Commentary; Climate change negotiations vital

As Southwest Virginians consider how the interests of our region will be affected by the passage of legislation controlling greenhouse gas emissions, these points may be of interest:• The choice is not between doing something and doing nothing. In 2007, the Supreme Court effectively required EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, the choice is between EPA regulation and Congress intervening with its own regulatory program. Virtually all interested parties, from industry to the environmental community, would prefer that Congress regulate because, unlike EPA, Congress can consider the economic effects of regulation. We can simply do a better job. In essence, we have no alternative but to pass legislation through the Congress regulating greenhouse gases and do so in an economically sustainable way.• Improperly drafted legislation could have had a major adverse effect on both our region’s coal industry and electricity rates in our area. As a senior member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, I was determined to prevent these outcomes and to assure that the legislation which passed the House enabled growth in our region’s coal industry and kept the overall cost of the program to a negligible level for the typical homeowner. We have achieved these goals.• To have a role in the legislation, I simply had to be a part of the process. If I had announced my intention to vote no, I would have had no ability to negotiate the dozens of changes in the original draft of the bill which were ultimately accepted and which earned for the legislation the support of a broad swath of American industry, including electric utilities and American Electric Power Co., which serves our region. Simply stepping aside and voting no would have been the politically easier course; however, it would have been irresponsible because I then would have had no opportunity to modify the legislation to prevent it doing serious economic harm. Unless I was going to be helpful in moving the legislation through the House, the Chairman of the Committee would have refused to enter into the extensive negotiations with me which resulted in major modifications of the bill.• Over two months of intensive negotiations, I was able to modify the original bill to assure that emission allowances are provided for free to electric utilities. By receiving free allowances and avoiding the cost of acquiring allowances at an auction, electric utilities can keep electricity rates affordable and can continue to use coal instead of having to shift to a fuel that has a lower CO2 content. Another of my changes provided the offsets which will enable electric utilities to achieve their required reductions in CO2 emissions by planting trees or investing in agriculture while continuing to use coal at the generating plant. The offsets enable CO2 emitters to meet their greenhouse gas reduction obligations while continuing to burn increasing amounts of coal. My amendments lowered the CO2 reduction targets and also facilitated the early introduction of carbon dioxide capture and sequestration technologies, which will assure the long-term life of the coal industry across our nation.• The official projection of the Environmental Protection Agency is that because of the amendments I was able to add to the bill, coal use will grow by 2020 as compared to 2005 production figures, and the total cost of the program for the typical American home will be no more than 20 to 30 cents per day per family. That number is well less than the cost of a postage stamp daily.• While it was necessary to pass this measure in order to prevent an inevitable, poorly balanced regulation from the EPA, the legislation also contains major benefits for our region and the nation’s economy. It promotes energy independence by broadly accelerating the move to all electric vehicles, which will be fueled by American coal instead of imported petroleum. With the certainty the law provides, a large amount of pent-up capital investment by electric utilities will be unleashed. Many utilities have been waiting for the rules on greenhouse gas reductions to be written before they make major capital investments. And over the longer term, as industry throughout the world seeks to deploy low carbon dioxide emitting technologies, those new technologies will be innovated in American laboratories, manufactured in our factories, deployed at home and exported throughout the world. • I am already having discussions with a group of members of the United States Senate who will be deeply involved in the debate in that body about additional changes which could be made to the legislation to make it more economically acceptable. By being a key drafter of the bill in the House and supporting its movement through the legislative process, I was able to protect this region’s interests, and I am assured of a seat at the table when the final bill is written in negotiations between House and Senate members

Agreeing on energy choices

Our nation's clean-energy future has been one of the most debated issues in Washington in recent months. As Congress works to pass a landmark energy and climate bill, the conversation has often fallen into a familiar pattern of right against left, and Democrats against Republicans - partisan divides that threaten to hold back necessary change.
But when I travel beyond the environs of Washington, I hear a different discussion.
People across the nation ask me about clean-energy jobs in their communities. They want to know how we can cut pollution. They are concerned that the changing climate means they won't be able to vacation on the same beaches in the years ahead, and they are eager to know if the factories in their cities can be saved by manufacturing wind turbines or solar panels. I meet Democrats and Republicans who agree that our dependence on foreign oil jeopardizes our economy and security.
These are issues that unite us as a nation - and have for years. It was Republican President Richard Nixon who formed the Environmental Protection Agency. And President George H.W. Bush based his energy policy on "reducing our dependence on foreign oil, protecting our environment, and promoting economic growth."
Today, there is still broad, bipartisan support for getting America running on clean energy. People are eager for Washington to break the old pattern and help them confront the economic, environmental, and security challenges we face - not as political parties, but as a nation.
Sparking a nationwide transition to clean energy can create millions of well-paying jobs that can't be shipped overseas, which will help rebuild the economy in every state. There is no red-state/blue-state divide when it comes to green jobs. A recent University of Massachusetts study showed that clean-energy investments would create the highest concentrations of jobs in traditionally Republican states, such as Kansas, Texas, Georgia, and Tennessee.
Clean energy can also cut dangerous pollution in our communities. It can bring relief to the millions of American children with asthma and cut smog levels that double the risk of premature births. It can reduce the prevalence of cancer and other diseases linked to pollution from burning fossil fuels. That will improve overall health and lower the amount we spend on health care each year - another goal we all can support.
Clean energy is also the key to turning the tide on climate change. Our nation is already suffering through historic droughts, more destructive hurricanes, and agricultural pests and infectious diseases spreading into new areas. Further changes in the climate pose real threats to our coastlines, family farmers, and the environment.
Finally, with home-grown energy sources, we can stop sending billions of dollars overseas and help stabilize our economy at home. Over the first half of this year, the price of a barrel of oil has nearly doubled. Those kinds of fluctuations raise the costs for businesses to move products and for drivers to fill up their gas tanks, putting greater stress on the economy.
But this is about more than just oil; it's about global stability as well. Violence over resources, displaced refugee populations, poverty-driven instability, drought, and famine will only worsen as the climate changes and the environment is degraded.
The alternative is to put our ingenuity to work. Clean-energy technologies can create educational and economic opportunities where none existed before, including new markets for American goods.
Clean energy is to this decade what the space race was to the 1950s and '60s, and other nations are seizing the moment, leaving America behind. Germany has surged ahead in solar manufacturing, Japan is leading the world in hybrid cars, and China has stepped up efforts to produce electric vehicles. And when those cars come to market, Korean companies will be well ahead of our own in the development of batteries and fuel cells.
Clean energy needs strong incentives and support if we are to lead the new global economy, and that's what the clean-energy bill before Congress provides. It's up to Democrats and Republicans across the nation to let lawmakers know that we need to confront economic, environmental, and security issues that affect us all. When it comes to clean energy, the American people need to show they aren't concerned about whether we follow Democrats or Republicans, as long as we lead the world.

Report: US, China must improve climate cooperation

The United States and China should use high-level meetings next week to work toward improved cooperation in curbing greenhouse gases, according to a new Senate report.
The Foreign Relations Committee report released Thursday says new efforts to address emissions by the United States and China, the world's largest emitters of climate-altering pollution, could be "the key to a global solution" to climate change.
The report urges the countries to make climate change a priority. It also warns that winning a climate change policy agreement with fixed commitments from China will "prove extraordinarily difficult."
"The stakes are high," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the chairman of the committee, said in the report. "We must jointly tackle one of the most important and complex global issues: the threat of catastrophic climate change."
While the Senate is pressing for cooperation, the House has taken a more confrontational approach by placing trade tariffs in a House-passed bill to limit heat-trapping pollution. The tariffs would impose a "border adjustment" in 2020 on goods from countries that do not limit the gases linked to global warming. Critics say that could undermine U.S. efforts to persuade developing countries to enter into a new global warming treaty.
It is unclear whether similar provisions will be in a version of the bill the Senate is working on; the House and Senate versions eventually will have to be reconciled.
China and the United States account for 40 percent of worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas. Both countries, the report says, recognize the need for cooperation.
"However, neither has yet been willing to take the dramatic actions that many experts deem necessary to achieve critical mass for a global effort," the report says. "Many in the United States frankly doubt China's commitment to reduce emissions."
The report said "the absence of specific emissions reduction commitments from China has stoked fears of an unfair economic advantage for China, a hobbled U.S. economy and an insufficient response to the threat of global climate change."
The environment will be among the topics when senior officials meet Monday and Tuesday in Washington for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, high-level talks meant to govern ties between the countries.
It is a complicated relationship. The United States regularly criticizes China's treatment of its citizens and its trade and fiscal policies. The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before, recognizes that it needs China's help to solve many tough diplomatic and economic crises.
Beijing, meanwhile, is Washington's biggest foreign creditor, with $801.5 billion invested in Treasury securities. Chinese officials worry that massive U.S. stimulus spending and a rapid expansion of credit might spark inflation that would erode the value of the dollar and China's holdings.
The Senate report recommends three areas where the countries could cooperate:
_A joint laboratory for its scientists to collaborate.
_Green projects to test solar power and other technologies.
_A "clean energy corps" trained to focus on designing energy-efficient policies and monitoring and enforcing standards.

The U.S.'s coming around on climate change was supposed to be good news. Instead, it's trouble

Be careful what you wish for. For years, much of the world has been bashing America for refusing to cooperate in the fight against climate change. Now that President Barack Obama has pledged American leadership in cutting greenhouse-gas emissions—and as a far-reaching package of green legislation begins to wind its way through the U.S. Congress—relief is giving way to worry. In recent weeks European, Indian and Chinese officials have warned that the result of America's long-awaited change of mind might not be cooperation but conflict, and possibly the world's first green trade war.
That's because as Washington debates how to regulate emissions, a powerful coalition of energy-intensive industries, labor unions and Rust Belt state legislators is clamoring for protection from imports. They argue that the new cap-and-trade system envisioned by Obama and congressional leaders, which will require major polluters to acquire permits for the right to emit CO2, will put them at a competitive disadvantage against competitors based in countries that don't have similar carbon-pricing schemes. In March Obama's energy secretary, Steven Chu, said the U.S. is prepared to use a border tax on imports as a weapon to force countries like China to limit their own emissions, triggering a warning by Su Wei, China's chief climate negotiator, that this would lead to retaliatory measures. India has since warned the West not to engage in "green protectionism."
So far, the threats have been limited to words, but that may soon change. Introduced in Congress on April 1, America's proposed scheme is loosely based on Europe's, which gives homegrown energy-intensive industries like steel, aluminum and cement generous free allowances of pollution permits, in effect grandfathering them into the new system. The president would have the authority to impose "border adjustments" only if U.S. companies were determined to be at a competitive disadvantage after a five-year trial period. But with the American debate over climate change increasingly driven by worries over jobs and competitiveness, some form of protection seems increasingly likely. In Europe, politicians have called for EU trade sanctions against both China and the U.S. if they don't agree to cut emissions.


Because they already regulate emissions, the Europeans would likely be exempt from any U.S. carbon tariffs, which appear squarely aimed at China.
The biggest victim of a confrontation, however, would be the environment that U.S. legislators are purporting to save. China is just beginning to get serious about its own environmental record, and as a member of the G20 seems finally to be taking its first baby steps toward a more involved and constructive international role. The global climate regime that the world's biggest polluters will try to hammer out at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December will not work without major developing-world emitters like China onboard. A nasty trade fight with the United States would make cooperation by Beijing even less likely, says Benjamin Görlach, emissions expert at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin.
Not only does the debate over imports threaten to obscure the original environmental-policy goals, it also obscures the facts. The greatest share of carbon-intensive imports reaches the U.S. not from China but from heavily regulated Europe. What's more, a number of studies have found the effects on industrial competitiveness to be minimal. Among other things, they found that the cost of complying with environmental regulation plays little to no role when companies decide where to locate—access to local markets is by far the most important factor, followed by labor costs. In some cases, such as Germany's €160 billion chemical industry, efficiency improvements prodded by environmental regulation have even helped make the industry more competitive, not less. Even the Chinese case is anything but clear. China itself may be polluted, but its exports tend to come from modern, efficient plants, and the country already has higher efficiency standards for vehicles and appliances than the U.S., leading a Chinese official to remark at a Brookings Institution conference in Washington last year that it may be China that should slap carbon tariffs on U.S. products, not the other way around. The trouble now is that the debate is driven less and less by environmental concerns and is turning into one defined by longstanding domestic U.S. worries that cheap Chinese goods will continue to flood the U.S., take jobs and hurt companies. So far in this downturn, the protectionists have been held in check by fears of repeating the mistakes of the 1930s, when a global tariff war plunged the world into depression. Under the cover of green, they could yet have their day

How to limit greenhouse-gas emissions without punishing the poor

One of the trickiest issues nations face in trying to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions is the problem of fairness. The U.S., Western Europe, Japan, and a few other countries have a high standard of living, thanks largely to a long history of getting energy from burning cheap fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—which we now know are the main source of planet-warming carbon dioxide. But putting a lid on emissions makes energy more expensive, which means that developing countries wouldn't be able to improve their standard of living so easily. Why, they wonder, should they have to work harder than the already-developed countries did for their chance at the good life?
Back in 1997, the answer, enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol, was that they shouldn't. The document only assigned cutbacks to industrialized nations; that's one reason why American politicians rejected it. Now, though, China is a bigger greenhouse-gas emitter than the U.S. overall, and scientists have a better understanding of how deeply emissions need to be reduced globally to avoid overheating the planet. So the problem is more acute while the question of fairness is no less thorny.



But a new paper just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may offer a way out—or at least the outlines of one. Instead of assigning limits based on a country's overall emissions, the focus should be on the highest emitters, no matter where they're located, argue lead author Shoibal Chakravarty, of Princeton University, and several colleagues. "Half of all emissions," Chakravarty says, "come from about 10 percent of the world's population." More of them are obviously in industrial countries, but, says Massimo Tavoni, another coauthor, "there are also people in China who drive Ferraris and fly a lot." So in this proposed new scheme, they write, "All of the world's high-CO2-emitting individuals are treated the same, regardless of where they live."
One way to do this is to put a cap on how much each person is allowed to emit, and calculate national targets from there. Say you want to guarantee that by 2030, emissions are no greater than they are today—about 30 billion metric tons of CO2 annually. Without some sort of cap, that figure is projected to rise to 43 billion by 2030.
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But you can reach the goal if you assign a specific emissions limit to every individual in the world of 10.8 tons per person per year—and there are currently more than 1 billion people emitting above that level. "About a quarter of those," says Chakravarty, "live in the U.S., a quarter live in China, a quarter live in countries of the OECD [the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is mostly European] and a quarter in the rest of the world."
"The average American," says Tavoni, "emits about 20 tons today, so that will be pretty tough. It tells you that a lot of Americans will have to reduce." In Europe, the average is closer to 10, so on average nobody will have to cut back, but in practice, anyone living above the limit will. (For the record, nobody keeps track of individual emissions, but it turns out, unsurprisingly, that high-income levels are correlated with high emissions. The scientists used World Bank data to estimate how many individuals in each country are above a certain emissions cap.) China's average is about four tons per person, and India's is about one—and the same rules apply. "So it turns out that even poor countries have to do something."
The authors also note that many people live entirely outside the fossil-fuel economy, in extreme poverty. "You want to bring these abjectly poor people up to the level of ordinary poverty," says Rob Socolow, another Princeton University coauthor, "to give them minimal electricity, access to motorized transport, even if it's only a motorbike, and some sort of cooking fuel that doesn't have to be gathered by hand." To do that, say the authors, the world could impose a carbon-emissions floor of, say one ton per year (which would lower the worldwide cap from 10.8 to about 10.3 tons). "There's an ideology out there," says Socolow, "that says, 'When you go to help the poorest people, don't hook them on fossil fuels.' This to me is outrageous. These are the people who deserve the cheapest solutions to their problems possible. Sure, sometimes it'll be biofuels or photovoltaic cells. But sometimes it will be kerosene, and that's just fine."
The authors don't pretend that their idea is the final word on dealing with the fairness problem—nor that it's the first. "At some point," says Chakravarty, "we found out others had thought about more or less similar schemes, although they differ in detail." But when more than 100 nations meet in Copenhagen next December at the Conference of the Parties to negotiate a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, he says, ideas like these might just help break the fairness logjam

Radar could save bats from wind turbines

Bats use sonar to navigate and hunt. Many have been killed by wind turbines, however, which their sonar doesn't seem to recognize as a danger. Surprisingly, radar signals could help keep bats away from wind turbines, scientists have now discovered.Although wind power promises to be a clean source of energy, some researchers have raised concerns that wind turbines inadvertently kill bats and other flying creatures. For instance, in 2004, over the course of six weeks, roughly 1,764 and 2,900 bats were killed at two wind farms in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, respectively. The bats might not be killed by the wind turbine blades directly, but instead by the sudden drop in air pressure the swinging rotors induce, which in turn cause their lungs to over-expand and burst surrounding blood vessels."Given the growing number of wind turbines worldwide, this is going to be an increasing problem, no question about that," said researcher Paul Racey, a bat biologist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Scientists have tried keeping birds from colliding into wind turbines by making their rotors easier to see. And to discourage bats away from wind farms, researchers have tried white noise generators as deterrents. However, these "acoustic scarecrows" have not worked well, Racey said, probably because these sound systems are not strong enough to influence bats within the entire space that rotors sweep through.A student at the University of Aberdeen first noticed that bats shied away from radar installations while driving past them. He was holding a bat detector out the window to scope out bat activity on the drive back home from out in the field. (Bat detectors are gadgets that scan for ultrasonic bat calls.)Although bats use sound waves to steer in the dark by echolocation, radar employs radio waves, a form of light, so one might at first assume that radar would have no effect on bats. To see if radar could keep bats away from wind turbines, the scientists at the University of Aberdeen installed small portable marine radar units at 20 bat foraging sites in Scotland — woodland and riverbank areas where insect densities are high. The researchers monitored bat presence for 58 nights using bat detectors.The researchers discovered that radar helped keep bats away, reducing bat activity by 30 to 40 percent. The radar did not keep insects away, which suggests that however the radar works as a deterrent, it does so by influencing the bats directly and not just their food.So how does radar keep bats away? The researchers explained that a great deal of research suggests that people can actually hear radar pulses. "This was noticed when radar arrays first started up during World War II," Racey said. "A portion of radar operators said they heard clicks in their ears when they were switched on

Offshore drilling is part of Calif. budget deal

The deal to close California's $26 billion budget deficit included a plan to drill for offshore oil, drawing allegations that the fiscal crisis was used for a backroom deal following rejection of the idea by state regulators earlier this year.
Democrats agreed to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request to expand drilling from an existing platform off Santa Barbara to generate a one-time $100 million advance royalty payment this fiscal year and an estimated $1.8 billion in royalties over 14 years.
It would be the first new offshore oil drilling on state lands in four decades since a blowout on a platform off Santa Barbara coated miles of ocean and shoreline and galvanized opposition


Details of the agreement reached late Monday were scarce, but Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, chairman of the State Lands Commission, said Tuesday that the framework involved taking authority for approval of oil leases away from State Lands and giving it to a newly created panel.
"This is a play by the governor to have it his way," he said. "This is a sellout to the oil industry. They want to open the California coast to drilling, and this is the first step."
The lack of details on the agreement and the way it emerged in budget talks concerned Victoria Rome, deputy California advocacy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"I think it should be very troubling to the public that a decision that was made through a public process in the light of day can be overturned by a few leaders behind closed doors," she said.
Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Lisa Page said the proposal would bring new revenues to the state, end oil drilling off Santa Barbara's coast and speed up the permanent removal of platforms there.
The governor's office said in a statement that the platform involved is already drilling in federal waters adjacent to state waters. It said the project maintains a moratorium on oil drilling "but takes advantage of a specific exemption that allows for new leases if oil is leaking from an existing state field into an actively producing federal field."
Some activists back ideaThe drilling proposal has been percolating since 2008 when Plains Exploration & Production Co. of Houston announced a novel deal with three veteran environmental groups in Santa Barbara County.
The groups, including Get Oil Out!, agreed to promote the plan in exchange for money for the state, thousands of acres of land and Plains' commitment to cease operations countywide by 2022.
Garamendi said he opposed the plan in January because provisions for ending operations could not be enforced and because it would serve as a precedent for further drilling, encouraging the federal government to issue new leases off the California coast.
The $100 million would be a loan against royalties and would be repaid by deductions from future royalty payments to the state, he said.
Garamendi asserted that the sum was of minor usefulness in solving the budget problem.
"I think that this can easily be subtracted from the proposal without doing any harm to what is a terrible piece of work," he said.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said that under the budget agreement, a panel made up the state attorney general, the secretary of resources and the secretary of environmental protection would make a final decision on the project.
Steinberg said the state had run out of options and had to make a choice between a project that would generate about $100 million annually for the next 14 years, or to make deeper welfare and social service cuts.
"And, you know, that's a choice," he said.
Michael Endicott, resource sustainability advocate for Sierra Club California, said environmental standards and statutes should not be rolled back as part of the budget process.
"Eventually we'll be rebuilding and we'll be operating again, and those standards should be implemented again — that people worked long and hard to put in place in order to avoid problems," he said.
Oil severance tax instead?Endicott and Garamendi both said a better alternative would be an oil severance tax that other major producing states have. Their estimates of such a tax ranged from $800 million to $1 billion a year.
"California is the one large state that doesn't charge a fee for the extraction of oil," Endicott said.
Attorney Linda Krop, who represents the three Santa Barbara environmental groups, said they continue to support the agreement they negotiated with Plains but she had not yet consulted with them on the possibility of it being put before a new panel rather than State Lands.