Climate 411

Regulatory Accountability Act would wrap red tape around our most important health and safety protections

By Martha Roberts / Published: May 10, 2017

(This post was co-authored by EDF legal Fellow Rosalie Winn)

New legislation introduced in the Senate threatens to undermine critical public health, safety and environmental protections through paralysis by analysis.

The Regulatory Accountability Act, recently introduced by Senators Rob Portman of Ohio and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, would tie up essential safeguards in enormous amounts of red tape – putting at risk longstanding protections in child safety, food safety, auto safety, and other areas that Americans depend on and often take for granted.

If the Regulatory Accountability Act were to become law, common sense new safeguards would have to make it through a mind-boggling series of analyses before they could begin to protect Americans.

We’ve illustrated this recipe for paralysis by analysis in this diagram:

Here’s a small sample of important safety measures — recent or in progress — that would get tied up in red tape under this bill’s approach:

We’ve written before about how the Regulatory Accountability Act would stymie agencies’ ability to address public concerns.

Important protections would face time-consuming, costly new burdens – burdens that would fall on the public, on businesses, and on anyone trying to participate in the decision-making – while giving an advantage to big-money interests who can afford expensive lawyers.

The Regulatory Accountability Act would allow opponents of health and safety protections to delay and obstruct the safeguards they don’t like, while leaving all Americans more vulnerable.

Posted in Health, News, Policy / Comments are closed

Scott Pruitt wants to end his own Clean Power Plan lawsuit—but can’t set aside EPA’s duty to protect the public from climate pollution

By Martha Roberts / Published: May 4, 2017

(This post was co-authored by Tomas Carbonell)

Before he became Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt was relentless in suing to oppose the Clean Power Plan, America’s first-ever nationwide limits on carbon pollution from power plants.

So relentless, in fact, that as Attorney General of Oklahoma he brought suit four times to block these common sense, cost-effective protections—including litigating to block the proposal, before the Clean Power Plan was even finalized.

Given that history, you’d think that Pruitt would be eager to for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court to continue the current litigation over the Clean Power Plan, which Pruitt helped initiate when he was Attorney General.

Instead, the Trump Administration launched a full-court press to stop the court’s deliberations in their tracks.

The administration filed a motion on March 28 asking the court to suspend the litigation indefinitely – almost a year after the last briefs were filed in the case, and more than six months after oral argument took place before the full en banc court.

Why the sudden aversion to the court considering the case, after such a long history of litigating?

Perhaps Pruitt was afraid that the court would see the Clean Power Plan for what it is – a common sense and achievable plan, firmly grounded in the law and in science, which responds to the most urgent environmental challenge of our time.

Pruitt repeatedly argues that the reason to repeal the Clean Power Plan is because it is “illegal.” Without a D.C. Circuit opinion, all we have are his own claims on that point – and maybe Pruitt prefers it that way, given his poor record in past legal challenges to common sense EPA safeguards.

Whatever the reason, Pruitt pressed ahead to stop the very same case he was instrumental in creating. Last week, the D.C. Circuit partially granted his request. The court put the Clean Power Plan litigation on hold for 60 days, and asked for more information so it can decide how to handle the case going forward.

EPA has a duty to protect Americans from dangerous climate pollution

While last week’s order is disappointing, it has not changed the fact that EPA has a clear duty to act under our nation’s clean air laws to protect the public from harmful climate pollution. That duty is enshrined in three separate Supreme Court opinions that confirm EPA has the authority and responsibility to address climate pollution under the Clean Air Act.

EPA’s obligation to address climate pollution under the Clean Air Act is a settled question in American law. And EPA’s history of successfully addressing climate pollution from cars and other sources speaks for itself.

The Clean Power Plan itself has a rock solid legal and technical foundation – as recognized by a huge and varied coalition of supporters including former Republican EPA Administrators, the attorneys general of eighteen states, legal experts who helped draft the Clean Air Act, and the nation’s leading experts on the power grid.

As these experts recognize, the Clean Power Plan relies on strategies that are already being deployed successfully across the power sector—continuing and amplifying a transition to low- and zero-carbon energy that is reducing climate-destabilizing pollution while bringing jobs and economic opportunities to communities across the country. America’s clean energy sector is a rapidly growing $200-billion industry that employs 3.3 million Americans.

Regardless of any legal maneuvers, the fundamental truth remains – EPA has a duty to act to protect the public from dangerous climate pollution. Given the clear and present threat that climate change poses to the well-being of communities across America, this duty is urgent.

Posted in Clean Air Act, Clean Power Plan, EPA litgation, News, Policy / Read 1 Response

California’s cap-and-trade program doesn’t need an overhaul

By Erica Morehouse / Published: May 1, 2017

(Source: cropped photo from Flickr/ Zoe-Rochelle)

Today Senator Bob Wieckowski, supported by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, proposed what amounts to a complete overhaul of California’s cap-and-trade program after 2020 in amendments to SB 775.

Pro Tem de Leon in particular has been a tireless champion of effective climate policies that are benefiting California’s communities and making the state a global leader on climate action. California would not be where it is today without his leadership especially on investments in disadvantaged communities and strong renewable and energy efficiency targets. This particular proposal, however, contains provisions that risk undermining the enormous progress the state has made.

Rather than scrapping the current system and starting over with an unproven approach, the state should build on success, keeping what is working well while strengthening the program by doing more to address local air pollution and environmental justice.

With President Trump seeking to take the country in reverse, California’s leadership is needed now more than ever. We can – and must – forge a post-2020 program that benefits communities in the state while leveraging progress here at home to spur greater ambition globally.

What’s at risk in this bill?

We still need to do a full assessment on the language of the bill, which was amended today on the Senate floor, but we know certain key policies are at risk:

  • Setting a hard ceiling on allowance prices, without any provision to ensure that California would meet its climate targets if that price ceiling were exceeded, opens a loophole that could undermine the program’s environmental integrity and California’s climate leadership. While the specific price ceiling envisioned in the bill is high enough that it may not be triggered, it represents an approach that is counter to the signature feature of the cap-and-trade program: the guarantee that California will meet its emission target.
  • This price ceiling also supplants a carefully designed cost-containment system that has operated effectively and works in harmony with California’s environmental goals. For example, this bill would prohibit firms from banking allowances, denying them a key source of flexibility that allows them to reduce emissions at the lowest possible cost over time. The bill would also ban the use of offsets, which help California achieve high integrity, hard-to-reach reductions outside the cap while keeping costs under the cap in-check and extending California’s climate diplomacy.
  • This bill could put California’s existing and future partnerships and linkages at risk by overhauling California’s approach to cap-and-trade and then asking partners to quickly fall in line. International linkages strengthen California’s leadership position and allow the state to leverage its program to spur greater ambition globally. Turning inward now would cede global leadership just when the world needs it most.

Today’s proposal is just one step in the complex legislative process, not a final bill proposal. Decision makers must balance many policy priorities as they navigate how to extend California’s cap-and-trade program. We believe there is plenty of room to adapt and strengthen California’s policy package while hewing to the framework that has served California well in reducing carbon pollution so far.

How California can chart a path to a strong cap-and-trade extension

California’s cap-and-trade program is working to bring carbon pollution down while the economy thrives. Even with this success, we recognize California needs to be doing more to address the very serious air pollution issues in local, environmental justice communities. EDF is committing to working on this with legislative leadership and our partners to ensure that the air is safe for all Californians to breathe wherever they live, while recognizing that climate policy – which affects issues as serious as our access to water – is critical to our continued future.

California needs policies that – in addition to improving local air quality – will continue to build on the successful reductions of GHG emissions; secure national and international partnerships vital to the state’s progress as a climate leader; and continue to support strong economic growth.

Rather than a wholesale change of a program that is meeting its goals, we should preserve what’s working and strengthen the parts that aren’t doing enough by designing and implementing policies that will directly improve air quality, especially in environmental justice communities.

This Senate bill comes as Governor Brown is urging the Legislature to pass an extension through the budget process with a two-thirds vote, and after two proposals introduced into the Assembly on how to extend the cap-and-trade program.

It is important that the Senate has now entered this debate and is recognizing the importance of passing a cap-and-trade extension with a supermajority vote. EDF looks forward to working with Senator Wieckowski, President Pro Tem de Leon, Assembly leaders, the Governor, and other stakeholders as California charts a path to a strong post-2020 climate policy.

With the Trump Administration abandoning its leadership role on climate at home and on the international stage, it is more important than ever that California continues to model successful climate policy that ensures that the state will meet its ambitious carbon pollution reduction targets, while promoting better local air quality and supporting a thriving economy.

Posted in California / Comments are closed

Shining Light on Scott Pruitt’s Attacks on Our Children’s Health

By Charlie Jiang / Published: April 26, 2017

Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) effort to unravel critical clean air and climate protections is in full swing.

The EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) held a three-hour long public tele-hearing this week on President Trump’s agenda to unravel vital public health and environmental safeguards.

Held by phone only, in the middle of the workday, the hearing was scheduled to:

[S]olicit input on specific air and radiation actions that could be repealed, replaced or modified.

Under Administrator Scott Pruitt, a staggering asymmetry is underway at EPA that is a tremendous disservice to public health and the public good.

EPA adopted the clean air protections now under scrutiny by Scott Pruitt and his industry allies after years of scientific research and technical analysis, extensive public notice and comment, and thorough consideration.

Now, industry is trumpeting a “wish list” of these very safeguards, which they seek to discard.

As this week’s opaque teleconference demonstrated, Scott Pruitt is acting without meaningful public notice, comment, or hearing. This lack of transparency is consistent with what the New York Times called Pruitt’s “secretive” methods while Attorney General of Oklahoma.

We urge you to raise your voices and oppose this unprecedented attack on our bedrock public health and environmental safeguards. We urge you to make your voice heard by submitting public comments – by May 15, 2017 – on EPA’s docket, “Evaluation of Existing Regulations.”

That’s what my colleague, EDF’s Mandy Warner, and I tried to do during this week’s teleconference.

We urged EPA to preserve crucial protections that ensure our families have clean air to breathe.

I told the panel that I am deeply concerned by EPA’s efforts to unravel critical regulations that protect millions of Americans — including young people like me — from the dangerous effects of air pollution. Many of my peers across the country suffer from asthma, miss school because the air is too dirty for them to leave their house, or have lost family members due to toxic air pollution. (You can read my full testimony here)

Mandy’s comments reflected her concern for her two young daughters:

I asked my four-year-old the other night why she thought clean air was important and she said very simply, ‘so you can breathe.’ She’s right. And that’s what this stakeholder meeting should be all about – ensuring clean air so kids can breathe.

There is an endless pool of worry parents have to contend with already. We worry about how much fish is safe for our children to eat every week due to mercury pollution, what days we need to be careful about letting our children play outside due to smoggy air, and what serious challenges our children will face from runaway climate change.

Please don’t add to our worries by rolling back critical, lifesaving protections that can help ensure a healthier future for my children and children across America.

(You can read Mandy’s full testimony here)

Our remarks were sandwiched between aggressive statements from the Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG), a group of coal-based power companies, and the American Petroleum Institute (API).

Both groups – along with other industry players – predictably advocated weakening or repealing such common sense, scientifically sound protections as the health-based 2015 national air quality standard for ground-level ozone (more commonly called smog), the 2016 New Source Performance Standards for methane pollution from oil and gas facilities, and the long-standing greenhouse gas reporting requirements that protect Americans’ right-to-know who is discharging large volumes of climate pollution.

While industry representatives attacked EPA’s climate and clean air safeguards, many other people raised their voices in support of the agency’s lifesaving mission to protect public health and the environment.

EPA heard from an American who lost a dear friend to a deadly asthma attack linked to smog. They heard from a Pittsburgh native — in the heart of steel country — who highlighted the now thriving city’s progression from pollution to prosperity, thanks to strong clean air protections. They heard from a New Yorker forced to leave the city to protect her family from toxic air that lingered in her old home and harmed her children.

Under President Trump and Scott Pruitt, this EPA is recklessly charting a collision course with the health of our communities, our families and our children. As Pruitt’s EPA moves to unravel vital clean air and climate safeguards, we at EDF will continue to stand up — alongside all of you — to fight for the health and safety of all Americans.

Posted in Clean Air Act, Health, News, Policy / Comments are closed

Take these first steps to lower your impact on climate change

By Ilissa Ocko / Published: April 21, 2017

Happy Earth Day

The average household in the United States emits almost 100,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. That is about the same weight as 10 adult African elephants.

Earth Day is tomorrow, and at this time of the year, many of us are thinking about those kinds of facts. We wonder how we can personally help the climate by reducing our individual impacts.

A simple internet search will yield a laundry list of actions that may be overwhelming, and often will be far less than satisfying. You may find suggestions that are not indicative of the actual size of your impact (turning off your lights versus not flying from east to west coast, for example – they are not equivalent). You may also find information that is irrelevant to your specific lifestyle (for example, the recommendation to cut out meat when you are already a vegetarian).

Because each of our lives is unique (click here to see how carbon footprints vary by zip code), we really need to have a good understanding of our personal and professional impacts on the climate before we can determine good actions to take, and choices to make, to reduce those impacts.

Here is a table with some great resources, to help you get started:

 

PERSONALPROFESSIONAL
Calculate your carbon footprint AND determine specific actions you can take to reduce your impactUse this calculator to:

1. Determine your personal carbon footprint (broken down by travel, housing, food, goods, and services)

2. Develop your unique action plan tailored to your personal impacts (includes emissions saved, dollars saved, and upfront costs)		Use this calculator to:

1. Determine your business carbon footprint (broken down by travel, facilities, and procurement)

2. Develop your unique action plan tailored to your business impacts (includes emissions saved, dollars saved, and upfront costs)
Make better choicesLearn how to save energy and money at home, on the move, at the store, in the yard, at the curb, and at work
Learn how to be more energy efficient at home, in buildings, and in plants, and to buy more efficient products and new homes.
Posted in Cars and Pollution, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Partners for Change, Science / Comments are closed

American leaders support clean air and climate progress — regardless of Trump’s executive order

By EDF Blogs / Published: April 6, 2017

A sample of the diverse groups that have come out against President Trump’s Executive Order on climate change.

By Charlie Jiang

President Trump’s executive order seeking to unravel critical public health and climate protections — including the Clean Power Plan — is being met with strong rebuttals and a clear demonstration of ongoing climate leadership from across the country.

An extraordinary diversity of American faith and justice leaders, businesses, health and security experts, and elected officials have spoken out against Trump’s actions or vowed to continue reducing carbon pollution and move towards a low-carbon future.

The overwhelming response to these recent attacks on our vital climate safeguards shows that Americans are coming together to protect our communities. Millions of Americans — a majority of adults in every congressional district — support limiting carbon emissions to guard against climate instability.

Here are some highlights from the many powerful statements made in the last week:

Leaders from at least 15 faith communities raised alarm at the dangerous impacts rolling back climate progress would have on America’s most vulnerable communities:

  • The United Church of Christ’s national leadership said: “Because climate change makes all other injustice worse, now is the time for us to step up.”
  • “The Clean Power Plan [gives] states a framework for progress in the sacred work of safeguarding our earth’s natural resources,” affirmed Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner on behalf of Reform Judaism groups.
  • “The absence of a strong climate policy means more dangerous pollution that harms the unborn and children,” warned Evangelical Environmental Network President and CEO Mitch Hescox.
  • “This is a challenge for us,” said Vatican leader Cardinal Peter Turkson, a chief architect of the Pope’s “Laudato Si” encyclical on climate change. “Fortunately, in the United States, there are dissenting voices, people who are against Trump’s positions.”

Health associations representing more than 500,000 doctors and medical experts emphasized the public health imperative of reducing air pollution and addressing climate change:

  • “Implementing the Clean Power Plan alone would prevent 90,000 asthma attacks and 3,600 premature deaths every year once fully in place, wrote the American Lung Association. “Our nation needs these lifesaving protections.”
  • The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health said “As medical professionals, many of our members know firsthand the harmful health effects of climate change on patients.”
  • “Clean air should not be a luxury, and it should not be determined by ZIP code,” said the American Academy of Pediatrics.

At least 75 mayors, state governors, and attorneys general who represent more than 149 million people — nearly half of the U.S. population — reiterated the need to combat climate change and protect the communities they serve:

  • Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said: “The science of climate change is settled and the President’s actions today turn the federal government’s back on Pennsylvania’s environment and our economy.”
  • Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said: “We will keep building a clean energy future that creates Colorado jobs, improves our health and addresses the harmful consequences of a changing climate.”
  • A coalition of 23 attorneys general and local legal counsels from states including California, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, and Virginia wrote: “We won’t hesitate to protect those we serve—including by aggressively opposing in court President Trump’s actions that ignore both the law and the critical importance of confronting the very real threat of climate change.”
  • Mayors from 47 cities including Houston (TX), Knoxville (TN), Durham (NC), Fayetteville (AR), Los Angeles (CA), Chicago (IL), and New York City, released a letter reading, “Climate change is both the greatest single threat we face, and our greatest economic opportunity for our nation.”

Power companies owning generating capacity able to power roughly two-thirds of all homes in the U.S. spoke out to recommit to providing ever more clean energy in the wake of the executive order. Here is a sample:

  • “We intend to keep moving forward with a low-priced, clean energy strategy that provides the economical, clean energy our customers want,” said Ben Fowke, CEO of Xcel Energy.
  • “Going forward, we anticipate an increase in renewable generation capacity and declining utilization of coal,” said Southern Company spokesperson Terrell McCollum.
  • “We will continue our transition to more natural gas and renewables as we balance out our generation portfolio and provide cleaner energy,” said a spokesperson for American Electric Power.
  • “Because of the competitive price of natural gas and the declining price of renewables, continuing to drive carbon out makes sense for us,” said Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good.

Reducing carbon emissions and moving to cleaner sources of energy is good for business, say Fortune 500 companies including Apple, General Electric, and Walmart.

  • “We’re disappointed the administration has decided to roll back climate regulations such as the Clean Power Plan and others,” said Edward Hoover, a senior executive at Mars Inc.
  • Fighting climate change is “good for the business, our shareholders and customers,” said a Walmart
  • “We believe climate change should be addressed on a global basis,” wrote General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt. “We hope that the United States continues to play a constructive role in furthering solutions to these challenges.”
  • “We believe that strong clean energy and climate policies, like the Clean Power Plan, can make renewable energy supplies more robust and address the serious threat of climate change while also supporting American competitiveness, innovation, and job growth,” a group of tech companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon said in a statement.

Leading national security experts warned of the impact President Trump’s order will have on American security.

  • The non-partisan American Security Project said: “While energy independence is a credible goal, the actions suggested will not lead to real energy security. Rather, the order removes basic programs, such as the Clean Power Plan and climate resilient development, which bolster the security of our country.”
  • Alice Hill, a former resilience policy advisor to the National Security Council under President Obama said: “Deliberately ignoring the devastation brought by climate change will leave us anything but secure.”

Officials who served administrations in both parties criticized moving backwards on climate:

  • “This is not just dangerous; it’s embarrassing to us and our businesses on a global scale to be dismissing opportunities for new technologies, economic growth, and U.S. leadership,” said Gina McCarthy, former EPA administrator under Barack Obama.
  • Asked about rumors the Trump Administration could abandon the Paris Agreement, Christine Todd Whitman, an EPA administrator under George W. Bush, said, “We lose any ability, any moral authority, to say to any other country, ‘You have to clean up your act.’”
  • Trump’s order “is reckless, arrogant policy that ignores the safety and well-being of our country and our children,” said former Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, who helped broker the Paris Agreement.

Community organizers working for environmental justice condemned President Trump’s attacks on America’s most vulnerable communities:

  • “The decision by President Donald Trump to roll back the hard fought progress made on clean air and clean energy is extremely disappointing and dangerous,” said NAACP President & CEO Cornell William Brooks. “We are now on a dangerous path that puts workers, communities and the planet in harm’s way.”
  • Former Kentuckians for the Commonwealth chairperson Dana Beasley Brown said: “As Kentuckians, we have to work for the kinds of solutions we know can provide good jobs, allow people to stay and live in their communities, take care of their families, and not have to make the choice between being healthy and having a good job.”
  • Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network said “Indigenous peoples will not stand idle as we tell the world the Earth is the source of life to be protected, not merely a resource to be exploited and abused.”

President Trump’s executive order will only take us backwards to an era of more pollution and more disease.

But it is clear from the overwhelming pushback that community leaders, businesses, and health and security experts, as well as millions of Americans across the country, support maintaining strong climate and public health protections and moving forward on clean energy — not turning back the clock.

Read more responses to last week’s Executive Order here.

Posted in Clean Power Plan, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Policy / Comments are closed