Energy and Environment Update
July 11, 2010
Energy and Climate Legislation
As Congress returns from the July 4th recess, the future of climate and
energy legislation is still uncertain.
Though Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is expected to have a bill on
the floor perhaps as early as the
week of July 19, the contents of that package are still unknown, and
though there is some agreement as
to which pieces to include in the march toward 60 votes, the quantity
and quality of those pieces are still
to be determined. Senators are likely to be presented with options of
what could be included in the
package this Tuesday or Wednesday, and a debate is expected either in
mid-July or the first
of August if Majority Leader Reid keeps the Senate in session that long.
Though the Obama Administration has continued its call to put a price on
carbon, it increasingly appears
that if Senate leadership hopes to include any price at all, it will be
on the utility sector alone, language for
which is currently being drafted by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and
Olympia Snowe (R-ME). If
Majority Leader Reid opts away from a climate bill, he is likely to
cobble together energy pieces from a
number of packages, beginning with the bipartisan bill passed out of the
Senate Energy Committee last
summer. Other likely sources of language will come from Senator Dick
Lugar (R-IN)’s recently unveiled
energy plan, as well as several pieces that address the Gulf of Mexico
oil spill, including the bipartisan bill
recently passed out of the Energy Committee and a proposal from Senator
Bob Menendez (D-NJ) that
eliminates the liability cap, and numerous energy tax pieces on which
the Senate Finance Committee is
currently working.
The Congressional Budget Office released an analysis last Wednesday that
shows that the American
Power Act would save $19 billion from the federal deficit over 10 years
and would bring in over $750
billion through 2020 from the sale of carbon credits.
A coalition comprised of several environmental groups sent a letter to
President Obama last Tuesday
urging the White House to take a bigger leadership role in the Senate
climate and energy negotiations,
including helping to draft a bill that responds to the Gulf of Mexico
oil spill and limits greenhouse gas
emissions while creating jobs and protecting the health of Americans.
The Alliance for Climate Protection,
the BlueGreen Alliance, the Center for American Progress Action Fund,
Environment America, the
Environmental Defense Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, the
National Wildlife Federation, the
Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Union of Concerned Scientists
signed onto the letter.
As the Senate works to piece together a package that can garner 60
votes, leadership will have to
carefully weigh which pieces to include in order to secure support from
enough moderate, coal and rustbelt
Democrats, as well as a few Republicans. Just as passage of other big
ticket items this Congress
necessitated it, this will require leadership from the White House as
well its greatest supporters such as
Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT).
One thing is for certain, however, and that is that the Senate is facing
an increasingly short timeframe
before the August recess and midterm elections, and in addition to
addressing climate and energy
legislation, they will need to confirm a Supreme Court Justice, finish
the tax extenders legislation, and
address several other pressing matters. If the Senate is able to pass an
energy or energy-climate bill,
differences between it and the Waxman-Markey legislation the House
passed last summer will have to be
reconciled either before the November midterm elections or during a lame
duck session.
Congress
Congressional Offices Protest Yucca Decision
A group of 91 members of Congress led by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and
Congressman Doc
Hastings (R-WA) sent a letter last Thursday to Energy Secretary Steven
Chu asking that he stop moving
forward on closing the nuclear waste repository site at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada. This year the Obama
Administration stopped funding the project, which has been in the works
for more than two decades.
Earlier this year, Washington and South Carolina filed suits questioning
whether the administration has
the legal right to halt the project.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission board recently ruled that the
administration did not have the right to
withdraw its license for the project without Congressional approval.
Additional Issues to Address Before August Recess
When the Senate returns from the July 4th recess this week, they plan to
continue work on the tax
extenders bill. Senate leadership has been unable to advance the
legislation (H.R. 4213) thus far, as
several motions to cut off debate on a substitute amendment have fallen
short of the 60-vote threshold
required to move forward on legislation that includes an extension of
emergency unemployment
insurance benefits.
Legislation Introduced
On June 28, Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced legislation
with seven House colleagues
(H.R. 5612) that would provide a 30 percent tax credit through 2016 to
investments in geothermal energy.
Geothermal energy resources exist in all 50 states, and there are over
40 plants in California that
contribute to almost 5 percent of the energy in the state.
Upcoming Hearings
The House and Senate will return from the July 4th recess the week of
June 12.
On Monday, the Management, Investigations, and Oversight Committee of
the House Homeland Security
Committee will hold a hearing titled The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Chain of Command: An Examination
of Information Sharing Practices During a Spill of National
Significance.
On Wednesday, July 14, the House Natural Resources Committee will mark
up mineral energy and
resources consolidation legislation.
The same day, the House Agriculture Committee will hold a business
meeting to consider the Rural
Energy Savings Program Act (H.R. 4785), which authorizes the USDA’s
Rural Utilities Service to provide
interest-free loans to financial institutions, which would then provide
loans to qualified consumers who
wish to implement energy efficiency measures.
Administration
Efforts to Promote US Exports Underway
Last Tuesday, the National Export Initiative released a full progress
report. Since President Obama called
for the NEI in his State of the Union Address, the initiative has made
significant progress on each of its
five main objectives, including improving advocacy efforts on behalf of
U.S. exporters, increasing access
to export financing, reinforcing efforts to remove barriers to trade,
enforcing trade rules, and promoting
internationally policies that lead to strong, sustainable and balanced
economic growth.
On Wednesday, President Obama announced his appointments to the
President’s Export Council. The
40-member group is composed of business and labor leaders as well as
representatives from the
Administration, House, and Senate who will offer advice on how to
promote U.S. exports, jobs, and
growth. In March, President Obama announced that Boeing CEO James
McNerney will serve as Chair of
the PEC, and Xerox CEO Ursula Burns will serve as Vice Chair.
Advanced Vehicle Battery Market Growing
During a speech at the Smith Electric Vehicles factory in Kansas City,
MO, last week, President Obama
announced that the U.S. share of the world market for advanced batteries
for electric and hybrid vehicles
would grow by a factor of 20, up to 40 percent of the world’s market, by
2015.
President Calls for Expansion of 48C Program
During a speech at the University of Nevada with Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid last Friday,
President Obama continued touting economic progress since taking office.
Though much of the speech
was a detailed outline of improvements in the economy, the President
also reiterated his call for a $5
billion expansion of the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit, the
widely successful and overly
subscribed program that encourages development in the manufacturing
sector by awarding a 30 percent
tax credit to successful applicants.
Department of Energy
Solar Energy Demonstration Projects Announced
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and
Majority Leader Harry Reid
announced the site of the new Solar Demonstration Zone in Nevada last
Thursday. The Solar
Demonstration Zone will be located on a 25 square mile area in the
southwest corner of the Nevada Test
Site, a former nuclear site, on lands owned by the Department of
Interior’s bureau of Land Management
and administered by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration. The
two Secretaries signed an
interagency Memorandum of Understanding that will enable DOE to use the
site to demonstrate
innovative Concentrating Solar Power technologies. The Zone will
complement BLM’s establishment of
24 Solar Energy Study Areas on public lands in the U.S. Southwest by
helping to ensure that the most
advanced CSP technologies are ready for commercial deployment.
BLM and DOE are also working in close coordination with the U.S. Air
Force to identify and address
potential problems with locating and operating the Zone on the Nevada
Site, and both the DOE and the
DOI will continue to collaborate with the Air Force and the Department
of Defense on similar projects near
military installations across the country.
Domestic Emissions Up for 2010
The Energy Information Administration released its latest short-term
energy outlook last week and
concluded that domestic emissions of CO2 would rise 3.2 percent this
year. The agency also estimated
that emissions from the burning of natural gas, coal, and petroleum will
rise an additional 1.6 percent in
2011 after falling 7 percent last year. The outlook credits the 2010
rise to projected economic growth and
the increased use of coal and natural gas in the electric power sector,
and the expected 2011 increase
may be attributed to an increased demand for gasoline, diesel, and jet
fuel in the transportation sector
and to the continued demand for more coal from electric utilities.
$67 Million for CCS Projects
The Department of Energy announced $67 million in grants over the next
three years for 10 advanced
carbon capture and sequestration technology projects for existing and
new coal power plants last
Wednesday. The projects will improve the efficiency and lower the cost
of CCS so that it can add less
than 30 percent to the price of new pulverized coal plants and 10
percent for coal gasification plants.
State Energy Program Begins to Receive Funding
A state-based program administered by the Department of Energy, the
State Energy Program, is on track
to obligate $3.1 billion in Recovery Act funds by September 30 for
renewable energy and energyJuly
efficiency projects after encountering initially delayed progress. Thus
far, $2.5 billion has been obligated
for projects via grants, rebates, and revolving loans.
Energy Efficient Lighting Could Save $2.2 Million
On July 8 the Inspector General released an audit report that detailed
the Department of Energy’s role as
the lead agency for promoting new technologies and helping other federal
agencies to conserve energy.
However, an audit of 96 buildings at seven DOE sites found that the
agency continues to use outdated,
less efficient, lighting systems. About a third of the buildings did not
use occupancy sensors, and 80
percent did not use scheduling systems to automatically turn off lights.
The report concluded that DOE
could save over $2.2 million per year by using the light technology it
has promoted and for which it has
provided millions in research and development funding.
$18.2 Million for Nuclear Research and Training
The Department of energy awarded $18.2 million to U.S. colleges and
universities last Thursday to
bolster their nuclear energy research and train scientists and
engineers. The Nuclear Energy University
Program is providing $13.2 million to 39 institutions to upgrade their
research reactors and buy laboratory
equipment, and $5 million will support 85 scholarships for undergraduate
students and 32 fellowships for
graduate students in engineering and science programs related to nuclear
energy.
Department of Transportation
Nearly $300 Million for Streetcar and Bus Projects
The Department of Transportation, through the Federal Transit
Administration, announced July 8 $293
million in federal support for streetcar and bus projects around the
country. The Department will help to
fund six streetcar projects with $130 million from the Urban Circulator
grant program, and another $163
million from the Bus and Bus Facilities Livability Program will go to 47
bus vehicle and facility projects in
31 states. The programs are designed to further the Administration’s
livability initiative, which seeks to
improve quality of life by coordinating transportation, housing, and
environmental decisions.
Environmental Protection Agency
EPA Proposes New Interstate Rules
On Tuesday, July 6, the EPA proposed interstate rules to replace its
Clean Air Interstate Rule by requiring
31 Eastern and Midwestern States and the District of Columbia to curb
emissions of sulfur dioxide and
nitrogen oxides from power plants beyond what was required under CAIR,
which was overturned by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 2008. The proposed
rule, which would take effect in
2012, would strictly limit interstate trading to cover unforeseen
increases in power plant emissions, but
would allow unlimited intrastate trading between the plants themselves.
EPA estimates that by 2014, its
proposed interstate rule would reduce SO2 emissions by 6.3 million MT
per year, or 71 percent below
2005 levels, and NOx emissions by 1.4 million MT per year, or 52 percent
from 2005 levels.
CAIR was issued in 2005 to reduce ozone and fine particle pollution from
power plants that transported
across state lines and to help downwind states attain air quality
standards by establishing an interstate
emissions trading scheme. It originally applied to 28 states and DC, but
the updated version now also
includes. The rule was overturned in 2008 because EPA had failed to
adequately ensure that the upwind
emissions reductions would be sufficient to help downwind states meet
the standards, and because the
agency improperly tied SO2 and NOx emissions reductions required by CAIR
to acid rain portion of the
Clean Air Act.
EPA will accept comments on the proposal for 60 days, and the agency
will hold three public hearings on
the proposal. The final standards are expected in August.
Worries that this proposal could also be rejected in court could prompt
Congress to move forward with
legislation. One such bill (S. 2995) from Senators Tom Carper (D-DE) and
Lamar Alexander (R-TN) would
reduce power plants’ SO2 emissions 80 percent by 2018 and NOx emissions
50 percent and mercury
emissions 90 percent by 2015. Hearings on the bill have occurred in the
last year, and Senator Carper
recently stated that he plans to seek a markup once the EPA releases its
modeling of the legislation.
25 Lawsuits Challenge GHG Limits and Fuel Economy Rules
With many industries objecting to GHG regulation under the Clean Air Act
because it could harm their
businesses, industry groups have filed 25 lawsuits in the past few weeks
challenging a final rule
establishing limits of greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light
trucks and increasing fuel economy.
Eighteen of the suits were filed July 6, the deadline for filing
challenges to the emissions limits. The EPA
published the GHG limits and fuel economy increase May 7 in a final
joint rulemaking with the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the first federal effort to
place mandatory control requirements
under the Clean Air Act.
Groups Support EPA’s Biomass Decision
Four conservation groups, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural
Resources Council of Maine,
Georgia ForestWatch, and Wild Virginia, filed a motion last Tuesday to
intervene in a lawsuit against the
EPA to defend the agency’s decision not to exempt emissions from biomass
energy production from the
June GHG limitations from large stationary sources. The agency announced
in June that while the rule
will include biomass for the time being, it will soon take comment on
exempting emissions from some
types of biomass burning, and will make a final decision by July 2011.
The groups said that some
biomass burning may produce more GHG emissions than other fuels, and
should therefore be included in
the rule.
EPA Submits Enforcement Plan to OMB
On July 8, the EPA submitted to the White House Office of Management and
Budget a proposed federal
implementation plan to ensure that GHG permitting requirements would be
enforced across the country.
The federal implementation plan, Action to Ensure Authority to Issue
Permits Under the Prevention of
Significant Deterioration Program to Sources of Greenhouse Gas
Emissions, would make the permitting
requirements enforceable even in states that do not have their own laws
and regulations to implement the
agency’s tailoring rule.
Federal Housing Finance Agency
Fannie and Freddie Assessment Could Threaten Energy Efficient Loan
Program
The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced last week that the Property
Assessed Clean Energy
Program, which encourages homeowners to invest in renewable energy and
energy efficiency
improvements with financing at a municipal bond rate, could damage the
already fragile mortgage
system. The FHFA has urged state and local governments to put the
program, which attaches the loans
to property tax bills, on hold. The Office of the Comptroller of the
Currency recently said that the approach
poses significant risk to homeowners.
Miscellaneous
China to Host October Climate Change Negotiations
Though the official announcement is expected sometime after July 12, the
October round of UNFCCC
climate negotiations will be held in Tianjin, China. The meetings will
be the final round of large scale UNsponsored
meetings before the December Conference of Parties summit in Mexico, and
will be the first to
take place in China, possibly paving the way for China to host the 18th
COP in 2012. But first, the UN has
one more set of negotiations before the China talks, a set of inter-sessional
negotiations August 2-6 in
Germany.
Chinese and Indian Emissions Increase
The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency released a study July 1
that noted that while global
CO2 emissions remained stable in 2009, increases in China and India
offset decreases in industrialized
countries. The study, No Growth in Total Global CO2 Emissions in 2009,
shows that emissions from
fossil-fuel combustion fell 7 percent in industrialized countries, while
in China and India, they increased by
9 and 6 percent. The International Energy Agency last year forecasted
that global emissions would drop
by 3 percent in 2009.
Two New Reports from Ceres
According to a new report from Ceres and Navigant Consulting, utilities
across the U.S. will need become
more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable in order to remain
competitive and attract
necessary investment in the upcoming decades. The report, “The 21st
Century Electric Utility: Positioning
for a Low-Carbon Future,” contends that a comprehensive energy bill will
be necessary to accomplish
this.
Another report released last week outlines 95 climate-change or
sustainability related shareholder
resolutions that were filed with U.S. companies in 2010. 47 of the
resolutions were withdrawn after
successful negotiations, and 16 percent garnered more than 30 percent of
voting shares in annual
meetings.
OK Passes Energy Credits Legislation
Oklahoma enacted legislation (H.B. 3024) June 9 to modify and limit the
application of tax credits for
manufacturing, zero-facilities, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and the
rehabilitation of historic property. The
legislation also creates a new credit for the manufacture of electric
vehicles.
WCI Would Save $100 Billion
The Western Climate Initiative released a new report July 6 that shows
that its GHG reduction plan would
save the participating states and providences about $100 billion in
reduced energy costs by 2020. The
analysis also found that the 11 member entities could achieve their goal
of reducing GHGs to 15 percent
below 2005 levels by 2020 while also supporting continued economic
growth.
VT Updates Solar Energy Tax Credit
Vermont enacted legislation (H.B. 781) June 4 to amend its solar energy
tax credit to make it available to
investments made after January 1 in small solar energy plants with a
capacity of 2.2 MW or less. The
legislation requires that plant owners file a petition by this Thursday
with the public service board for a
certificate of good service and an application for the credit with the
clean energy development board. The
legislation also makes the credit applicable against personal income
tax, and may be carried forward for
five years.
MA Court Upholds Wind Farm Project
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld a lower court finding
July 6 that state environmental
officials had acted properly in ruling that a wind farm project proposed
for the western part of the state
complied with the state’s Wetlands Protection Act. As a result of the
ruling, Iberdrola Renewables will
construct 20 wind turbines in the 30-MW Hoosac Wind Project in Berkshire
County, MA.
Switzerland and Mexico Plan Climate Strategy Meeting
Switzerland and Mexico will co-host a ministerial meeting September 1-3
in an attempt to increase the
prospects for an international climate change agreement at the UNFCCC’s
Conference of Parties in
December. The meeting will focus on issues related to the long-term
financing of climate change
mitigation and adaptation measures in underdeveloped countries.
France Seeks CCS Project Funders
On July 8 the French government called for demonstrations of interest
from manufacturers in an effort to
identify French candidates for special EU funding for carbon capture and
storage and renewable energy
projects. The EU’s 2009 climate-energy package created a New Entrant
Reserve 300 fund to finance
industrial-scale demonstration projects for renewable energy and CCS
projects. The mechanism set
aside CO2 allowances worth up to $11.37 billion for new entrants into
the EU Emission Trading System.
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