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GOP Not Listening to Its Own Scientists on Climate Change
A number of prominent U.S. climate scientists who identify themselves as Republican say their attempts in recent years to educate the GOP leadership on the scientific evidence of man-made climate change have been futile. Now, many have given up trying and the few who continue notice very little change after speaking with politicians and their aides.
"No GOP candidates or policymakers want to touch the issue, and those of us trying to educate them are left frustrated," Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a registered Republican, told InsideClimate News. "Climate change has become a third rail in politics."
Debate Surrounds Race to Export America's Natural Gas
Energy companies are honing plans to export natural gas faster than President Obama can call the United States the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas," and that's raising new questions about the country's energy policies.
Multinational energy firms and some economists say exporting natural gas is a no-brainer: the cost of producing natural gas in the United States has plummeted with the explosion in shale gas production, while prices remain high elsewhere in the world. That means exports could ease the U.S. trade deficit while stimulating job growth.
But some U.S. manufacturers, utilities and consumer advocates counter that exporting natural gas will drive up electricity prices, deepen reliance on dirtier coal and discourage investment in domestic manufacturing. A government study released last month reinforced their concerns. The independent Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that U.S. natural gas prices could jump 36 to 54 percent if every export plan currently on the table goes through. Electricity prices could rise 2 to 9 percent, the report says.
Even as the debate intensifies, energy companies are laying foundations to become the first to export natural gas from the United States. No export facilities currently exist in the continental United States, but eight companies have applied to build them. At the facilities natural gas is cooled to -260 degrees Fahrenheit, so it becomes what's known as "liquefied natural gas," or LNG. At 600 times less volume, LNG can be loaded onto special tankers berthed at the new facilities and shipped across the world.
This Week in Clean Economy: Wind Supporters Mobilize to Save Federal Tax Credit
Supporters of a federal wind subsidy vowed Thursday to double down on their effort to keep the tax credit alive for at least one more year. The message came hours after Congress killed what was seen as the incentive's last best chance for survival.
"Our campaign continues," Denise Bode, chief executive of the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group, said in a statement. "By all reports, wind champions on both sides of the aisle in both the Senate and House ... are now working to get the job done by other means."
The production tax credit (PTC), which expires at the end of the year, is seen as crucial to the industry's growth. The last time it lapsed, in 2003, wind development dropped by almost 80 percent the next year. Vestas, the world's biggest turbine maker, says it may fire 1,600 U.S. workers if the subsidy lapses.
GOP Governors Press Ahead with Green Economic Policies, Study Shows
The nation's Republican governors are pressing forward with policies that promote the green economy—and in some cases they have moved further than their Democratic counterparts.
A new report by the National Governors Association (NGA) showed that 28 states enacted more than 60 new "clean" economic development policies between June 2010 and Aug. 2011. Among those states, more than half, or 16, have Republican governors. In five of the states, the policies were started under Democratic governors and were continued by Republicans who replaced them.
Secrecy Loophole Could Still Weaken BLM's Tougher Fracking Regs
New regulations drafted by the federal Bureau of Land Management would increase pressure on energy companies to disclose information about the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing, a process that extracts oil and natural gas from deep inside the earth.
Nine states already have disclosure laws for hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. But only one state—Colorado—requires what the BLM would require: the names and concentrations of the individual chemicals pumped into each well. Colorado's hotly-contested rules go into effect in April.
Click here for a chart that compares BLM's proposed regulations with fracking fluid disclosure laws in the nine states that have them.
Health care professionals and scientists say they need this information to track water and air quality near drilling sites, to study the health effects of natural gas development and to deal with emergency spills.
The proposed BLM regulations, which were leaked to InsideClimate News and several other media outlets last week, would apply only to wells drilled on federal land. But critics of hydraulic fracturing said they're an important step forward because they're stronger than most state laws.
Approval of Keystone XL Bill Would Open a Long Legal Mire, Experts Say
WASHINGTON—Congressional Republicans are floating a handful of measures to override President Obama's January rejection of a permit for the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline. But it's questionable whether any of these efforts, including a bill that could be debated in the House this week, would actually speed up approval of the Canada-to-Texas pipeline.
Legal experts agree that the Constitution allows Congress to bypass the president and legislate a permitting process for cross-border pipelines such as TransCanada's $7 billion project. But they also agree that it's a tricky endeavor likely to trigger a complex and drawn-out lawsuit.
For starters, a pro-pipeline measure focused solely on Keystone XL has only a tiny chance of passing muster in a Democrat-majority Senate. Plus, President Obama wouldn't sign such a bill into law.
If the GOP did somehow overcome those barriers, the law would almost certainly be challenged in federal court—probably by environmental organizations and/or landowners along the pipeline route. However, the nature of the lawsuit would depend upon the content of the law that passes.
This Week in Clean Economy: Wind Power Tax Credit Extension Splits GOP
The wind industry's hopes for extending a key federal subsidy got a sharp jolt in recent weeks.
Some Republicans inside and outside Washington, along with the conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have broken with many in their party to take a pro-green stance on the production tax credit (PTC) for wind projects. Wind operators say the 20-year-old subsidy allows them to compete with conventional fuels and supports thousands of jobs. It expires at the end of this year.
The American Wind Energy Association told InsideClimate News that federal support for wind has always been bipartisan, but Republicans are feeling pressure to speak out because of what's at stake. "Manufacturing jobs are on the line," said Ellen Carey, a spokesperson for the trade group. Lawmakers are "hearing from their constituencies who are employed in this industry."
Gas Drilling May Be Leaking Twice as Much Gas as Previously Thought, Study Finds
Weeks after Barack Obama promoted natural gas as a key part of U.S. energy policy in his State of the Union address, new research says gas drilling may be emitting far more methane and other pollutants into the atmosphere than current estimates suggest.
The work, performed by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, focused on Weld County, Colo., home to more than 20,000 gas wells. After years of monitoring and study, the researchers estimated that about 4 percent of the methane produced by these wells is lost to the atmosphere.
That's about twice as much as current estimates would suggest, and twice what the EPA assumes is lost nationally during gas drilling and production, said Gabrielle Petron, a lead author of the study.
"What I've learned in the past three or four years is that there's a lot we don't know, and the industry may not be aware of these leaks and how important they are," Petron, a researcher with NOAA and the University of Colorado, told InsideClimate News. "Until you go out there in the field and take measurements you may not have a sense of what is leaking and how much it's leaking."
California’s Landmark Clean Car Mandate: How It Works and What It Means
If all goes as planned, more than a million ultra-clean cars will be zipping around California in the next decade, a 30-fold increase from today, thanks to tough new rules recently approved by state regulators.
It's not the first time the nation has set its sights on the million-mark for green vehicles. In 2009 President Obama pledged to put a million plug-in cars on U.S. roads by 2015.
But the president had no regulatory muscle to try to enforce his goal. And three years later there are fewer than 20,000 all-electric and plug-ins in the U.S., says Plug-In America, a San Francisco advocacy group.
Undaunted, California believes its clean car ambitions will be easily met because 12 of the world's leading carmakers helped craft its new rules and because the industry has six years to begin complying with them. The program is the first in the nation to regulate the kinds of vehicles to be sold in a state auto market.
Membership in Unions Supporting Obama on Keystone Rejection Outnumbers Those Against
WASHINGTON—A barrage of industry-led advertising and lobbying urging President Obama to "put jobs ahead of politics" has fueled the impression that labor unions universally champion the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
But that myth was blown apart just minutes after the president rejected the $7 billion project on Jan. 18.
That's when five labor unions that had kept low profiles on the pipeline—including the 2 million-member strong Service Employees International Union—issued a joint statement backing Obama's decision. Not only did they laud him for acting "wisely," but they also emphasized the need to address climate change and find sustainable and secure energy sources.
Since then, a more nuanced snapshot has emerged of where labor unions stand on Keystone XL. That newer picture weakens industry's argument that the pipeline has broad union support. The handful of unions that praised the president and questioned the project’s merits represent close to 5 million members. Membership in the five unions publicly promoting the project is near 3.3 million. (See chart.)
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