Clear Skies and CO2

Friday February 25, 2005

The environmental left continue to argue through their websites, blogs and sympathetic press that the Clear Skies bill must be opposed because it does not place a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. They claim that any new law reducing air pollution that does not contain carbon caps is inadequate. Their false charge: carbon emissions are contributing to global warming and pose a significant public health threat. FACT: There is significant disagreement and uncertainty within the scientific community over whether anthropogenic greenhouse gases are contributing to global warming. According to a 2001 report by the National Academy of Sciences, “Because of the large and still uncertain level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents (and particularly aerosols), a causal linkage between the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established. [emphasis added]” The NAS further observed: “The fact that the magnitude of the observed warming is large in comparison to natural variability as simulated in climate models is suggestive of such a linkage, but it does not constitute proof of one because the model simulations could be deficient in natural variability on the decadal to century time scale. [emphasis added]” (NAS, “Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions,” 2001) It is also important to note that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is not harmful to human health—humans exhale it with every breath, and it’s necessary for life on earth. For these reasons, CO2 was not included as a criteria pollutant under the Clean Air Act, and therefore the question of regulating CO2 has no place in the context of the debate over multi-pollutant legislation.

Clear Skies Better for Environment

Thursday February 24, 2005

Clear Skies is significantly better for the environment than the existing Clean Air Act because it provides predictably that significant pollution reductions will occur and certainty as to when they will occur. The existing Act cannot guarantee either result. Unlike efforts to reduce emissions by rulemaking, when Clear Skies is enacted into law it cannot be held up or derailed by litigation. Opponents claim that existing New Source Review and Section 126 petition programs will achieve faster and greater reductions than the Clear Skies Act -- but history tells a different story: FACTS: In 1997, eight Northeastern states petitioned EPA to force Midwestern states to reduce nitrogen oxides. After four federal court decisions and EPA retooling, this culminated in the NOx SIP call, which went into effect not in May 1998 but in May 2004 – seven years after the process began. Similarly, in 1999 the Clinton Administration initiated several NSR enforcement actions, many of which were challenged and several are still being litigated nearly six years later. If the legal standard reached in the Duke case prevails – which will not be known for some time, NSR cannot be applied as frequently and to the degree that opponents of Clear Skies claim. Additionally, a federal court heard oral arguments on the Bush Administration’s first round of NSR reforms, promulgated two years ago with oral arguments on its 2003 routine maintenance reforms not expected to occur until at least 2006. As Ron Harper, CEO of Basin Electric testified, the uncertainty and litigation over existing regulations, such as New Source Review, have prevented improvements that would reduce emissions and fuel use. NSR litigation has been against a couple of dozen power plants, while Clear Skies is direct regulation on all electricity generators, including over 1300 coal fired power plants. Penalties for noncompliance under Clear Skies are immediate and severe and not hindered by litigation. In light of the troubled history of Clean Air Act regulations and the years and years of delays that have prevented their full and timely implementation, Clear Skies is the best solution for reducing toxic power plant emissions by meaningful levels, and for making sure those reductions actually become reality.

NRDC and the Climate Stewardship Act

Wednesday February 23, 2005

Adam Smith could easily have been describing environmental groups when he called universities “a sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection after they have been hunted out of every other corner of the world.” In a new report titled, “Jobs and the Climate Stewardship Act: How Curbing Global Warming Can Increase Employment,” the Natural Resources Defense Council actually contends that the Climate Stewardship Act, which requires cutting greenhouse gases in 2010 to 2000 levels, would create over 500,000 jobs. According to NRDC, but for “anti-government ideologues” and their “unfounded” fears about climate change regulations, the CSA could become law and “reduce global warming pollution and increase employment.” This of course runs counter to every credible analysis of the bill. But NRDC thinks the bill’s “use of flexible, market-based approaches” would be an economic boon, particularly to the nation’s manufacturing sector. And though the bill, as NRDC concedes, would destroy jobs in coal mining and electrical generation, it mitigates those losses through “direct transition assistance for displaced workers and adversely affected communities.”

FACT: Is NRDC retracting its support for the original Climate Stewardship Act (CSA), which required cutting greenhouse gases in 2016 to 1990 levels? Apparently, because according to the Energy Information Administration, the original bill would destroy 600,000 jobs. As for NRDC’s “findings” about manufacturing jobs, the National Association of Manufacturers described a vote for the amended CSA (2000 levels in 2010) as “a vote unambiguously against manufacturing jobs.” Second, NRDC touts the economic efficiency of the Act's market-based trading program to reduce carbon emissions. Interestingly, the Congressional Budget Office recently wrote that a carbon tax would be more efficient. Third, the Congressional Budget Office in 2003 noted the limited effectiveness of Climate Stewardship Act’s scheme to help severely affected communities: “The government could use the allowance value to partly redistribute the costs of a carbon cap-and-trade program, but it could not cover those costs entirely.” Finally, CBO found that carbon cap-and-trade programs “reduce the welfare of U.S. residents” in the form of job losses lower stock prices, and higher energy prices.

 

Global Warming "Crisis"

Tuesday February 22, 2005

Those on Capitol Hill eager to attack President Bush’s social security plan should watch what they say, they might get an earful from prominent Democrats and their liberal global warming alarmist friends. Disputing the definition of the word "crisis" by President Bush’s regarding social security plan one prominent Democrat (a Senator from New York - no, not that one) explained: "a crisis means an emergency, that you have to address it now or in the next six months or things will go immediately to hell in a hand basket." Yet when it comes to Global Warming, a crisis is defined as something that may happen sometime, even though they are sure, relying on scientific uncertainties and flaws (the recently debunked hockey stick). Maybe the Democrats should apply to Social Security what former Vice President Al Gore said about global Warming, "It takes moral courage to confront a real crisis." When it comes to Social Security, the Democrats want to bury their head in the sand, but with Global Warming, they change their feathers and become Chicken Little. 

FACT: The so called “Global Warming Crisis,” still faces a significant science deficit. Just this week a Wall Street Journal article cited a dispute over the hockey stick theory characterized by the Wall Street Journal as “one of the pillars of the case for man made global warming.” In an interview last October with the German Newspaper Der Spiegel, Dr. Hans von Storch said the hockey stick “contains assumptions that are not permissible. Methodologically it is wrong: rubbish.” He stressed that, “it remains important for science to point out the erroneous nature of the Mann [hockey stick] curve. In recent years it has been elevated to the status truth by the UN appointed science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This handicapped all that research which strives to make a realistic distinction between human influences and climate and natural variability.” Despite this scientific uncertainty, the Democrats and their liberal special interest groups will continue to use the word “crisis” regarding climate change, but they well have to excuse us noting the irony.

 

 

Kyoto: A symbolic gesture

Friday February 18, 2005

What may come as a surprise to many, the liberal extremists who call themselves the “environmental” community, seem to be missing from this week’s implementation of the Kyoto Accords. Where are the large scale rallies, speeches and demonstrations? One left leaning website posted an article addressing this issue including what they call a “D.C.-based environmental leader” who said:

 

"It's pathetic. It's intensely frustrating. There was a meeting in December among the leaders of the major [environmental] groups to say, what are we going to do about [Kyoto]? How can we use it to generate energy, to raise awareness? The idea of a march came up, of far-reaching demonstrations, but not much came out of it. Basically, we dropped the ball on organizing."

 

FACT: Kyoto will do nothing for the environment or have any impact on global temperatures. In a Washington Post article this week, Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, an independent research and advocacy organization that works with many large companies interested in addressing the risks of global warming said, "The greatest value is symbolic."

 

A Washington Post editorial goes even farther pointing out, “Yet even advocates concede that the treaty will have virtually no effect on global warming. Its international impact is too narrow, particularly because there is no clear sanction for countries that do not meet their global obligations. For those reasons, it is hardly surprising that the Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty. It makes no sense to sign a mostly symbolic treaty, to pay a huge economic cost and to get only a negligible environmental gain in return, particularly when it isn't clear that others are going to comply.”

 

Yet this “symbolic” act certainly seems important to the “green community” when the article from the liberal website asks “If the launch of Kyoto, a major milestone in the battle against the world's biggest environmental problem, can't provoke a major response from the U.S. green community, what can?” Perhaps when the “major milestone” is only “symbolic” we can understand the lack of excitement.

 

Hockey Stick Exposed

Monday February 14, 2005

Anyone familiar with the global warming debate knows the following scientific “fact” with metaphysical certainty: temperature increases over the last century are unprecedented, at least when considered on a time-scale of the last 1,000 years. The 1990s were the warmest decade on record, with 1998 being the warmest year since temperature records began in 1861. This is known from the proverbial hockey stick graph, which shows a gradual cooling beginning around 1400 AD (the hockey stick handle) then a sharp warming starting about 1900 (the hockey stick blade). The graph was revolutionary, overturning widespread evidence adduced over many years confirming significant natural variability long before the advent of SUVs. The IPCC was so impressed that the hockey stick was featured prominently in its Third Assessment Report in 2001. Its truth was self-evident. Expressing agnosticism, even outright suspicion, of its validity was evidence of incompetence, or, worse, heresy. One of its authors, Dr. Michael Mann, confidently declared in 2003 that the hockey stick “is the indisputable consensus of the community of scientists actively involved in the research of climate variability and its causes.”

 

FACT: The “consensus” is disputable, has been disputed, and the “community of scientists actively involved in the research of climate variability” is taking notice. In an earth-shattering paper, mathematician Stephen McIntyre and economist Ross McKitrick, have exposed the hockey stick as statistical legerdemain. In the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters-the same journal, incidentally, that published a version of the hockey stick in 1999-Messrs. McIntyre and McKitrick wrote that the program upon which the hockey stick is based “effectively mines a data set for hockey stick patterns.” In other words, even random and totally meaningless data produces a hockey stick. Moreover, when McIntyre and McKitrick corrected for other statistical errors, they found evidence of a Medieval Warm Period, in which temperatures were just as high as they are today. Professor Richard Muller of the University of California at Berkeley recently wrote that the findings “hit me like a bombshell, and I suspect it is having the same effect on many others. Suddenly the hockey stick, the poster-child of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics.” Dr. Hans von Storch, an IPCC contributing author and internationally renowned expert in climate statistics, said the hockey stick “contains assumptions that are not permissible. Methodologically it is wrong: rubbish.” He stressed that the hockey stick “has been elevated to the status truth by the UN appointed science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This handicapped all that research which strives to make a realistic distinction between human influences and climate and natural variability.”

 

Clear Skies is better for the environment than the Clean Air Act

Thursday February 10, 2005

Opponents of the Clear Skies act from the environmental left would rather spend years in court paying herds of lawyers instead of supporting efforts to clean the nation’s air right now. They falsely claim that more emissions reductions would be achieved if existing Clean Air Act provisions were simply followed and that Clear Skies is a rollback of the existing provisions in the Clean Air Act. The basis for this misleading attack is an internal proposal and scenario that was developed by EPA officials, who have publicly declared that the proposal and scenario were not based in reality and were taken to the extreme as a negotiating tool.

 

FACTS: Clear Skies’ benefits are real and the country will start seeing them soon, beginning in just three years. Clear Skies is better than doing nothing because its benefits are certain to be enacted and emissions are certain to be reduced.

 

Clear Skies is significantly better for the environment than the existing Clean Air Act because it provides environmental certainty that NOx, SO2, and mercury will be reduced by 70% by 2018. Power plants will reduce their emissions and air quality will improve. Unlike efforts to reduce emissions by rulemaking, when Clear Skies is enacted into law it cannot be held up or derailed by litigation. Clear Skies is modeled after the national cap-and-trade Acid Rain Program, which is our nation’s most successful clean air initiative – reducing pollution faster and less costly than ever before.

 

Cleaner Air Quicker:

In 2008 nitrogen oxide will be required to be reduced by about 59 percent.

In 2010 sulfur dioxide will be required to be reduced by more than 50 percent.

In 2010 mercury will be required to be reduced by about 29 percent.

 

These levels will be required to be reduced further by 2018—to below 2000 levels:

Sulfur dioxide will be reduced by 73 percent by 2018.

Nitrogen oxide will be reduced by 67 percent in 2018.

Mercury will be reduced by 69 percent in 2018.

 

Clear Skies and Hot Spots

Wednesday February 9, 2005

In a scathing, yet factually challenged, editorial, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution took issue with the Bush Administration’s proposal to reduce mercury emissions from power plants. The paper’s editorial writers were particularly unhinged that the Administration prefers a proven, market-based cap-and-trade approach to reduce mercury. Suffering from a common, yet unfortunate, misapprehension, the paper asserted that cap-and-trade, which has cut acid rain faster, deeper, and cheaper than command-and-control alternatives, is simply inappropriate for mercury, because, well, it’s different. Specifically, the paper relied on the hackneyed “hot spots” argument: “While that trading scheme works for pollutants that dissipate more readily, mercury concentrates in ‘hot spots’ that further threaten local populations living near the source of the emissions.” As is so often the case with the hot spots issue, the paper offered no proof or hard empirical evidence to support this assertion. Apparently, it was proof enough to note that the Administration preferred “the economic well-being of the patrons in the power industry” over, yes, the children.

 

FACT: A cap-and-trade program to reduce mercury emissions from power plants will not create hot spots, according to the most recent literature on the subject. As the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) explained, mercury hot spots, defined as unusually high values of mercury deposition, “are not found to have significant contribution from utility mercury emissions.” In fact, mercury hot spots from coal-fired power plants are virtually non-existent, as EPRI has shown: “When U.S. geographic locations are defined as ‘utility-influenced’ or ‘non-utility influenced’ based on whether 50 % or more of the mercury depositing there is emitted from utility stacks, the utility-influenced locations together make up only 0.4% of the U.S. land area [emphasis added],” and further that “essentially none of these areas are where the highest deposition occurs in the U.S.” In sum, according to EPRI, the “Cap & Trade rule produces greater mercury deposition reductions than does the MACT rule.” This is precisely what occurred under the Acid Rain Trading program. “Under the Acid Rain Cap and Trade Program,” EPA has concluded, “no ‘hot spots’ (areas of heavy, localized emissions) have occurred nor any geographical shifting of emissions. The highest emitting sources reduced by the greatest amount.”

 

Mercury Mystery Revealed

Wednesday February 2, 2005

Environmental groups profess with absolute certainty that mercury control technologies are widely commercially available, relatively inexpensive, and more than capable of achieving consistent, reliable, emissions reductions in a just three years, for all coal types and plant configurations. The testing and demonstration phase is over, they say, and those contending otherwise are either unaware of what’s happening in the real world or simply shilling for industry. So how dare the Bush Administration, and its fellow travelers in Congress, oppose a 90 percent reduction of mercury emissions by 2008. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who could be classified as mercury-obsessive--said last year, “My own levels of mercury are so high--I had them tested recently”--claims that a 90 percent standard in three years “would have cost less than 1 percent of plant revenue, and the great thing about it is that it works…” The Sierra Club, in testimony last year before the EPA, confidently asserted that, “Compared to technologies for other power plant pollutants, mercury technologies are not very expensive.” Just in case the message wasn’t clear, the National Wildlife Federation, in one of its seemingly endless parade of mercury “studies,” last week “refuted” the notion that, “protective mercury standards are either technically impossible or prohibitively expensive,” and concluded that, “deep, 90% mercury control, is achievable and affordable, even in states that rely heavily on coal for electricity generation.”

 

 

FACT: A new report by the Energy Information Administration provides compelling proof that mercury control technologies are not commercially available and that a 90 percent standard by 2008 is highly impractical, unrealistic, and excessively costly.

 

In the 60-plus-page report, titled “Analysis of Mercury Control Strategies,” EIA notes the significant uncertainty associated with mercury removal. “At this time,” EIA wrote, “there is significant uncertainty about the degree to which mercury can be removed from some coals,” and “it could be several years before these technologies are fully commercialized.”

 

What of the “achievable” 90 percent reduction by 2008? Not quite: “Whether current ACI [activated carbon injection] systems for coal plants would meet the analysis request requirement for a ‘commercially demonstrated technology’ for deployment in the 2008 timeframe, particularly if 90-percent removal is required, is unclear.”

 

Is a 90 percent, command-and-control standard by 2008 “not every expensive”? Seems it is expensive: in 2010, electricity and natural gas prices would be 22 percent 26 percent higher, respectively. And resource costs could reach $358 billion, or nearly 7 times the cost of implementing Clear Skies, which would reduce mercury, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides for $52 billion.

 

"Clear Skies"

Friday January 28, 2005

One clean air canard reiterated tirelessly and with great conviction--but without much supporting evidence--is that the current Clean Air Act, if left untouched, would far outpace the public health and environmental benefits achieved by Clear Skies. Conrad Schneider, advocacy director of the Clean Air Task Force, was adamant on this point during yesterday’s Clear Skies hearing. “In short,” Schneider asserted, “CSA trades nearly all the protections of the current Clean Air Act and its promise of continuous progress in cleaning the air for a set of half-measures that will not achieve the Act’s air quality objectives.” John Paul, supervisor of the Regional Air Pollution Control Agency, opined that “given the serious deficiencies” of Clear Skies, “we believe that continued implementation of the Clean Air Act will provide far greater, and more certain and timelier protection of public health and the environment.” How? Both Paul and Schneider asserted that, among other tools, New Source Review and continued Section 126 enforcement would be far superior to Clear Skies.

FACT: New Source Review and the Section 126 process cannot match the singular advantages of Clear Skies legislation: specific reduction targets and timetables that will mandate a 70 percent reduction of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury by 2018. Clear Skies is based on the market-based, virtually litigation-free Acid Rain program, which has cut emissions further, faster, and cheaper than command-and-control alternatives. Can NSR and Section 126 ensure the same? Let’s look: In 1997, eight northeastern states petitioned EPA to force midwestern states to reduce NOx emissions. After four federal court decisions and EPA retooling, these 126 petitions culminated in the NOx SIP call, which went into effect not in May 1998 but in May 2004, seven years after the process began (is this the “more certain and timelier protection” of which Mr. Paul spoke?). Similarly, in 1999 the Clinton Administration initiated several NSR enforcement actions, many of which were challenged, several of which are still being litigated, nearly six years later. Moreover, if the legal standard reached in the Duke Power NSR case prevails-and we won’t know for some time-NSR can’t be applied nearly as often and to the degree Paul and Schneider would presumably prefer. And just yesterday, a federal court heard oral arguments on the Bush Administration’s first round of NSR reforms, promulgated two years ago (oral arguments on its 2003 routine maintenance reforms won’t happen until at least 2006). Such lawyer-rich history probably explains why Mr. Schneider stated that the existing Clear Air Act “could potentially require” future emission reductions beyond Clear Skies.

 

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