October 2014 Climate Change Summary Report

“EPA policy chief: domestic action helps international climate efforts”

October 29, 2014: Politico Pro reports: “U.S. efforts to tackle carbon emissions are already having an impact on international negotiations on climate change, EPA’s policy chief Joel Beauvais said Tuesday. The ‘bottom line is that we’re finding that in our bilateral engagement with major countries like China, India and so forth, as well in our multi-lateral engagement internationally, it actually isn’t the case that what we do domestically doesn’t matter,’ Beauvais said at a New York University School of Law event. ‘It makes all the difference in the world. Whether we’re able to put forward targets …that give us leverage in negotiations to move others, or not, is entirely dependent on how much we can lean into this domestically.’”

“EPA policy chief: social cost of carbon will rise”

October 29, 2014: Politico Pro reports: “The current estimates for the social cost of carbon — calculations that underlie assumptions about the benefits of proposed climate regulations — don’t yet take into account the full range of damages that will be attributed to climate change, EPA’s Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy Joel Beauvais said Tuesday at a New York University School of Law event. Administration experts ‘recognize the current estimate doesn’t take into account all damages,’ Beauvais said, adding that ‘there’s a lot more work to do here.’ ‘Ocean acidification and many other impacts that we know will have real impacts on America’s economy and the global economy are not yet fully integrated into the Social Cost of Carbon,’ Beauvais said. ‘There’s going to be a need for an ongoing improvement both of models  and of methods.’”

“EDITORIAL: Cooling the global warming panic”

October 28, 2014: An editorial in The Washington Times states: “It isn’t easy to be a weather alarmist these days. The weather just won’t pay attention to the learned professors. Really destructive hurricanes haven’t disturbed the Atlantic or Gulf coasts in nine years. Temperatures nationwide have been, when unusual, on the cool side. Temperature readings gathered by satellite show the Earth’s surface temperatures have leveled off since 1998. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. What’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that insists the sky is falling, going to say in its synthesis report on Thursday? The case against carbon dioxide — the stuff we breathe out and plants breathe in — has never been weaker. The climate doom criers insist that CO2, as a ‘greenhouse gas,’ causes planetary temperatures to rise. According to the measurements of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, global average carbon dioxide levels are currently higher than ever, up 8 percent since 1998. So why have we been in a “pause” in global warming for the past two decades if CO2 and temperatures are directly linked?”

“Companies shouldn’t cave in to the demands of climate-change activists”

October 27, 2014: An op-ed in The Washington Post by Carly Fiorina, chief executive of Hewlett Packard from 1999 to 2005, states: “In recent months, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been under siege by an army of professional activists. Its weapons: radically oversimplified arguments and online pressure campaigns. Its victim: free and open debate. The attacks have prompted Google, among other tech giants, to part ways with ALEC, an alliance of state legislators who advocate limited government, free markets, and individual liberty. Unfortunately, such shortsighted thinking all too often shapes corporate strategy at a time when policies with enormous, and potentially damaging, economic implications are gaining ground. ALEC and its supporters are not alone as the targets of such attacks. While climate change is these activists’ current wedge, they strive to drive business out of politics by any means necessary, including protests, online petitions, letter-writing campaigns, attacks on secondary targets or membership organizations and shareholder resolutions.”

“EU Leaders Agree to Long-Term Energy, Climate Change Targets”

October 24, 2014: The Wall Street Journal reports: “European Union leaders agreed on a set of long-term targets on energy and climate change in the early hours of Friday, agreeing to financial sweeteners and weakening some objectives in order to get a deal. The 28 leaders haggled for hours before clinching an agreement that they hope will set the tone ahead of global climate negotiations in Paris next year. ‘It was not easy, not at all,’ conceded the European Council President, Herman Van Rompuy after the talks ended. ‘But we managed to reach a fair decision. It sets Europe on an ambitious yet cost-effective energy path.’ EU leaders committed to cutting carbon emissions by at least 40% by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, which will be legally binding on every member state.”

“The Oil Price Swoon Won’t Stop the Shale Boom”

October 24, 2014: An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Mark P. Mills, author, physicist and senior fellow at Manhattan Institute, states: “With oil prices sliding, energy investors are worried, while Saudi Arabia and Russia no doubt hope, that low prices will cap America’s boom in shale-oil production. Green-energy types sit by, happy to see turmoil in the fossil-fuel sector. But price dips are common in oil and other markets subject to cyclical swings. True enough, sellers of any product prefer high prices to low; but the current slump sets the stage for what I call America’s shale boom 2.0.”

“As power growth slows, utilities turn green”

October 22, 2014: Politico Pro reports: “Once-stodgy electric utilities are moving into new green businesses that they have long shunned, hawking solar power and products like super-efficient light bulbs to get a piece of the action in the clean energy boom. It’s a new strategy that comes as slowing growth in electricity consumption threatens their profits and forces the utilities to rethink their long-held business models. ‘It really is a once-in-a-century change to the industry,’ Peter Fox-Penner, a principal at the Brattle Group who works on energy and environment issues, told a small crowd recently at a U.S. Energy Association meeting. ‘All of us consultants — we’re having a field day because this is the most challenging stuff we’ve ever seen in our careers.’”

“BABBIN: The Pentagon’s war on the global climate”

October 20, 2014: An op-ed in The Washington Times by Jed Babbin, author and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration, states: “The Pentagon’s ‘2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap,’ published last week, demonstrates how thoroughly and deeply liberal ‘climate change’ ideology is being embedded in our military establishment. To undo the damage will require a determined effort by our next president. We’ve already seen how the climate change ideology has wasted scarce defense dollars, such as Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus’ decision to spend $26 a gallon for 450,000 gallons of biofuel — about $11.7 million — when $5 a gallon diesel fuel would have met the same need. …The report accepts as fact all the hyperbole of climate change and on that basis mandates that every aspect of Pentagon operations and planning should be adapted to consider those ‘facts.”

“GOP asks green group to open its files”

October 20, 2014: The Hill reports: “Republicans are putting the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) under the microscope as they comb through the green group’s communications with federal regulators.  For the NRDC, the investigation highlights how its stature has risen in Washington, to the point where it is seen as one of the heaviest hitters — and biggest targets — in the environmental movement. Republicans say the group has been pulling the strings as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) crafts sweeping rules aimed at reducing climate change. Sen. David Vitter (La.), the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, launched an investigation last month into what role the group played in crafting the regulations.”

“Obama’s Climate Diplomat Explains What a Paris Emissions Deal Should Look Like”

October 17, 2014: NationalJournal reports: “The State Department’s top negotiator on climate change outlined on Tuesday the U.S. negotiating stance heading into the final year of talks over a new international global-warming agreement. In remarks at Yale University, Todd Stern described and defended a proposal in which nations’ pledges to curb emissions would not be legally binding—but other aspects of the deal would be. The comments arrive ahead of the next round of United Nations climate talks in December in Lima, Peru. Negotiators hope to reach a final deal at make-or-break talks in Paris in late 2015. Stern said the ‘most interesting proposal’ floating around now is a plan from New Zealand officials ‘under which there would be a legally binding obligation to submit what they call a schedule, but basically your commitment, for reducing emissions, plus various legally binding provisions for accounting, reporting, review, a periodic updating of the schedules, and so forth.’”

“Industry-backed report says EPA climate rule to cost $366B”

October 17, 2014: The Hill reports: “A study commissioned by the coal industry and other business groups found that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) carbon rule for power plants could cost at least $366 billion. The analysis, written by Nera Economic Consulting, said that people in 43 states would see double-digit percentage increases in their electricity bills, with at least 20 percent increases in 14 states. Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide reductions would only limit global warming by 0.02 degrees and sea level rises by 0.01 inch, researchers said. ‘This analysis is further confirmation that it would be irresponsible for any state to implement EPA’s costly power plan,’ Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, said in a statement. ‘Asking Americans to pay more in return for less energy and fewer jobs is not a plan that provides them the economic security they deserve.’”

“Chemistry Council: Turning leftover plastic into oil could create thousands of jobs”

October 16, 2014: Fuel Fix reports: “Converting plastic waste back to oil could generate new revenue for the United States, create thousands of new jobs and lighten the load in landfills, but the emerging technology has yet to be embraced because the industry doesn’t understand it, according to an American Chemistry Council report. Plastics-to-oil technology, also called pyrolysis, takes plastics that can’t be recycled and chops them into smaller pieces before heating the bits in a machine under a very high temperature, which converts the plastics into a liquid that can be then be distilled into synthetic crude, diesel fuel or other petroleum products. The American Chemistry Council report finds that there’s enough non-recycled plastic to feed hundreds of new plants across the United States worth $6.6 billion total.”

“Stern: U.S. won’t seek binding carbon cuts in climate talks”

October 15, 2014: Energy Guardian reports: “The U.S. wants a new United Nations climate deal next year that allows countries to set their own climate emissions cuts, State Department climate envoy Todd Stern said Tuesday, in his most expansive comments yet on the upcoming negotiations. Stern’s speech at Yale University largely confirmed reports that the Obama administration will back the so-called ‘name and shame’ plan suggested by New Zealand that stresses voluntary commitments, combined with mandatory reporting and transparency. Such a plan would also take the administration off the hook to submit a final deal to the Senate, where it would face substantial opposition.”

“Republicans to Investigate Environmental Group’s Influence on Carbon Rule”

October 14, 2014: The New York Times reports: “Congressional Republicans are investigating whether the Obama administration improperly colluded with a prominent environmental advocacy group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, as the Environmental Protection Agency drafted major climate change regulations. The investigation, begun by Representative Darrell Issa of California, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, comes as Republicans continue a long-running effort to block President Obama’s climate change agenda. Mr. Issa and Mr. Vitter contend that the environmental group’s influence on the Obama climate change rule was inappropriate. Their staff members are investigating whether in drafting the rule the E.P.A. broke the law, specifically the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how agencies write regulations.”

“The Global Warming Statistical Meltdown”

October 10, 2014: An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Judith Curry, professor and former chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, states: “At the recent United Nations Climate Summit, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that “Without significant cuts in emissions by all countries, and in key sectors, the window of opportunity to stay within less than 2 degrees [of warming] will soon close forever.” Actually, this window of opportunity may remain open for quite some time. A growing body of evidence suggests that the climate is less sensitive to increases in carbon-dioxide emissions than policy makers generally assume—and that the need for reductions in such emissions is less urgent.  According to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, preventing ‘dangerous human interference’ with the climate is defined, rather arbitrarily, as limiting warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures. The Earth’s surface temperatures have already warmed about 0.8 degrees Celsius since 1850-1900. This leaves 1.2 degrees Celsius (about 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) to go.”

“Why is ethanol not good for the environment?”

October 10, 2014: The Mercury (PA) reports: “Ethanol and similar “biofuels” made from corn and other crops seem like a good idea given their potential for reducing our carbon outputs as well as our reliance on fossil fuels. But recent research has shown that the federal government’s push to up production of corn-derived ethanol as a gasoline additive since 2007 has actually expanded our national carbon footprint and contributed to a range of other problems. U.S. corn producers started ramping up ethanol production in 2007 as a result of President George W. Bush’s Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), which mandated an increase in the volume of renewable fuel to be blended into transportation fuel from 9 billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billion by 2022. Ethanol now makes up 10 percent of the gasoline available at filling stations. But environmentalists now say that the promise of ethanol has turned out to be too good to be true.”

“Average fuel economy of new cars rises to record 24.1 mpg, EPA says”

October 9, 2014: Los Angeles Times reports: “New vehicles reached a record-high fuel economy in 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency reported. In its annual report on fuel economy and carbon-dioxide emissions, the federal agency said Wednesday that 2013 model year vehicles achieved an average of 24.1 miles per gallon. That’s up 0.5 mpg from the previous year and an increase of nearly 5 mpg since 2004. Fuel economy has now increased in eight of the last nine years, according to the report titled ‘Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 through 2014.’ Meanwhile, average carbon-dioxide emissions have sunk to a record low of 369 grams per mile.”

“Low-carbon foolishness”

October 8, 2014: An op-ed in The Washington Times by Paul Driessen, author and senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, states: “The Keystone XL pipeline has now waited six years for White House approval. The notion of transporting Canadian oil-sands crude oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries is anathema to radical “greens.” who form much of President Obama’s political base. The activists are worried the delays won’t continue past the upcoming elections. Accordingly they’ve launched initiatives to discourage or prevent the crude from being used in transportation fuels. They are pouring money into Northeastern states to persuade them to track the carbon content of fuels and impose low carbon fuel standards (LCFS). Meanwhile, thousands of activists marched through New York City recently, demanding that the nation stop climate change that has been occurring since Earth began, slash or eliminate hydrocarbons that supply 80 percent of America’s energy, abolish capitalism and ban hydraulic fracturing — which is largely responsible for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions that they blame for climate change while cutting oil and natural-gas prices and generating much-needed jobs and government revenues.”

“Ethanol rules causing more harm than good”

October 7, 2014: An op-ed in The Hill by Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) states: “As I meet with Vermonters across the state, I frequently hear stories about the inadvertent harm caused by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). This well-intentioned policy has been an overwhelming flop for a diverse group of people and businesses in my home state. The negative impact on their livelihoods highlights the desperate need for Congress to reform the RFS. Vermont’s dairy farmers have suffered from record-high feed prices as they compete with the ethanol mandate to feed their herds, and at restaurants and grocery stores families are being hit by sticker shock as the price of food continues to rise. Similarly, I’ve heard from frustrated small-engine owners about the damage the RFS is having on their equipment. Whether it be lawnmowers, weed eaters or even my own chainsaw, ethanol is ruining engines and infrastructure.”

“Shale boom, climate goals can go hand in hand – Moniz”

October 7, 2014: EnergyWire reports: “Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said yesterday that there’s no conflict between the White House’s carbon goals and the United States’ oil boom. ‘Clearly the boom in the Eagle Ford, the Bakken, et cetera, has dramatically increased production and decreased imports,’ he said here at the Council on Foreign Relations, adding that this has goosed the economy, too. ‘The point here, in the carbon context, is it has no way deflected us from aiming to reduce our oil dependence.’ Advances in batteries, fuel-efficient cars and cleaner vehicle fuels mean the United States is making gains on both the supply and demand sides, he said.”

“If China announces a limit on carbon emissions, could India follow?”

October 6, 2014: ClimateWire reports: “When countries unveil their plans for curbing carbon over the coming decade, the climate-conscious world knows that it wants to see aggressive, economywide cuts from the United States. Similarly, consensus is building that China, which now emits more carbon dioxide than any other country, should announce a peak year after which its emissions will fall. But what of India, the globe’s fourth-largest climate polluter and yet also home to more than 400 million people who live on less than $1.25 per day and lack access to basic energy services?”

“Oregon’s looming carbon fight”

October 6, 2014: Statesman Journal reports: “…The Oregon Clean Fuels Program, a controversial plan to transition to lower carbon fuels for cars and trucks, needs to be extended by the 2015 Legislature, or it will die before ever getting off the ground.  ‘It’s one of my top priorities,’ Gov. John Kitzhaber told the Statesman Journal. ‘I think it’s a game changer in terms of transportation costs, and a much cleaner source of fuel for the transportation industry.’ But the governor is running out of time. Oregon’s 2009 Legislature authorized the adoption of new standards shortly before Kitzhaber took office with a goal of cutting the amount of carbon in fuels by 10 percent over 10 years. Fuels producers and distributors would have to provide cleaner fuel mixes or buy credits from providers of lower-emission fuels like biodiesel and natural gas. The initial plan was to implement the new regulatory system in 2011, but creating the administrative rules proved to be a slow, complicated process for the Department of Environmental Quality.”

“Genscape suggests 75 million cellulosic RINs possible in 2014”

October 3, 2014: Biomass Magazine reports: “Cellulosic ethanol production could contribute up to 9 million cellulosic D3 renewable identification numbers (RINs) in 2014, if active plants achieve full capacity in the last four months of the year, suggests a new white paper from Genscape. With recent rule changes in the renewable fuels standards (RFS) that took effect in August, biogas could contribute another 67.5 million D3 RINs, if full capacity is utilized for transportation fuel. The current state of cellulosic biofuels is covered in the new white paper offered by Genscape Inc. The paper, ‘Outlook for 2014 Cellulosic Production and D3 RINs,’ also says that if full capacities are reached in 2015, the active cellulosic ethanol facilities could generate 91 million RINs next year, while registered biogas facilities would have the capacity to produce up to an estimated 162 million RINs in 2015. With North American headquarters in Kentucky and European headquarters in The Netherlands, Genscape provides real-time data and intelligence for commodity and energy markets, and offers a quality assurance program and other services for RINs generators and obligated parties.”

“With greater gas mileage come harmful carbon particulates – report”

October 02, 2014: ClimateWire reports: “Modern engines that directly transfer fuel into vehicles’ combustion chambers have let automakers churn out high-performance cars and meet stringent government fuel efficiency targets. But according to new research on particulate emissions from the Fuels, Engines and Emissions Research Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the grass underlying these instruments — officially known as gasoline direct-injection engines, or GDIs — may not be as green as environmentalists might hope. Gasoline direct-injection engines make up 30 percent of the new-car-sales market and are predicted to reach 50 percent market share by 2017.”