Today, we're about a month away from the inauguration of a new Administration in Washington, an inauguration that is likely to bring far greater official interest in environmental well-being than we've seen in years. Many believe that the importance of independent environmental organizations will decrease in the upcoming administration. But, counterintuitive though it may seem, the work for nongovernmental organizations remains as critical -- perhaps even more so -- in steering and assisting what we hope will be an eager and willing administration toward the best decisions through our advocacy.
Imagine how different things would be right now if over the last eight years, we'd had independent organizations watch-dogging the government's oversight of financial markets. Imagine if we had had voices who pushed back at what has become an almost religious faith in unregulated markets; voices who asked loudly and persuasively whether some of the claims being made were not factually baseless, voices who were part of the negotiations when rules were being established to ensure there was transparency, fairness and accountability.
Unfortunately no organization with enough power in the financial arena has existed.
For environmental protection, however, we've had this type of oversight in the role of "public defenders" since the early 1970s. These nongovernmental organizations, as we're called around the world, played significant roles in crafting legislation like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Take this story from the last 48 hours before Congress adopted the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. Three NRDC lawyers were keeping a close eye on the draft legislation as negotiations continued. It was 10 o'clock on a Friday night when the other side dropped what they called "technical amendments."
At first glance the amendments seemed to be highly-detailed and inconsequential editorial corrections. But David Hawkins, at the time NRDC's Director of Air and Energy, caught a new semi-colon that would have changed the meaning of a critical paragraph and expanded the ability of power plants to delay compliance with the new law. He called congressional allies and the new semi-colon disappeared. Imagine the level of commitment and understanding it takes to catch the importance of a seemingly innocuous semi-colon late on a Friday night.
Nongovernmental organizations like NRDC also give life to the words in laws by being some of their most aggressive defenders and enforcers. Almost 40 years ago, for example, a local group challenged the decision of the federal Department of Transportation to build a freeway through a public park in Memphis, arguing that Congress had intended to prohibit the government from putting the road through the park unless all other options were truly infeasible. The government brushed off this feasibility analysis. In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court reversed the government's decision and said that Congress meant what it said.
The following year, the Sierra Club challenged the Department of Interior's plans to build a ski resort in the Sierras. In another landmark Supreme Court ruling, Justice William O. Douglas noted the importance of independent voices: "[B]efore these priceless bits of Americana are forever lost ... the voice of the existing beneficiaries of these environmental wonders should be heard."
Similarly, when utilities figured out how to get around the regulations of the original Clean Air Act -- by building their smokestacks higher, thereby pushing the pollutants higher into the atmosphere and dispersing them but also creating acid rain -- it was nongovernmental organizations, not the EPA, that pushed back.
At one point, NRDC alone had more Clean Water Act enforcement cases than the entire Department of Justice. If you look at environmental case law history, almost all the cases have been brought by groups like NRDC and our allies.
Undoubtedly, even in this new phase of history we are about to enter, nongovernmental organizations with such a significant legacy of environmental law reform will remain strong and crucial voices.
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Our coalition includes NRDC, the Edison Electric Institute, representing investor-owned utilities, which comprise 70 percent of the U.S. electric power industry, and two energy advocacy organizations, the Alliance to Save Energy and the Energy Future Coalition. Together, we urged that Congress direct about $33 billion toward increasing the energy efficiency of America.
NRDC has long held that energy efficiency is the fastest, most cost-effective and cleanest energy resource, which will save consumers millions, cut global warming pollution, and reduce our dependence on old, dirty fossil fuels.
Yet commercial and residential buildings today account for approximately 40 percent of national energy consumption, 70 percent of electricity consumption, and the largest portion of global warming pollution in the United States.
Most of this energy is wasted -- our houses leak warmth, our lights emit more heat than light, and our appliances drain energy even when they are "off." It's like we have a hole in our pocket, and our money just keeps falling out.
But we have the opportunity to change this direction. We can move our country to a new more efficient approach to energy, an approach where we save energy, instead of wasting it. This will help to immediately create jobs, reduce consumer bills, cut carbon pollution and create the foundation for long-term improvements in all of these areas.
By making our buildings, homes and schools more efficient, we can create a half million green permanent jobs, reduce global warming emission by between 700 and 900 million tons of CO2 (according to a McKinsey analysis), and cut electricity demand enough to reduce the need for about 50 average-sized power plants.
Here's the kicker: by moving in this direction, consumers would save tremendous amounts of money.
The proposal we put together would invest approximately $33 billion for greater energy efficiency. This one-time investment would trigger private sector investments and government minimum efficiency standards that would ultimately save about the same amount -- more than $30 billion -- each year within a decade or two.
One of our primary recommendations is to make grants available to states and local governments giving them a huge incentive to increase efficiency. Under this program, states would provide funding under the grants program to entities such as utilities, cooperatives, energy service companies and school districts. The grants would fall into the following broad categories:
Having worked in state and local governments for 17 years, I can attest to this approach being a very effective way to mobilize action on this front.
One of the key objectives of this plan is to increase retrofitting for buildings -- private, public and commercial. Retrofitting homes is a good example of how energy efficiency can help us to save money, cut global warming pollution and create new jobs.
According to our analysis, home retrofits will within 10 years :
Commercial retrofits will within 10 years:
There were many other important issues that we discussed -- like the importance of decoupling our utility services, meaning that states begin regulatory reforms that include breaking the link between utility sales and revenue (this is critical to promoting efficiency because efficiency reduces utility sales), and improving building codes. All of which are vital to saving money and greening our planet.
But here's the take away: We know that efficiency works. We know that utility regulatory reforms to promote efficiency work. We know that Americans have the ingenuity and skills to get working with new, green jobs. By making these investments in energy efficiency, we can cut our waste and build the foundation for a new clean energy future.
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Before NRDC and the Southern Environmental Law Center sued, Duke Energy was ignoring a key Clean Air Act provision that protects the public against excess emissions of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury. Duke argued that the law's stringent limits -- requiring that emissions be no higher than the best of control technology allows -- did not apply because it received its construction permit -- and put the first shovel into the ground -- 10 days before a federal appeals court struck down the rule on which Duke was relying for its legal argument.
Duke knew or should have known all along that the rule on which it relied was invalid. The judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals indicated clearly a month before Duke received its permit that they would invalidate the rule. Duke's attorneys were in the courtroom and heard the same indications we did. So it would appear that Duke was trying to beat what it knew was going to be an adverse ruling and in doing so completely disregarded the public interest and the purpose as well as the letter of the Clean Air Act.
Through this litigation, we've also been able to hold accountable the state of North Carolina and its environmental officials who have been particularly weak in their watchdog role over Duke. The state officials should never have granted the construction permit without first requiring the stringent limits required by the Clean Air Act. They too knew the DC appeals court was about to nullify the rule on which Duke relied.
Duke now will be subject to the strict pollution control requirements required by law. We do not yet know what that will mean in terms of emission reductions because that depends, in part, on how North Carolina responds to the Court's decision. But it is at least possible, and maybe likely, that Duke's permit will soon contain much, much tighter emissions limits on extremely hazardous pollutants.
There are maybe a dozen other power plants that started construction before the federal appeals court overturned the EPA action. All of them will now be subject to the tighter requirements. And we hope that after January 20th, the Obama administration will notify all those plants that it intends to tighten emission limits. So through our litigation, pollution reductions will be magnified.
Justice is being served. A federal judge has said that neither Duke nor North Carolina is immune from the Clean Air Act. This was the first decision from a federal judge after the appeals court ruling. We're confident it will not be the last.
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Peter Berle was a pioneer and leader of the modern environmental movement locally, nationally and internationally. He appreciated more profoundly than most the importance of environmental safeguards in shaping our society. He led a law firm specializing in environmental protection decades before this was common; he led the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; he led the Audubon Society. His advocacy for effective and tough health protections and the creation of the majestic Adirondack State Park continue to benefit all New Yorkers and others around the world. He was also a terrific person who lived with great passion; for a while he lived near me and whenever I saw him he seemed to radiate energy.
Peter passed away a year ago. We are grateful for his legacy and mindful of all that he did to our mutual goals. In his honor, the Century Foundation - in cooperation with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Audubon Society, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Law Section of the New York State Bar Association and former colleagues of Peter A. A. Berle - has established a new award intended to recognize environmental integrity demonstrated by public officials and private citizens in the United States.
The Peter A. A. Berle Environmental Integrity Award will be given annually to one or two U.S. citizens who, through action or scholarship, provide innovative leadership in helping the United States and the world confront the challenges of climate change, renewable energy, depletion of the oceans, species extinction, air, water and soil contamination, and the urban environment. The first award will be presented in the spring of 2009. The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2009, and it includes a prize of $2,000.
So join me and get into the holiday spirit this year by nominating the environmental leaders you are grateful for: http://www.nrdc.org/about/berle-award-application.asp.
]]>And so what has happened?
In part, the answer is a decade plus long disinformation campaign lead by the coal and oil industries that has set us back almost twenty years and will make the job of combating climate change harder and the cost higher. More on this later.
But for now, it’s clear that Dr. Hansen, and his team of scientists deserve more – far more – for advancing our understanding of the natural world.
I hope that in the next decade, and the next administration, we will see great change. At the very least, we could let climate scientists do their jobs. Better yet, we could put a price on carbon, and help move this country to a low carbon, high efficiency economy.
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