until 2007. Today he is chief executive of Mahalo, a search engine guided by editors rather than algorithms.

After five years of writing on tech industry topics as well as personal ones and building an audience of 10,000 to 20,000 daily visitors, Calacanis said, he got tired of all the nasty comments and “link-baiters,” people who post comments just to promote their own blogs. So he signed off, leaving the blogosphere to others.

One group that has been firing up its keyboards is corporate types. Of about 112.5 million blogs on the Web, almost 5,000 are corporate, according to blog indexer Technorati. Calacanis blogged to start conversations and be a part of a virtual community, but corporate bloggers are in it for other reasons: to talk directly to customers or give a personal touch to a big business.

“It’s a phenomenal promotion vehicle for a company, or a great crisis tool or a great customer service tool,” said Geoff Livingston, a public relations strategist and social media expert.
Honest Tea Inc. of Bethesda, Md., launched its blog in late 2005 as a way to get close to customers. With a name like Honest Tea, Chief Executive Seth Goldman said, “we’re trying to be as open and disclose as much information as we can.”

When the company announced that Coca-Cola Co. would acquire a 40% interest in the brand, many of Honest Tea’s customers who opposed the agreement took their complaints to the blog.

Click here for the full LA Times article.

EcoDriving Through the Green States

Hypermiling, a way of driving to maximize fuel economy, has gone mainstream and bipartisan.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers started a new website today, http://www.ecodrivingusa.com/, to promote driving and vehicle maintenance habits that can reduce fuel consumption. Its first two spokesmen for the effort are Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican governor of California, and Bill Ritter, Democratic governor of Colorado.

Underscoring their united efforts, the site proclaims: "Red State. Blue State. Through EcoDriving, we can all be green states." The interactive site lists a variety of ways to wring the most miles out of every gallon of gasoline, from avoiding idling the car for more than 30 seconds to using the "recycle inside air" feature to reduce air-conditioning demands. In a video message posted on the site's home page Schwarzenegger underscores the immediate benefits of learning how to "ecodrive."

"We hear a lot of ideas from politicians about lowering the gas prices and fighting global warming, whether it is biofuels, offshore drilling or nuclear power," he says. "But none of those will affect gas prices right now. Only you can do that. ... Each of us has the power to make a difference right now." How? The site lists 26 driving and vehicle-maintenance tips that it says can collectively boost fuel economy by 15 percent. For example:

- Drive with a feather foot rather than a lead foot, avoiding rapid acceleration and hard stops.
On warm days, roll down the windows to cool off if driving slower than 40 mph. At speeds above 40 mph, using air conditioning is more efficient.

- Use cruise control selectively. The feature saves energy on flat terrains, but on hilly routes, cruise control may cause the engine to speed up unnecessarily while climbing hills and slow down while descending.

- Check tire pressure regularly, use "energy conserving" motor oil if available and appropriate for your engine, replace clogged air filters and keep vehicle properly tuned.Schwarzenegger says that if every driver followed "ecodriving" practices, the reductions in climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions "would be an equivalent to heating and powering nearly eight cities the size of Los Angeles."

"Ecodriving" is also known as hypermiling, a term coined by Wayne Gerdes, owner and administrator of http://www.cleanmpg.com/. That website is billed as an online community of people guided by the motto, "Learn to raise fuel economy and lower emissions in whatever you drive."
Dave McCurdy, president and CEO of the trade group Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said much the same thing in a statement introducing his organization's campaign.

Click here for the full Environmental News Service article.

Court Rejects E.P.A. Limits on Emissions Rules

A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out an Environmental Protection Agency rule limiting the ability of states to require monitoring of industrial emissions.

The 2-to-1 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the most recent in a series of judicial setbacks to the Bush administration’s efforts to reshape federal policies under the Clean Air Act. Under 1990 amendments to the original Clean Air Act, states were allowed to issue permits limiting pollution emissions from industrial facilities, like refineries or utilities. To ensure compliance, Congress required states to set more stringent monitoring requirements if they deemed federal requirements inadequate.

The E.P.A. gave states this leeway until 2006, when it reversed course and prohibited the states from requiring new monitoring. Environmental groups challenged the agency, saying that the new rule kept public agencies from gathering and making available the best data about industrial contributions to air pollution.

“E.P.A.’s about-face means that some permit programs do not comply” with federal law, Judge Thomas B. Griffith wrote in the majority opinion. He added that thousands of permits allowing the operation of industrial facilities might not comply with the law “because their monitoring requirements are invalid.”

Judge David B. Sentelle joined Judge Griffith’s opinion. The ruling by the court, which has jurisdiction over most federal agency rules, was another judicial rebuke to the E.P.A.’s recent policies, leaving few of its major initiatives on air pollution intact. The suit, brought by the Sierra Club, was opposed by the environmental agency and several industry groups, including the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute.

“I think it is fair to say that the D.C. Circuit has repudiated the vast bulk of the Bush administration’s clean-air regulatory reforms, which were the administration’s most notable and significant (if not always wise) environmental policy initiatives,” Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, commented on the case on a legal affairs blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. In an interview, Professor Adler said the agency “was giving business a bit of a break; was saying to states: You can’t do more.”

Click here for the NY Times article.

Changes in Environmental Reviews Are Sought

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration is proposing to let federal agencies decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants, according to a draft of planned rule changes obtained by The Associated Press.

The proposed regulations, which do not require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews that government scientists have been performing for 35 years.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said late Monday that the changes were needed to ensure that the Endangered Species Act not be used as a “back door” to regulate the heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

The draft rules would bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats. “We need to focus our efforts where they will do the most good,” Mr. Kempthorne said in a news conference organized quickly after The A.P. reported details of the proposal.

“It is important to use our time and resources to protect the most vulnerable species,” he added. “It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse-gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species.”

If approved, the changes would represent the biggest overhaul of endangered species regulations since 1986. They would accomplish through rules what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress: ending some environmental reviews that developers and other federal agencies blame for delays and cost increases on many projects.
Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the proposed changes illegal.

The new rules were expected to be formally proposed immediately, officials said. They would be subject to a 30-day public comment period before being made final by the Interior Department.
A new administration could freeze any pending regulations or reverse them, a process that could take months. Congress could also overturn the rules through legislation, but that could take even longer.

Click here to read the full NY Times article.

Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California

Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.

The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.

The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the new plants, which will use photovoltaic technology to turn sunlight directly into electricity, to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants, which use the sun’s heat to boil water.

“These market-leading projects we have in California are something that can be extrapolated around the world,” Jennifer Zerwer, a spokeswoman for the utility, said. “It’s a milestone.”
Though the California installations will generate 800 megawatts at times when the sun is shining brightly, they will operate for fewer hours of the year than a coal or nuclear plant would and so will produce a third or less as much total electricity.

OptiSolar, a company that has just begun making a type of solar panel with a thin film of active material, will install 550 megawatts in San Luis Obispo County. The SunPower Corporation, which uses silicon-crystal technology, will build about 250 megawatts at a different location in the same county.

Click here to read the full NY Times article.

Turning Waste Material Into Ethanol

By combining gasification with high-tech nanoscale porous catalysts, they hope to create ethanol from a wide range of biomass, including distiller’s grain left over from ethanol production, corn stover from the field, grass, wood pulp, animal waste, and garbage.

Gasification is a process that turns carbon-based feedstocks under high temperature and pressure in an oxygen-controlled atmosphere into synthesis gas, or syngas. Syngas is made up primarily of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (more than 85 percent by volume) and smaller quantities of carbon dioxide and methane.

It’s basically the same technique that was used to extract the gas from coal that fueled gas light fixtures prior to the advent of the electric light bulb. The advantage of gasification compared to fermentation technologies is that it can be used in a variety of applications, including process heat, electric power generation, and synthesis of commodity chemicals and fuels.

“There was some interest in converting syngas into ethanol during the first oil crisis back in the 70s,” said Ames Lab chemist and Chemical and Biological Science Program Director Victor Lin. “The problem was that catalysis technology at that time didn’t allow selectivity in the byproducts. They could produce ethanol, but you’d also get methane, aldehydes and a number of other undesirable products.”

A catalyst is a material that facilitates and speeds up a chemical reaction without chemically changing the catalyst itself. In studying the chemical reactions in syngas conversion, Lin found that the carbon monoxide molecules that yielded ethanol could be “activated” in the presence of a catalyst with a unique structural feature.

“If we can increase this ‘activated’ CO adsorption on the surface of the catalyst, it improves the opportunity for the formation of ethanol molecules,” Lin said. “And if we can increase the amount of surface area for the catalyst, we can increase the amount of ethanol produced.”

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