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Oklahoman Editorial: President Obama will be sending a clear message with Keystone XL decision
Wednesday January 18, 2012
Posted by Matt Dempsey matt_dempsey@epw.senate.gov
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The Oklahoman
Editorial: President Obama will be sending a clear message with Keystone XL decisionPublished: January 18, 2012
OKLAHOMANS should hope President Barack Obama eventually comes to his senses and gives the go-ahead to construction of TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL pipeline, because it will mean jobs and revenue for our state.
The pipeline, which would move oil from the tar sands of Canada to the Gulf Coast, seemed headed for approval before the administration, in a nod to environmentalists, changed course in November and said the project would be delayed until 2013 to allow further study. This came after three years of study, including the State Department's environmental review. Why propose waiting until 2013? Because there's an election first.
But in the December deal to extend the payroll tax cut by two months, Republicans stipulated that the president move up his deadline. Obama now has until Feb. 21 to make up his mind, although the State Department has said that isn't enough time to weigh the pros and cons of a new route through Nebraska.
The impact the project would have on Oklahoma was detailed last week by Robert Jones, vice president of Keystone Pipelines, during a visit to Oklahoma City. Of the estimated 20,000 jobs that would be created by the pipeline, Jones said 1,200 would be in Oklahoma as TransCanada extends its pipeline south from Cushing.
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WSJ Editorial: Obama Discovers Natural Gas
Tuesday January 17, 2012
Last week the White House issued its latest report on jobs and it includes a section on "America's Natural Resource Boom." The report avers that a few years ago there were widespread "fears of a looming natural gas shortage," but that "the discovery of new natural gas reserves, such as the Marcellus Shale, and the development of hydraulic fracturing techniques to extract natural gas from these reserves has led to rapidly growing domestic production and relatively low domestic prices for households and downstream industrial users."
Please pass the smelling salts to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Lisa Jackson at the Environmental Protection Agency.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time the White House has favorably mentioned the Marcellus Shale, the natural gas reservoir below Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other Northeastern states. And now he's taking credit for this soaring production.
WSJ Editorial: Lisa Jackson's Power Play
Thursday December 22, 2011
The so-called utility rule requires power plants to install "maximum achievable control technology" to reduce mercury emissions and other trace gases. But the true goal of the rule's 1,117 pages is to harm coal-fired power plants and force large parts of the fleet -- the U.S. power system workhorse -- to shut down in the name of climate change. The EPA figures the rule will cost $9.6 billion, which is a gross, deliberate underestimate.
In return Ms. Jackson says the public will get billions of dollars of health benefits like less asthma if not a cure for cancer. Those credulous enough to believe her should understand that the total benefits of mercury reduction amount to all of $6 million. That's total present value, not benefits per year -- oh, and that's an -illion with an "m," which is not normally how things work out in President Obama's Washington.
The rest of the purported benefits -- to be precise, 99.99% -- come by double-counting pollution reductions like soot that the EPA regulates through separate programs and therefore most will happen anyway. Using such "co-benefits" is an abuse of the cost-benefit process and shows that Cass Sunstein's team at the White House regulatory office -- many of whom opposed the rule -- got steamrolled.
As baseload coal power is retired or idled, the reliability of the electrical grid will be compromised, as every neutral analyst expects. Some utilities like Calpine Corp. and PSEG have claimed in these pages that the reliability concerns are overblown, but the Alfred E. Newman crowd has a vested interest in profiting from the higher wholesale electricity clearing prices that the EPA wants to cause.
Inhofe seeks inquiry on utility MACT science
Tuesday December 20, 2011
Inhofe (R-Okla.) sent a letter to the IG Monday asking for an investigation into numerous questions about the scientific assessments EPA used in its proposed utility MACT rule, which the agency signed Friday.
The lawmaker asked those questions of EPA directly but it has not responded, Inhofe said.
Now he’s pushing for the IG to investigate whether the agency is “adhering to existing EPA and [White House Office of Management and Budget] guidelines with respect to peer review of important scientific and technical documents and underpinning significant rulemakings,” the letter says.
It’s a familiar tactic for Inhofe.
Inhofe previously got the IG to investigate the science surrounding the agency’s “endangerment finding” on carbon dioxide pollution, which underpins several greenhouse gas rules.
TulsaWorld: Inhofe: State meets EPA ozone standards
Tuesday December 20, 2011
"I am pleased to learn today that not a single county in Oklahoma is in violation of EPA's ozone standards," the Oklahoma Republican said.
"This is significant because over a dozen counties in Oklahoma faced the potential listing, and as a result, would have suffered significant economic penalties from the federal government, including potential construction bans and driving restrictions.''
Inhofe based his comments on an entry he expects to be in Tuesday's Federal Register from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
A Senate office also provided a copy of a letter an EPA regional administrator sent earlier this month to Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, notifying her of his agency's intention.
"I am extremely pleased that none of our counties will be designated in nonattainment for the immediate future,'' Fallin said. "This prevents the federal government (from) forcing another set of costly, job-killing mandates on Oklahoma.''
In October, Fallin had sent a letter to EPA's regional office stating that recent data collected by a state agency between 2008 and 2010 indicated no violations of the current ozone standard.
At that same time, Inhofe was still warning that the president's decision to pull the plug on new ozone standards did not let Oklahoma off the hook.
He cited the areas already in or near nonattainment.
A major player on such issues as the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Inhofe clearly was relieved at the expected development Tuesday.
He noted that EPA is not scheduled to revise the standard again until 2013.
"This announcement is due in large part to Oklahoma's tremendous efforts to improve air quality,'' Inhofe said.
"It is also because of our success in Washington in stopping the most aggressive EPA in history from imposing even stricter air quality regulations that would have suffocated our economy.''
He also said his focus has been to stop "Obama's regulatory nightmare.''
"This is one instance where we were able to put the brakes on the Obama administration, and as a result, help protect Oklahoma's jobs and economy,'' he said.
TulsaWorld: Inhofe: State meets EPA ozone standards
Tuesday December 20, 2011
"I am pleased to learn today that not a single county in Oklahoma is in violation of EPA's ozone standards," the Oklahoma Republican said.
"This is significant because over a dozen counties in Oklahoma faced the potential listing, and as a result, would have suffered significant economic penalties from the federal government, including potential construction bans and driving restrictions.''
Inhofe based his comments on an entry he expects to be in Tuesday's Federal Register from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
A Senate office also provided a copy of a letter an EPA regional administrator sent earlier this month to Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, notifying her of his agency's intention.
"I am extremely pleased that none of our counties will be designated in nonattainment for the immediate future,'' Fallin said. "This prevents the federal government (from) forcing another set of costly, job-killing mandates on Oklahoma.''
In October, Fallin had sent a letter to EPA's regional office stating that recent data collected by a state agency between 2008 and 2010 indicated no violations of the current ozone standard.
At that same time, Inhofe was still warning that the president's decision to pull the plug on new ozone standards did not let Oklahoma off the hook.
He cited the areas already in or near nonattainment.
A major player on such issues as the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Inhofe clearly was relieved at the expected development Tuesday.
He noted that EPA is not scheduled to revise the standard again until 2013.
"This announcement is due in large part to Oklahoma's tremendous efforts to improve air quality,'' Inhofe said.
"It is also because of our success in Washington in stopping the most aggressive EPA in history from imposing even stricter air quality regulations that would have suffocated our economy.''
He also said his focus has been to stop "Obama's regulatory nightmare.''
"This is one instance where we were able to put the brakes on the Obama administration, and as a result, help protect Oklahoma's jobs and economy,'' he said.
EPW Policy Beat: The Utility MACT Blackout
Thursday December 15, 2011
EPW Policy Beat: The Utility MACT Blackout
EPA's long-promised Utility MACT rule is expected to be unveiled tomorrow. Given the projections of how this rule will affect electric reliability and jobs, there may be blackouts not only for our electric grid, but also our economy.
Economic Blackout
With an unprecedented price tag of $11 billion, Utility MACT is projected to be one of the most expensive rules in the Agency's history. It will cause a large number of plant closures, significantly increase electricity rates, and, along with the Cross-State rule, destroy nearly 1.4 million jobs.
It is not surprising that the rule has garnered concern on both sides of the aisle. Bipartisan legislation to rein in Utility MACT has passed in the House with 19 Democrats supporting the measure, and a bipartisan bill sponsored by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Dan Coats (R-IN) has been introduced in the Senate. According to Representative Dingell, a Democrat, and the author of the Clean Air Act amendments, this rule is "unparalleled in its size and scope" and it "presents a set of new regulations with possible wide-reaching impacts on the way our country generates and consumes electricity."
Electric Blackout
Even EPA has said that the Utility MACT rule will result in a significant number of plant closures. The rule by itself is projected to shut down up to 20 percent of America's coal-fired power capacity; this will put an enormous strain on our electric grid, resulting in blackouts across the country.
Knowing this, EPA claimed that the Agency was collaborating with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to model the potential for coal-fired power plant closures from Utility MACT, but the EPW minority staff learned in May that no such modeling took place. In fact, FERC Commissioner Moeller went as far as to say that "the Commission has not acted or studied or provided assistance to any agency, including the EPA," a statement that was later confirmed by EPA staff.
When faced with serious questions about reliability from Senators Inhofe and Murkowski, who sent three letters that went unanswered for months, it became apparent that EPA was considering inserting a 'safety valve' into the rule, reportedly to help ameliorate reliability concerns.
EPA's actions lead to some obvious questions: If EPA is so sure that Utility MACT will not cause blackouts, why is the Agency considering a last minute 'safety valve'? If they are so certain that electric reliability is not in peril, then why did the Senators' letters demanding answers to reliability questions go unanswered?
Politico provided some insights: emails between the White House and FERC reveal that EPA disregarded FERC's concerns about the effect of Utility MACT on power grid reliability. As FERC senior economist David Kathan wrote in a March 15, 2011 email,
"EPA continues to make a lot of assumptions and does not directly answer anything associated with local reliability. They provide the standard response that there will be enough time and they are confident that regional processes will accommodate any local capacity deficiency problem early in the process, or they do not directly respond to the question."
So rather than engage in a rigorous, collaborative process to ensure that we keep the lights on, EPA is working under assumptions in their efforts regulate coal out of existence.
Cutting Corners
On top of the threat of blackouts, EPA is not exactly shining the light of transparency on its rulemaking process. The EPW minority staff recently discovered that EPA cut corners on the review procedures for the Utility MACT Technical Support Documents (TSD), which include a Mercury Risk Assessment and Non-Mercury Case Studies. Specifically, the Mercury Risk Assessment has been criticized for incoherence and conflicting data, and EPA has yet to seek peer review for the Non-Mercury Case Studies. Of course, this discovery comes on the heels of a report by the EPA Office of Inspector General, released September 28, 2011, which revealed that EPA did not follow the Data Quality Act or its own peer review procedures while issuing the TSD for the endangerment finding, EPA's regulatory determination for greenhouse gasses. A clear pattern is emerging here. EPA's improper "peer review" of these critical Utility MACT studies, along with its failure to adhere to the required procedures for the endangerment finding TSD calls into question the scientific integrity of EPA's decision-making, showing that EPA's process is about politics and assumptions, not sound science.
Lights Out
We can expect the announcement of this rule tomorrow and all eyes are on the White House.
President Obama has already received the message that his war on fossil fuels and affordable energy not only destroys hundreds of thousands of American jobs - it also puts his own job in peril. His acknowledgement of this is apparent from his decision to withdraw EPA's tightened ozone standard in order to reduce "regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy recovers" and when his administration delayed the most economically destructive rules of all: greenhouse gas regulations.
Yet, he seems determined to go through Utility MACT. Mr. President, there's still a chance to avert an economic blackout. We hope you make the right choice.
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The Hill: Top nuke regulators tell White House of 'grave concerns' with NRC Chairman Jaczko
Friday December 9, 2011
The Oct. 13 letter from Jaczko's four NRC colleagues to White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley is a powerful, unified rebuke of the agency's leader by his fellow commissioners, who cite "grave concerns" about his conduct and allege it's increasingly "erratic."
"We believe that his actions and behavior are causing serious damage to this institution and are creating a chilled work environment at the NRC," states the letter to Daley from NRC commissioners Kristine L. Svinicki, George Apostolakis, William D. Magwood, IV, and William C. Ostendorff.
"We are concerned that this will adversely affect the NRC's central mission to protect the health, safety and security of the American people," the letter adds.
Svinicki and Ostendorff are Republicans, the other three NRC commissioners, including Jaczko, are Democrats.
The four NRC members laid out their concerns to Jaczko directly in an Oct. 13 memo that mirrors the complaints in their letter to Daley. The memo tells Jaczko of the letter to Daley and acknowledges it is an "extraordinary step," while adding that Jaczko has left them without "viable alternatives."
Greenwire: EPA chief's comments on fracking 'contradictory' -- Inhofe
Wednesday December 7, 2011
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) sent a letter to Jackson today asking about her statement last month that fracturing might be linked to high levels of methane, benzene and other chemicals in wells in Pavilion, Wyo. (Greenwire, Nov. 18).
He said EPA staff had assured him previously that hydraulic fracturing was not a focus of the Pavilion investigation and that there were no significantly new data in an EPA announcement last month.
"Because of these contradictory statements, I am concerned that EPA has pre-determined that hydraulic fracturing is the cause of contamination in their Pavilion investigation and the agency is trying to make the data conform to that conclusion," Inhofe wrote.
An EPA spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
In a television interview last month, Jackson said, "It is possible that fracking in one bearing zone may have impacted nearby areas that may contain some groundwater."
