Pierre Bull's Blog: U.S. Law and Policy

40 Years On, Summing Up NRDC in One Word: 'Sound' (adj.)

2010-04-22T19:39:22Z

Reading today's New York Times on my subway commute in this morning (I got a seat!), I paused when I came across the term "big greens" an article titled, "At 40, Earth Day is Now Big Business":

Yet the eagerness of corporations to sign up for Earth Day also reflects the environmental movement’s increased tolerance toward corporate America: Many “big greens,” as leading environmental advocacy organizations are known, now accept that they must take money from corporations or at the least become partners with them if they are to make real inroads in changing social behavior.

Begrudgingly, it seems we'll have to live with this label as a generalization to categorize the NRDC and other recognizable environmental advocacy groups that have become political mainstays with relatively sizable staffs and budgets. (No good deed goes unpunished, right?) But I'm not willing to settle on just being called 'big', especially given all the negative connotations it brings from industries that have fallen out of favor in recent times: big-Oil, big-Pharma, big-Auto, big-Banking, etc.

In setting apart the NRDC from being just another "big green", I think a better term is in order: "Sound" (adj.). We are led by sound science in all of our endeavors and positions taken. We stand up for-, and are backed by-, sound and truthful information in protecting our natural resources, health, and well-being for now and future generations. As a non-profit, we don't compromise our principles for proprietary gain, and thus confidently remain sound in our actions despite the fact we both sue against-, and actively engage with- a wide variety of large and profitable businesses and industries to keep their behavior in check.

I started thinking about having an alternative description to 'big' after reading a recent posting by Umair Haque, a regular influential blogger on the Harvard Business Review. In Umair's post, titled "Forget Your Elevator Pitch — What's Your Dumbwaiter Pitch?", he encourages his readers to 'go deep' to find a single word that captures the essence of one's organization or business. As he describes it:

So you've got an elevator pitch — a short, pithy description of why your business is special, exciting, and unique. Yawn. Today, elevator pitches are the economic equivalent of speeches at a beauty pageant: predictable, often vapid, always bland.

Here's a suggestion. Try a Dumbwaiter Pitch instead. It's an exercise I often do with startups, giant corporations, social entrepreneurs, and investors. Its goal? To strip an organization right down to its bones, and see how compelling it really is.

I think being 'sound' is a pretty compelling description for NRDC's ongoing role in the environmental movement. We're changing how we live and do business; always aiming for continual improvement for our environment, our health and our well-being. In the end, I suppose I can live with being labeled 'big' knowing that NRDC will continue to be guided by principles rooted in sound science and truth.

What word would you use to describe NRDC?

e-TV

2010-03-24T20:39:26Z

MTV changed how pop music is consumed by creating a fourth dimension to how music could be played and promoted beyond traditional forms of radio, concerts and selling records (er, cassettes, by that time). The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recent decision to require applying the EnergyGuide label to TV's sold in the U.S. will add a new dimension to how TV consumers will buy new TVs.

Yes, folks, I did just attempt to metaphorically tie MTV to the FTC; hence the title, "e-TV". (Not to be confused with another federal government body known as the FCC, which, I would imagine has a more direct and, how shall we say, less-than-cozy relationship with the network).

The residing members of the Commission passed the measure with a resounding 4-0 vote. The familiar yellow and black-text EnergyGuide label will look similar to the example below and provide useful information such as the estimated yearly cost of operating the TV and the cost range compared to other similar models.

Stakeholders have until May 14, 2010 to file comments on:

" . . . The FTC is seeking specific comments on issues such as the need for these labels; how the energy usage of televisions should be determined; the location, format, and content of energy disclosures; and the timing of the proposed labeling requirements. The agency is not proposing labeling requirements for other consumer electronics at this time, but seeks further comment on test procedures and other issues."

We applaud the FTC for moving forward on this important measure that empowers each of us as American consumers to know that effcient household appliances can save us energy and money.

Potential Bio-Energy Resources Are Plentiful in Florida - Let's Develop Them Right

2009-08-11T16:45:38Z

I recently presented at the 2009 Florida Farm to Fuel® Summit (airing on the Florida Channel this Thu, Aug 13 at 8 AM) with the message that bio-energy development - including biofuels and biomass, which is potentially very abundant in the South and Florida - should happen only when benefiting four crucial aspects: (My colleague, Nathanael Greene, provides an excellent primer on these four principles here.)

(1) Energy Security

(2) Greenhouse Gas Emissions

(3) Biodiversity

(4) Sustainability of the Food Supply

Our message is not popular, especially among those who feel that our position sets too high of a standard for bio-energy producers to meet. It is not our intent to be "against bio-energy development". Instead, it's what science tells us - essentially concluding that the environmental trade-offs for significant bio-energy growth can easily come at a cost to any of the four aspects above.

A recent paper published by Jason Evans and Matthew Cohen of the University of Florida School of Forest Resources and Conservation, titled, "Regional Water Resource Implications of Bioethanol Production in the Southeastern United States", models the land, water, and energy requirements that would be needed to meet the massive new biofuel production targets legislated by the 100+ billion gallon renewable fuel standard in the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) 2007.

This target implies an appropriation of regional primary production for dedicated feedstocks at scales that may dramatically affect water supply, exacerbate existing water quality challenges, and force undesirable environmental resource trade-offs. Using a comparative life cycle approach, we assess energy balances and water resource implications for four dedicated ethanol feedstocks - corn, sugarcane, sweet sorghum, and southern pine - in two southeastern states, Florida and Georgia, which are a presumed epicenter for future biofuel production. . . .

Utilization of existing waste biomass sources may ameliorate these effects, but does not obviate the need for dedicated primary feedstock production. Careful scrutiny of environmental trade-offs is necessary before embracing aggressive ethanol production mandates.

Granted, it's fair to say that not all of the 100 billion gallons will be produced in Florida; but it is reasonable to conclude that with the nearly year-long growing season of Florida's climate, a significant portion of the feedstock for biofuel production could be developed in this state.

Understanding and backing clear scientific evidence of the environmental impacts of bio-energy production is our reason for being deeply engaged in its development today. In developing this important domestic energy resource, we can't afford to compromise our planet's imperiled biodiversity, increase global warming pollution and limit the resources within our globally interconnected food supply.

Heralded economist sheds light on a second inconvenient truth for America and what we ought to do about it

2009-05-14T20:38:39Z

Nouriel Roubini, one of the earliest voices to speak out on the shaky economic underpinnings of our financial system and resulting economic crisis in which we now find ourselves entangled, today opined in the New York Times that within the first half of this century, the U.S. Dollar will no longer be the dominant reserve currency of choice. This will have far reaching effects on our nation both domestically and abroad for the coming Century.

As Dr. Roubini states,

Today, the United States is running huge budget and trade deficits, and is relying on the kindness of restless foreign creditors who are starting to feel uneasy about accumulating even more dollar assets. The resulting downfall of the dollar may be only a matter of time.

Continuing that,

If China and other countries were to diversify their reserve holdings away from the dollar - and they eventually will - the United States would suffer. We have reaped significant financial benefits from having the dollar as the reserve currency. In particular, the strong market for the dollar allows Americans to borrow at better rates. We have thus been able to finance larger deficits for longer and at lower interest rates, as foreign demand has kept Treasury yields low. We have been able to issue debt in our own currency rather than a foreign one, thus shifting the losses of a fall in the value of the dollar to our creditors. Having commodities priced in dollars has also meant that a fall in the dollar's value doesn't lead to a rise in the price of imports.

While this inconvenient truth of deteriorating U.S. currency leverage bears much semblence in size, scope and complexity to the inconvenient truth of global warming, there is in fact a single solution that will simultaneously confront and help solve both of these problems. Dr. Roubini reveals this solution by concluding,

Now that the dollar's position is no longer so secure, we need to shift our priorities. This will entail investing in our crumbling infrastructure, alternative and renewable resources and productive human capital - rather than in unnecessary housing and toxic financial innovation. This will be the only way to slow down the decline of the dollar, and sustain our influence in global affairs.

We couldn't agree more with Dr. Roubini and we think the moment to make our national priority shift is now. While the Stimulus Package (ARRA) enacted by Congress and the Obama Administration earlier this year was a significant step in spurring renewable energy and energy efficiency investment, the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill, now moving forward after several weeks of intense negotiations among the 57-member House Energy and Commerce Committee, is our best chance to set a new national paradigm in how we supply and use our energy resources. And it's not just super-intelligent economists who see this critical need - a sweeping majority of Americans understand what it will take to address global warming, despite a few remaining members of Congress who are out of touch on the issue and continue to try holding us back. Why would we want to let so much potential for new green jobs, economic growth and cleaner environment go to waste?

Oh, it's also worth mentioning that while American leadership has been asleep at the wheel the past several years to advance clean energy technologies, China already made a bid (proudly with NRDC's assistance) to beat us at advancing technological solutions (see here and here) to solve global warming. In the spirit of healthy and fair competition among both nations towards meeting our critical climate goal (at least 80% by 2050), we gladly continue to fuel both sides toward greater innovation and investment in clean energy.

Repowering our nation’s energy future: The Waxman-Markey Renewable Energy Standard

2009-04-07T19:48:44Z

"A wise [nation] will make more opportunities than [it] finds." Francis Bacon

The Waxman-Markey renewable electricity standard (RES) will put us on a path to achieve 25% renewable energy by 2025 in our nationwide electricity supply. It offers an ambitious challenge to guide a new era of American innovation for the 21st Century that benefits our economy and environment. For example:

Nearly 300,000 new jobs from renewable energy development
$263 billion in new capital investment
$64 billion consumer savings
277 million metric tons of avoided CO2 emissions (45.3 million cars worth!)

In the remainder of this post I have laid out further background and discussion on the structural and functional policy underpinnings of the national renewable energy standard (RES) provision in the Markey-Waxman discussion draft bill (a.k.a the American Clean Energy and Security Act).

Key takeaway: the RES in the draft bill requires an increasing percentage of electricity sold by utilities to come from renewable sources, reaching 25 percent by 2025. This goal is reached through incremental compliance targets per the schedule below:

Broad coverage. Includes retail electric utility service providers -investor-owned, municipals, rural cooperatives - who sell at least 1 million megawatt-hours of electricity each year.

Past RES provisions have excluded publicly-owned utilities (municipals and rural cooperatives) and set too high of a minimum utility size, which would effectively exempt as much as 20 percent of all electric utility service providers.

Compliance flexibility. Allows utilities to meet their obligations by buying, selling, trading and banking federal Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).
Reasonable REC price ceiling. An "alternative compliance payment" (ACP) is set at $50 per megawatt-hour ($0.05 per kilowatt-hour).

Previous RES provisions have set the ACP as low as $30 per megawatt-hour, which greatly diminishes the effective financial leverage of REC's and REC trading.

REC revenue distribution rewards renewable expansion. A "renewable electricity deployment fund" would be established based on the revenue received by the primary auction of REC's from DOE (as well as any revenues from ACP's) to utilities. At the end of each year, this fund will distribute funds in proportion to the percentage of utility-claimed REC's generated from the production of renewable energy from eligible facilities.
Extra credit for distributed resources. Provides three times the amount of RECs for electricity generated by distributed renewable sources such as solar photovoltaics.

Depending on the given location - often within urban locales - clean, distributed renewable energy sources offer superb benefits to both the local electrical grid (e.g. voltage support) and local air quality by forgoing the potential for dirty, oil-fired back-up or emergency power generators to run in response to peak electrical demand.

Protects state RPS's. The bill provides that the federal RES will not interfere with individual states RPSs and associated policies. Absent federal leadership and funding for over a decade, 28 states plus the District of Columbia have set their own RPS goals and accompanying renewable energy development mechanisms to realize the vast economic and environmental benefits afforded by home grown renewable energy development.
Critical lands and habitat protections on eligible biomass. Certain resources, such as old-growth and mature forests, are excluded in order to protect critical lands and habitats.

All previous RES provisions would have allowed harvesting of biomass and biofuels resources from protected federal and state lands. NRDC continues to do extensive work on the issue of renewable energy development and critical lands protection. As my colleague Johanna Wald blogged earlier this week, we cannot simply trade-off critical wildlife habitat and sensitive lands for cheap or easy access to certain renewable energy resources.

Governor's petition. Governors may petition to reduce a utility's RES requirement by up to 20 percent in any given year if all entities in the state subject to the Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS) established by Title II of the draft bill are in compliance that year.

Although the instant "20% off 'coupon' for utilities" may be overly generous, we think this is a novel idea to reward states and utilities who are meeting EERS compliance targets. It provides corrective utility behavior. Specifically, utilities must work cooperatively together to effectively administer and evaluate energy efficiency delivery so that no single utility falls out of EERS compliance, thus causing all utility entities within the state to forgo the "20% off 'coupon' on each utility's annual RES compliance."