2014

In her speech today announcing EPA’s plan to cut power-sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said agency critics who warn of dire economic impacts “sound like a broken record.” But what is more repetitive — or more misleading — than trying to sell EPA’s power grab as a childhood asthma remedy?

McCarthy began her speech as follows:

About a month ago, I took a trip to the Cleveland Clinic. I met a lot of great people, but one stood out—even if he needed to stand on a chair to do it. Parker Frey is 10 years old. He’s struggled with severe asthma all his life. His mom said despite his challenges, Parker’s a tough, active kid—and a stellar hockey player.
 
But sometimes, she says, the air is too dangerous for him to play outside. In the United States of America, no parent should ever have that worry. . . .Rising temperatures bring more smog, more asthma, and longer allergy seasons. If your kid doesn’t use an inhaler, consider yourself a lucky parent, because 1 in 10 children in the U.S. suffers from asthma.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 11 children in the U.S. had asthma in 2010. That is a remarkable fact. I had severe asthma as a child, so was sensitized to the issue. Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, lots of other kids knew I had asthma — because hardly anyone else had it. In six years of summer camp in the New Hampshire woods, I had frequent asthma attacks — and was the only camper so afflicted. That was in the 1960s.

What happened since then? For one thing, childhood asthma rates increased dramatically. But during the same period, the air got dramatically cleaner.

Source: EPA

Yes, heat is a factor in turning ozone precursors into smog. But despite global warming — and, perhaps more importantly, the expansion of urban heat islands — urban air quality keeps improving. So whatever has increased childhood asthma rates, it’s not outdoor air pollution or whatever small increment of it might be attributable to global warming.

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The McLaughlin Group: For the third time in recent memory, The McLaughlin Group devoted a segment to climate change. Panelists were: Pat Buchanan (American Conservative, paleo-conservative), Susan Ferrechio (Washington Examiner, mainstream conservative), David Rennie (Economist, European centrist), Mort Zuckerman (U.S. News & World Report, American centrist). At the outset of Friday’s broadcast, the eponymous host of the show  tossed a climate change grenade to his guests:

What accounts for the increasingly alarmist tone of official climate change reports?

The ensuing debate was lively, and I thought all parties acquitted themselves well. See for yourself:

Platts Energy Week with Bill Loveless: Maryland Rep. John Delaney appeared on this Sunday’s Platts Energy Week with Bill Loveless to promote his draft bill, the State’s Choice Act. I watched Rep. Delaney’s interview, but I still have no clue what the purpose of his bill is. The legislation, as drafted, would allow States to implement a carbon tax in order to comply with EPA’s forthcoming climate change plan for existing power plants. The problem is that EPA was going to do this anyway. I’ve explained EPA’s impending climate rules here, here, and here; suffice it to say for this post, EPA’s plan will accommodate a state carbon tax, so Rep. Delaney’s bill is a giant waste of the congressman’s time and energy. The best part of his interview is when Bill Loveless asks him whether Maryland should pass a carbon tax, in response to which the good congressman wouldn’t answer. See for yourself: [click to continue…]

President Obama today signaled that his administration will rely on hocus-pocus  “co-benefits” to justify EPA’s forthcoming climate plan for existing power plants.

During his weekly radio address, the President claimed:

“in just the first year that these standards go into effect, up to 100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks will be avoided — and those numbers will go up from there.”

Of course, carbon dioxide is inert. So it doesn’t cause heart attacks. Nor is it an asthma trigger. So what is the President talking about?

In fact, he’s employing an EPA scam,* known as “co-benefits,” by which the agency has justified a number of recent, highly politicized regulations. Basically, he’s saying that his climate plan will cause a shift away from coal, which will result in the reduction of emissions other than greenhouse gases, including particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. These are the emissions (i.e., PM and NOx) the President refers to when he claims his climate plan would prevent 100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks.

There are many reasons that the President’s use of “co-benefits” is wholly inappropriate. For starters, there are entire sections of the Clean Air Act given to the regulation of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. In fact, the administrator is legally bound to issue national ambient air quality standards for these pollutants, and these standards must be set at a level that is requisite to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety. There is, therefore, neither a public health purpose nor a need for EPA to use a climate plan to regulate particulate matter and nitrogen oxides emissions under the Clean Air Act.

In addition, EPA has demonstrated a troubling propensity for double-counting these “co-benefits.”

Finally, as I discuss here, the science underlying these putative co-benefits is highly suspect.

Rather than militate in favor of the rule, the President’s “co-benefits” sleight of hand speaks volumes about how crummy a deal is the EPA’s climate plan. As I explain here, the regulation would upend electric markets, rendering it one of the costliest, ever. And yet, the preponderance of greenhouse gas emissions come from Asia, so EPA’s climate rule wouldn’t actually impact global temperatures, a fact that has been conceded by no less an authority than EPA administrator Gina McCarthy.

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[Editor’s Note: “Primary Document Dump Fridays” is a new weekly feature at globalwarming.org. Every Friday, we’ll post all the primary documents relevant to a major EPA regulation]

On Monday, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is expected to roll out the Agency’s much-anticipated climate plan for existing power plants. The climate plan is authorized by section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, pursuant to which EPA is empowered to promulgate regulations, known as “guidelines,” whose function is to aid states in the formulation of implementation plans to achieve the “best” system of emission control system for a “designated pollutant” from a “designated (existing) source.” States are then required to submit these plans to EPA for review.

For EPA’s climate rule, the “designated pollutant” is carbon dioxide, and the “designated sources” are coal-fired power plants. To date, there have been five other designated pollutant-designated source pairs: (1) fluoride emissions from phosphate fertilizer plants; (2) sulfuric acid mist from sulfuric acid production facilities; (3) total reduced sulfur from kraft pulp mills; (4) fluoride emissions from primary aluminum plants; and (5) methane and organic compounds from solid waste landfills.

For last Friday’s primary document dump, I posted EPA’s regulations establishing the process by which States submit 111(d) plans, and also the Guidelines for the aforementioned four pairs of designated pollutants and designated sources. Today, I’ve posted all of EPA’s reviews of State 111(d) submissions.* Together, these two posts provide all the possible background information from the Federal Register on EPA’s forthcoming climate plan for existing power plans. In a subsequent post, I will interpret these documents.

Fluoride Emissions from Existing Phosphate Fertilizer Plants

Alabama 2/22/1982 47 FR 7666

Arkansas 5/12/1982 47 FR 20490

California 6/29/1982 47 FR 28099

Iowa 12/27/1985 50 FR 52920

Louisiana 5/12/1982 47 FR 20490

Mississippi 7/6/1982 47 FR 29234

Missouri 3/14/1986 50 FR 8827

Utah 6/11/1982 47 FR 25335

Sulfuric Acid Mist Emissions from Existing Sulfuric Acid Production Units

Alabama 2/22/1982 47 FR 7666

Arkansas 5/12/1982 47 FR 20490

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In November of last year, EPA proposed to scale back the overall Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) 2014 blending target from 18.15 billion to 15.21 billion gallons, and to trim the mandate’s corn-ethanol component from 14.4 billion to 13.0 billion gallons. Forcing EPA’s hand was a set of market constraints commonly called the “E10 blend wall.” EPA intervened so that refiners would not be obligated to purchase and blend more ethanol than could actually be sold in gasoline.

The biofuel industry fiercely opposes the proposed cutbacks. EPA is expected to announce the final 2014 RFS production quota in June.

To help EPA stick to its guns, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) yesterday released Ethanol’s Broken Promise: Using Less Corn Ethanol Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The study estimates that EPA’s proposed 1.39 billion gallon cutback in the corn-ethanol blending target would “lower U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 3 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) — as much as taking 580,000 cars off the road for a year.”

EPA can’t dispute this conclusion because the numbers come from the agency’s own data. EPA estimates that, on a life-cycle basis, corn ethanol’s carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) emissions were 33% higher than gasoline’s in 2012.

Since a chief purpose of the RFS is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the policy is counterproductive if corn-ethanol emits more CO2e than the gasoline it displaces.

EPA, however, predicts that by 2022, biofuel production will reduce net CO2e emissions by 17%.

Not so fast, says EWG! EPA assumes that by 2022, carbon-neutral biomass will power ethanol plants. It’s more likely that most plants will run electricity from natural gas. More importantly, land-use conversions associated with ethanol production release carbon locked in soils. And, EWG contends, EPA’s analysis “essentially ignored all land use change emissions before 2022.”

EWG estimates that during 2008-2012 alone, RFS-induced land conversions released 85-to-236 million metric tons of CO2e emissions per year. [click to continue…]

From yesterday evening: