Working For Jobs

Undaunted by their failure to catch so much as a single guppy, Republicans in Congress are paddling on with their fishing expedition through the Obama administration’s clean-energy initiatives. They are nothing if not dutiful.

The latest faux scandal (what are we up to now? a dozen?) has to do with the Ivanpah solar power plant, currently under construction in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California.

Here’s what we know about Ivanpah, a concentrated solar power (CSP) project being developed by BrightSource Energy. It started construction in October 2010, amid great fanfare from politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. It is technically three separate, contiguous power plants, built in phases, with a total of 170,000 heliostat mirrors, spread across 3,600 acres, aiming sunlight at three solar power towers. It will have a gross capacity of around 392 megawatts and will be, when completed, the largest CSP installation in the world.

In April 2011, the project got a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy (DOE), allowing it to scale up its already substantial private funding from, among others, NRG Solar and Google. A little over a year later, according to DOE, the project is about one-third completed and is employing over 1,700 people on site. When it’s finished it will “avoid 574,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to emissions of 110,000 vehicles” and “generate enough clean electricity to power approximately 87,000 homes annually.”

In other words, DOE’s investment has not failed. On the contrary, it’s kind of awesome! Everything’s going according to schedule. Jobs are being created. Barriers are being broken. If it proceeds according to plan, taxpayers won’t shell out anything, California will get tons of clean energy and jobs, and the U.S. solar industry will have a domestic success story. Plus the thing is just gorgeous to look at.

Who could possibly object to American jobs and energy? Serial car thief Darrell Issa and his merry band of fisherman (aka the House Oversight Committee), of course.

Why the concern? This Wall Street Journal piece contains the damning details. At least it contains the damning tone. The details turn out to be pretty unimpressive.

Here’s what happened: BrightSource had been scrambling for this Ivanpah loan for more than two years, since before Obama took office. All signs were positive. Problem was, a couple of deadlines were approaching. On March 31, 2011, the conditional agreement with DOE would lapse, and on April 1, “tortoise moving season” would start and delay the project for six more months, which may well have killed it. So BrightSource started sweating, hiring lobbyists, and pestering the DOE to finalize the damn thing. In early March it even proposed having its then-chairman John Bryson write his old friend, then-White House Chief of Staff William Daley, to plead with him to “quarterback loan closure.”

Is there any evidence that this last-minute volley of lobbying had anything to do with the loan guarantee being approved? No. The letter was never sent to Daley. Buried down in paragraph 20, WSJ reveals that when loan-program director Jonathan Silver caught wind of Bryson’s proposed letter, he responded within hours, telling him to tone it down, cut the “quarterback” crap, and chill out — the loan was “on track” to close before the deadline. (Like many DOE loans, it was held up by a plodding review from a passive-aggressive OMB.)

That’s it. As usual with these faux scandals, the media conspicuously fails to note that the last-minute lobbying and emails to the White House were all about hurrying up the review process, i.e., they came after the guarantees had been approved by DOE. There’s not a shred of evidence that political connections or lobbying affected any of the loan decisions made by DOE staff. Here, as with the other faux scandals, there is only dark insinuation.

Insinuation has no legal power, of course. These shows trials of individual DOE loans haven’t uncovered any wrongdoing, much less anything worthy of official censure or criminal charges. And House Republicans have been fishing for over a year now. But this is post-truth politics — they don’t need the reality of a scandal. That would be an unexpected bonus at this point. All they need is the atmospherics of scandal; they just need to keep floating broad charges and having the media cover them. The purpose is to keep DOE and Obama on the defensive, to hound them, to waste their energy, and to discredit clean energy.

If a thriving American business has to be sacrificed on that political altar, so be it.

——

For kicks, here’s a slideshow from DOE on their clean energy programs:

And here are links to three independent assessments of DOE’s loan program:

• Herb Allison, former national finance chairman for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), led an independent review of the program.
• The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service did its own analysis [PDF].
• The research service Bloomberg Government did an analysis as well.

All these assessments found roughly the same thing: The program is making smart, low-risk investments and has cost over $2 billion less than expected. Unsurprisingly, the media has largely ignored them.

Filed under: Article, Business & Technology, Climate & Energy, Green Jobs, Politics

View full post on Grist

Incoming search terms for the article:

• ivanpah solar power plant
• Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System

By David Roberts

The U.S. military recognizes that dependence on fossil fuels is a threat to U.S. strategic influence and its own operational effectiveness. With that in mind, it’s trying to make itself lighter and leaner, reducing energy consumption at bases and on the battlefield while working to develop fuel alternatives for its ship and plane fleets. Republicans have been quietly grumbling about this for a while; now they are openly opposing it. The GOP wastes no opportunity to boast of “supporting the troops,” but that support apparently ends where Big Oil contributions begin.

Let’s look at a few examples, shall we?

GOP tries to block use of cleaner fuels

Last week, the Republican-led House Armed Services Committee proposed a new Pentagon budget. Tucked away inside it was a provision that would prohibit the Department of Defense from buying any alternative fuels that cost more than conventional fossil fuels. TPM has the story.

Slate’s Fred Kaplan laments that this provision would kill the $12 million “Green Strike Group” program the Navy is running, which would field a strike group running entirely on biofuels (and a nuclear-powered carrier) for a naval exercise in June. The Navy hopes to have an entire “Great Green Fleet” in the water by 2016.

But the language is far broader than that. It would effectively prohibit military field-testing of any non-fossil fuel. After all, if alternatives were already cheaper than fossil fuels, they wouldn’t be alternatives. The Air Force couldn’t experiment with fuel blends for its jets. The Army couldn’t fuel its “Green Warrior Convoy.” This provision would explicitly ban the military from being an instrument of energy innovation.

GOP tries to push use of dirtier fuel

But wait! There is one expensive alternative fuel that congressional Republicans support. You see, Section 526 of 2007′s Energy Independence and Security Act prohibits the military from buying fuel that is more carbon-intensive than crude oil. Earlier this month, Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) offered an amendment to an appropriations bill, later passed by the House, that would bar the military from enforcing Sec. 526.

Why, you ask? “Placing limits on federal agencies’ fuel choices,” says Flores, “is an unacceptable precedent to set in regard to America’s energy policy and independence.”

Yes, I’ll let that irony sink in a moment.

Why are Republicans so keen to get rid of Sec. 526? Are there dirtier-but-cheaper fuels the military could be using?

Well, no. Instead, Republicans have seized on the idea of using the Fischer-Tropsch process to convert coal to liquid fuel (a technology made famous by Hitler — don’t tell the Heartland Institute). Building a plant to do this requires enormous capital investment, running one requires enormous operational and maintenance investments, and the result is … fuel more expensive than oil. This is to say nothing of the fact that it requires mining and transporting coal on the front end and releases up to 2.5 times as much CO2 as oil when burned.

So, let’s pause and review. The Republican position on military fuel choices is as follows: Congressional restrictions are an “unacceptable precedent” when they prohibit dirtier fuels, but necessary when they prohibit cleaner fuels. Also, it is unacceptable for the military to pay more for cleaner fuels, but necessary for it to pay more for dirtier fuel.

If you were cynical, you’d almost think that the issue had nothing to do with Congress’s relationship with the military, or with costs. You’d almost think Republicans just support fossil fuels and oppose clean energy, no matter the context.

Filed under: Article, Cleantech, Energy Policy, Fossil Fuels, Oil, Politics, Renewable Energy

View full post on Grist

By Lisa Hymas

Once upon a time, there were green Republicans.

Like John McCain, who sponsored the first climate cap-and-trade bill in the Senate — before getting all bitter about that whole being-crushed-by-Obama thing.

Like former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who set bold targets for cutting his state’s greenhouse gas emissions — before getting walloped in a Senate race by Tea Party darling Marco Rubio.

Like Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, who championed cap-and-trade and got high marks from the League of Conservation Voters — before getting fed up with Senate dysfunction and polarization and GOP anti-contraception lunacy.

Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who proudly signed California’s groundbreaking climate bill and fought back against oil industry efforts to repeal it — before being exposed as a serial philanderer who had a love child with his family’s housekeeper.

Now the ranks of green Republicans have gotten so thin that the nonprofit Republicans for Environmental Protection is dropping “Republicans” from its name.

Well, that’s not how the group itself explains it. Jim DiPeso, policy director for the newly christened ConservAmerica, says, “We thought it was important to hammer home the connections between conservation and traditional conservative values.”

DiPeso says the Republican trend toward climate denial is “disturbing,” but his group certainly isn’t giving up on the party. ConservAmerica will continue spotlighting green Republican ideas and endorsing green Republican candidates, even if they’re few and far between these days.

The group was excited about Jon Huntsman — and they might have been the only ones. As Huntsman drily told Grist after dropping out of the Republican presidential primary race, his position on climate change “didn’t help at all” during the campaign.

As for Romney, says DiPeso, “We’re still trying to figure out the man and the candidate.”

ConservAmerica has reached out to the Romney campaign and offered to brief the candidate on environmental issues. I suggest they not wait by the phone.

Filed under: Article, Politics

View full post on Grist

by David Roberts.

On stage at the Republican primary debate in Rochester, Michigan, on November 9th, Rick Perry’s thick brows bunched together amid beads of sweat as he struggled to remember the final federal agency he planned to eliminate. “What’s the third one there? Let’s see. Commerce, Education, and the, uh, ummm …”

Mitt Romney, to Perry’s right, offered, “EPA?”

No one blinked. After all, Perry had called the Environmental Protection Agency a “cemetery for jobs.” Michele Bachmann proposed renaming it “the job-killing organization of America” and promised that if she’s elected it will “have doors locked and lights turned off.” Newt Gingrich would replace it with an ill-defined “Environmental Solutions Agency.” Herman Cain would have eliminated the EPA and “start[ed] all over.” Romney, being Romney, says that he supports it in “much of its mission, yes; but in some of its mission, no.” In today’s Republican Party, it looks like that is the moderate position.

That is the beginning of my new piece in The Washington Monthly about what’s likely to happen to EPA and its regulatory powers if Republicans sweep to power in November. It’s part of a special package the Monthly is running called “What if Obama loses? Imagining the consequences of a GOP victory.” It’s got fascinating (and terrifying) contributions from Norm Ornstein, Dahlia Lithwick, Dave Weigel, and others.

I don’t have much to add to the piece. I’ll just emphasize that people should look past GOP opposition to this EPA rule or that EPA rule. They’re going after the whole enchilada. With the REINS Act, in particular, the GOP means to permanently cripple the ability of EPA — indeed, any regulatory agency — to issue science-based rules.

REINS would do so by requiring that every “major rule” (with an impact of $100 million or more, between 50 and 100 a year) be approved by Congress. That means if a rule isn’t voted on in 70 legislative days, it dies. If the House can muster a majority against it, it dies. If a minority in the Senate filibusters it, it dies.

Keep in mind, these are not new laws we’re talking about. These are the mechanisms by which regulatory agencies enforce laws already on the books. REINS would enable a unified minority to routinely do exactly what the GOP has been trying to do by blocking Obama’s nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: nullify a democratically passed law. An executive branch that is still (fitfully) functional would become hostage to the grotesque dysfunction and corruption of Congress.

It would mean a fundamental change to the way the government works, and as the Monthly issue shows, it’s only one of a dozen such gambits. You’d never know it from reading the numbing charge-and-counter-charge of U.S. political journalism, but Republicans have gone crazy and are systematically attempting to dismantle America’s social contract.

Related Links:

Not all Republicans are climate deniers [VIDEO]

Republicans put a deadline on Keystone XL, surprising nobody

New EPA mercury rules are a bona fide Big Deal

View full post on Grist.org – the latest from Grist

by The Climate Desk.

In the run-up to the New Hampshire primary, former Rep. Bob Inglis, MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel, and other Republicans talk about why climate action is a conservative value:

Related Links:

If they win, Republicans plan to permanently cripple EPA

Politics blocks scientists from explaining why this year’s weather was record bad

Republicans put a deadline on Keystone XL, surprising nobody

View full post on Grist.org – the latest from Grist

by Tom Philpott.

Cross-posted from Mother Jones.

I’ve complained once or twice in the past that U.S. farm policy, even under Obama, favors
corporate-led, highly dysfunctional agriculture. That’s true on
balance, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. If you dig into the topic,
you’ll find that sustainable-food activists have been working for
decades to place progressive, community-oriented programs into the
ag-policy mix. These hard-fought victories, won during
once-every-five-years Farm Bill wars, are vastly outweighed by things
like the government’s corn-ethanol fetish, or its hyperaggressive trade policies. 

But the food movement’s political gains are real, they’re fragile, and
they need defending. And they’re under withering attack from the
GOP-controlled U.S. House, which passed a fiscal 2012 agriculture
appropriations bill that if signed into law would snuff out U.S. farm
policy’s green shoots like an herbicide-spewing crop duster snuffs out
weeds. The D.C.-based National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), the best watchdog/lobbying group we have on ag-policy issues, delivers the grim news on what the House bill would do. Here’s a few highlights, summarized by me:

Prevent the USDA from fulfilling its mandate to rein in the meat industry: Meat
is one of the most tightly consolidated industries in our economy. Just
four transnationals—Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and Smithfield—dominate production of beef, pork, chicken, and turkey. They use their market
heft to squeeze farmers on price, leading to a host of environmental and
social dysfunctions. (Monica Potts’ recent American Prospect article “The Serfs of Arkansas” beautifully illustrates the state of poultry farming under the shadow
of a few megaprocessors.) By some small miracle—generated by fierce
lobbying from grassroots farmer groups—the 2008 Farm Bill contained a
mandate directing the USDA to write rules to end price discrimination
against small and mid-sized farmers by corporate processors and to
ensure fair contracts for poultry and hog producers. Enter the GOP
House—whose funding bill would bar the USDA from ever issuing these
rules. In response, a coalition of progressive farm groups are urging
people to call the White House between June 20 and June 24 to urge the USDA to issue the new rules now, before Congress can pull the plug on them. 

Eliminate the USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative: It’s important to understand that the USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative isn’t a program per se. It’s a website that spotlights a set of existing programs, funded by the 2008 Farm
Bill, that direct modest amounts of money to rebuilding local and
regional food systems and supporting new farmers. The House approved an
amendment to its funding bill that would crush Know Your Farmer. 

Defund conservation programs—one of our only checks on industrial agriculture: Conservation
programs give farmers incentives to do things like leave buffer strips
along streams, minimizing leaching of agrichemicals into groundwater; or
keep erosion-prone land out of production. The House bill would gut
them. According to NSAC’s analysis,
the bill would cut $1 billion annually from mandatory conservation
funding, on top of a $500 million cut already embedded in the fiscal
2011 budget. The cuts would cripple the flagship Conservation
Stewardship Program, NSAC reports. 

In short, the House GOP caucus is essentially attempting to stamp out
the few progressive elements that exist in U.S. farm policy. The
Democrats still own the Senate and the White House. Will they defend
these policies, or let them wither in service of deficit hysteria and
the desire to appear pro-business and anti-regulation?

Related Links:

Has Obama lost environmental voters?

GOP’s tiny cuts wound small farmers

Critical List: McKibben’s march on Washington; speeding up permits for offshore drilling

View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist

by Lisa Hymas.

Greenwashing
is out, brownwashing is in. These days, GOP politicians are scrambling to distance
themselves from past environment-friendly statements, initiatives, and votes. (Thanks
to Grist reader Gary Wockner for naming
this trend.)

Check
out the top 10 offenders. And watch for a lot more Republicans to join the club
as we head toward the 2012 election. 

 

10.  Scott Brown

U.S.
senator from Massachusetts

Before: “Reducing carbon dioxide emission in Massachusetts has long been a
priority of mine,’’ he
said in 2008 when, as a member of the state Senate, he voted in favor of his state
joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a carbon-trading initiative in
the Northeast. “Passing this legislation is an important step … towards
improving our environment.’‘

After: “I
think the globe is always heating and cooling. It’s a natural way of ebb and
flow. The thing that concerns me lately is some of the information I’ve heard
about potential tampering with some of the information,” he
said in December 2009, as the “Climategate” faux-scandal was raging. In April 2011, he
voted to strip the U.S. EPA of its authority to regulate
carbon dioxide.

 

9.  Chris Christie

Governor
of New Jersey

Before: “In a Christie administration, we can and will enforce environmental
protections while encouraging emerging industries to grow our economy and
create sustainable jobs,” he
said in October 2009, while reveling in the endorsement of the New Jersey
Environmental Federation.

After: In May 2011, he pulled New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the only operational cap-and-trade system in the country. “The whole system is not
working as it was intended to work. It is a failure,” he
said—after he undermined its effectiveness by raiding
$65 million from a RGGI-generated fund that was
supposed to support energy efficiency and renewable energy. Christie’s move could “doom U.S. climate policy,” Brad Plumer speculates.

 

8.  Jon Huntsman

Presidential
candidate, former governor of Utah

Before: “[W]e must put a value on carbon,” he
said in October 2008. “Until we put a value on carbon, we’re never going to be
able to get serious about dealing with climate change longer term. Now, putting
a value on carbon either suggests that you go to a carbon tax or you get a
cap-and-trade system underway.”

After: “Cap-and-trade
ideas aren’t working,” he
said in May 2011. “Much of this discussion happened before the bottom fell out
of the economy, and until it comes back, this isn’t the moment.”

Read
more
about Huntman and climate.

 

7.  Paul LePage

Governor
of Maine

Before: In 2006, as mayor of Waterville, Maine, he
signed his city on to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection
Agreement, committing to cut the city’s greenhouse gas emissions and push for
broader climate action.

After: In September 2010, while running for governor, he
said,
“I don’t know [if] global warming is a myth or not. … I will say this: I
do not believe in the Al Gore science.”

Read
more
about LePage and climate.

 

 

6.  John McCain

U.S.
senator from Arizona, former presidential nominee

Before: He
cosponsored the first climate bills in the U.S. Senate in the mid-noughties,
and made cap-and-trade a key part of his platform during his 2008 run for
president. “Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming,
or the precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central
facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that
global warming will bring,” he said in May 2008. “We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across
the world that time is short and the dangers are great.”

After: In 2009, he
derided cap-and-trade as “cap-and-tax.”
In 2010, he
questioned whether global warming is “man-made or
natural.”

 

5.  Mark Kirk

U.S.
senator from Illinois

Before: In June 2009, while a member of the U.S.
House, he was one of just eight Republicans to vote in favor of the
Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy bill. “There is now a growing
scientific consensus that the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide affects
average temperatures,” he
wrote in a letter to a constituent at the time. 

After: Just three months later, while running for a
Senate seat, he
said he would oppose the same bill if it came up for a vote in the Senate. As he
explained in January 2011, “The consensus behind the
climate-change bill collapsed and then further deteriorated with the personal
and political collapse of Vice President [Al] Gore.”

 

4.  Sarah Palin

Potential
presidential candidate, former Alaska governor

Before before: “I’m not one … who would attribute [global warming] to being
man-made,” she
said in August 2008, just before being picked as John McCain’s running mate.

Before: In September 2008, after being picked, she
said,
“I believe that man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the
issue of global warming, climate change. … John McCain and I agree that we
gotta do something about it.”

After: Once McCain and Palin lost the election, she was back to form. In April 2010, she spoke derisively of “this snake-oil science stuff that is based on
this global warming, Gore-gate stuff.”

Read
more
about Palin and climate.

 

3.  Fred Upton

U.S.
rep from Michigan

Before: “Climate change is a serious problem that necessitates serious solutions,”
he
said in April 2009. And his
website declared, “I strongly believe that
everything must be on the table as we seek to reduce carbon emissions.”

After: But
in December 2010, while angling to become chair of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, he
wrote, “On Jan. 2, the Environmental Protection
Agency will officially begin regulating the emission of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases. This move represents an unconstitutional power grab
that will kill millions of jobs … This presumes that carbon is a problem in
need of regulation. We are not convinced.” And a few days later, he
said,
“I don’t think that we have to regulate carbon to the degree we have a
carbon tax or you have a cap-and-trade system.”

 

2.  Tim Pawlenty

Presidential
candidate, former governor of Minnesota

Before: “I support a reasonable cap-and-trade system,” he
said in February 2008.

After: “As to climate change, or more specifically cap-and-trade, I’ve just come
out and admitted it—look, it was a mistake, it was stupid,” he
said in March 2011.

Read
more
about Pawlenty and climate.

 

 

1.  Newt Gingrich

Presidential
candidate, former speaker of the U.S. House

Before: He cozied
up with Nancy Pelosi in 2008 to issue a joint call for
climate action in an ad for Al Gore’s group Alliance for Climate Protection.

After: “It’s
an act of egotism for humans to think we’re a primary source of climate
change,” he
told Grist in June 2010. And in April 2011, he
said,
“I would not adopt massively expensive plans over a theory.”

Read
more
about Gingrich and climate.

Related Links:

The New Yorker slams oil-focused Obama for letting the planet burn

Mitt Romney loves climate science, hates winning

Three prominent Republicans care about climate change, sort of

View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist

by Lisa Hymas.

A
couple of months ago, I asked, “Is
Jon Huntsman the greenest GOP presidential hopeful?” In 2007, as Utah
governor, he brought his state into the Western Climate Initiative, a regional
cap-and-trade program. And up through 2009, when he took the post of ambassador
to China, he called repeatedly for climate action. I noted that while many
Republican presidential contenders had backed away from concern about climate
change, Huntsman “has not backtracked—at least not yet.”

Well,
now the backtracking has begun.

In
his first
big media interview since leaving his ambassadorship, Huntsman danced
around just about every topic that Time‘s
Melinda Henneberger asked about—Afghanistan, Libya, his Republican rivals,
his disagreements with Obama, his Mormon roots. But he was happy to, as Henneberger
put it, “junk his support for the regional cap-and-trade carbon-emissions
pact he and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger once championed.”

“It hasn’t
worked,” he says now [of the Western Climate Initiative], “and our
economy’s in a different place than five years ago.” Until it recovers, he
adds, “this isn’t the moment” to keep trying.

Sharp-eyed readers will note that the Western Climate Initiative’s cap-and-trade program hasn’t actually started yet, so unless Hustsman has traveled back in time from an apocalyptic future, it’s unclear what his basis is for saying it “hasn’t worked.” But given the political climate, it’s unlikely any Republicans will fault him for the temporal inconsistency.

Huntsman’s words do not amount to a denial of climate science or a repudiation of all climate action—the
kind of stuff we’ve heard
from his GOP competitors—but this was a definite dis for cap-and-trade.

Related Links:

Climate disasters: unlikely to be agents of progressive change

The Pope gets down with climate change

US Airlines Say they are “Green” while fighting Anti-Pollution Efforts

View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist

Incoming search terms for the article:

• jon huntsman positions

by John Walke.

Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

And so it begins.

Long a rumored dirty secret, Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) confirmed today that House Republicans plan to introduce legislation to delay mercury and air toxics standards that will save up to 26,000 lives every year.

The chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy and Power subcommittee told PoliticoPro [] today that such a bill would be introduced after the two-week congressional recess.

Whitfield admitted bluntly, “[t]he objective is to delay the implementation of these regulations.”

The EPA regulations he means would reduce mercury and other toxic air pollutants from power plants, cement plants, industrial boilers, and process heaters. Rep. Whitfield has convened a hearing in his subcommittee tomorrow to examine (i.e., attack) these health standards. Testifying at the hearing will be the Southern Company, DTE Energy, and the Portland Cement Association. Representatives for all have submitted written testimony condemning the clean air standards.

I also will be testifying at that hearing, along with a representative for the Clean Energy Group, representing supportive utility companies that are willing and able to comply with the mercury and air toxics standards for power plants.

I excerpt my summary statement for the subcommittee below, and link to my full testimony here [PDF]. I will write another post about the hearing afterwards.

Power plants, industrial boilers, process heaters, and cement plants are the largest emitters of mercury and scores of other toxic air pollutants that still are failing to comply with basic Clean Air Act requirements for toxic pollution over two decades after the adoption of the 1990 amendments to this landmark statute. This situation is due to unlawful delays and standards by the prior administration that have resulted in the obligation by the present EPA to re-propose and reissue lawful air toxics standards to protect the public.

The EPA’s final and proposed mercury and air toxics standards for these three industrial sectors will deliver enormous public health benefits. Were these standards to be delayed by even a single year, the potential magnitude of extreme health consequences would be as follows:

26,000 premature deaths;

16,500 non-fatal heart attacks;

178,000 asthma attacks;

12,000 cases of acute or chronic bronchitis;

330,000 cases of upper or lower respiratory symptoms;

18,000 hospital admissions and emergency room visits;

1,290,000 days when people must miss work or school; and

7,750,000 days when people must restrict their activities.

It would be irresponsible to deny these health benefits to the American people.

These EPA rulemakings have been conducted pursuant to clear statutory authorities and court orders, following vacaturs and remands of earlier, unlawful standards. These standards reflect EPA doing its job and not overreaching. Congress has not changed—and should not change—the longstanding statutory authorities requiring the EPA to protect Americans from mercury and other toxic air pollution.

Sponsors of this legislative attack will try to cast delay as something other than a direct assault on health safeguards.

But when delay causes this much death and disease, it’s a public health assault whatever garb the grim reaper wears.

Related Links:

The budget deal slows innovation and slashes rail, green jobs, and cleanup programs

Republican overreach may save EPA

The Congressional Carbon Circus

View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist

by Jess Zimmerman.

Finally, our long national nightmare is
over: Styrofoam cups and plastic cutlery are
back in the Congressional cafeterias. Yes, the Republicans’
campaign to save America by needlessly trashing it continues apace,
and on Monday John Boehner announced a hard-won victory over even the most
trivial and symbolic environmental concessions. “The new
majority—plasticware is back,” he tweeted. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

It’s not a big surprise that the
Speaker, who is constructed largely of rawhide and artificial
coloring, doesn’t approve of things that degrade naturally. But it’s
telling that the GOP is willing to crow about this tiny victory over
giving even a little bit of a crap. It’s a pretty weaksauce win—the
money saved is pocket change. Boehner’s personal
investments could eat it for a snack. All this does is show their
hand, which is three cards that read “SCREW,” “YOU,” and
“NATURE.”

Then again, have they got any other
wins to celebrate? They probably do need to cobble together whatever they can get. Here are a few other ideas, if they’re hurting for
successes, which you know they are:

Get rid of soap in the Capitol
bathrooms. That’ll probably save at least a couple of dollars per
bathroom per day. Sample Boehner tweet: “New majority health care
plan: Build up a tolerance!”

Replace meat in the cafeterias
with Taco Bell meat-like substitute. Sample Boehner tweet:
“Republicans are helping small businesses, plus getting you your
RDA
of fiber!”

Nix the expensive staff and
interns, replace with monkeys. No economic rationale for this, I
just like monkeys. Sample Boehner tweet: “Monkeys!!”

Fire themselves, saving over $42
million for the House alone. Sample Boehner tweet: “We’re
drastically reducing the size of government—and helping the
environment, too!”

Related Links:

Natalie Portman: Oscar winner, green darling, and mad scientist

Secretary Clinton stresses importance of international climate investments

Current Arkansas earthquakes weak sauce compared to potential fracking-caused ‘Big One’

View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist

Incoming search terms for the article:

• Boehner biodegradable cups
• boehner build up a tolerance health