June 2015 Climate Change Summary Report

“A well-deserved smack down for the EPA”

June 30, 2015: The Washington Examiner reports: “President Obama’s grand plan to regulate coal out of existence started to come apart Monday. His Environmental Protection Agency had announced in 2011 that it would regulate oil and coal power plants under an obscure Clean Air Act program that has nothing to do with carbon, smog or common air pollution, but with poisons in tiny quantities, such as mercury and arsenic. The decision to apply this National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants Program to power plants aroused much opposition, but what landed the EPA in court was its explicit refusal to bother with any sort of cost-benefit analysis in making its decision. ‘[C]osts should not be considered,’ it declared with a level of insouciance that only federal bureaucrats seem to achieve. But actually, yes they should, said Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in Michigan v. EPA.”.

“Analysis: Mercury ruling gives GOP new rallying cry for carbon rule delay”

June 30, 2015: Energy Guardian reports: “The Supreme Court’s ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency acted “unreasonably” by not considering compliance costs before it drafted its Mercury and Air Toxic Standards for power plants has given Republicans fresh ammunition in their fight against the Obama administration’s environmental regulations. It’s also helping to drive home the message behind their legislation to rein in the agency’s proposed carbon rules for power plants that legal challenges need to be settled before regulations can take effect. While Republicans on Monday shot out statements cheering the 5-4 decision, which remanded the MATS rule to a lower court for further judgment, they also slammed the agency for improperly moving on

“The surprisingly important climate policy moment that’s coming this week”

June 29, 2015: The Washington Post reports: “White House officials confirmed Thursday that in President Obama’s meetings this coming week with the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, they’re going to be talking about climate change. It’s unclear whether the result will be any kind of climate-related pact between the U.S. and Brazil on emissions, as we saw between the U.S. and China last year. But there’s certainly plenty of speculation about one. Brazil is a nation of more than 200 million people — the fifth most populous in the world — and from 1990 through 2011 was the world’s fourth largest single emitter of greenhouse gases. So while a deal or at least some type of statement issued by the two countries might not be considered as significant as the deal between the U.S. and China — the world’s two top emitters — it still would be quite important.”

“Solar advocates push to avoid sunset of tax credit”

June 26, 2015: The Washington Examiner reports: “Here comes the fight over the sun. Specifically, tax credits for solar energy. The tax credit for solar investment is set to shrink after 2016. That has solar companies, environmental groups and Democrats working on securing a lifeline for the incentive, as supporters feel the technology just needs one last, multi-year boost to achieve grid parity with other forms of energy. ‘We’re not asking for permanence. We’re not asking for a 10-year extension. We’re just asking for a little more time,’ Ken Johnson, a spokesman with the Solar Energy Industries Association, told the Washington Examiner.”

“Canadian province to double carbon tax”

June 26, 2015: The Hill reports: “The newly-elected liberal government of Alberta, Canada, announced Thursday that it will double the province’s carbon tax by 2017. Regulators will also ask big industrial facilities to cut their emissions intensity by 12 percent next year and up to 20 percent by 2017, the Calgary Herald reported on Thursday. The move is designed to encourage oil sands operators and power plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. ‘If Alberta wants better access to world markets, then we’re going to need to do our part to address one of the world’s biggest problems, which is climate change,’ Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said.”

“Schumer’s Carbon Tax Prediction”

June 25, 2015: An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal reports: “Chuck Schumer is poised to become the next Democratic leader of the Senate, and he’s already planning for 2017 when he expects Hillary Clinton will be President. To wit, the New Yorker is predicting that the political class might join hands and pass a carbon tax. …A carbon tax is the emerging fashion in Washington because it serves two goals: It collects heaps of revenue while raising the cost of energy from fossil fuels. The climate change worriers are eager to force business and consumers to use less oil and natural gas, and that means raising their price throughout the economy.”

“DOE Study Finds Elevated Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Canadian Crude”

June 24, 2015: The Wall Street Journal reports: “A new peer-reviewed study funded by the U.S. Department of Energy says oil extracted from Canada’s oil sands produces greenhouse-gas emissions that are an average 20% higher than for conventional U.S. crude. The findings provide ammunition to foes of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and other critics of surging Canadian oil output. The study was conducted jointly by the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, researchers at Stanford University and the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of California, Davis. It calculated greenhouse gas-emissions from oil-field extraction to tail pipe, a so-called well-to-wheel analysis.”

 “Climate Clashes Resume in Washington”

June 23, 2015: The Wall Street Journal reports: “Washington’s climate wars are heating up, with the White House and congressional Republicans both making moves this week that counter the other’s agenda. The Environmental Protection Agency released a report Monday highlighting the economic benefits of cutting carbon emissions, the first in a series of actions the administration is taking this week to bring attention to President Barack Obama’s climate-change agenda. The focus comes two years after Mr. Obama first laid out his intentions to make acting on climate a legacy of his time in the White House during a speech at Georgetown University on June 25, 2013, where he directed EPA to write regulations cutting carbon emissions from the nation’s power plants, which at 30% are the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Other actions this week include a summit at the White House Tuesday linking climate change to public health.”

“Renewable energy may double, mostly without subsidies, but fail to restrict emissions growth – study”

June 23, 2015: Climatewire reports: “In 25 years, more than half of the world’s energy-generating capacity will come from zero-emission sources and renewables will generate twice as much power, but atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide will likely still push the world past the ubiquitous 2-degree-Celsius goal, according to analysis released today by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The BNEF report, whose authors assumed ‘renewables globally will see no further policy support’ after 2018, beyond subsides for offshore wind installations, does not consider long-term implications from U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Nonetheless, the U.S. energy market will look dramatically different just five years from now, with natural gas facilities, buoyed by low wholesale fuel prices and the phasing out of coal-fired power plants, making up 90 percent of new construction, the report reads.”

“Obama Climate Rules To Face String Of Attacks On House Floor”

June 22, 2015: National Journal reports: “Last week, the White House and its allies celebrated Pope Francis’s call for action on climate change, in part by touting the Obama administration’s ongoing effort to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This week, House Republicans will send their own message: No dice. And in case anyone misses their intentions, they’ll vote twice. The House has teed up two votes on bills that would scale back the centerpiece of Obama’s climate plan—fittingly, two years to the week after Obama gave a speech on climate change that cemented the issue.”

“Religious Leaders Issue Climate Call to Action – But Will Voters Listen?”

June 19, 2015: Morning Consult reports: “As Republican presidential contenders pitched themselves to crowds of conservatives at the Faith and Freedom Conference, an interfaith group of religious leaders found their own spot down the hallway to convey their message: Take the pope’s word on climate change, not the Koch brothers’. ‘Climate change is a moral issue’ and ‘Pick a side: The Pope or the Kochs,’ the signs read. Roman Catholic, Jewish and Muslim leaders called on Republican presidential hopefuls to pledge action to stop or reverse global warming, making their case to a crowd totaling roughly 100 conference-goers and members of the media. But their message, made the same day Pope Francis issued a 184-page encyclical calling on world leaders to acknowledge and address the threat of global climate change, may have fallen on deaf ears.”

“O’Malley pushes aggressive climate change platform”

June 19, 2015: The Hill reports: “Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley says that if he is elected president he will phase out the use of fossil fuels by 2050 and convert the United States to clean energy only. ‘I believe, within 35 years, our country can, and should, be 100 percent powered by clean energy, supported by millions of new jobs,’ O’Malley, a Democratic presidential candidate, wrote in a  USA Today op-ed on Thursday. ‘To reach this goal we must accelerate that transition starting now.’ O’Malley’s target on clean energy is the most aggressive aspect of a climate change platform full of policy proposals that are red meat for liberals and environmentalists.”

“How do you make the most of energy development? Find the ‘rational middle’”

June 16, 2015: Energywire reports: “Settling the debate on the industrial benefits and environmental impacts of unconventional energy development is not only possible, but critical to the country’s economic future, a new report finds. Extraction of U.S. tight oil and gas is a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity, contributing $430 billion to annual gross domestic product and supporting 2.7 million American jobs, according to a paper released last week by Harvard Business School and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Though energy-rich towns in North Dakota, Texas and Pennsylvania have recently seen downshifts in new oil and gas activity, they are still in a better spot than they were before the shale boom, the authors wrote. ‘While some of this growth has slowed with the recent fall in world oil prices, many communities are still far more prosperous today than they were in the mid-2000s,’ the report says. Low oil prices may have even protected the nation’s position as the premier producer of shale resources, according to the paper.”

“Is cellulosic biofuel ready for prime time?”

June 15, 2015: Watchdog.org reports: “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants the amount of cellulosic biofuel the federal government requires from refiners and importers of gasoline and diesel under the Renewable Fuel Standard to jump by more than 500 percent by next year. But critics say the fuel has long been overhyped by the EPA and doubt whether cellulosic can meet the agency’s targets. ‘I’ve heard the same thing for years: We’re just six months away (from a breakthrough), we’re right around the corner,’ said Charles Drevna, former president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a group critical of cellulosic biofuel mandates. ‘Well, that’s a pretty damn wide corner because I haven’t seen much yet.’”

“Whitehouse, Schatz make conservative appeal for carbon tax”

June 11, 2015: Energy Guardian reports: “A pair of Senate Democrats took to a right-leaning think tank Wednesday to unveil a new attempt to implement a national tax on greenhouse gas emissions, trying to make the typically liberal proposal to appeal to conservative sensibilities by coupling it with other tax cuts and credits. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, appeared at the American Enterprise Institute to unveil their bill that would implement a $45 per metric ton fee on greenhouse gas emissions, which would rise by 2 percent annually.”

“Whitehouse and Schatz Pitch Newer, Friendlier Carbon Tax – But Is It Friendly Enough?”

June 11, 2015: Morning Consult reports: “A new effort to tax carbon dioxide emissions, courtesy of Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), was unveiled today at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. With support from big oil companies, some right-leaning groups and most Democrats, a carbon tax might be the most ‘politically popular’ policy available to fight climate change. But the conditions for assuring a bill safe passage through Congress aren’t ripe. Whitehouse and Schatz will have to bridge wide-ranging interpretations of how exactly a carbon tax would work. The bill proposes to reduce carbon emissions by more than 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, but offers up a big bargaining chip: lowering the top marginal corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 29 percent.”

“Obama Administration Readies Big Push on Climate Change”

June 10, 2015: The Wall Street Journal reports: “The Obama administration is planning a series of actions this summer to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions from wide swaths of the economy, including trucks, airplanes and power plants, kicking into high gear an ambitious climate agenda that the president sees as key to his legacy. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce as soon as Wednesday plans to regulate carbon emissions from airlines, and soon after that, draft rules to cut carbon emissions from big trucks, according to people familiar with the proposals. In the coming weeks, the EPA is also expected to unveil rules aimed at reducing emissions of methane—a potent greenhouse gas—from oil and natural-gas operations.”

“Eco-groups: G-7 leaders should fund climate change solutions”

June 9, 2015: The Washington Examiner reports: “Advocates of a United Nations climate change treaty said the goals laid out by world leaders missed an opportunity. They hoped the leaders would address concerns about securing funding to help developing nations adjust to a warming planet…. But supporters of a global climate deal that nations hope to produce during U.N. talks that begin late November in Paris said the G7 agreement was a missed opportunity financially, even if it did include crowd-pleasers such as decarbonization.”

“Energy Department awards $60M for nuclear research”

June 8, 2015: The Hill reports: “The Energy Department announced more than $60 million in research funding awards Friday for nuclear power. The 68 projects around the country were funded with the hope that they will result in scientific breakthroughs that help nuclear power, the Energy Department said Friday. ‘I remain convinced that nuclear energy will continue to be an important part of the nation’s energy portfolio, accounting for more than 60 percent of carbon-free electricity in the United States today,’ Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a statement.”

“Corn Ethanol Is Worse Than Keystone”

June 8, 2015: An op-ed in Bloomberg by Robert Bryce, author and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, states: “For years, environmental activists have opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that development of Canada’s oil sands will be ‘game over for the climate.’ But if those same activists are sincere about climate change, why aren’t they getting arrested outside the White House to protest the use of corn ethanol?  That’s a pertinent question, given a new analysis from the Environmental Working Group, which finds that corn ethanol produces more carbon dioxide than Keystone XL would — presuming, of course, that the pipeline ever gets built. Making the issue even more relevant, last Friday, the EPA outlined new requirements for the minimum amounts of ethanol that retailers must blend into their gasoline.”

“Heavy polluters could get a decade of free carbon permits to keep them in Europe”

June 5, 2015: ClimateWire reports: “The European Union is drafting a plan to offer the most polluting industries a decade of free carbon credits on its Emissions Trading System (ETS) in order to keep them from leaving Europe and taking their business elsewhere, according to a document obtained by Reuters. When the cap-and-trade program was created in 2005, industry lobbied to receive free permits. Reformers hoped the next iteration of the plan, which begins in 2020, would reduce the number of free credits in order to make a more significant reduction to carbon emissions and climate change. The report shows E.U. commissioners are considering a wide range of options, including offering a sliding scale of free credits based on emissions intensity or offering all sectors a 30 percent subsidy.”

“EPA Climate Plan Sent to White House for Review”

June 3, 2015: National Journal reports: “The Obama administration has teed up a busy summer on climate change, with the final review of its tentpole climate rule swinging into action. The Environmental Protection Agency sent its rules on carbon emissions for existing power plants to the White House Office of Management and Budget for a final review, according to a website that tracks federal rulemaking. The rule is set to be finalized in August, according to OMB and a schedule of federal rulemakings. EPA last June proposed cutting carbon-dioxide emissions from existing power plants by 30 percent of 2005 levels by 2030, targeting one of the nation’s largest sources of greenhouse-gas emissions. The proposal sets specific targets for each state, allowing them to craft their own plans through measures like energy efficiency, upgrading power plants, and shifting away from coal power.”

“Obama’s (theatrical) big climate plan drop”

June 2, 2015: Politico reports: “The EPA’s carbon rules for power plants are the biggest thing still looming on President Barack Obama’s green agenda,  and for a year we’ve known they’re coming down soon. But when exactly? Originally, the president told the Environmental Protection Agency to finish its work by June 1.  But senior EPA officials conceded in January that they would miss that deadline, and since then, the administration has gone out of its way to stay as vague as possible on the schedule. Now we have an inkling: The EPA let slip last month in the latest version of the Unified Agenda — a bible of sorts for policy wonks tracking the movements of federal agencies — that the new and existing power plant climate rules were tentatively up  for an August rollout. And a few phone calls this week to longtime EPA watchers suggest that a pre-Labor Day introduction looks likely.”

“Big Oil Companies Want a Price on Carbon. Here’s Why.”

June 2, 2015: National Journal reports: “Six oil and gas giants based in Europe have delivered an unusual joint message to organizers of United Nations climate talks: We want a price on carbon-dioxide emissions. BP, Shell, Eni, Total, Statoil, and BG Group (a big gas company that Shell is acquiring) announced in a letter to Christiana Figueres, the top U.N. climate official, that they are joining forces for an initiative calling for carbon pricing, which is accomplished through emissions-trading systems or taxes. Their effort reflects a strategic calculation for the companies that by engaging on the topic, they can help shape climate policies to benefit natural gas, which produces about half the carbon emissions of coal when burned to create electricity. Wider use of carbon pricing worldwide, depending on how stringent the policies, could benefit companies that produce gas and ship it around the globe in liquefied form.”

“Clinton: Invest in rural clean energy”

June 1, 2015: An op-ed by Hillary Clinton in The Cedar Rapids Gazette states: “On my first trip to Iowa this year, I pledged to be a champion for all Iowans — from cities like Davenport, Cedar Rapids, and Des Moines to small towns and rural communities like Norwalk, Monticello, and LeClaire. It’s not enough for Iowans to just get by, you deserve to be able to get ahead and stay ahead. To make that possible across Iowa and across America, we’re going to have to work together to build an economy for tomorrow, not yesterday. I believe the United States can and must be the clean energy super power for the 21st century. China and other competitors are already racing ahead with big bets on renewables. Yet there are still some here in America — even candidates for President — who want to keep the deck stacked for the fuels of the past. They support wasteful subsidies for oil and gas, block investments in new clean technologies, and even deny the science of climate change. We can’t afford to cede our leadership in developing and deploying the advanced, clean fuels of the future that will grow our economy, lower our energy bills, reduce pollution, and protect the health of our families and communities. And America’s farmers and rural communities have to be at the heart of this effort.”

“The Shale Boom Shifts Into Higher Gear”

June 1, 2015: An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Mr. Donald L. Luskin, chief investment officer at Trend Macrolytics LLC and Michael Warren, managing partner at TrendMacro.Energy LLC. reports: “Have the American entrepreneurs who developed horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing—‘fracking’—done their jobs too well? The increase in domestic crude oil production of 3.6 million barrels a day in less than four years, reversing almost four decades of decline, has created a spectacular macroeconomic anomaly—a crash in oil prices without a recession to cause it. Now, in response to sharply lower prices, domestic oil producers have shed jobs and cut operating rigs by more than half. This has sent shock waves through the entire U.S. economy. The drop in fixed assets for drilling, alone, slashed about half a percentage point off first quarter gross domestic product.”