David Doniger's Blog: Solving Global Warming

EPA Carbon Pollution Rule Clears Up “Murky” Problem

2010-05-13T23:58:12Z

Today the Environmental Protection Agency issued rules to curb carbon pollution from big power plants and other big polluters under the Clean Air Act, while at the same time assuring millions of small businesses – from mom and pop operations, to farms, to mid-sized manufacturing concerns – that they have nothing to worry about.

The EPA rules announced today are the next step forward in carrying out the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 decision, in Massachusetts v. EPA, that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases are air pollutants subject to control under the Clean Air Act. Last December, the agency responded to the Supreme Court by determining that CO2 and other greenhouse gases endanger our health and our environment. In April, acting together with the Department of Transportation and in concert with California, EPA announced new standards to cut greenhouse gases and improve gas mileage from new cars, SUVs, and light trucks.

Now that EPA has issued its clean car standards, certain other things are set to happen automatically under the Clean Air Act. The most important is that when companies build or expand big pollution sources -- power plants or oil refineries, for example -- they will have to install the "best available control technology" (BACT) for carbon dioxide and the other global warming pollutants.

This is nothing fancy. Large new or expanded facilities simply have to use available and affordable control measures to minimize how much more carbon pollution they will add to our overburdened skies. It's nothing more than they've done for decades for other dangerous pollutants like sulfur dioxide.

The EPA rules issued today (together with one issued at the end of March) address two wrinkles in applying the BACT requirement to carbon pollution.

The first issue is that CO2 comes from industrial sources in much greater volume than other pollutants. If EPA applied the traditional “cut-off” for separating large sources from smaller ones – 250 tons of pollution per year – it would end up covering lots of much smaller sources of CO2 than anyone ever intended would have to meet the BACT requirement. So EPA has “tailored” its rules by setting a new, higher cut-off level for greenhouse gases. Last fall EPA proposed to set the threshold at 25,000 tons per year. After taking public comment on what kinds of sources emit what amounts of CO2, EPA determined that a 25,000 ton threshold would cover smaller sources than it originally thought and many more than it intended.

So EPA’s final rules include higher thresholds and will take effect in several phases, starting with the biggest sources first. The program will start next year by applying only to sources that are already subject to BACT for other pollutants. If those sources also will increase emissions by 75,000 tons per year of CO2 (or the equivalent amount of another greenhouse gas), then BACT will be required for that pollutant too. And starting in July of next year, the program will also apply to some additional sources (i.e., ones without major emissions of other pollutants) if they will add 100,000 tons of CO2. (I will not explain all the permutations here; they are laid out in this EPA fact sheet.)

The second issue is when these BACT requirements should kick in. The Clean Air Act says they apply when a pollutant is “subject to regulation” under other provisions – in this case, the car standards. In March EPA issued a ruling that the BACT requirement should start applying to greenhouse gases when the car standards start applying to new cars -- i.e., at the start of the 2012 model year in January 2011. That will give EPA, the states (which carry out the BACT requirement in most cases), and industry time to prepare for smooth implementation.

So why does my title refer to a “Murky” problem? For those of you who haven’t figured it out already, I’m referring to Senator Lisa Murkowski and her proposal to stop all efforts to curb carbon pollution. She has proposed to do this by vetoing EPA’s December endangerment finding through a “resolution of disapproval” under the Congressional Review Act.

Senator Murkowski introduced her resolution in January. She is now said to be planning to call it up for a vote on the floor of the Senate next week – possibly on May 19th, the one-year anniversary of the White House Clean Car Peace Treaty, when a landmark agreement was reached by the President, the car makers, labor, the states, and environmentalists on the clean car standards I described above.

The rules allow her an up-or-down majority vote, with limited debate and no opportunity to filibuster. Counting herself, Senator Murkowski has 41 supporters (all the Republicans except Senators Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Scott Brown, plus Democratic Senators Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Blanche Lincoln).

But she needs 51. Murkowski has been struggling to get more support because, as I’ve explained here, the resolution puts Senators in the doubly awkward position of denying global warming science and stopping the clean car regulations that enjoy support from the entire auto industry and the United Auto Workers.

The EPA “tailoring” rule may be the Murkowski resolution’s last straw, because it knocks the legs out of all the phony arguments that EPA is coming after mom and pop bakeries and hot dog stands. Instead, EPA is focusing on the biggest polluters in the United States and asking them to do no more than apply the best available and affordable pollution controls, something that they’ve done for decades on other pollutants.

Today’s action should put an end to the fear-mongering, because it shows that EPA is doing its job under the Clean Air Act responsibly and thoughtfully, to protect public health and the environment from the dangers of global warming.

So next week, if Senator Murkowski asks for a vote, we hope and expect a majority of the Senate will vote her resolution down.

The American Power Act: “First Read” of the Kerry-Lieberman Climate and Energy Legislation

2010-05-13T04:29:37Z

updated May 13th, 12pm

Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) unveiled today the long-awaited draft of their American Power Act. The launch of their bill kicks off an intensive effort to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation in the Senate this summer, reconcile it with the bill passed by the House, and put a final bill on the president’s desk to sign into law this year.

As the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster continues to unfold with tragic consequences, it has become painfully clear that America needs a safer, cleaner approach to energy development. Congress must enact a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill this year that puts America back in control of our energy situation. This draft bill gets us moving in the right direction.

Here is NRDC’s “first read” of the American Power Act discussion draft, compiled with the assistance of our staff experts in each of the areas that the legislation addresses. Our staff will be diving deeper into parts of the bill in posts to follow in the coming days. We’ll also update this overview as necessary.

The core carbon pollution limits in the bill, covering all major pollution sources, are a solid foundation for Senate legislation.

The bill would amend the Clean Air Act to establish steadily declining limits on carbon emission from the major sectors responsible for America’s carbon pollution, including electricity production, heavy industry, and transportation.
It includes an auction system with major dividends to consumers that start right away and increase over time.
It includes cost reduction mechanisms and market safeguards, as well as measures to invest in key energy technologies, level the playing field for American manufacturing, and promote innovation and job creation.

The bill does include troubling provisions to curtail some current Clean Air Act authorities and to preempt some state programs.

The bill also includes major ill-advised proposals to promote new nuclear power plants and new offshore oil drilling. These include excessive subsidies for constructing new nuclear power plants and weakening changes to nuclear plant licensing requirements and safety and environmental safeguards. The bill also contains new incentives for offshore drilling that have no place in an environmental bill and are especially hard to fathom in the wake of the disaster in the Gulf.

We need President Obama and Majority Leader Reid to guide a process that brings Senators of good will from both parties together around a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill – one that draws on the best elements of this bill as well as other proposals, so the Senate can pass effective climate and energy legislation this year. Encouragingly, President Obama pledged today to engage with Senators from both sides of the aisle pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation “this year.” Now more than ever, we need legislation that puts Americans back to work, reduces our dependence on oil, cuts carbon pollution, and creates a healthier future for our children.

I. Reducing Global Warming Pollution

The core of the program to curb global warming pollution is found in Titles II through VI of the draft bill.

A. Pollution Limits, Accountability, and Enforcement

Pollution Limits: The bill requires global warming pollution reductions for the sectors that are covered by emission limits, commencing in 2013 (sec. 2001, creating new Clean Air Act sec. 703):

Year            Reduction Targets for Covered Sources (below 2005 levels)

2013                              4.75%

2020                              17%

2030                              42%

2050                              83%

Covered greenhouse gases: The draft bill lists carbon dioxide and six other greenhouse gases (methane, nitrous oxide, and four kinds of fluorinated compounds) and authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add other heat-trapping pollutants to the list (sec. 711). Each gas is given a “carbon-dioxide-equivalent” value, ranging from 1 to 22,800 (sec. 712). (In the rest of this post, references to tons of greenhouse gas emissions mean tons of CO2-equivalent.)

Covered sectors and phase-in schedule: The draft bill has a phase-in schedule for four major categories of pollution sources – electricity generation, industrial sources, natural gas, and petroleum-based fuels – that together account for approximately 85 percent of national emissions (sec. 722):

Electricity generating plants burning coal, natural gas, and oil and producers of refined petroleum products are covered starting in 2013.
Large industrial sources (emitting at least 25,000 tons from fuel combustion or chemical processes) and local natural gas distribution companies are covered starting in 2016.

Demonstrating compliance: A fixed number of “emissions allowances” is created for each year from 2013 through 2050, reflecting the annual emission reduction targets listed above (sec. 721).

Each covered power plant or industrial source must surrender one allowance on April 1 of each year for each ton emitted during the previous year (sec 722). (A loophole for emissions from burning biomass needs to be closed; see below.)
Likewise, a local natural gas distributor must surrender allowances for emissions from natural gas combustion that is not already accounted for by power plants and big industrial sources (sec. 722).
A different compliance structure is established for transportation fuels and other petroleum products. Producers and importers of gasoline and other fuels must purchase allowances from EPA on a quarterly basis to cover the emissions from the combustion of fuels they sold during that period. The amount they pay is pegged to the allowance auction price from the previous quarter (sec. 729).

Monitoring and reporting, and penalties for non-compliance: EPA is directed to build on its recently-issued emissions monitoring and reporting rules by establishing a comprehensive and Internet-accessible greenhouse gas registry, to provide the data needed for determining sources’ compliance with the bill’s emission limits (sec. 713). A covered source that emits tons of greenhouse gases without allowances has to pay a penalty equal to twice their market price, in addition to making good on the missing allowances (sec. 723).

Allowances allocations and auctions. The bill begins by auctioning a significant fraction of the emissions allowances and moves progressively over time to a full auction system. As explained below, auction revenues are used, among other things, to protect low income and working families, and most allowances that are allocated without charge are tied to well-defined public purposes: such as benefiting consumers (through refunds and efficiency programs managed by regulated utilities or states), and growing American jobs (by addressing manufacturing competiveness) and promoting the clean energy economy (through research and investment in new technologies). Certain other critical funding needs will have to be addressed as the bill moves through the Senate.

Fast mitigation actions: The bill pays special attention to reducing potent heat-trapping compounds with shorter lifetimes than carbon dioxide. A more rapid schedule is established for phasing down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), reaching at least an 85 percent reduction by 2032 (sec. 2201). The bill also takes important first steps to reduce black carbon emissions, which have been linked to accelerating rates of glacial and ice melt in the Arctic and mountain regions of the world, calling for standards to cut black carbon emissions from U.S. sources (such as diesel vehicles) and encouraging international cooperation. It also encourages international efforts to reduce methane emissions (Secs. 2211-2221).

Scientific review: EPA and other agencies are tasked to make periodic reports to Congress on new scientific information, on whether the U.S. program is meeting its goals, and on whether domestic and international efforts are sufficient to avoid dangerous levels (e.g., greenhouse gas concentrations greater than 450 ppm CO2-equivalent, global average temperature increases greater than 3.6° F (2° C) over preindustrial levels) (Sec. 705).

B. Reducing Costs and Protecting Consumers

The bill includes effective tools to reduce the costs of meeting carbon pollution targets and to protect consumers.

Offsets: Covered sources can reduce their compliance costs by investing in “offsets” – emissions reduced or carbon sequestered by sources not covered by the bill’s pollution limits. Up to two billion tons of offsets may be used each year. The bill establishes criteria, administered by EPA (or, for domestic farm and forest offsets, by EPA and the Department of Agriculture), to assure that offset credit is earned only for real and permanent actions that would not happen anyway. Starting in 2018, a company using international offsets must have 1.25 tons of those offsets to cover a ton of its own emissions – the extra quarter ton increases the total carbon pollution reduction achieved (Secs. 731-740).

Price collar: The bill creates a large reserve of emissions allowances (drawn from future year allocations and offsets) that can flow into the marketplace if unexpected carbon price spikes take place. Covered sources can obtain up to an additional 15 percent of their emissions in any year at a fixed price (starting in 2013 at $25/ton and rising by 5 percent per year above the rate of inflation). EPA is directed to replenish the reserve (if it is used at all) using auction proceeds to purchase extra offsets. The reserve provides an extra layer of protection for consumers against unexpected cost increases and price volatility while preserving the integrity of the emission limits (Sec. 726).

Minimum auction price: In case allowance prices move in the other direction – much lower than expected – the bill includes a minimum price (starting at $12 per ton and rising three percent above inflation each year) below which allowances are withheld from auction and added to the market stabilization reserve (Sec. 790).

Consumer refunds: The bill protects consumers through refunds and other benefits.

Electricity, natural gas, home heating oil and propane consumers. Local electricity and natural gas utilities will receive emissions allowances for free for the benefit of their customers – both residential and businesses customers alike – in a formula that phases out by 2030. Utilities will be required, under supervision by state public utility commissions and EPA, to pass on the value of those allowances to their customers by investing in money-saving energy efficiency measures, giving them refunds, or both. A similar program is administered through states for home heating oil and propane consumers. Energy efficiency is the cheapest way to reduce carbon emissions. The bill provides for natural gas utilities to invest at least 20 percent of the allowances they receive in helping customers make cost-saving energy efficiency steps, and for states to use at least 50 percent of the home heating oil and propane allowances this way (secs. 782-84). We could do even better by also requiring the same for electricity utilities – that would dramatically increase national energy efficiency investments, lowering consumer energy bills and allowance prices for everyone.
Low-income working families. Low-income consumers will receive additional refunds through the earned income tax credit and other delivery mechanisms to address impacts beyond electricity and natural gas, e.g., costs embedded in food, transportation, and other necessities (secs. 3201-04).
Universal refund. After 2025, the electricity and natural gas refund program will be replaced by a universal tax credit, adjusted for family size, and funded by the auction of emissions allowances. The low-income refund program will continue as well (secs. 3205-07).

C. Safeguards Against Market Manipulation

The draft bill gives the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) responsibilities to protect against manipulation and fraud in the carbon markets. Under the bill, only covered sources will be eligible to participate in quarterly auctions of allowances, and the number of allowances they can purchase in any one auction is limited. The draft bill would regulate carbon derivatives under the Commodity Exchange Act, which covers agricultural commodity markets, effectively banning over-the-counter trading and requiring all trading in carbon derivatives to take place on well-regulated exchanges. The CFTC would be responsible for establishing strict position limits, eligibility criteria, oversight procedures, and anti-fraud and market manipulation penalties for all carbon market participants (secs. 2401-16).

D. Improving Competitiveness and Promoting Efficiency and Innovation

The draft bill contains a suite of measures to benefit American manufacturing, enhance competitiveness, and promote innovation and job creation.

Commercial and industrial consumer refunds: As mentioned, electricity and natural gas utilities are required to provide refunds and energy efficiency programs to their commercial and industrial customers, just as to residential customers, in return for receiving emissions allowances without charge. A federal interagency report on manufacturing and competitiveness concludes that for more than 9 out of 10 American manufacturers, energy costs amount to less than 2 percent of shipment values, and that utility refunds and efficiency programs like those in this bill will keep any electricity cost increases due well below one-quarter of 1 percent.

Rebates for energy-intensive, trade-exposed manufacturers: About 3 percent of American manufacturing firms – producers of commodities such as steel, aluminum, cement, and some chemicals – use much more energy and account for about half of all industrial carbon emissions. These firms have limited ability to recoup their increased costs when competing with goods imported from countries that have not yet adopted comparable carbon limits. To level the playing field and keep production and jobs at home, the draft bill sets aside 15 percent of the allowances for a transitional period to provide qualifying industries with free allowance rebates. The distribution formula, based on the industry-average emission rate and each firm’s specific output, will reward firms that become more energy-efficient and lower-emitting (sec. 4001, adding Clean Air Act secs. 771-74). According to the federal interagency report, together with the refunds to all firms provided through electricity and natural gas utilities, rebates like those in this bill “can eliminate almost all – and, in some cases, potentially more than all – of the cost impacts” of climate legislation through 2025. (The conclusions of the interagency report, which assessed the House-passed bill, apply even more strongly to the American Power Act because it provides more allowances for these rebates.)

Border adjustments: As an additional safeguard, the bill creates a “border adjustment” – a requirement for importers to buy carbon allowances when bringing in commodities such as steel, aluminum, or cement from countries that fail to adopt their own carbon control programs. The border adjustment would take effect in 2025 to the extent carbon-related competitive gaps remain with other countries and are not covered by the allowance rebates (secs. 775-78).

Investing in R&D, retooling, and efficiency: A portion of the allowance auction revenues (see below) is devoted to funding energy R&D and to help manufacturers make energy efficiency and clean technology investments to make them cleaner and more competitive. (See more on energy efficiency, renewable, and transportation, below.) Energy-intensive industries can also compete for incentives to capture CO2 for carbon sequestration (sec. 1431, adding Clean Air Act sec. 794).

These competitiveness provisions will increase investment and production here in America, helping to grow more good-paying domestic manufacturing jobs.

E. Changes to the Clean Air Act and State Authority

The carbon pollution program under the bill will be added as a new title of the Clean Air Act. At the same time, the bill changes and repeals some existing Clean Air Act authorities and restricts certain state powers.

Vehicles. The bill supplements existing Clean Air Act authority to regulate motor vehicle carbon pollution.

It directs EPA to set greenhouse gas standards for trucks and non-road engines. Building on the landmark clean car agreement reached last year, the bill instructs EPA and the Department of Transportation to set a second round of greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards in cooperation with California, other states, and stakeholders, starting with the 2017 model year.
The bill does not change California’s authority to set its own carbon standards for vehicles, as well as other states’ option to adopt California’s standards (sec. 4141).

Power plants and industrial sources. The bill includes both incentives and standards to reduce carbon pollution from electric power generation, but it also repeals Clean Air Act authorities that should be retained.

The bill creates a national program for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) from power plants and other industrial sources. Early commercial demonstration of CCS technology is supported by a grant program funded by a fee on all fossil power generation, limited to $2 billion per year over ten years. Full scale commercial deployment of up to 72 gigawatts of CCS-equipped power capacity is supported through a reverse auction of bonus allowances or a declining fixed subsidy covering the incremental costs of CCS (secs. 1411-32).
The bill establishes carbon pollution performance standards for new coal-fired electric power plants. Plants permitted after 2020 must meet a standard reflecting an emission reduction of 65 percent or more. New plants permitted between 2009 and 2019 have to meet a standard requiring at least a 50 percent reduction within four years after the date on which a set amount of capacity equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) is operating. Earlier adoption of CCS is encouraged by the reduction or loss of subsidies for plants that fail to meet the performance standard when they start operating (sec. 1441, adding Clean Air Act sec. 801).
Carbon pollution performance standards would also be required for existing power plants under an existing Clean Air Act provision known as sec. 111(d). But carbon performance standards would no longer be authorized under section 111 for either new and existing sources in other industries if they are covered sources under the overall greenhouse gas pollution limits. Performance standards could still be set for industrial sources that are not covered under the overall pollution limits (sec. 2302, amending Clean Air Act sec. 111).
The bill exempts greenhouse gases from several other Clean Air Act programs (e.g., national ambient air quality standards, hazardous air pollutant standards) (secs. 2301-2307).
The bill eliminates new source review for greenhouse gas emissions (sec. 2306). This valuable review should be retained for very large new and expanded sources to ensure that they install state-of-the-art emission curbs, in accordance with EPA regulations expected to be announced later this week.
The bill also unwisely opens the door to exempting certain power plants from a host of other federal health and environmental laws there to protect us from dangerous pollutants other than greenhouse gases – from Clean Air Act limits on smog, soot, and toxic pollution to safeguards in the Clean Water Act, hazardous waste laws, and the Endangered Species Act (sec. 2001).

State authority. The bill preserves most state authority to control greenhouse gas pollution, with one notable exception.

State authority to set vehicle standards is retained, as mentioned. So is state authority to establish clean energy, energy efficiency, and greenhouse gas control programs that are more stringent than federal requirements, and to establish overall statewide limits on greenhouse gas pollution, such as the targets in California’s landmark AB 32.
But the bill permanently preempts state authority to impose cap and trade programs once the federal program to curb carbon pollution is in place (sec. 2501, adding Clean Air Act sec. 806). Affected states would receive revenue from the federal allowance auction in place of revenue lost from auctioning allowances at the state level. But states should also retain all their current powers to limit emissions in case the federal program fails to achieve its goals.

F. Investing in a Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, and Cleaner Transportation

Energy efficiency and renewable energy. The draft bill includes these provisions to support energy efficiency and renewable energy investments:

Funding for state, local, and tribal programs. The bill allocates allowances (2.5 percent ramping down to 0.5 percent) to states and Indian tribes through 2021 to fund energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, including building energy codes, home efficiency retrofits, renewable electricity incentives and low-income housing efficiency improvements (secs. 1602-03, 2101) .
Gas utility efficiency programs. The bill requires natural gas local distribution companies to use 20 percent of their free allowances for energy efficiency programs for their customers (sec. 3101). Half of the allowances allocated to states for the benefit of home heating oil and propane users also must be used for energy efficiency programs (sec. 3102). As noted above, we could do even better on energy efficiency if similar requirements applied to electric utilities.
R&D and deployment. The bill devotes 2 percent of the allowances through 2021 to support low-carbon technology research and development, including energy efficiency, renewable energy and nuclear technologies. Some additional allowances are provided to support research and development on low-carbon industrial technologies, and for industrial energy efficiency and manufacturing extension partnership activities (secs. 1801, 2101, 2010).

Cleaner vehicles and fuels. The transportation sector accounts for a third of U.S. global warming emissions and most of our oil consumption. In addition to the federal and state standards discussed above, the bill provides incentives for clean vehicles, fuels, and other low-carbon transportation options.

Plug-in electric vehicle deployment. The bill requires the Transportation Department to develop a national plan for infrastructure to support plug-in electric vehicle charging , and to conduct plug-in electric vehicle pilot projects in rural and urban regions (sec. 1701).
Retooling auto plants. The bill establishes a Clean Vehicle Technology Fund of grants to automakers and suppliers to re-equip factories to produce qualifying cleaner technologies (sec. 4111).
Incentives for natural gas-powered vehicles. The bill doubles existing tax credits for the purchase of natural gas heavy-duty vehicles and commercial fleet vehicles, allows natural gas vehicle makers to certain tax deductions, and authorizes state and local bonds for vehicle deployment and refueling infrastructure. The Government Services Administration is directed to study increasing the number of natural gas vehicles in federal fleets (secs. 4121-4124). The bill also requires public disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, a controversial gas extraction technique (sec. 4131). This is an important first step toward providing communities with more information needed to protect their drinking water but This does not lessen the need for federal regulation of this practice to ensure protection of drinking water and to better protect clean air, safe drinking water, and land and wildlife habitat in natural gas producing regions.

Transportation efficiency and transit. The bill invests more than $6 billion per year in critical new transportation infrastructure across America to keep a 21st century economy moving while also cutting global warming pollution and oil consumption.

Highway Trust Fund investment. The bill provides the Highway Trust Fund with an annual infusion of $2.5 billion for critical new transportation infrastructure, including better roads, more public transportation and rail, and investments in local bicycle and pedestrian networks (sec. 1721).
TIGER transportation grants. The Department of Transportation will offer $1.875 billion in additional transportation grants to states and cities every year. This will help sustain the Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery program created by the Recovery Act, which has been a popular and effective program that benefits our economy, environment, and energy security (sec. 1712).
Transportation planning. The bill will require states and cities to assess carbon pollution and oil use and set reduction targets when developing transportation plans (sec. 1711). The bill creates a grant program to help states and cities carry out plans to cut carbon pollution and oil consumption through smart transportation investments (sec. 1712).

G. Adaptation to Climate Impacts

Domestic climate change impacts. The bill allocates a small amount of allowance revenue to address adaptation of our natural resources, wildlife, and fisheries to the impacts climate change and ocean acidification. The bill dedicates no resources to meet adaptation needs in the areas of fire protection and water resource management – especially serious concerns in the nation’s arid regions – as well as for public health concerns aggravated by climate change.

International climate change impacts. Many Americans are concerned about the impacts of climate change on the poorest nations for both humanitarian and national security reasons. Droughts, floods, and other damages driven by climate change can destabilize governments and societies, creating mass migrations and increasing the risks of radicalizing individuals deprived of livelihoods and hope. This bill devotes no resources to protecting rapidly dwindling tropical forests, and only a very small amount into helping the poorest nations adapt, beginning only in 2019.

H. Carbon Program Problems That Must Be Fixed

Preserving Clean Air Act and state authority. As noted above, the bill retains existing Clean Air Act authority to set performance-based pollution standards for motor vehicles and power plants. The bill would be more effective if its overall pollution limits were backed up by similar performance standards for the other large industrial polluters, as well as the full arsenal of state powers. New source review also should be retained for very large sources. We will work as the bill develops to preserve more of the Clean Air Act's proven approach to cutting air pollution.

Closing the biofuels loophole. The draft bill creates a large loophole for the carbon emissions from producing and burning biomass, significantly eroding the bill’s carbon pollution reductions. Covered firms are allowed to ignore carbon emissions from burning “renewable biomass” on the assumption that they are completely counterbalanced by carbon uptake when biomass is grown (Sec. 722). In fact, carbon uptake falls short of combustion emissions for many fuel sources defined as renewable biomass, resulting in net carbon pollution. Not requiring allowances for this carbon pollution gives covered sources an economic incentive to switch to biomass, thus seriously degrading the bill’s stated carbon pollution reductions. Closing the biomass loophole is necessary to ensure the integrity of the bill's emissions targets. The bill’s definition of “renewable biomass” also lacks critical environmental sourcing guidelines to protect forests and other sensitive ecosystems (Sec. 700). The definition provides absolutely no protection for private lands, inviting clearing or converting of sensitive wildlife habitat, old growth forests, and our last remaining native prairies. Partial protections are included for some federal lands, including roadless areas, and wilderness study areas. But many of the nation’s public forests remain exposed. A proper definition would protect areas that are high in biodiversity and that serve as large carbon storehouses, such as mature and old growth forests. It would also provide strong sustainability guidelines to ensure that bioenergy incentives do not drive increased carbon emissions, deforestation, forest degradation, or loss of wildlife habitat.

Enabling international cooperation. The bill does not provide any allowances to fund crucial components of U.S. engagement with other countries. The president needs tools to assist other countries to reduce deforestation, help the most vulnerable countries adapt to climate change impacts, and promote clean technology exports. The bill contains broad authorizing language addressing the first two of these goals, but provides for only a small and belated effort to help the most vulnerable developing countries, not beginning until 2019. Failure to provide the president with the needed tools to promote international cooperation will prove penny-wise but pound-foolish.

II. Measures to Promote Nuclear Power

The bill would give excessive subsidies and compromise important safety and environmental safeguards in order to build new commercial nuclear power plants that cannot compete in the energy marketplace on their own. Most analyses show that nuclear low-carbon kilowatts will be costly kilowatts, more costly than needed to meet the near- and medium-term emissions reduction targets in the bill.

Several provisions instruct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Energy’s national laboratories to search for ways to further “expedite” a nuclear licensing process that has already been rewritten to the nuclear industry’s specifications over the last two decades, and that has not yet even been tried (sec. 1101). Mixing or merging the functions and activities of the Department of Energy (with a mission to promote nuclear energy) and the NRC (with a mission to assure its safety) is bad public policy. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko recently cautioned against including measures to further expedite licensing in climate legislation: “Right now, we're in a pretty good place. We have very strong statutory provisions. We have a very good ... implementation of those statutory provisions through our regulations. ... There’s not a lot right now that I think the commission would be asking for specifically.” In an April 6, 2010, letter to Chairman Jaczko, two prominent nuclear power supporters, former Republican Senator Pete Domenici and former NRC Chairman Richard Meserve, wrote that their recent review of the NRC licensing process for new reactors “did not find any evidence that either the NRC or industry had needlessly delayed or extended the licensing process.”

Another section of the bill expands the Department of Energy’s existing loan guarantee program, tracking the President’s budget request for an additional $36 billion in loan guarantee authority for new nuclear power and providing a total of $54 billion in loan guarantees for ostensibly “innovative” nuclear plants (sec. 1102). NRDC views this proposed amount as excessive. The current crop of loan guarantees is all about funding the same old uneconomic nuclear power technology that private capital markets have long refused to fund because of excessive project execution and market risks. Existing federal policy already provides subsidies for developing a few “standardized” nuclear units of new design in order to confirm their advertised potential for safe, cost-effective, environmentally benign nuclear power generation. Any follow-on units should have to compete on a level playing field with other low-carbon energy sources to meet the bill’s emission limits.

The bill’s tax provisions pile on tens of billions in further subsidies at taxpayer expense through tax credits that accrue before plants are even built, and continue while they are operating.

Another harmful and potentially costly provision would amend existing law to extend “regulatory risk insurance” of up to $500 million per unit to a rolling roster of up to 12 new nuclear reactor projects, should these projects be delayed by the NRC or state regulators (sec. 1103). The last thing anyone should want is a nuclear regulator that is hesitant to raise genuine issues for fear of triggering a requirement for massive taxpayer payouts by the Secretary of Energy. It could actually encourage licensees to resist or evade requirements knowing that their financial risk in doing so would be “covered” by the DOE.

The bill would amend the Atomic Energy Act to drop the NRC’s final quality assurance and quality control review before allowing a new reactor to commence operations (sec. 1108). , with no public hearing or consideration by the committees of jurisdiction, to make a small but substantial change to the NRC’s responsibilities just prior to allowing a new nuclear reactor to operate). Another Atomic Energy Act amendment would shortcut requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (sec. 1109). It would allow the NRC to get by with an environmental “supplement” in lieu of a full environmental impact statement (EIS) for the construction and operating license application when a reactor has already obtained an “Early Site Permit,” thereby avoiding a serious, searching review of alternative means for obtaining the electricity services to be supplied by the proposed reactor project – two items at the heart of NEPA reviews for any electric generating facility.

III. Measures to Promote Offshore Oil Drilling

Regrettably, the bill encourages more offshore drilling at a time when we should be thinking about how we can better protect our coasts and ocean resources. In the wake of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, there should be a moratorium on all new offshore drilling activities, including the drilling now scheduled to begin in Alaska this summer, until an independent investigation determines the causes and ramifications of the Gulf spill.

The bill mentions the need to address the Gulf spill but only in a section that has no actual effect (sec. 1201). The bill’s offshore oil and gas provisions lack any requirements for review, assessment or corrective action in response to the disaster in the Gulf, nor are there any delays on new offshore activity while the accident is being investigated. It is full steam ahead, even in highly vulnerable areas such as Arctic Alaska, where oil drilling is scheduled to begin this summer – areas that could be devastated by a spill a fraction of the size of the Gulf disaster.

The bill actively encourages offshore drilling in previously protected areas by offering states a whopping 37.5% share of revenues generated by offshore oil and gas activity, with no strings attached. This provides a strong fiscal incentive for states to allow oil-related industrial development in coastal and marine areas already under stress from pollution, overfishing, ocean acidification and warming.

The bill would allow a state to veto offshore drilling within 75 miles of its coast, but only if the state passes a law and the governor then chooses to petition the federal government (sec. 1204). This is a time-consuming process, made even more unlikely by the lure of new state revenues. A second veto provision would allow a more distant state that might be affected by an oil spill to veto drilling off another state’s coast (sec. 1205). But this would be a cumbersome and uncertain system. The bill leaves it to the Department of Interior to determine the risks of a spill and which states would be likely to suffer “significant” impacts – a term not defined in the bill. So states would be at the mercy of the Interior Department to determine whether they have an actual veto. Given the Department’s poor record of handling concerns about oil drilling and its mission to exploit resources and maximize revenues, this is a recipe for disaster.

* * *

So now we need President Obama and Majority Leader Reid to take the reins to bring Senators of good will from both parties together around a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill – one that draws on the best elements of this bill as well as other proposals. President Obama pledged today to engage with Senators from both sides of the aisle to accomplish this goal this year. The time is now.

HFCs: Is This the Year to Curb these Super Greenhouse Gases?

2010-05-09T07:14:41Z

Time for an update on new moves to control hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – a group of powerful global warming chemicals – under the Montreal Protocol and the Clean Air Act.

I’ve written here and here about the opportunity to make quick reductions in HFCs – some of which have thousands of times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide (CO2).

To many observers, curbing HFCs is the next logical step to be taken under the Montreal Protocol, the successful global treaty adopted in 1987 to protect the ozone layer. Every country on earth now belongs to the Montreal treaty, which has virtually eliminated worldwide production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and is on the way to doing the same to hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) – the HFCs’ older brothers.

Phasing out CFCs and HCFCs has also delivered big climate protection benefits, because these ozone-destroying chemicals are also powerful heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The worldwide elimination of CFCs has delivered a climate protection bonus equivalent to 11 billion tons of CO2 reductions in this year alone. That’s also equivalent to delaying the expected growth in global CO2 emissions by 7-12 years.

HFCs differ from the other members of the fluorocarbon family in that they are “only” greenhouse gases; they lack the chlorine that causes ozone depletion. HFCs are subject to the climate treaties (the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol), but CO2 claims the lion’s share of attention in those venues, and little has been done there to seize the opportunity for quick HFC reductions.

Looking for faster progress, last year the United States, Canada, and Mexico jointly proposed to amend the Montreal treaty to add a global phase down of HFCs. The North American proposal complemented a similar initiative by a coalition of small island nations led by Micronesia and Mauritius. An agreement proved out of reach last year, but now the two groups of countries are renewing their proposals for consideration this year.

The Montreal Protocol has a proven formula for balanced global action. For more than 20 years, both developed and developing countries have accepted binding schedules for eliminating listed chemicals. Developing countries are allowed a few years more time and receive help adopting alternatives through a Multilateral Fund (MLF) jointly managed by 15 developed and developing countries.

But last year’s consideration of these HFC proposals took place under the gathering storm clouds leading to the December 2009 Copenhagen climate negotiations. While many countries looked with interest on the North American and island nations initiatives, several countries – notably China and India – chose to hold their cards for Copenhagen. They raised a number of technical concerns, plus a legal contention that HFCs are the business of the climate treaties. So the Montreal process reached an impasse, but with the door left open to reconsider this year.

The focus then shifted to the climate talks in Copenhagen last December. That difficult meeting ended with some progress, as represented in the Copenhagen Accord. But the Accord did not deal with HFCs.

So this spring the three North American countries and the island coalition have resubmitted their proposals for action to curb HFCs under Montreal (see here and here).

Is there reason to think that this year’s Montreal talks will produce better results? It’s possible, of course, that China and India will remain in no mood to strike a deal. But here are some reasons for optimism.

First, last month the 15 countries on the executive board of the Multilateral Fund resolved a lingering disagreement that had soured last year’s HFC negotiations. The Montreal parties agreed in 2007 to accelerate their phase-out of HCFCs, but by 2009 developed and developing countries still had not settled the formula for determining the “agreed incremental costs” of adopting alternatives. Some delegations asked why they should be asked to consider curbs on a new set of chemicals before tying up arrangements for the last ones. Fortunately, the agreement on HCFC funding removes this obstacle and clears the decks for a fresh look at HFCs.

Second, while the Copenhagen Accord falls short of a new climate treaty, it did result in the first set of commitments to reduce carbon emissions by both developed and developing countries. Those countries have been making binding commitments on ozone-destroying chemicals for two decades, but in the prelude to Copenhagen, neither China nor India was willing to cross this threshold under the Montreal treaty for chemicals that are greenhouse gases but not ozone-depleters. After taking the plunge on carbon reduction measures in the Copenhagen Accord, China and India may be more willing to consider HFC commitments this year in the Montreal forum, if appropriate funding assistance can be worked out.

Third, the very fact that the climate talks are expected to move slowly this year may lead countries to look for other opportunities for progress. An HFC agreement could fit that bill.

We’ll get our first indication whether this year will differ from last when the Montreal parties convene in Geneva next month for their mid-year meeting. They'll meet again in November in Uganda, where an agreement on HFCs could be formalized.

Here at home, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken new steps under the Clean Air Act to reduce reliance on HFCs. EPA has proposed to approve petitions for the use of non-HFC refrigerants – hydrocarbons – in home refrigerators and some other kinds of cooling equipment. EPA has also proposed to approve a new HFC, known as HFO-1234yf, for use in car air conditioners. This compound has global warming potential (GWP) of only 4, more than 300 times less than the current mobile air conditioning refrigerant, HFC-134a, which has a GWP of 1430. Last Friday, NRDC petitioned EPA to end the use of HFC-134a in mobile air conditioning.

Congress is considering HFC reductions as well. The climate and energy bill passed by the House of Representatives last year would amend the Clean Air Act to phase down HFC production by at least 85 percent by 2032. Legislation expected to be released next week by Senators Kerry and Lieberman will likely contain the same provisions.

So this may be the year. Watch here for updates.

Economic Destruction on the Scale of the Two World Wars and Great Depression Combined

2010-04-15T15:34:59Z

There are many powerful statements from American scientific authorities and American business and political leaders on the strength of the science undergirding global warming – so many that perhaps new reports from the National Academy of Sciences, or new statements by the president or congressional leaders, do not always make you sit up and take notice.

But these remarks, given in Beijing on April 8 by Minister Xie Zhenhua, Vice Chairman of China’s powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), made me sit up and take notice. The NDRC is one of the strongest policy making institutions in the Chinese government and is responsible for directing China’s climate change policy. Minister Xie is the senior Chinese negotiator in international climate treaty talks. Here, in an unofficial translation, is how he describes what we face:

Global warming is an actual phenomenon both observed meteorologically and perceived in our daily life. The climate change that concerns the international community mainly refers to the changes in atmospheric components caused by man-made greenhouse gas emission that triggers climate change featuring global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report indicates that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere had been up from 280 ppm before industrial revolution to 379 ppm in 2005. Over the past one hundred years, the average ground temperature across the world has increased by 0.74 °C, and in the coming 100 years, it is likely to go up by another 1.1-6.4°C

Scientific research indicates that climate change will bring out grave consequences. It matters to the earth’s future and matters to the survival and development of human beings. Climate change gives rise to frequent climate disasters, accelerated melting of glaciers and accumulated snow, unbalanced distribution of water resources, and threatened bio-diversity; climate change will also lead to sea level rise, natural disasters such as floods and storms can hit the coastal areas with huge blows, small island countries and coastal low-lying land are even under the threat of being drowned; climate change will also exert adverse impact on agriculture, forestry, herding, fishing and other economic activities. It will also exacerbate disease transmission; jeopardize social-economic development and people’s physical health. The adverse effects of climate change have been inflicted upon us. According to the study of Stern, a British economist, the world’s population suffering climate-related disasters every year had climbed up from 2% in 1975 to 4% in 2001 or 250 million, of which 96% is from developing countries.

Other researchers point out that if temperature rose by more than 2°C, 15%-40% of the species on earth are likely to die out. If temperature rose by 3-4°C, 150-200 million people would be reduced to climate refugees by the mid-21 century, and the scale of economic destruction would be equivalent to that of the two world wars and the Great Depression combined.

These figures depict a horrible disaster. Even though there might be some exaggerations, the stakes are high once there are catastrophic consequences and they are irreversible. Human beings and the earth cannot afford such disasters. As a result, even though scientists are still arguing intensely about the cause of climate change, and there are still lots of uncertainties in science, no one dare to risk the fate of the earth, and no one dare to bet on the future of mankind. For political decision-making, we’d rather believe that climate change is real than otherwise.

Minister Xie’s comments are emblematic of a huge change occurring in China. For years too many American politicians defended doing nothing by pointing at China’s supposed unwillingness to act. And China tended to do the same, pointing at us.

Today China’s leaders get it – they see the threat climate change poses to their own well-being. And more importantly, they see the opportunity in the clean energy economy of the 21st century.

China and the other large developing nations shifted position dramatically in climate treaty talks. The huge breakthrough in the agreement that President Obama hammered out in Copenhagen was that both developed and developing countries – more than 70 countries responsible for 82 percent of world carbon pollution – stepped up with international commitments to reduce their own carbon emissions.

The challenge for the U.S. is to shift from a race to the bottom to a race to the top. It’s the only way to stave off the climate disaster, and it is the pathway to our own competitiveness and prosperity. President Obama gets it. He is acting under existing laws – the Clean Air Act and our clean energy laws – to begin curbing U.S. carbon pollution. The standards issued earlier this month under the Clean Car Peace Treaty are a huge achievement – one made possible by the leadership of California and other states. And the Recovery Act includes the largest clean energy investments our government has ever made.

But the president knows we cannot make the sustained reductions in carbon pollution that we need, we cannot assure our energy security, and we cannot make the transformation to the clean energy economy, without comprehensive new legislation that limits carbon, spurs clean energy investment, and cuts our dependence on foreign oil.

Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman are leading a bipartisan effort to pass the comprehensive climate and energy legislation that President Obama is calling for. They are expected to table a draft bill later this month. What happens in the U.S. Senate in the weeks that follow is absolutely critical.

There will be those in Congress that still respond by denying the science and pointing fingers at China. But they should take a fresh look. China’s leaders understand both the threat and the opportunity. Do ours?

The Fruits of the Clean Cars Peace Treaty

2010-04-01T03:23:59Z

The federal clean car standards to be issued Thursday by President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation are a giant step in our country’s journey towards a cleaner and more secure future. This is an achievement more than 10 years in the making, involving both the states and the national government, and moving from conflict to consensus.

Credit goes to many leaders in the administration and Congress and in state capitols. And NRDC is very proud of the role we played, together with many other environmental organizations, at both federal and state levels to bring us to this point.

This journey began more than 10 years ago with a petition for EPA to use its authority under the Clean Air Act to set standards for emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants from new vehicles. But the Bush administration refused to act – indeed, the Bush administration denied that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and denied that the Clean Air Act could be used to address global warming at all. So NRDC joined the petitioners and a broad coalition of states to challenge these decisions. And in April 2007, almost three years ago to the day, the Supreme Court held that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are indeed air pollutants and can be curbed under the Clean Air Act. The Court ordered EPA to decide, based solely on the science, whether carbon dioxide and these other pollutants endanger our health and welfare, and if so, to issue emission standards for new vehicles.

Simultaneously, NRDC and partner organizations worked successfully to pass California’s landmark clean car law, sponsored by then-assemblywoman, now-state senator Fran Pavley, in 2002. California has the right under the federal Clean Air Act to set its own vehicle emission standards, and other states have the right to adopt the same standards. For more than four decades, California has pioneered the way to cleaner cars, with the federal government following by setting national standards based on California’s.

In 2004, under the leadership of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Air Resources Board set strong standards for vehicle emissions of carbon dioxide and three other heat-trapping pollutants. With environmental organizations’ support, 13 other states and the District of Columbia followed suit. But the Bush administration stood in the way by denying California the normally routine EPA waiver needed under the Clean Air Act.

So once again NRDC joined forces with the states and other groups in the courts, and again we prevailed. Federal courts in California and Vermont rejected auto maker lawsuits to block the state standards. We also challenged EPA’s denial of the California waiver.

When President Obama took office, he moved within his first week to order a reconsideration of the California waiver denial. He also instructed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and DOT Secretary Ray LaHood to work together on new federal greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy standards. And after several months of skillful negotiations, the Obama team brought about what I have called the Clean Car Peace Treaty, announced in the Rose Garden last May, bringing together the auto companies, labor, states, and environmental organizations. We agreed on a coordinated set of federal and state standards that will bring the benefits of California’s emission standards to the entire nation, and at the same time will meet the auto industry’s needs for practical uniformity, certainty, and flexibility.

The standards issued today under the Clean Car Peace Treaty are a good deal for consumers, for companies, for the country, and for the planet. They prove that the Clean Air Act works. And they are worth everyone’s support.

This record of state and federal leadership and cooperation is a model that is good for today, and good for tomorrow. As we celebrate this achievement, we look forward to working with the automakers, labor, the administration, and the states on future standards that will ensure that the United States remains a leader in clean car technologies.

Seizing the Opportunity for Climate and Energy Legislation

2010-03-09T23:30:56Z

President Obama met today with a bipartisan group of Senators on climate and energy legislation. As NRDC President Frances Beinecke writes here, high-level engagement by the White House and an expanded set of Senators from both parties is the key to passing a climate and energy bill in the Senate this year. The President reached across the aisle in his State of the Union address, asking for “a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.” He signaled his support for the kind of package that the tri-partisan trio of Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) are putting together, addressing offshore oil production, nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage together with carbon limits, energy efficiency, and renewable power. In recent weeks the pace of Senate discussions has quickened, and today’s meeting shows more progress towards comprehensive legislation.

Some argue that the Senate should drop efforts to address climate change and settle for only a handful of energy provisions. But the President and many of the Senators at today’s meeting have been clear that we cannot succeed with a piecemeal effort. A bundle of energy policies alone cannot accomplish the three-fold task of curbing pollution, creating jobs, cutting our dependence on foreign oil. As Senator Graham elegantly put it, a “half-assed” energy bill will not get the job done and will not get his vote. In fact, as NRDC shows here, a piecemeal bill that deals solely with energy could make global warming pollution worse, would fall short on jobs and national security, and would cost taxpayers more than an integrated bill.

An integrated bill will create far more clean energy jobs than a piecemeal “energy only” bill. A study led by economists at the University of California at Berkeley estimates that a comprehensive bill would result in 1.9 million net new jobs in 2020. Even the Senate “energy only” bill (S. 1462) will create at most 500,000 new jobs over the next decade, according to its sponsors.

Likewise, an integrated bill will reduce U.S. oil imports far more than a piecemeal energy bill. A comprehensive bill would reduce U.S. oil demand by increasing efficiency. It could also vastly increase U.S. production from existing wells. That’s because carbon dioxide captured from coal plants could be used to pump oil out of existing wells through a process known as “enhanced oil recovery,” making available 35 to 55 billion barrels of domestic oil. Between demand reductions and enhanced oil recovery, a comprehensive bill could cut U.S. oil imports in half. An “energy only” bill would do little to reduce U.S. oil imports beyond opening new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to oil drilling, with all the attendant environmental problems.

An integrated bill is a better deal for taxpayers. An integrated bill can provide funds to pay for cleaner energy programs through carbon allowances, whether they are distributed for free or auctioned. For example, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the comprehensive bill adopted by the Environment and Public Works Committee (S. 1733) would reduce the deficit by about $21 billion between 2010 and 2019. In contrast, CBO estimates that the “energy only” bill (S. 1462) would increase the deficit by about $13.5 billion between 2010 and 2019.

And above all, an integrated bill will reduce global warming pollution, while a piecemeal “energy only” bill could make carbon emissions worse. The House-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) would reduce emissions of heat-trapping pollution by 2 billion metric tons from 2005 levels by 2020, as would the bill reported by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (S. 1733). A 2 billion ton cut in U.S. emissions would be at the lower end of what scientists say is needed by 2020 to put the world on a pathway to prevent the worst effects of global warming – that is, to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius increase in temperature as nations pledged in the Copenhagen Accord. At best, the Senate “energy only” bill could achieve only about one-tenth of that cut – 260 million tones. At worst, a number of provisions in that bill could actually increase carbon pollution, swamping any good done by the bill’s efficiency initiatives.

In particular, the “energy only” bill’s electricity transmission provisions could increase global warming pollution, because without a carbon cap there would be more new coal plants, and fewer wind farms, built to tie into the new transmission wires. Likewise, the bill would weaken the environmental performance required of transportation fuels purchased by the federal government. The U.S. Air Force has goals to procure about 400 million gallons of synthetic jet fuel by 2016. If oil from tar sands or other dirty fuels are used instead of conventional fuels to meet the Air Force goal, carbon emissions could increase by 5-10 million tons.

Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), a key midwestern voice and one of the participants in today’s White House meeting, offered his own energy proposal today, focusing on building energy efficiency, cleaner electricity, and higher fuel economy. These measures have merit but will fall short of the cuts in carbon pollution and oil imports we need unless they are integrated into a bill that requires steady cuts in carbon pollution.

So as the White House and these key Senators continue their work, the best solution is to marry strong limits on global warming pollution with the good provisions in energy legislation. Congress should pass clean energy and climate legislation that caps carbon and includes the smart complementary policies to cut pollution while creating clean energy jobs and improving our security.

Going Rogue on Endangerment

2010-02-20T18:08:22Z

A rogues’ gallery of science-denying coal and oil companies, industry lobbyists and trade associations, right-wing advocacy groups, and ultra-conservative elected officials have lined up to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over its landmark “endangerment finding” – the Agency’s scientific determination that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping air pollutants are dangerous to public health and the environment.

At least 16 lawsuits have been joined together in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington under the name Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA. A partial list of the science-denying petitioners speaks volumes:

Right-wing climate science deniers including the corporate-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute and tea party-backer FreedomWorks Foundation
Anti-regulatory business lobbyists led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which last summer called for a “Scopes monkey trial” on global warming
Coal companies, including the National Mining Association, Peabody Energy, and Massey Energy (whose CEO Don Blankenship calls global warming “a hoax and a Ponzi scheme”)
Coal-burning utilities, through their perennial litigation arm called the Utility Air Regulatory Group
Oil companies, through the American Petroleum Institute, the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, and the Western States Petroleum Association
Steel, cement, and other trade groups, including the American Iron and Steel Institute, the Portland Cement Association, and the National Association of Homebuilders
Agribusiness, through the American Farm Bureau Federation and other groups
Climate denying politicians, including the tea party-courting governor of Texas, his counterparts in Alabama and Virginia, and a dozen Republican members of Congress such as Joe Barton and Marsha Blackburn

NRDC has joined with four other environmental organizations and 17 state and local governments that have intervened to help defend EPA’s endangerment finding.

As lawsuits, though, these cases aren’t much of a threat. EPA is faithfully following the Clean Air Act and the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 global warming decision, Massachusetts v. EPA. You could not ask for a more transparent and thorough process.

EPA painstakingly reviewed dozens of climate science assessments by America’s top science agencies – ranging from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Defense – as well as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

EPA evaluated more than 300,000 public comments and produced a 200-page scientific synthesis and a 700-page response to comments to support its December final decision.

The courts are no more likely to overturn EPA’s finding that carbon pollution causes dangerous climate change than to throw out the Surgeon General’s finding that smoking causes cancer.

But these lawsuits were not brought in order to win in the courts. Rather, they are part of a cynical political strategy to block carbon curbs by manufacturing a perception of uncertainty about the strength of climate science. The primary tactic is to endlessly recycle a handful of faulty details found in the thousands of pages of the 2007 IPCC report, and to repeat, repeat, repeat a few juicy quotes from hacked emails. (See posts here, here, and here by NRDC’s senior climate scientist, Dan Lashof.)

The lawsuits, their backers hope, will provide more press hooks for repeating these charges. And even though the courts will uphold EPA in a year or so, the cases will serve their intended function if they provide a veneer of legitimacy now for lobbyists backing measures in Congress to repeal the endangerment finding or reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling by declaring that carbon dioxide is a not an air pollutant.

It’s not hard to pop this bubble by listening to real scientists. For example, the Texas State Climatologist took sharp issue with the science claims behind Texas’s lawsuit. Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon told the Center for American Progress’s Think Progress blog:

However, it is also apparent that if atmospheric concentrations of the six greenhouse gases continue to rise due to human influence, the Earth would eventually reach a point where there would be massive disruptions of ecosystems, changes in sea level, decreases in air quality, and so forth that would, in particular, substantially harm the public welfare of those generations forced to experience them. So anthropogenic increases of greenhouse gas concentrations clearly present a danger to the public welfare, and I agree with the EPA’s findings in that sense.

He further stated:

Do I think that the EPA based its assessment on sound science? I think, by basing its assessments on the IPCC, USGCRP, and NAS reports, it was basing its assessments on the best available science. I have the expertise to independently evaluate the quality of these reports, and on the whole they constitute in my opinion the most comprehensive, balanced assessments of climate change science presently available.

Dr. Kerry Emanuel, a renowned hurricane expert, wrote in the Boston Globe that “Climate changes are proven fact.” Here’s his answer to this “largely manufactured debate”:

With all the interest in alleged misdeeds of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hacked email exchanges among climate scientists, it is easy to lose track of the compelling strands of scientific evidence that have led almost all climate scientists to conclude that mankind is altering climate in potentially dangerous ways. . . .

A few essential points are undisputed among climate scientists. First, the surface temperature of the Earth is roughly 60 F higher than it would otherwise be thanks to a few greenhouse gasses that collectively make up only about 3 percent of the mass of our atmosphere.

Second, the concentrations of the two most important long-lived greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, have been increasing since the dawn of the industrial era; carbon dioxide alone has increased by about 40 percent. These increases have been brought about by fossil fuel combustion and changes in land use.

Third, in the absence of any feedbacks except for temperature itself, doubling carbon dioxide would increase the global average surface temperature by about 1.8 F. And fourth, global temperatures have been rising for roughly the past century and have so far increased by about 1.4 F. The rate of rise of surface temperature is consistent with predictions of human-caused global warming that date back to the 19th century and is larger than any natural change we have been able to discern for at least the past 1,000 years.

Dr. Emanuel said:

The uncertainties in the models, theory, and observations of climate change and associated risks and the sheer complexity of the problem provide many rounds of ammunition for the agenda-driven, be they apocalyptic or denialist. For the lawyerly, with the ability and will to cherry-pick the evidence, there is much ripe fruit to hurl in the increasingly heated climate wars of our generation.

But when the dust settles, what we are left with is the evidence. And, in spite of all its complexity and uncertainties, we should not lose track of the simple fact that theory, actual observations of the planet, and complex models - however imperfect each is in isolation - all point to ongoing, potentially dangerous human alteration of climate. . . .

We do not have the luxury of waiting for scientific certainty, which will never come, nor does it do anyone any good to assassinate science, the messenger.

The Clean Air Act’s trigger for action – the scientific finding that an air pollutant endangers public health and welfare – is built on this last principle that “we do not have the luxury of waiting for scientific certainty.” Using the Clean Air Act to help protect us from global warming requires nothing different than what we’ve done for four decades for other kinds of pollution: follow the science, act when pollution endangers our health and welfare, and use available and affordable technology to clean up vehicles, power plants, and other big pollution sources. It’s practical, effective, affordable, and it works.

Check out this interview on Clean Skies News:

Three Reasons to Vote No on the "Dirty Air Acts"

2010-02-03T23:44:59Z

Don't Dismantle the Clean Air Act As A Tool To Protect Us From Global Warming

post updated February 9 and February 27

The Clean Air Act has protected Americans from dangerous air pollution for 40 years. It has saved hundreds of thousands of lives and protected our lakes, forests, and other natural treasures from untold damage.[1] Now it’s time to rely on this landmark law to help protect us from global warming. This requires nothing different than what we’ve done for other kinds of pollution: follow the science, act when pollution endangers our health and welfare, and use available and affordable technology to clean up the largest pollution sources – vehicles, power plants, and big factories. It’s practical, effective, and affordable.

Now some members of Congress want to dismantle the Clean Air Act as a tool to protect us from global warming:

“Resolutions of disapproval,” one sponsored by Reps. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and another by Reps. Ike Skelton (D-MO) and Colin Peterson (D-MN), would overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific finding that global warming pollution is dangerous to our health and welfare, and would prohibit use of the Clean Air Act to protect us from that pollution. (H.J. Res. 66 and H.J. Res. 76, companion to S.J. Res 26, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).)

Bills introduced by Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) and Ike Skelton (D-MO) would reverse the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 global warming decision by declaring that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are not air pollutants. (H.R. 4396, H.R. 4572).

All of these proposals would harm the health and welfare of millions of Americans by blocking use of the Clean Air Act to reduce global warming pollution. They would stop long-overdue action to hold the biggest polluters accountable for their global warming pollution and block investments to reduce America's oil dependence and jump-start a vibrant clean energy economy.

Here are three reasons Congress should reject these Dirty Air Acts.

Congress should not veto modern science or block action to protect Americans’ health from dangerous air pollution.

When Congress wrote the Clean Air Act it wisely made science central to decision-making. The law requires that when science identifies new threats to health and the environment, new steps must be taken to protect the public. The Congress that wrote this law expected EPA to act when new dangers arose, without waiting for a later Congress to pass new laws.

Science has demonstrated that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases harm public health and the environment.

In a landmark 2007 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the plain terms of the Clean Air Act. The Court held that EPA must take action if the administrator finds, based upon the science, that they are dangerous to public health and welfare.

That’s the “endangerment finding” that Administrator Lisa Jackson made in December, based on a thorough scientific assessment and after reviewing hundreds of thousands of public comments.

Overturning this scientific finding would be like vetoing the Surgeon-General’s report that smoking causes lung cancer. Congress should not be denying modern science. And Congress should not dismantle the Clean Air Act as a tool to respond to global warming.

These bills would wreak havoc in the auto industry by blocking federal clean car standards supported by industry, labor, environmentalists and states.

Last May, President Obama announced an historic agreement on national clean car standards. These consensus standards set under the Clean Air Act will cut vehicles’ carbon pollution by 30 percent, save consumers billions at the gas pump, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and help the American auto industry rebuild by making cars and trucks that make sense for the 21st century. For the first time, the auto companies, labor, states, and environmentalists all have agreed on a path forward for cleaner, more efficient cars.

The Moran-Blackburn, Pomeroy, and Skelton bills would wreak havoc for the automobile industry. Without the endangerment finding and the authority to limit greenhouse gases, EPA could not issue these national clean car standards. Without those national standards, auto makers would have to meet the state-level standards adopted by California and at least 13 other states. The national standards are a win-win, providing more emission reductions for the environment and national uniformity for the industry – benefits that would be lost if these bills succeed. That’s why the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the United Auto Workers support the new auto standards and why they opposed a similar effort to tamper with the Clean Air Act in the Senate last September.

The Clean Air Act will only require emission controls that are available and affordable and will require them only on big polluters; there will be no impact on hotels, hospitals, and other small sources.

Lobbyists for power plants and other big carbon polluters are peddling two falsehoods: that issuing the endangerment finding and the clean car standards will lead to putting new burdens on hotels, hospitals, and homes, and will block construction of big new power plants and industrial projects. Neither claim is true.

For decades, the Clean Air Act has required companies that build or expand big power plants and factories to get a construction permit showing that they will use technology that is available and affordable to limit dangerous pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, particulates, and nitrogen oxide.

When big new pollution sources are built or when big existing ones are expanded, it’s just common sense to make sure that they use available and affordable technology to keep their pollution increase as small as reasonably possible. That idea has worked for conventional pollutants for decades, and it will work for greenhouse gases too.

So what will the owners of power plants, refineries, or other big facilities actually have to do?

First, companies don’t need construction permits to continue using current facilities, even if they run them at higher capacity.
Second, if a company wants to expand its facility, it doesn’t need a construction permit unless the facility’s pollution levels are going to go up. Many factory improvements – de-bottlenecking and efficiency projects, for example – increase output without increasing emissions, and they will be unaffected.
Third, when a company builds a new plant or an expansion project that will increase emissions, it only has to apply emission control measures that are available and affordable. Just as for other pollutants, if there are no feasible measures to cut carbon emissions, or if they are too costly, the permitting agency need not require them.

These are reasonable steps to take. Why would we want big new or expanded facilities to pollute more than they have to when affordable means exist to curb their emissions?

EPA has no intention to put carbon controls on small sources, and the agency is carefully tailoring its regulations to assure that only the biggest carbon pollution sources – those emitting at least 25,000 tons per year – will be covered. So there will be no impact on schools, homes, hospitals, small businesses, or other small sources.

* * *

The Moran-Blackburn, Pomeroy, and Skelton dirty air proposals would deny modern science, wreak havoc in the auto industry, let big carbon polluters off the hook, and leave millions of Americans unprotected from the dangers of global warming. They would dismantle the protections we have and replace them with nothing. Congress should reject these ill-designed proposals and pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation to complement the practical, effective, and affordable public health protection provided by the Clean Air Act.

[1] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act, 1970 to 1990,” (Oct. 1997), page 36, Table 9 (http://www.epa.gov/oar/sect812/1970-1990/chptr1_7.pdf) and Appendix D, Table D-13 (http://www.epa.gov/oar/sect812/1970-1990/appen_d.pdf).

President’s Budget Backs Climate Change Action

2010-02-03T04:32:29Z

President Obama’s FY2011 budget proposal reiterates his commitment to creating jobs and strengthening our economy by building a clean energy future, and his determination to combat climate change through international agreements, comprehensive new climate and energy legislation, and action under the Clean Air Act. The message comes through in the budget numbers and the accompanying budget narrative.

First, the budget restates the President’s commitment, made last November and formally recorded last week under the Copenhagen Accord, to a target for reducing our country’s global warming pollution (p. 126): “The Administration supports a comprehensive market-based climate change policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States more than 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. The President also supports a near-term target in the range of a 17-percent reduction by 2020.” This target is in line with the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by the House last June. In his State of the Union speech last week, President Obama reached out to both sides of the aisle to move legislation through the Senate. My colleague Dan Lashof explains here how the budget provides for revenue-neutral treatment of the value of carbon allowances. (Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office scores the House bill as a small net revenue increase.)

Second, the president’s budget requests funds to help poor and vulnerable nations cope with climate impacts, protect their forests, and adopt clean energy technologies. As my colleague Heather Allen explains, the administration is proposing a 38 percent increase over the 2010 international climate change finance budget, and this will strengthen the U.S. contribution to the $10 billion per year of fast-start funds promised by developed countries under the Copenhagen Accord.

Third, the president’s budget requests additional funds for the Environmental Protection Agency to carry out its responsibilities to address global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act. Some $47 million in new funds will be used to carry out greenhouse gas emissions reporting requirements as Congress directed in the 2007 appropriations act; to develop achievable and affordable performance standards for categories of carbon-emitting vehicles and industrial sources; and to help states prepare to act quickly and efficiently on future industry needs for construction and operation permits. All of these actions are important and long-overdue steps towards protecting our health and the environment from the dangers of global warming pollution, under the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA.

The 2011 budget is further proof that President Obama and his administration are committed to building the clean energy economy that will create jobs, increase our security, and cut the pollution that drives global warming.

United States Records Carbon Reduction Target Under Copenhagen Accord

2010-02-01T05:47:44Z

The first fruits of the Copenhagen Accord were realized over the last few days as the world’s largest carbon emitters – and some smaller countries too – recorded their emissions mitigation commitments and actions under the Copenhagen Accord. In the agreement hammered out on December 18th, President Obama and other world leaders committed to submit their mitigation targets and plans to the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change by January 31st. Over the course of the last week, the promised submissions from the big emitters have rolled in. In addition some smaller nations, such as the Maldives, have added their own emissions reduction targets. We’re keeping a running tab here.

The United States submitted its target commitment on January 28th. The text is short and sweet: The U.S. commits to make an economy-wide greenhouse gas emission reduction from 2005 levels “[i]n the range of 17%, in conformity with anticipated U.S. energy and climate legislation, recognizing that the final target will be reported to the Secretariat in light of enacted legislation.” A footnote adds this: “The pathway set forth in pending legislation would entail a 30% reduction in 2025 and a 42% reduction in 2030, in line with the goal to reduce emissions 83% by 2050.”

The U.S. commitment matches the carbon pollution reduction targets in the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which passed the House of Representatives in June 2009. The task ahead is to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation in the Senate. In his State of the Union address on January 27th, President Obama threw himself into breaking the climate deadlock in the Senate. He saluted the House bill and stressed his “eager[ness] to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate.” To underline his offer, the president framed up a package melding incentives for nuclear power plant construction and offshore oil drilling with a declining cap on global warming pollution. This, of course, is the package that has brought Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) into partnership with Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). They are reaching out to other Senators of both parties to assemble a bill that can reach across the aisle to break the Senate gridlock.

As the Republican member of this trio, Senator Graham’s commitment to legislate is crucial, and he went out of his way last week to show his seriousness. He told E&E News (subscription required, another link here), “The idea of not pricing carbon, in my view, means you're not serious about energy independence. The odd thing is you'll never have energy independence until you clean up the air, and you'll never clean up the air until you price carbon." Graham added: “I am committed to finding a new way forward as I believe energy security is a short and long-term job creator for our country. Clean air is a shared value by both parties and all Americans. I remain hopeful after discussing this matter with conservation groups, businesses, and Senate colleagues we can be successful this year.”

The commitments recorded under the Copenhagen Accord should help move the legislative effort forward. Many Senators have made clear that they want to see action by all major emitters, especially China and India. Now those countries are acting. We asked for a global effort to reduce emissions, and now we’ve got it. Indeed, as the New York Times reported yesterday, “China Is Leading the Race to Make Clean Energy.” Now we have to play our role in curbing carbon pollution. We also have to get busy or we’ll lose the clean energy markets of the future. These are the reasons the Senate must act, now.

President Leads to Forge Climate Consensus Abroad and at Home

2010-01-28T03:29:15Z

Last month President Obama threw himself into the deadlocked Copenhagen climate summit. The president challenged his fellow leaders this way:

We know the fault lines because we've been imprisoned by them for years. These international discussions have essentially taken place now for almost two decades, and we have very little to show for it other than an increased acceleration of the climate change phenomenon. The time for talk is over. This is the bottom line: We can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, continue to refine it and build upon its foundation. We can do that, and everyone who is in this room will be part of a historic endeavor -- one that makes life better for our children and our grandchildren.

Through open dialogue and hard bargaining with his counterparts, the president brought home the world’s first agreement for real cuts in heat-trapping carbon pollution by all of the world’s big emitters, with commitments and cooperation from both developed and developing countries, including China and India. The first fruits of the Copenhagen agreement are being realized this week, as the world’s largest countries record the specific commitments and actions to reduce emissions that they will take. In his State of the Union speech tonight, Obama said: “We have gone from a bystander to a leader in the fight against climate change.”

Tonight President Obama threw himself into breaking the climate deadlock here at home, by calling for comprehensive climate and energy legislation. He saluted the bill passed by the House last year and pledged to work across the aisle to advance the bipartisan effort to pass legislation in the Senate. In much the same way that he spoke to other world leaders, the president said this:

From the day I took office, I have been told that addressing our larger challenges is too ambitious – that such efforts would be too contentious, that our political system is too gridlocked, and that we should just put things on hold for awhile.

For those who make these claims, I have one simple question:

How long should we wait? How long should America put its future on hold?

You see, Washington has been telling us to wait for decades, even as the problems have grown worse. Meanwhile, China's not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany's not waiting. India's not waiting. These nations aren't standing still. These nations aren't playing for second place. They're putting more emphasis on math and science. They're rebuilding their infrastructure. They are making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.

Well I do not accept second-place for the United States of America. As hard as it may be, as uncomfortable and contentious as the debates may be, it's time to get serious about fixing the problems that are hampering our growth.

The president said: “Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it's time to try something new.” And here is the formula he laid out:

Next, we need to encourage American innovation. Last year, we made the largest investment in basic research funding in history – an investment that could lead to the world's cheapest solar cells or treatment that kills cancer cells but leaves healthy ones untouched. And no area is more ripe for such innovation than energy. You can see the results of last year's investment in clean energy – in the North Carolina company that will create 1200 jobs nationwide helping to make advanced batteries; or in the California business that will put 1,000 people to work making solar panels.

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. And yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

I am grateful to the House for passing such a bill last year. This year, I am eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate. I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy; and I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future – because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.

This is a clearly calibrated offer to work across the aisle with Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joseph Lieberman, who are working on a bill that combines firm limits on carbon pollution with steps on nuclear power, offshore oil, and other areas of energy policy. Many in the Senate have said that the administration’s direct involvement is needed to break the gridlock. Now they have it.

A broad coalition of businesses, unions, faith groups, veterans, national security experts, and environmentalists are demanding comprehensive climate and energy legislation this year – to create jobs, cut pollution, and make our country more secure. The president has joined the bipartisan effort to break the deadlock in the Senate and solve this problem. Let’s get this done.

Seven Murkowski Mistakes About the Clean Air Act and Global Warming

2010-01-25T16:25:17Z

In her recent floor speech attacking the Clean Air Act as a tool to protect Americans from global warming, Senator Lisa Murkowski made error after error on how the nation’s most successful pollution control law works, how it will affect the country’s biggest sources of heat-trapping carbon pollution, and what it means and does not mean for companies in her own state.

Senator Murkowski wants to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific finding that global warming pollution is dangerous to Americans’ health and to their environment. She introduced a “resolution of disapproval” that, if passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president, would void the Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 global warming decision and prohibit using the Clean Air Act to cut the carbon pollution that endangers our health and our environment.

The Clean Air Act has protected Americans from dangerous air pollution for 40 years. It has saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and it has protected our lakes, forests, national parks, and other natural treasures from untold damage. Now we’re relying on this landmark law to help protect our health and natural resources from global warming.

Using the Clean Air Act to protect us from global warming requires nothing different than what we’ve done for other kinds of pollution over the last four decades: Follow the science, act when pollution endangers our health and welfare, and use available and affordable emission controls to clean up the largest pollution sources – vehicles, power plants, and big factories. It’s practical, effective, and affordable.

Here are seven major mistakes Senator Murkowski makes about the Clean Air Act and global warming.

Mistake #1: The disapproval resolution “has nothing to do with the science of global climate change.”

That’s just wrong. The resolution of disapproval directly overturns EPA’s science-based finding that global warming pollution is dangerous to Americans’ health and to their environment. This is like Congress vetoing the Surgeon-General’s report that smoking causes lung cancer. Congress told EPA to put science at the heart of the regulatory process. Sen. Murkowski’s resolution asks Senators to deny that science should drive clean air regulation.

Mistake #2: “The Clean Air Act was written by Congress to regulate criteria pollutants, not greenhouse gases.”

That’s also wrong. The Supreme Court held in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act unambiguously covers all kinds of air pollutants, including greenhouse gases:

The Clean Air Act's sweeping definition of “air pollutant” includes “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical ... substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air ... .” § 7602(g) (emphasis added). On its face, the definition embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe, and underscores that intent through the repeated use of the word “any.” Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt “physical [and] chemical ... substance[s] which [are] emitted into ... the ambient air.” The statute is unambiguous.

The Supreme Court went on to say:

If EPA makes a finding of endangerment, the Clean Air Act requires the agency to regulate emissions of the deleterious pollutant from new motor vehicles.

That’s the scientific finding that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson made in December, based on all the peer-reviewed evidence and hundreds of thousands of public comments.

Mistake #3: Senator Murkowski says she doesn’t want to block federal clean car standards, but that’s what her resolution would do.

In a Rose Garden ceremony last May, President Obama announced an historic agreement on national clean car standards, a clean car peace treaty bringing together the auto companies, labor, states, and environmentalists. Those standards will cut vehicles’ carbon pollution by 30 percent, save consumers billions at the gas pump, sharply reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and help the American auto industry rebuild by making cars and trucks that make sense for the 21st century.

Senator Murkowski has said before that she does not want to block these clean car standards. But that is exactly what her resolution would do. By overturning the endangerment finding, the resolution directly prohibits EPA from setting those standards.

If the resolution passes, the auto companies will lose the benefits of national emission standards. They will have to meet state clean car standards in California and at least 13 other states. That’s why the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the United Auto Workers opposed the senator’s first anti-Clean Air Act proposal last September.

No wonder Senator Murkowski was silent about clean cars when introducing her resolution last week. She knows what it would do to the clean car agreement, and she knows that makes no sense.

Mistake #4: Contrary to Senator Murkowski, the Clean Air Act will not cover hotels, hospitals, and other small sources.

EPA is carefully limiting carbon controls to big power plants and industrial facilities – the same big sources that have long been subject to the Clean Air Act for other dangerous pollutants – and has no intention to put carbon controls on small sources. Yet Senator Murkowski perpetuates the myth that hotels, hospitals, homes, and other small sources are in the cross-hairs.

For decades the Clean Air Act has had a “new source review” program to ensure that the largest new and expanded power plants and factories use modern technology to limit their dangerous emissions. A company that just keeps using its existing facilities is not affected, nor is any expansion project that does not increase emissions. But it’s just common sense to make sure that when a company builds a new or expanded facility that will increase pollution, it should use modern technology to keep the emissions rise as small as reasonably possible.

Last September EPA proposed to tailor its existing rules to make sure that only the biggest pollution-increasing sources – ones like those already covered for conventional pollutants – will need new source review permits for greenhouse gases. EPA asked for public comment on a threshold of 25,000 tons per year of greenhouse gases – 100 times higher than the threshold for other pollutants. This reflects the fact that much more carbon dioxide is emitted than other pollutants.

The public comments show that no one wants small sources to come under the permitting rules. Environmental organizations support the tailoring rule and its focus on the big power plants and industrial facilities like those long covered for other pollutants. Many industries and states suggested that a higher threshold number – some suggested 50,000 or 100,000 tons – is needed to accomplish this goal. And so EPA may well include a higher emissions threshold in the final rules, with broad support from all sides.

Senator Murkowski conjures up a crisis starting at the end of March, when EPA is expected to issue the clean car standards. But nothing dramatic is likely to happen then. Many states told EPA that they will need time to change their own laws and regulations to adopt the final emissions threshold, and EPA is very likely to allow them more time in order to assure a smooth and workable transition.

Mistake #5: Contrary to the senator, the courts are unlikely to force EPA to cover small sources.

Senator Murkowski says: “When the final rule is issued, it will be challenged. I expect the courts will then reject it.” But who is going to challenge the exemption of small sources? Not environmental organizations – they support the rule. Not small businesses – why would they challenge a rule that doesn’t cover them?

So that leaves companies and trade associations representing the big new sources that will have to use modern pollution controls for greenhouse gases, just as they already do for other pollutants. Will they sue because small sources are not covered? What court will listen to big sources make that complaint?

In any event, EPA is relying on established legal doctrines. For instance, courts recognize situations of administrative necessity – in this case, that permitting agencies simply cannot handle the workload without the change in the emissions threshold that excludes small sources. On these facts, what court will order EPA to cover small sources?

Mistake #6: Senator Murkowski’s “Lower 48” examples are power plants that broke today’s rules for conventional pollutants, not greenhouse gases.

Senator Murkowski claims power plants and industries in the Lower 48 will face a “heavy economic burden” if new source permitting covers greenhouse gases. But the three examples she gives – proposed new power plants in New Mexico, Kentucky, and Arkansas – are completely off-target.

First, these permits don’t involve greenhouse gases at all – they’re about conventional pollutants, like sulfur dioxide, particulates, and nitrogen oxide, that have been covered for decades.

Second, in each of these cases the state permitting agency failed to follow the long-established rules of the road. The state is supposed to set an emission limit based the “best available control technology” by considering the feasibility and cost of all control options, and eliminating those it finds aren’t technically feasible or are too costly. The states didn’t do that in these cases.

In two instances, the states approved pulverized coal plants without evaluating the feasibility or cost of using Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (“IGCC”), a coal-based power generation technology that would significantly reduce emissions of SO2, NOx, fine particles, and mercury.
In the third case, the state had failed to consider emission controls for dangerous fine particle emissions.

Now the permit applicants and the state agencies have to correct their errors by considering the control measures they previously ignored. The states still have the option to reject those measures if the permitting agencies find them infeasible or too costly. But it is only fair to follow the rules, look at the full range of options, and accept or reject them after due consideration.

Thus, each of these decisions strikes a reasonable balance to ensure that public health is protected while economic growth occurs. And they have nothing to do with greenhouse gases.

Mistake #7: Contrary to Senator Murkowski, the Clean Air Act will not block construction or operation of Alaskan pipelines and oil refineries.

Senator Murkowski’s most sweeping charges relate to her own state. EPA’s regulations, she says, “will hit my home state’s energy sector particularly hard. The continued operation of existing businesses and future endeavors alike – including Alaska’s three refineries, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, or TAPS, and the proposed Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline – will all be jeopardized.” None of this is true.

Exhibit number 1 is the Flint Hills oil refinery near Fairbanks, which she says “struggles to keep its jet fuel output at competitive rates” and “faces a relatively inelastic market in Alaska for its other fuel products.” Senator Murkowski then says: “The EPA will likely be unable, and in any event unwilling, to address these issues.”

There are four reasons why her conclusion is wrong.

First, Flint Hills’ current operations aren’t affected, because refineries, power plants, and other facilities don’t need new source permits to continue their current operations.
Second, if Flint Hills wants to expand its output of jet fuel or other products, it won’t need a new source permit for greenhouse gases unless pollution levels are going to go up. Many refinery improvements – de-bottlenecking and efficiency projects, for example – increase output without increasing emissions, and these will be unaffected.
Third, if the Flint Hills refinery, or any other company, proposes a new plant or an expansion project that will increase emissions, it’s very likely to need a new source permit anyway under the longstanding rules for conventional pollutants like hydrocarbons or NOx.
Finally, just as for any other pollutant, if measures to cut the greenhouse gas emissions of a new plant or an expansion project are not available or are too costly, the permitting agency will not have to require them. All the Clean Air Act requires is control measures that are feasible and affordable.

So much for the threat to Flint Hills or other plants. Now let’s look at Senator Murkowski’s claim that construction and operation of the proposed Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline would be “significantly hobbled by the EPA.” The reason, she says, is that “[t]here is no known best available control technology” for reducing CO2 emissions from the pipeline’s compressor stations.

If the senator were correct that there are no control options for the new pipeline’s compressor stations, then no controls would be required. Once again, if the permitting agency concludes, after considering the options, that CO2-reducing measures are infeasible or too costly, then none will be imposed.

But in fact there are good options for reducing compressor stations’ CO2 emissions, such as by capturing wasted energy for electricity generation. According to Chairman Jon Wellinghoff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (hats off to Dave Roberts for noting this):

FERC has begun moving down the path of wringing every ounce of efficiency out of the interstate pipeline system. For example, it has been estimated that between 10 and 15 gigawatts of energy could be recovered from our natural gas pipeline system through electricity generation from waste heat recovery at compressor stations and pressure recovery at pressure let-down points. There are at least 12 projects in North America at which four interstate pipeline companies are, or will be, providing compressor engine waste heat for the generation of electricity.

These are reasonable measures at least to consider in the permitting process for the new natural gas pipeline. If there is some reason they won’t work in Alaska, they won’t be required.

Everything Senator Murkowski says about the economic importance of these refineries and pipelines is true. But none of that is imperiled by the Clean Air Act. All that it requires in Alaska, and in the rest of the country, is that we build and operate our energy facilities with available and affordable measures to cut the pollution that threatens our health and environment.

* * *

The Clean Air Act has produced enormous public health and environmental benefits for 40 years. Let’s not stop it now.

And let’s not use mistaken claims about the Clean Air Act as an excuse for delay on comprehensive energy and climate legislation. Senator Murkowski says she wants such legislation, but she has rejected every climate bill put forward in this Congress and offered nothing of her own except to attack the only effective tool already in place.

Instead of moving backwards, Senator Murkowski should roll up her sleeves and join the bipartisan efforts now underway to craft a comprehensive bill that creates jobs, reduces dependence on foreign oil, and cuts the carbon pollution that threatens Americans’ health and welfare.

The Copenhagen Accord: A Big Step Forward

2009-12-22T02:20:50Z

The Copenhagen climate deal that President Obama hammered out Friday night with the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa broke through years of negotiating gridlock to achieve three critical goals. First, it provides for real cuts in heat-trapping carbon pollution by all of the world’s big emitters. Second, it establishes a transparent framework for evaluating countries’ performance against their commitments. And third, it will start an unprecedented flow of resources to help poor and vulnerable nations cope with climate impacts, protect their forests, and adopt clean energy technologies.

This was not your ordinary leaders’ summit, where presidents and prime ministers place their stamp on outcomes agreed in advance. Rather, President Obama and his counterparts came into a conference on the verge of collapse. As Brazilian President Lula candidly said: “I did not expect . . . to submit Heads of State to certain discussions such as we had yesterday, I did not see for a long time.” It reminded him of his days as a trade union negotiator. Yet over the course of some 13 hours, President Obama personally forged an agreement that was endorsed by the four developing country leaders, then by the leaders of 28 developed and developing countries, and – after a raucous all-night debate – by nearly every nation on earth (see here and here).

And by securing both action and transparency from all big nations, the president boosted the odds for Senate passage of comprehensive energy and climate legislation next year.

Not a bad day’s work, huh?

Why then howls of disaster in European media, and rather tepid reviews in many U.S. stories? Some of the second-day reporting is beginning to highlight what was actually achieved. But too many observers, in my view, are judging the Copenhagen Accord by the wrong yardsticks.

They are holding the accord to standards and expectations that no outcome achievable at Copenhagen could reasonably have met – or even should have met.

So here I’ll respond to some of the concerns I’ve read or heard. Along the way I’ll refer to parts of the Copenhagen Accord – you can read it here.

1. The agreement isn’t enough to keep us under 2 degrees C.

There’s a broad consensus among scientists and policy makers that extraordinary dangers lie in letting average world temperatures increase by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit). Paragraph 2 of the Copenhagen Accord reflects this 2 degree goal. Paragraph 12 calls for a review of the science by 2015, and consideration of a more protective target of 1.5°C. (Big countries had blocked proposals by small island and African countries to adopt a 1.5°C target now.)

The accord’s critics express disappointment that the emission cuts intended by the big emitters will not be sufficient to achieve to meet even the 2°C limit. That currently planned emission cuts will not meet this goal is, of course, true. But even cock-eyed optimists should have known going into Copenhagen that an agreement ambitious enough to keep to 2 degrees was not achievable there. The U.S. is ready to act, and though its pending legislation calls for aggressive emission cuts after 2020, it starts somewhat slowly. China and other big developing countries are also ready to act, but (with the exception of South Africa) none of these countries is yet ready to commit to a peak year and to deep emission cuts thereafter.

No one is hyping the accord as all we need to stop global warming. President Obama was candid Friday night that it is only “a first step.” Why then did some critics mistake his truthful assessment as some kind of admission of failure?

The real goal going into Copenhagen was to get the U.S., China, and the other fast-growing developing countries to take their first steps to curb their emissions. That goal was achieved. And that was no mean feat.

2. But the emission cuts aren’t specified.

Pointing to the blank tables at the end of the Copenhagen Accord, some observers have derided it as an empty agreement. They misunderstand the agreement’s structure and the context of recent national commitments upon which it was drafted.

(Some people, myself included, were briefly thrown off track by a draft circulating through the conference center mid-afternoon Friday with both the blank tables and filled-in tables that purported to show the commitments and actions of more than two dozen developed countries and 11 developing ones. The filled-in tables turned out to be only an illustrative example reportedly offered by the European Union at the November negotiating session in Barcelona. But for a couple of hours, observers thought they were looking at the real McCoy.)

In reality, paragraphs 4 and 5 of the accord create an “open enrollment” period through the end of January 2010 for countries to record their emission reduction commitments and actions in the two tables. Countries that sign up in this period will be sort of original co-sponsors, although later arrivals and enhanced commitments can be recorded anytime later.

This structure made sense because the principal countries have already announced their likely commitments over the course of the last year. The European Union, of course, has had post-Kyoto targets on offer for some time. But in recent months there has been a cascade of additional policy announcements, from the U.S. and Japan, and from China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, South Korea, and others. Indeed, many leaders summarized their targets and planned actions in their speeches on Friday morning (we’ll post a summary soon). So President Obama and the other leaders knew on Friday, to a reasonable degree of certainty, what one another will inscribe come January.

As many observers have noted, the announced commitments are not enough to prevent dangerous climate change. To be sure, more is needed (see #1, above). But the targets and policy announcements on offer today from big developing countries would have been unthinkable a year ago.

Even the U.S. position has evolved: President Obama supported a 14 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2020 during his campaign and as president-elect. The House of Representatives raised the bar to 17 percent in the climate and energy legislation passed in June, and the president followed suit in his November announcement (“in the range of 17 percent”). Senators are is considering a proposal from Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) that could allow the president to raise the 2020 target to 20 percent reduction, based on a finding that other countries have put forward sufficient commitments and are carrying them out.

In short, the Copenhagen Accord creates a dynamic situation, with the potential for a virtuous circle of countries reinforcing their commitments over time in response to similar moves by others.

3. The commitments aren’t legally binding.

Let us start by observing that there is a lot of confusion on what it means for an agreement to be “legally binding,” and on why it is important.

At the highest level, many campaigners see this as an acid test of seriousness. Any agreement that is “legally binding” is serious; a political agreement is not. That’s too simple. Agreements can be effective even though non-binding, if the parties are motivated by self- and mutual interest to observe them. And legal agreements can be ineffective; if parties are not inclined to comply, there are few formal international legal tools to compel them.

At another level, arguments that one group of parties “shall” undertake commitments, and that another group “should” or “may” do so, reflect the fundamental policy disagreement over whether developing countries should agree to take action at this time. Those arguments also reflect efforts to maintain the Kyoto Protocol’s strict dichotomy between developed and developing countries, a distinction that the Copenhagen Accord blurs.

And at a third level, some contend commitments need to be “legally binding” in order for market-based systems, such as emissions trading, to work across borders. Paragraphs 6 and 7 of the Copenhagen Accord reflect the importance of markets to preventing deforestation and to reducing costs and mobilizing clean technology. But what markets need is rules and predictability, and these can be supplied through a variety of means. The Kyoto Protocol and the Marrakesh agreement (which took an additional four years to negotiate) attempted to provide a fully elaborated, universal set of market rules from the beginning. Another way to get the needed predictability is by elaborating the rules through a smaller multilateral group (e.g., the participants in the Copenhagen Accord), bilateral arrangements, and even unilateral rule-setting. Both the House-passed climate legislation and the pending Senate bills would set basic eligibility requirements that other countries’ programs must meet in order to gain access to our carbon markets.

So it is incumbent on those who lament the absence of “legally binding” commitments to be clear on what they mean and why it is important.

The one thing critics should not have been is surprised. All through the past year, it has become increasingly obvious that negotiators were not coming to agreement on key issues. The negotiating text was a mess to start with and got worse as the year went on. The formal texts considered in the first 13 days of Copenhagen were not even close to resolution.

That is why, at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November, leaders of most big developed and developing nations joined with the Danish presidency to downshift expectations for the Copenhagen meeting from a legally binding outcome to a politically binding one. Expectations were lowered and the prospect of a Copenhagen collapse was reduced. Only then were most world leaders, including Obama, prepared to attend.

But in the poisonous dynamics of the negotiations, the “legally binding” dispute then took on a supremely political function. The EU quite reasonably insisted that it would not take on targets for a second Kyoto commitment period before the U.S. and big developing countries make appropriate commitments of their own. (The U.S., of course, has the same need from the big developing countries.) A curious alliance then formed – between the most vulnerable nations and their NGO advocates, on the one hand, and some of the most ruthless OPEC obstructionists, on the other – to beat the EU with the stick of “killing Kyoto.”

The Copenhagen Accord ultimately sidestepped “legally binding” in favor of achieving action commitments from both the big developing countries and the U.S. It is clear that China, India, and others would not have made those commitments if they were classified as legally binding. It is a matter of abstract principle for them; they can defend the targets they offered precisely because they did not give in on “legally binding.” It is also a defense against being sucked too quickly into deeper emission cuts than they are ready for. As UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boers noted last week, some countries are more inclined to get on the train if they know they are allowed to get off. Since action is paramount and time is short, it makes little sense to reject the Copenhagen agreement simply because it is not “legally binding.”

Many campaigners also lament that the Copenhagen decisions dropped the clear objective of reaching a “legally binding” agreement in Mexico City next year. There may never be another legal agreement, they say. But countries cannot be forced in advance to agree to this formulation. We should be focusing on what it will take to motivate countries to commit to the strongest possible targets and actions, and to follow through on them after. If countries can be bound by a web of interests and economic forces to make and follow through on commitments, that will mean more than any legalistic formulation of their duties.

4. The Copenhagen Accord threatens the future of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Some critics were, and remain, angry that President Obama and his counterparts from China, Brazil, India, and South Africa bypassed the formal negotiating structure of the 193-member Conference of the Parties under the UNFCCC. But the fact that the intervention of top leaders was necessary should be a sufficient demonstration that the formal process had failed us. As President Obama said Friday morning: “We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years. . . . [W]e can again choose delay, falling back into the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years. And we will be back having the same stale arguments month after month, year after year, perhaps decade after decade, all while the danger of climate change grows until it is irreversible.”

The anger erupted late Friday night as the all-night debate began. (I was there to feel it first hand.) But as the debate unfolded, the anger began to spend itself, and the curious alliance between NGOs, vulnerable states, and obstructionist regimes began to break down.

The debate was initiated by Tuvalu, a tiny island country in danger of extinction from rising seas, with possibly the highest moral claim to more ambitious action. Tuvalu’s delegate lamented the absence of a 1.5 degree C target and denounced the promise of adaptation assistance as “30 pieces of silver.” “My country is not for sale,” he said. He earned heartfelt applause from many NGOs and other delegates.

But Tuvalu was soon joined by others with obstructionist and collateral motives. The process was “undemocratic” and “not transparent,” argued such paragons of democracy and transparency as Venezuela, Cuba, and the Sudan. (Venezuelan President Chavez had indulged earlier that day in an insulting anti-American, anti-Obama tirade.)

Next came the delegate from the Sudan. Notably, he spoke on behalf of his country alone, not in his usual role as representative of the G-77 and China. With China and other big developing countries, and many smaller ones, already backing the accord, the G-77 had no unified position.

The Sudanese delegate nonetheless charged that the Copenhagen agreement would condemn Africa to millions of deaths. He then went over the edge, comparing the “values” behind the accord to those that consigned the six million to the ovens in Europe.

That turned the tide. The excess was so clear. Country after country raised their flags to defend the accord and denounce the Holocaust comparison. Among the most eloquent was the President of the Maldives, the highest ranking leader to participate in the all-night debate. Nearly all other low-lying and island nations, and many African countries, raised their voices in support.

The Sudan’s other delegate – a hired hand from the Philippines, a career obstructionist in negotiations for nearly two decades – spoke next, interminably as always. And here was her core argument: We career negotiators should reject the interference of presidents and prime ministers, who do not know what they are doing. We should seize back control of the process that the leaders were wresting away!

This was too much even for some of the most obstructive delegations. Saudi Arabia even spoke up for the accord.

As the final demonstration that the Conference of the Parties does not work, five delegations (Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Sudan – notably not Tuvalu) blocked every effort to adopt the Copenhagen Accord by consensus decision. The rules of the COP require consensus – adoption of a rule to allow majority vote in cases as a last resort has been blocked for 15 years. Finally, after removing the incompetent Danish President Rasmussen from the chairman’s role, a way was found to persuade the objectors to allow a decision “taking note” of the Copenhagen Accord – a step UN officials say has the same practical effect as an adoption decision. The compromise involved listing at the top of the accord those countries that endorse it, thus allowing the dissenters to distance themselves.

So the Copenhagen Accord will go forward under the name of those countries that endorse it and with the participation of those that elect to inscribe their commitments and actions by the end of January.

By the end of the debate, the anger in the room had spent itself. NGOs deeply sympathetic to Tuvalu and the other island nations could not abide either Venezuela or the Sudan. With China, India, Brazil, South Africa and many other big developing nations set to join the accord, the G-77 may have reached its end as a unified force. This will have enormous implications for the future of the UNFCCC and the functioning of the Copenhagen Accord, which is my next topic.

5. So the Copenhagen Accord is just like George Bush’s Major Economies Process.

The Bush administration created a 17-member Major Economies Meeting – the MEM – in 2007, consisting of the largest developed and developing economies and CO2 emitters. The Obama administration continued the group under the name the Major Economies Forum (MEF).

What’s the difference, I’ve been asked. In a nutshell, the premise of the MEM in the Bush days was “cover” – a mutual non-action pact. We won’t act because you won’t act. The premise of the MEF under Obama is the opposite – a mutual action pact. We’re going to tackle global warming, we expect you to, and let’s do it together.

Other nations surely are frustrated that the U.S. has not yet adopted domestic legislation – indeed, that’s the number one limitation on our power to persuade. But they do see a dramatic difference between the new administration and the old one, as evidenced by the recovery act investments in clean energy, fuel economy standards, action to curb greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, and House passage of energy and climate legislation. That is why President Obama was ultimately able to convince the leaders of the big developing economies to join this new effort.

Another difference from the original MEM is that the Copenhagen Accord will not be limited to big emitters. It includes substantial assistance to developing countries – and especially the poorest and most vulnerable – for adaptation, forest protection, and clean energy. See paragraphs 6 and 8-11. Some assistance will likely go to big countries to support their emission cutting plans. China’s leaders know, however, that their country will not receive much of this money (although they did take umbrage at the suggestion that China should be categorically excluded). Most will go to the nations most exposed to droughts, floods, and sea level rise, and to nations willing and able to stop tropical forest loss. These countries are expected to sign up to the new agreement in significant numbers.

This raises unanswered questions about how the new accord will be governed. Presumably, the current members of the MEF will have a key role. The role of other countries that offer commitments and actions to curb emissions and stop deforestation must addressed, as well as the role of countries that are intended to benefit from adaptation and other assistance.

And what of the relationship to the UNFCCC? One can see several possibilities. The members of the new agreement are likely to meet at least several times this coming year. The developing country parties will not want to break away from the UNFCCC entirely, so at a minimum they will report on their activities at the mid-year meetings in June in Bonn, and at the next COP in Mexico in November. The members of the accord, however, are unlikely to want to get tangled up in the subsidiary bodies and plenaries of the COP. They will not give the obstructionists that leverage.

That poses a dilemma for those still hoping for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, both those who want that for the best of reasons, and those who play the game to block any real progress. The existing convention has, at best, one last chance to get its act together. That will require transforming itself into a functional body, capable of overcoming rogues and obstructionists and capable of making practical, timely decisions. And it cannot succeed by trying to compete with the Copenhagen Accord. The only way forward for the UNFCCC is to embrace the new agreement wholeheartedly. Otherwise, the UNFCCC will wither away.

6. The Copenhagen Accord won’t move the Senate.

The quick conventional view that the Copenhagen agreement is weak suggested the quick conventional view that it will not change the calculus of the Senate. I disagree. It is not weak, and it will change the Senate.

The Copenhagen Accord delivers the two principal things that swing Senators have demanded from the international process: meaningful commitments to reducing the emissions of key developing countries, and a transparent framework for evaluating their performance against those commitments. When President Hu announced that China would adopt a carbon intensity target at the UN this fall, many Senators were impressed. The focus then shifted to questions of reliability: how can we be assured that China and other countries will do what they say. This is why President Obama insisted so strongly that transparency had to be part of the accord.

As a matter of substance, the differences between the U.S. and China were not that difficult to bridge. But the U.S. push begat a Chinese pushback, as questions of national honor and sovereignty came into play. Several times this year and during the first 13 days of the COP, word went round that the two countries were close to agreement on language, and then lines hardened again. The U.S., joined by the EU and Japan, kept pressing reasonable demands for energy and emissions statistics and a process for raising questions where data was unclear or deficient. The U.S. also offered China assistance, through a bilateral EPA-NDRC agreement, on improving emissions inventory methods. China also began to feel pressure from smaller developing countries that did not want to lose the opportunity for significant adaptation, forest protection, and clean energy resources.

As I have described here, the breakthrough came on Thursday, when U.S. Secretary of State Clinton offered a proposal for expanded long-term public and private assistance, and when Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He offered an opening to international dialogue and cooperation in review of national emissions and energy data. Chinese Premier Wen Ji Bao repeated this key offer in the opening statement of the leader’s summit.

It still took the two leaders the rest of the day to personally work out acceptable language that incorporated both respect for sovereignty and suitable transparency. The story of the meetings between Obama and Wen has been told elsewhere. Late in the day, they worked out the artful phrases in paragraph 5 of the Copenhagen Accord:

[Emissions mitigation actions by developing countries,] including national inventory reports, shall be communicated through national communications consistent with Article 12.1(b) every two years on the basis of guidelines to be adopted by the Conference of the Parties. . . . Mitigation actions taken by Non-Annex I Parties will be subject to their domestic measurement, reporting and verification the result of which will be reported through their national communications every two years. Non-Annex I Parties will communicate information on the implementation of their actions through National Communications, with provisions for international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines that will ensure that national sovereignty is respected. . . . [S]upported nationally appropriate mitigation actions [i.e., actions supported by international financial assistance] will be subject to international measurement, reporting and verification in accordance with guidelines adopted by the Conference of the Parties.

This language has something for all sides. The U.S. wins regular biennial reporting of developing country emissions inventories and other data – something China has previously provided only once – and a transparency procedure effectively equivalent to the review that developed countries already undergo. China and India win respect for sovereignty and a verbal distinction between “international consultations and analysis” and “verification,” a politically-charged term in their domestic political contexts.

Obama’s success on developing country targets and transparency will have important implications in the Senate. It should give swing Senators the assurance that U.S. is not acting alone, without the emerging economies. As E&E Daily reports (subscription required):

“Home run,” said Mark Helmke, a top staffer to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. “Satisfied the Europeans. Made China into a major world player, but made them accountable. Elevated India, Brazil and South Africa to world stage. Cut an important side deal with Russians on arms control.”

Together with tools already in the bills to address concerns about China from manufacturing industries and labor, the formula is there for legislative success.

* * *

So give up the sour and grudging reviews. The Copenhagen Accord is a significant breakthrough that signals a new era of effective cooperation between all major emitters, and opens the door to finally enacting U.S. climate and energy legislation next year.

China and U.S. Start Moving the Copenhagen Chess Pieces

2009-12-17T20:42:00Z

The Copenhagen climate talks got a big boost on Thursday as the United States and China made two important moves on finance and transparency that could unlock the door to an agreement when some 115 presidents and prime ministers convene tomorrow for the final day of negotiations.

In the morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. will contribute to a multinational public and private fund reaching $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries adapt to climate change impacts, reduce deforestation, and deploy clean technology. Secretary Clinton said the money would come from a combination of government revenues and alternative sources, including the private sector. She emphasized that U.S. support for this financing proposal depends on reaching an operational agreement that provides for all major emitters to transparently implement their emission reduction commitments and actions. (See here and here.)

In the afternoon, Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs He Yafei announced China’s willingness to support provisions for greater international transparency. Vice-Minister He reiterated that China’s recently-announced carbon intensity target “will be fully guaranteed domestically and legally binding” by placing it in the country’s next five-year plan. And opening significant new ground, He said that China “will enhance and improve our national communications” (the periodic international report on emissions and reduction actions) and “can also consider . . . international exchange, dialogue, and cooperation that is not intrusive and does not infringe on China’s sovereignty.” (See here.)

We said earlier this week that these were the two moves needed to unlock the Copenhagen chess game. Now they’re happening, and things are starting to move. Leaders seem to be instructing their negotiators to move towards agreement on a range of detailed issues that have defied resolution for the past 12 days. Small groups are expected to work late into the night while ministers and leaders focus on the sticking points.

Stay tuned.

Two Moves by the U.S. and China That Could Unlock the Copenhagen Chess Game

2009-12-15T22:00:52Z

This post co-authored with Barbara Finamore, NRDC’s China Program Director.

The Copenhagen climate summit is coming to its moment of truth, and all eyes will be on the United States and China. Together these two countries account for 42 percent of world CO2 emissions. One is responsible for the largest share of past emissions; the other for the largest share of future emissions. Other nations, both developed and developing, are looking to them for leadership. If China and the U.S. play their parts, we can forge the global consensus needed to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Both the U.S. and China deserve credit for making significant moves this year to tackle the threat of global warming. But to unlock the global agreement here in Copenhagen, each needs to take another step. And these steps offer each country opportunity and advantage.

In the past year, both countries have made unprecedented investments in green energy and clean technology. China has enacted incentives for wind power, solar panels, efficient appliances, and efficient factories, reaching scales that are driving down clean energy prices worldwide. After years of denial, the U.S. has embraced the science and started curbing CO2 under its Clean Air Act. At the same time, the president is working with Congress on new legislation that will cap and cut U.S. emissions every year, reaching an 83 percent reduction by 2050, and expanding standards and incentives for energy efficiency and renewable power.

In November, both countries offered significant emission reduction targets on the eve of the summit. Naturally, their targets are expressed in different forms and reflect each country’s different circumstances. The U.S. proposes to cap and cuts its greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, the target in legislation that has passed the U.S. House of Representatives. China proposes to slow its emissions growth by improving its carbon intensity (energy-related CO2 emissions divided by GDP) by 40-45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. China has also committed to produce 15 percent of its primary energy from non-fossil energy sources by 2020, and to reforest 100 million acres.

But the U.S. and China each need to do one more thing to give one another, and rest of the world, the confidence to move forward in Copenhagen:

U.S. leadership to help the world’s most vulnerable. The U.S. has the opportunity to help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people survive the impacts of global warming and to help countries protect their endangered tropical forests. The U.S. has committed to pay its share of a $30 billion “fast start” fund to last through 2012. But to lead in Copenhagen, the U.S. needs to back even larger investments to meet these core needs for the longer-term – 2015 or 2020. The U.S. also needs to subject these commitments to reporting and review.

There are those in the U.S. who oppose helping poor and vulnerable people abroad, especially given America’s own economic difficulties. But the U.S. also has a long tradition of helping others, and America’s emissions have impacts that confer responsibilities. These investments will pay big returns – enhancing America’s security, opening opportunities for American businesses and workers, and restoring our standing in the world community.

Chinese leadership in transparency and performance. China has the opportunity to enhance its standing as a responsible world leader by building global confidence in the implementation of its carbon reduction goals. China is making its target domestically enforceable and has been building effective institutions for implementing its energy and climate targets. China has pledged to report its performance to the world, and China and the U.S. are already cooperating bilaterally to enhance China’s emission inventory systems. But China needs to provide for enhanced transparency and some form of independent review to create greater global confidence that it is making steady progress towards meeting its target.

There are those in China who oppose taking further steps to share and review relevant data. It is important to assure them that review or consultation does not require intrusive measures, such as factory-level inspections. But China’s commitment to enhanced transparency will bring it greater recognition for the significant steps it is already taking to mitigate its emissions, and will also yield dividends in other areas of economic cooperation and trade.
Some may fear that greater openness will make China more vulnerable to trade measures proposed in U.S. climate legislation. Actually, it would have the opposite effect. The better China demonstrates that it is meeting its targets, the less its exposure, because the U.S. bills provide that trade measures will not apply to any country that is doing its part in the fight against global warming.

These two moves by the U.S. and China could unlock the Copenhagen chess game. In the final days of hard bargaining, China can use movement on transparency to leverage a U.S. commitment to more financial resources for the world’s most vulnerable, for forest protection, and clean energy deployment. By leveraging that commitment from the U.S., China will earn even higher standing in the eyes of both developed and developing nation partners.

So much rests on the choices these two giants make in the next three days.