In The News

Posted by: Matt Dempsey Matt_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov (202)224-9797

Roll Call

Peterson: Democrats Back to Square One on Climate Bill

By Jennifer Bendery

June 19, 2009

House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) on Friday said climate change bill negotiators are heading back to the drawing board after discussions between Democrats “blew up last night.”

A meeting between chairmen drafting the climate bill and Democrats on the Agriculture Committee “by and large blew up last night” over the issue of offsets, Peterson said.

Specifically, he said, Agriculture Democrats rejected a concept pitched by bill drafters that would set money aside for a new greenhouse gas conservation program tied together with some offsets.

“It’s a whole new concept being brought in at the last minute,” Peterson said. “Many didn’t like it. ... The bottom line is we’re not going to consider anything unless we actually see the language and have it for three or four days so we can figure out what it does.”

Peterson said he hopes to find some resolution later Friday when he heads into another meeting with Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), White House officials and farm groups.

But for now, he said, there is no proposal on the table to resolve the biggest concern among Democrats with agricultural interests: how to ensure the offset program works for farmers.

“We’re back to how do we deal — we want USDA to run our offset program; they want EPA to run it,” Peterson said. “Not that we’re necessarily against the EPA; they just speak a different language. They don’t have the infrastructure out there to deal with us.”

Added Peterson, “I’m tired of this running around in circles.”

###

For the first time ever, Senate Democrats are looking to expand the Clean Water Act's authority and give federal agencies regulatory power over groundwater. An attempt by EPW Committee Republicans to exempt groundwater from recent proposed legislation was blocked by the Democratic majority [Note - Klobuchar (D-MN) voted for exempting ground water]. The proposed Clean Water Restoration Act, whose findings claim to treat ground waters different from the "waters of the United States," falsely attempts to assure people concerned over new groundwater regulations. As pointed out by Senator Barrasso in the June 18th committee business meeting, the findings sections in legislation have no legal authority.

Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, believes that two of the most dangerous pieces of environmental legislation when it comes to their impact on farmers and ranchers may find initial success- but he expressed confidence to us on Wednesday afternoon that the environmental activists who are promoting S 787 and HR 2454 can and will be stopped short of success on the floor of the US Senate.

Senate bill 787 is the Clean Water Restoration Act, and would give the Environmental Protection Agency vastly greater powers than they currently have in overseeing any body of water, no matter how tiny, if this bill becomes law. the key word that is removed from current regulations in this measure is the word "navigable" and with that word out of their way, the EPA could exercise huge control over every farm and ranch in the United States. Senator Inhofe says the Environment and Public Works Committee, of which he is the current ranking Minority member, will pass the measure out on Thursday when it is marked up under the direction of California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who serves as the Chairman of that Committee. The Senior Senator from Oklahoma is convinced that once it leaves Committee, enough Democrats will back away from this measure and allow it to fail to advance on the Senate floor.

With news yesterday of the left-of-center National Farmers Union opposing the Waxman-Markey bill, it’s clear that America’s farmers, to say the least, are growing skeptical of cap-and-trade. To illuminate concerns from the agricultural community, EPW Policy Beat returned to the 2,000-plus pages of responses from agriculture groups to a questionnaire from the House Agriculture Committee on climate change policy. As we noted last week, a perusal through the reams of comments demonstrates pervasive unease and outright opposition among America’s farmers to cap-and-trade and other forms of carbon regulation. Below is an excerpt from the Dairy Farmers of America, who, in their comments, delineate specific criteria for sound climate policy—e.g., that developing nations adopt “equally significant reductions” as the U.S. and that climate legislation pass a cost-benefit test. As they make plain, the DFA are skeptical of whether cap-and-trade of the Waxman-Markey variety can meet their climate criteria: “At this time, Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. (DFA) is reluctant to embrace any type of climate change legislation without a better understanding of its impact on the entire U.S. economy and specifically, the dairy industry.

The Clean Water Act (CWA) was adopted in 1972, giving EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers the charge to Aprotect and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation=s waters.@ Until 2001, these agencies broadened the interpretation of what they considered to be within the scope of their jurisdiction, going from rivers, lakes, and streams to isolated wetlands and other features, using various justifications. The Supreme Court’s SWANCC (2001) and Rapanos (2006) decisions limited federal jurisdiction over non-navigable waters. The Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) is supposed to reaffirm Congress’ intent in adopting the CWA, restore federal jurisdiction to its pre-2001 status, extend federal jurisdiction over water to its logical conclusion, and eliminate alleged confusion caused by the Supreme Court’s jurisdictional tests.

The Obama administration and the Democratic leadership are attempting to push through global warming cap-and-trade legislation as quickly as possible, and for good reason: The more the public learns about what is in the bill, the more likely they are to oppose it.The Waxman-Markey bill is the latest incarnation of costly cap-and-trade legislation that will have a devastating impact on the economy, cost millions of American jobs, push jobs overseas and drastically increase the size and scope of the federal government. Or, as a recent Washington Post editorial put it, the bill “contains regulations on everything from light bulb standards to the specs on hot tubs, and it will reshape America’s economy in dozens of ways that many don’t realize …”Of the analyses conducted thus far on Waxman-Markey, the numbers are similar to what we have witnessed before in the way of higher energy prices at the pump and higher electricity prices in our homes, as well as deep cuts in our GDP. In a recent study conducted for the National Black Chamber of Commerce, CRA International found that Waxman-Markey will destroy 2.3 to 2.7 million jobs in each year of the policy through 2030, increase electricity rates by 45 percent, and impose a gas tax of nearly 60 cents.

Uncle Sam has grabbed control of much of the auto industry and financial sector. Why not oil and gas regulation as well? Dramatic increases in federal control of the private sector and in regulation are becoming hallmarks of the Obama era. The latest power grab is an attempt to switch regulation of hydraulic fracturing from the states to the Environmental Protection Agency. TU This is what we in the opinion trade call a "DBI” issue — dull but important. Fracturing isn’t a topic at the top of the minds of most folks, but it resides there for energy professionals, regulators and trade groups. Fracturing involves the injection of chemicals and water into wells to increase production. Some believe the technique poses harm to drinking water supplies. U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, disagrees and says the regulatory shift would be "disastrous for the industry.”

Posted by: Matt Dempsey Matt_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov

As Ian Talley of the Dow Jones Newswire reports this week, U.S. lawmakers Tuesday unveiled a bill that “industry warns could prevent development of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas by putting regulation of a key production technique under federal oversight.” In EPACT 05, Senator Inhofe successfully included a provision to clarify that hydraulic fracturing was not to be regulated by the EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act. This was in response to a 2004 EPA report which concluded that hydraulic fracturing poses minimal threat to underground drinking water and that no further study of the issue was warranted. Current efforts to target hydraulic fracturing come from legislation introduced by Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and in the Senate, by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Fact: The regulation of oil and gas exploration and production activities, including hydraulic fracturing occurs at the state level. The states have adopted comprehensive laws and regulations to provide for safe operations to protect the nation’s drinking water sources, and have trained personnel to effectively regulate oil and gas exploration and production.

As Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee, pointed out in the Oklahoman this week, hydraulic fracturing had been used in an estimated 1 million wells and had not posed any problems to drinking water. In fact, approximately 35,000 wells are hydraulically fractured annually in the United States and close to one million wells have been hydraulically fractured in the United States since the technique’s inception, with no known harm to groundwater.

Further, the Ground Water Protection Council has consistently found that states have adopted comprehensive laws and regulations to provide for safe operations to protect the nation’s drinking water sources as its report for the U.S. Department of Energy released May 28, 2009 reports.

It is unclear how much support the proposal could get in Congress or from the White House. Prospects of the bill do look grim at this point as Tally reports that, “Pressed at a recent congressional hearing, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said her office would review the EPA's previous decisions not to push for federal regulation.” Further, Talley writes that “Under Carol Browner, currently President Barack Obama's energy and climate czar, the EPA in the mid-1990s decided that federal regulation was unnecessary. ‘There is no evidence that the hydraulic fracturing at issue has resulted in any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water,’ Browner wrote in 1995 as head of the EPA in a letter rejecting federal oversight of a potentially precedent-setting case in Alabama.”

###

Vilsack Declines to Endorse Far-Reaching House Bill – Oklahoman – June 12, 2009

WASHINGTON — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declined Thursday to endorse a far-reaching House bill to curb greenhouse gas emissions. An Oklahoma congressman said it would "destroy” farmers’ livelihoods. Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, repeatedly pressed Vilsack at a hearing to take a stand on the bill. At one point, he asked Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa, whether he would vote for it if he were a congressman representing Iowa. Vilsack didn’t answer the question directly. He said it was up to lawmakers to write the bill and that more work could be done to improve it. But Lucas, the top Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, said House Democratic leaders weren’t allowing any more work to be done on the bill and that they may bring it up for a vote later this month.

Proponents of carbon regulation claim that it will extend only to “big polluters,” or large sources such as power plants and refineries, and any claims to the contrary—for example, that EPA’s tentacles will reach into every corner of the economy—are dismissed as so much fear mongering. Hence EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who, according to Business Week, “chuckled at the dire predictions from opponents of such regulation.” As Jackson said earlier this year, “Depending on who’s painting the picture, [we are told] EPA will regulate cows, Dunkin’ Donuts, Pizza Hut, your lawnmower and baby bottles.” “I haven’t figured out why baby bottles yet, but…just throw it in there. Somebody said to me today, ‘kittens’—I like that one.” (For the record, so do we.) And as for the notion that EPA’s tentacles could reach far and wide, Jackson said, “It is a myth.” In other words, pay no mind to those pesky Clean Air Act lawyers and cap-and-trade doomsayers who argue that greenhouse gas regulation could cover, say, hospitals.

U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Roll Call - Peterson: Democrats Back to Square One on Climate Bill

Friday June 19, 2009

Watch: Democrats Federal Power Grab Extends to Groundwater

Thursday June 18, 2009

Oklahoma Farm Report: Inhofe Predicts Success in Stopping Cap & Trade and Clean Water Restoration Bills on the Floor of the Senate

Thursday June 18, 2009

EPW POLICY BEAT: DAIRY SKEPTICAL

Tuesday June 16, 2009

Background Information on S. 787: the Feingold Clean Water Restoration Act of 2009

Tuesday June 16, 2009

Democrats Cap and Tax Rush Job: All Economic Pain, No Climate Gain

Tuesday June 16, 2009

Power play: Fracturing Plan Wrong, Indefensible

Tuesday June 16, 2009

EPW FACT OF THE DAY: Liberals Take Aim at Hydraulic Fracturing

Friday June 12, 2009

Round- up: 'Ag Committee Gives Climate Bill the Cold Shoulder' - 'House Ag Chairman: EPA Stay Out of Agriculture' -'Vilsack Declines to Endorse Far-Reaching House Bill'

Friday June 12, 2009

EPW FACT OF THE DAY: DR. CARBON WILL SEE YOU NOW

Friday June 12, 2009

Related Links