Then there’s a nasty provision that will do none of those things.
The draft legislation creates a roving commission that gives power plant polluter lobbyists a platform to make unsupported claims about supposed conflicts between protecting health and cutting carbon pollution.
Specifically, the draft bill establishes a highly objectionable task force to examine utility industry calls for exemptions from federal environmental laws and regulations that utilities allege are impeding power plant retirements or transitions to cleaner energy. The provision’s language is suffused with utility industry complaints and rhetoric and pleas for payment, making clear the design for a biased exercise. Polluter lobbyists deliver a deregulatory wish list to Congress and federal agencies. The agencies then are authorized by this bill to propose regulatory changes to carry out those wishes.
Instead of leaving EPA to do its job to protect the American people, the draft bill would compel EPA and states and public health supporters to spend huge amounts of time fending off industry wish lists to weaken virtually every regulation that affects power plants.
The scope of the provision is so broad that it anoints this commission with the power to go after every health and environmental safeguard that has been adopted through decades of effort – from Clean Air Act protections against smog, soot and toxic pollution to the Clean Water Act to hazardous waste laws to the Endangered Species Act.
But the real target of utility industry fire is the Clean Air Act: current and upcoming EPA rules to cut deadly soot pollution, smog pollution, and toxic air pollution like mercury, arsenic and lead.
Power plant air pollution is responsible for an estimated 20,000-24,000 deaths annually. Each year this pollution is linked to tens of thousands of non-fatal heart attacks, hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks and other cardiac problems, and tens of thousands of emergency room visits, hospitalizations and lost work days.
More than half of coal-burning power plants today lack basic cleanup equipment called scrubbers that control deadly soot pollution, sulfur dioxide pollution and toxic air pollution like mercury and acid gases. As recently as 2006, only one-third of coal plants had these scrubbers.
But there have been nearly 90 scrubbers installed at power plants in just the last two years without causing any electricity reliability problems. And since 2006, dangerous sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants have dropped by a very impressive 3.5 million tons to just under 6 million tons each year, with 1.7 million tons cut in the past two years alone. During that period smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants dropped from 3.5 million tons to nearly 2 million tons annually.
Upcoming EPA rules to cut smog, soot and toxic air pollution will require many more scrubbers, cutting power plant pollution by millions of tons more and saving many thousands of lives. Recent experience has shown that we can clean up these plants, protect public health and safety, provide affordable electricity, and power our transition to a clean energy economy.
These life-saving clean air rules are what the utility industry is targeting with this commission and its roving industry agenda.
The draft bill calls out by name three clean air programs for special attack and consideration for “exemption[s].” Not coincidentally, these safeguards long have been targeted by power sector lobbyists:
(1) New source review: a Clean Air Act permitting program for smog, soot and carbon pollution that power plant operators have violated for the past three decades. These violations prompted successful enforcement cases by the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, joined by state attorneys general, and generated many billions of dollars in injunctive relief requiring pollution control equipment. When I worked on these cases in the New York attorney general’s office, we saw how valuable this clean air law was to control dirty coal-burning power plants and just how much these plants endangered our health. The Bush administration tried repealing these new source review safeguards in its ultimately unsuccessful “Clear Skies” legislation, and now utility lobbyists are trying a new tactic to seek to weaken or eliminate these protections.
It’s worth emphasizing that the draft bill’s invited attack on the new source review program is a reach well beyond the idea of eliminating best available control technology for greenhouse gases. It’s an attack on applying best available control technology to other health-endangering pollutants, like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, that the Clean Air Act has covered for decades.
(2) New source performance standards: this clean air program establishes national performance standards for power plant pollution like smog and soot. EPA is expected to update these standards and propose standards for power plants’ carbon pollution next year.
(3) Air toxics standards: this clean air program establishes national performance standards for toxic air pollution like mercury, arsenic, lead, acid gases and heavy metals. Power plants have escaped meeting these standards for nearly two decades while other industries did their part and complied. During that period the Bush administration stalled the utility industry’s obligation for eight years by adopting thoroughly illegal rules that were struck down after NRDC and other environmental groups joined New York, New Jersey and other states to challenge the rules in court. EPA now must propose these crucially important standards next spring and finalize them next fall, some 21 years after these standards first were authorized in the 1990 Clean Air Act.
These important clean air rules finally will require many power plants to install cleanup equipment like scrubbers that they have escaped for decades due to violations of the law, or illegal delays and exemptions undertaken by EPA. Dirty power plants will need effective pollution controls by no later than 2015, but utility lobbyists argue that they should be allowed to escape those cleanup obligations if they were just given more time to shut down instead.
The draft legislation leaves an ominous blank for when any future shutdown date might be, but power plant lobbyists have been pushing for 2020 or 2025 or even later. Of course they don't want to clean up their toxic or smog or soot pollution during the period between now and 2020 or 2025 or later. Or if they did agree to better controls it would only be at the margins since they do not wish to install meaningful controls like scrubbers.
As a nation we have suffered the deadly consequences of this dangerous shell game for the past three decades. When the 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act were adopted, dirty, decades-old power plants were grandfathered from strong cleanup requirements due in part to the prospect held out by the utility industry that waves of plants would shut down soon and it was not necessary to require them to incur the capital costs to clean up.
History has proven that prospect to be a fraud. The dirty old coal plants did not shut down and they did not clean up. Instead they continued to evade cleanup by going so far as to break the law themselves, then persuading the prior administration to break the law on their behalf.
There is a surefire way to cut all of this dangerous air pollution – smog, soot, toxins, carbon pollution – and that is to shutter these dirty old coal plants and replace them with cleaner resources. The American public should not be asked to offer their children's health as a bribe to shut these dirty plants. Congress should just set a schedule for these plants to clean up or shut down. But that schedule must not be one that allows these plants’ air pollution to continue sickening or even killing people, nor one that delays or weakens vitally important health safeguards.
Our friends at the American Lung Association have rightly noted that “[p]rovisions in this draft bill create an irresponsible process to roll back tools every community needs to protect its most vulnerable residents – children, seniors and those with chronic diseases – against dangerous air pollution.” The Association urges that these unnecessary and objectionable provisions be stripped from the bill.
We agree.
Clean energy legislation is the last place we need more damage from dirty energy.
]]>Today, the president announced the first big steps toward a network of high speed rail corridors across the nation. The $8 billion in awards will touch 30 states in every region of the country, and are a down payment on a truly visionary transportation system.
Completed in 1992, our highway system is second to none in the world (though it is in dire need of repair and rehabilitation, which must be the focus of new highways investments). But in other areas, our transportation system is woefully behind our competitors in the global economy.
High speed rail has been up and running in Europe and Japan for years, and their systems continue to expand. China is investing tens of billions of dollars in their rail system, as are other Asian nations. Other emerging economies such as Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa all have major systems scheduled to come on line in the next decade.
As I said last night, President Obama’s commitment to high speed rail is a commitment to build the other half of the transportation system. Paired with new investments in local transit, commuter rail, and local pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, it is a key part of a rebalancing of our national transportation system. With $2.5 billion more from Congress on the way in 2010, and plans for major new investments proposed by House Transportation Chairman Jim Oberstar, this rebalancing starts now.
So what exactly does the president’s plan look like? Eventually, each of the major regions of the US will have high-speed rail connecting most major cities. Though this is a long term goal, today’s announcement will take a big step toward achieving it. The strategy is to invest in key corridors in a phased approach, building on our successes with each phase.
The first phase will concentrate funding in the West, Midwest, and Southeast.
Grants fall into three categories: 1) true high-speed rail service, aimed a projects that will run at up to 150 miles per hour when completed; 2) emerging high-speed rail, which will bring existing passenger rail corridors up to speeds of 110 mph, with plans to increase speeds in the future; and 3) a series of projects to lay the groundwork for future high-speed rail corridors.
Largest awards
The president’s rail initiative will have both an immediate and lasting impact on our country. Not only is this investment going to create tens of thousands of jobs and build our economy in the near term, it is going to continue to contribute to our economy in the long term.
When trains start running in each corridor, it is going to be a boon to both American businesses, which will benefit from better, more efficient mobility. Since rail is much more efficient than flying or driving, it will also help our energy security and our environment. A major study of transportation and climate change found that high-speed rail investments can help to save millions of tons of global warming pollution.
Fully building a national high speed rail system is something that will take time, stretching long beyond President Obama’s term of office. However, his vision extends beyond politics to the good of the country. The high-speed rail system that American begins building today will be a legacy ensuring that tomorrow, our country continues to have the best, most efficient transportation network in the world.
President Eisenhower told the nation in his 1955 State of the Union Address, “A modern highway system is essential to meet the needs of our growing population, our expanding economy, and our national security.” A year later, construction began on the largest infrastructure project America had ever attempted: the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Building the Interstate System would put Americans to work, help our nation’s businesses to prosper, and make the country more secure.
In tonight’s State of the Union Address, President Obama pledged economic recovery and national security through a similarly historic commitment to build the other half of America’s transportation system. The president will announce the first $8 billion of high-speed rail investments tomorrow, a down payment on a bigger plan to connect America with fast, efficient, modern trains. But I don’t need to hear his plan to understand how it will move this nation forward, because I know from experience.
I frequently travel between NRDC’s New York headquarters and our Washington office. My priority is getting there quickly, safely and with minimal impact on the environment. I choose high-speed rail whenever I can. It’s the quicker, easier, and cleaner than driving or flying. I don’t have to deal with airport delays and I am reducing pollution. The fact that these trains frequently sell out tell me many others agree. But too few Americans have this choice to begin with.
As much as America needs high-speed rail service, we will also see its benefits before a single high-speed train leaves the station. These investments will have an immediate impact on the U.S. economy, creating construction, manufacturing, and engineering jobs that can’t be outsourced. Last year, 32 rail manufacturers and suppliers pledged to expand or establish U.S.-based operations as a result of the Administration’s funding of high-speed rail.
High-speed investments will have a lasting impact on America as well. An efficient high-speed rail network will help us cut oil use in transportation, which will increase our energy independence and enhance our national security. It will help to improve the environment and avoid the impacts of climate change. It will also help America grow and prosper by improving mobility across the country, relieving gridlocked roads and crowded airports, which helps American commerce to thrive.
Eisenhower’s transportation vision helped America to prosper for 55 years. President Obama’s commitment to high-speed rail and a modern, efficient transportation system will put America on track to another century economic success.
]]>This tour offers an opportunity for people to tell a new story- and hit back on those "opponents of change" who are trying to block progress for America. Over the past several weeks, we have heard too much fear-mongering and misinformation sponsored by front groups of big oil and coal associations. Now, it's time for a new story about how we can create good-paying jobs through clean energy investments in Cleveland and across the country.
The quick moving storm did not dampen the enthusiasm of the rally near the Cleveland Science Center. As lightening bolts danced off Lake Erie, the rally shifted to the center's parking garage. Outside, the center's iconic 150 foot wind turbine provided a fitting image for a new clean energy future in the job hungry rust belt.
Speakers from all walks of the labor, business, education and environmental communities came forward to talk about how the clean energy economy can help American workers.
Speakers like United Steelworkers metal greaser Lee Geisse, who builds titanium hubs for wind turbines in Louisville, Ohio. Lee, wearing her union hard hat, said: "I'm lucky enough to have worked in a place that worked all through the downturn. My company had the foresight to invest in the clean energy economy."
I had a few minutes after the rally to talk with Lee. When I asked her about the response she gets when she talks to her colleagues about clean energy, she said my question is a fairly typical one from the "green" world. But she added that union members completely understand. "The workers know we need to move to clean energy," she said. "We're smarter than they think."
You can see Lee in short video clip, here:
Lee understands that clean energy policies can create good-paying jobs in Cleveland and across the country. According to the Political Economic Research Institute (PERI), we can create over a million and a half jobs across America by investing in clean energy. In the Cleveland metropolitan area, investment in clean energy would produce more than 10,000 jobs-and more than half of them would go to people with a high-school degrees or less.
Investing in clean energy will have additional benefits, like weatherizing homes so people in Cleveland save money -- up to 4 percent of their income-- on heating and cooling bills. And these investments will improve access to public transportation so that people can save money -- 1-4 percent of their income -- getting to work.
Tom Conway, the international Steelworker's Union vice president, was emphatic about the growth potential from clean energy technologies in Ohio, where turbines are being build in abandoned and converted steel mills. As he said: "When you think about green jobs, green jobs are just a lot of regular, traditional jobs that help reduce the carbon footprint and help our planet be cleaner...it's work that we know we can do, that Americans can do. This is the way to move forward and rebuild manufacturing that we need so importantly in this nation."
By the time the rally came to an end, the sun was peaking through the crowds, glinting off the powerful turbine blades nearby. Mother Nature had demonstrated that she is nothing to tamper with.
There's no doubt that people like Tom and Lee get it. And I know they are not alone. Across America people understand that we can make our air safer and our communities stronger by moving to clean energy. We don't have to choose between good jobs and the environment- we can have more good jobs and a safer environment.
The Made in America Jobs Tour, organized by the Alliance for Climate Protection and the Blue Green Alliance, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, will sponsor more than 50 events in 22 states, including St. Louis, Missouri; Detroit, Michigan; Gary, Indiana; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Check the website www.repoweramerica.org/tour for more information about when a rally will be coming to a community near you.
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There are two ways that we can invest this money: a smart way and a dumb way. If we invest wisely, we will move America to a new clean energy future that makes us a leader for the 21 century. But if we stumble and invest in an unwise way - focusing on old, dirty technologies and fossil fuels - we will end up being left behind.
As two new reports released today show, America can benefit greatly from significant energy investments in clean energy-if we are smart. If we are smart, we will create millions of new jobs, increase our energy independence, and protect the planet from global warming pollution. And these will be opportunities for people across all income and education levels - with even more opportunities for advancement.
If we are smart, we will use this investment to increase our energy efficiency - through weatherization and retrofits. This will save consumers on their utility bills.
If we are smart, we will increase people's access to public transportation thereby lowering people's living expenses.
For too long, we've looked at economic opportunity and protecting the environment as being in conflict with each other. But, this view is at odds with the growing body of evidence that demonstrates we can strengthen our economy and fight global warming. We can shift to clean energy, protect the planet and create new opportunities for families - and we can do this all at the same time.
Today, NRDC is helping to release two major reports from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (PERI). One is co-authored by NRDC and Green For All. The other is a complementary report by PERI and the Center for American Progress (CAP).
The NRDC/Green For All report, called "Green Prosperity: How Clean-Energy Policies Can Fight Poverty and Raise Living Standards in the United States," shows that shifting from traditional fossil fuel to clean energy will improve the standard of living for millions of Americans across all skill and education levels, especially among lower-income families. Nearly half of the 1.7 million new jobs created by a $150 billion clean energy investment will be accessible to workers with relatively low levels of formal education. Of these, nearly 75 percent will have high potential for advancement. Plus, there will be additional opportunities to lower monthly energy and transportation costs.
The other report, "The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy" presents a broader view - showing how the combination of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) could serve as the foundation for bringing total clean-energy investments in the United States to approximately $150 billion per year, creating 1.7 million jobs. That kind of growth would create nearly a 1 percent drop in the national unemployment rate.
And what about the concerns that we sometimes hear that low-income Americans would be left behind if our nation addresses climate change?
It turns out that's just not true. The NRDC/Green For All report concludes that half of the net new jobs created by clean-energy investment will be accessible to workers with relatively low levels of formal education. (You can learn more about clean energy jobs at http://www.nrdc.org/energy/greenjobs/ .)
What's particularly significant about the types of jobs created by clean energy is that compared to fossil-fuel energy jobs there is a much greater opportunity for upward advancement. Three out of every four clean-energy jobs are accessible to people with just a high-school education are upwardly mobile jobs, meaning they provide the opportunity for advancement and higher income, giving people the power to lift themselves out of poverty.
Consider these additional findings:
Now we just have to sure to make the right choices to make those green jobs and other benefits for lower-income Americans happen. And America may soon have this opportunity with the clean energy and climate legislation currently moving trough Congress.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), that is moving through the House, is likely to be an extremely important driver of the clean energy investments that American needs. While the bill is not perfect, we need to move forward with this legislation to ensure that we can shift to clean energy future that will deliver millions of new jobs, cut global warming pollution and create new opportunities.
Now is the time for leaders in Congress to move America in a new direction. Now is the time for leaders to make smart choices for all Americans.
]]>What do these temperature changes mean?
Again, it’s largely a question of probabilities, but the solid science (from studies released by the likes of IPCC, Stern, and others) suggest that at a 2° C change, we would see a sharp decrease in the availability of fresh water and in crop yields, increased exposure to flooding and malaria, and a high risk of extinction of Artic species like caribou and polar bear.
At 3° C change, we’d see an increase in serious droughts across Southern Europe, billions of more people suffering from water shortages, and millions at increased risk of hunger, malnutrition and coastal flooding. At this temperature increase, between 20-50 percent of species would face extinction, and the Amazon would teeter on the brink of collapse. We would lose half of the Articic tundra.
At 5° C change, we would see the disappearance of large glaciers in the Himalayas, effecting millions in India and China, a serious increase in ocean acidity, and a sea level rise that would threaten major cities like New York, London and Tokyo. Add to this a Greenland ice sheet that has begun melting irreversibly, and the risk of a collapsing West Arctic Ice Sheet and Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation – collapses that would result in dramatic sea level rises and temperature changes.
Putting this together, if we aim to limit atmospheric concentrations to 550 ppm – a level that our President and our Congress are so far unwilling to target – we face a 25 percent chance of having what could be devastating chances and a 5 percent chance – 1 in 20 – of catastrophic impacts.
In our usual lives, we do a lot to avoid catastrophic events. Think of what we do to avoid our house burning down (statistically, a 0.3 percent chance in 2006) and even then we can move to another house and rebuild; we can’t move to another planet while we rebuild the earth.
Can we really look at our kids and say we’re ok with a 25 percent chance of catastrophe during their – and probably our – lives?
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For more on this issue, I would suggest you read more from NRDC’s great Smart Growth team. Kaid Benfield, Deron Lovaas and Rich Kassel have all written extensively about these issues here on Switchboard.
I should also say that I do understand that not everyone lives in a place like New York. For years, our communities have been built to support cars and highways, and not integrated communities. Individual choice will go only so far in solving this problem.
And so we also need a federal policy that
We think of them simply as our neighborhoods, but where we live and work can have a huge impact on our personal health, and on our global environment. We need start building more efficient, and more attractive, communities.
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“This is worse than a dumb idea. It is cruelly misleading. It will make only a modest difference, at best, to prices at the pump, and even then the benefits will be years away. It greatly exaggerates America’s leverage over world oil prices. It is based on dubious statistics. It diverts the public from the tough decisions that need to be made about conservation.”
We can’t drill our way to lower fuel prices. As I’ve said before, efficiency is the fastest, and cheapest, way to lower fuel costs and combat global warming.
I have a lot to say on the topic of how efficiency can help meet our national energy goals. I’ll expand on that in another post soon.
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