December 2014

There were official sessions at COP-20 in Lima on Saturday and Monday to assess the progress made by seventeen developed nations to implement policies and programs to address climate change. The seventeen governments earlier submitted written reports, which were then open to questions and comments by all the member parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.  Then here at COP-20, each of the 17 gave a short slide show summarizing its efforts and plans. Each presentation was followed by an oral question and answer period.  Surprisingly, this is the first such multi-lateral assessment of national climate programs since the UNFCCC was signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

I wasn’t here on Saturday, but listened to several of the presentations on Monday by New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States. New Zealand’s slide show had the prettiest photos (of new Zealand’s breathtaking scenery), but the U. S. presentation by Rick Duke of the White House Council on Environmental Quality was the most detailed and impressive.  But it did attract several highly critical questions.  To Mr. Duke’s claim that one of three key parts of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan was the the U. S. would lead international efforts, South Africa questioned how the U. S. Could lead when it’s own domestic efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions had been so insufficient.

But no questions were raised about what I consider to be two highly misleading points in the U. S. presentation.  First, Mr. Duke listed the EPA’s proposed rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants without mentioning that they are both subject to serious legal challenges and to serious attempts to block them in the 114th Congress. Second, Mr. Duke attributed significant future reductions in fossil fuel use to the increasing use of cellulosic ethanol.  He then went on to claim that federal government investments in technology research and development had lowered the cost of producing cellulosic ethanol from $13 a gallon to $2.  This claim was backed up on the slide by noting that the $2 per gallon figure was based on modeling projections. [click to continue…]

My first day at the twentieth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-20) in Lima, Peru was pleasant, but a little dull.  The energy level of leaders, delegates, and environmental NGOs seems a little low.  And I missed what sounds like the most interesting event of the day–a side event on carbon capture and storage (CCS).

350.org,  other environmental pressure groups, and indigenous people’s groups from Colombia, Peru, and Canada staged a protest that delayed the event.  They called on the UNFCC to ban fossil fuel lobbyists from attending the COP and all future climate negotiations. Spokesmen for indigenous communities accused Shell and Chevron of environmental crimes and human rights violations.  350.org’s point is that fossil fuels should not be used even with carbon capture and storage.

The event was sponsored by the Global Carbon and Capture Storage Institute.  Speakers from the World Coal Association and Shell were—astonishingly and amusingly—joined by Nicholas, Lord Stern (of Stern Review infamy).  The protesters tried unsuccessfully to convince Stern not to speak.  Perhaps he was being paid.

The session on CCS was part of a series sponsored by the International Emissions Trading Association, whose corporate members hope to get rich off of energy-rationing policies that impoverish people.  IETA is a strong supporter of the UN climate agenda. Shell Oil supports a carbon tax in the U S.

Every Friday afternoon for seven years, we’ve sent out an electronic newsletter on the latest energy and environment happenings, known as the Cooler Heads Digest. Click here and here to read copies of the most recent issues. If you enjoy Globalwarming.org, then you’ll love the Cooler Heads Digest. Even if you hate Globalwarming.org and everything we stand for, then you should still sign up, in order to keep tabs on us. Either way, it’s free and easy: All you have to do is input your name and email address into the box titled “Cooler Heads Digest” at the top right corner of this website, directly below the “search” function.

Upon noticing that it was raining this morning, I checked The Weather Channel’s website. Lo and behold, there’s a banner ad atop the TWC’s front page, reading: “The dark secret behind low oil and gas prices.” And at the bottom left of the page, there’s a thumbnail, which reads, “The Dark Side to Your Cheap Gas.”

I’ve reposted a screenshot of the website, so you can see for yourself:

Of course I clicked through, and the result was remarkable. It’s a TWC story titled, “Boom: North America’s Explosive Oil-by-Rail Problem.” It features a video, whose opening image—a derailed oil train—is frozen across much of the screen. Because The Weather Channel evidently knows no subtlety, this video with its arresting still representation is only the foreground to an enormous, screen-wide background composed of a looping GIF depicting an oil train aflame at night. Tucked away at the very bottom of the page—you have to scroll down past yellow titles and pictures of derailed/burning trains for some time—there’s a breathless investigative report matching the attendant imagery in tone.

[click to continue…]

Living green

It’s been an uncomfortable news-cycle for sustainable living, as both the New York Times and Wired have penned reports in the last 24 hours on the practical difficulties of the eco-lifestyle. Below, I’ve posted the titles and key pull quotes from both stories.

• New York Times, “Exhausted by a House That Saves Energy,” 12/3/2014
  Key quote: “I was an idiot and built a house that was way too complicated and labor-intensive. Only a masochist could enjoy it.”

• Wired, “A Two-Day Battle to Charge My Car Convinced Me We’re Not Ready for EVs,” 12/4/2014
  Key quote: “When I set up a loan for an electric Nissan Leaf last month, I didn’t expect a 35-mile trip from San Francisco to Mountain View to lead to two of the most stressful days I’ve experienced this year.”

Opponents of EPA’s Clean Power Plan have made a powerful legal argument that the agency lacks authority to issue the rule. It turns out that EPA used to make the same case. Talk about your all time flip flops!

Read the section immediately below for the background; it’s been formatted in a long block quote in order to isolate what is a complex line of reasoning:

The Clean Air Act establishes two regulatory regimes for industrial categories of existing sources of air pollution: §111(d), for “designated pollutants” and §112 for “hazardous air pollutants.” “Designated pollutants” are defined as any harmful pollutant that isn’t a “criteria” pollutant (i.e., subject to nation-wide National Ambient Air Quality Standards regulations under §§108-110) nor a hazardous air pollutant.

 As originally enacted in 1970, §111(d) included an exclusion that prohibited EPA from prescribing §111(d) regulations for any hazardous air pollutant already regulated under §112 of the Clean Air Act. The idea behind this “§112 Exclusion” was to avoid duplicative regulation.

In 1990, Congress amended the Clean Air Act. If you’ll recall the ‘how a bill becomes a law’ jingle, the House and Senate each pass a version of the bill. Often, the texts of these bills are different. Any differences between the House and Senate versions are then reconciled in a Conference Committee.

The House of Representatives passed a bill that fundamentally changed the nature of the §112 exclusion. Before the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the exclusion from 111(d) applied to hazardous air pollutants regulated under §112; under the House bill, this exclusion applied to §112 source categories (rather than §112 pollutants).

Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill left unchanged the pre-1990 §112 Exclusion. That is, the Senate version maintained a prohibition on EPA’s issuance of 111(d) regulations for §112 hazardous air pollutants. However, in order to harmonize the pre-1990 §112 Exclusion with the language of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the Senate passed a “conforming” amendment to 111(d). Thus, the Senate’s amendment was a ministerial change meant to keep continuity with the existing §112 Exclusion (dating from 1970).

Ultimately, the Conference Committee adopted the House’s substantive amendment rather than the Senate’s version. Logically, the adoption of the House language rendered moot the Senate clerical language. However, the Conference Committee failed to remove the Senate’s conforming amendment. As a result, the Statutes at Large contain both the House’s substantive amendment and the Senate’s conforming amendment.

For obvious reasons, proponents and opponents of the Clean Power Plan disagree on whether the House or Senate amendment is controlling.

Opponents of the Clean Power Plan want to give effect to the House amendment because it would outlaw EPA’s Clean Power Plan. This is due to the fact that the agency, in February, 2012, published a regulation (the ridiculous Utility MACT) that subjects power plants to §112 requirements. Therefore, pursuant to the House version of the 1990 Clean Air Amendments, power plants are a “source category” excluded from §111(d) regulations.

EPA, on the other hand, wants to give effect to the Senate version, because this would allow the agency to regulate power plants under §111(d).

In a previous post, I summarized a persuasive analysis that originated in the office of West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, which argues that the Senate amendment is, in fact, a drafting error (also known as a “scrivener’s error”) of a common sort that has never been accorded interpretative force by reviewing courts. The House amendment, by contrast, is a substantive amendment, and therefore controls. And if the House amendment controls, then the Clean Power Plan is an impermissible exercise.

All of this brings me to the point of this post: namely, that EPA previously made the same argument that the West Virginia AG’s office is now making! [click to continue…]

…On which EPA did not publish a single regulation in the Federal Register. It happens about once a year, from what I can tell. Below, I re-posted the section from today’s FR where EPA isn’t.