Hill Heat

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, will hold a press conference to release her principles for global warming legislation.

From the Wonk Room.

The influential Washington publication National Journal has dedicated its cover story to Carol Browner, President Obama’s incoming climate and energy adviser. The EPA administrator under President Clinton and a former board member of the Center for American Progress, Browner is a leading voice in progressive environmental policy. As former transition chief and current CAP president John Podesta explains, Browner’s selection reflects President Obama’s goal to change business in Washington:

If people want to continue in practices that were more appropriate in the 1950s than today, then I think that they’re going to have to understand that Obama campaigned on a promise of energy transformation. And he intends to fulfill it.

Obama’s ambitious campaign goals include five million green-collar jobs, “the implementation of an economy-wide cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary,” and a “whole new electricity grid.” With less than two weeks in office, his administration has already made major commitments toward the creation of a smart grid and the green collar jobs in the economic recovery package. The focus of the first meeting of Vice President Joe Biden’s middle-class task force will be green jobs. And Obama has signed directives to the EPA to begin the process of complying with the Supreme Court mandate to regulate greenhouse gases—hopefully spurring Congressional action to develop a cap and trade system.

Just as critically, Obama has already put in place a powerful team with the likes of Browner, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Council of Environmental Quality head Nancy Sutley, and top scientists Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, NOAA Director Jane Lubchenco, and White House science adviser John Holdren. These experts on climate policy will have to work with the other members of Obama’s Cabinet to achieve that “promise of energy transformation.”

And that’s where Browner comes in. One “industry lobbyist” who is wary of Browner described her in ways that make her sound remarkably like Dick Cheney, who controlled energy policy across agency lines in the previous administration:

Browner is the epitome of how to work this city. She knows every organization. She knows who to leak information to. She knows how to kill information, and she knows that she doesn’t want a paper trail. That is frightening.

It remains to be seen how Browner will operate, but time will tell if anonymous industry lobbyists’ fears are more accurate than Obama’s promises of transparency, accountability, and change. What the lobbyists more likely fear is that environmental policy will become effective and science-based. As Podesta explained, Carol Browner will fill a crucial role in the Obama administration:

When you have problems that really cut across a swath of agencies, it’s very important to have a strong central place within the White House where people can work on the same strategy and [make sure] that actions are keyed up and accountability exists. That has proven to be an effective way of doing business in the federal government on security policy, on economic policy. And now we’ll see it on environmental policy.

From the Wonk Room.

On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to increase “clean energy” loan guarantees by $50 billion in the economic recovery package (S. 336). This sum “would more than double the current loan guarantee cap of $38 billion” for “clean energy” technology:

TITLE 17—INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY LOAN GUARANTEE PROGRAM

The Committee also recommends an additional $50,000,000,000 to support the deployment of eligible technologies under the Section 1702(b)(2) of EPACT 2005 that will contribute to transforming the energy sector. This funding will add to the existing loan guarantee authority provided in other appropriations bills to support self-financed loan guarantees. The Committee is aware of the strong interest in the program and the large number of pending applications.

In contrast, the committee allocated only $9.5 billion exclusively for “standard renewable energy projects.” Although the loan guarantee program covers nuclear technology, carbon capture and sequestration for coal plants, coal-to-liquids projects, and renewable energy, the vast bulk of requested loans – $122 billion – are for new nuclear power plants. This $50 billion nuclear line item nearly matches the total allocation for genuinely clean energy in the House version of the stimulus package: only $52 billion in total for smart grid, renewable energy, and energy efficiency investments.

Unlike renewable energy and energy efficiency technology, investments in the nuclear industry generate few jobs or economic growth. The nuclear industry has developed through massive federal subsidization from research to deployment over decades. Such a massive expenditure of nuclear pork has no place in the economic recovery bill, according Brent Blackwelder of Friends of the Earth, who discovered the expenditure. Blackwelder called the appropriations “unconscionable”:

Now is not the time for another bailout boondoggle. Nuclear power is the most expensive form of energy there is. It takes 10 years or more to build a reactor, so it is impossible to claim with a straight face that this preemptive bailout has anything to do with creating jobs. Senate appropriators’ decision to include such wasteful spending in the stimulus is an example of Washington at its worst.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to a briefing to discuss the opportunities for green jobs in the United States and the policies needed to support them. Amidst the growing global recession, debate among American policymakers is centering on the need to create well-paying, secure jobs and stimulate the national economy. At the same time, there is a call to reduce our dependence on foreign energy and our climate change-inducing greenhouse gas emissions. The renewable energy and energy efficiency industries can meet these needs, if bolstered by federal policy that accounts for these positive externalities and levels the playing field with long-established energy industries.

This briefing will focus on a recently released green jobs report by the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) and Management Information Services, Inc (MISI). The report provides a sector-by-sector analysis of opportunities in the rapidly changing renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE) industries as well as a case study of the development of the RE industry in Colorado. A key finding of this report is that the RE and EE industries provide more than 9 million jobs and more than $1 trillion in revenue in the United States (as of 2007) and could generate another 37 million jobs by 2030. Speakers will also discuss policy options such as a national renewable portfolio standard, long-term extension of the production tax credit, effective net metering policies, and policies that improve access to electric transmission infrastructure, and their potential impact on the development of a green-collar workforce. Furthermore, the panel will explore the success of Germany’s renewable sector – a global leader which already generates $240 billion in annual revenue, employs 250,000 people, and is expected to provide more jobs than the country’s auto industry by 2020.

Speakers for this event include:

• Brad Collins, Executive Director, American Solar Energy Society (ASES) and Publisher, SOLAR TODAY magazine
• Roger Bezdek, President, Management Information Strategies, Inc.
• Mario Soos, Counselor on Environment and Energy, German Embassy in Washington, DC

This briefing is free and open to the public. No RSVP required. For more information, please contact Amy Sauer at asauer@eesi.org or (202) 662-1892.

From the Wonk Room.

Today, President Obama took a step to reverse Bush-era intransigence on the fight against global warming, directing “federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict limits on greenhouse gases from cars and trucks.” In 2002, California passed greenhouse gas standards for vehicle emissions, since adopted by 13 other states. However, they have been blocked since then by litigation from the automakers in concert with the Bush administration.

The auto lobby continues to fight this long-needed change. In an interview with National Public Radio, Charles Territo of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers claimed the California standard would bring catastrophe:

At this difficult time, what we need is certainty and consistency, not confusion and chaos. And I think we’re all concerned that this would create chaos, not only for consumers, but also for dealers and for manufacturers.

The auto industry has long been able to handle California’s higher emissions standards for other pollutants. Jerry Brown, California’s attorney general, retorted that Detroit’s problems have come in large part because of its failure to innovate:

The irony here is the auto companies want a bailout, in many ways because they weren’t building the kind of cars that were compatible with today’s energy market – and at the same time, they want to keep going with their lawsuits, which have already cost millions and millions of dollars.

These auto industry lawsuits against the adoption of AB 1493 include:

What are the forces that shaped consumer culture in the U.S.? How does per capita consumption in the U.S. compare with that of other countries, especially in the realm of energy usage? What impact has consumerism had on resources and living standards in the U.S. and elsewhere? What are the implications of maintaining our present level of consumption? What are the implications of other countries aspiring to levels of per capita consumption on a par with ours? How might our society begin to identify and embrace more sustainable habits and practices, and what might such practices be? What policy steps might the new Administration and Congress consider codifying in the interest of promoting a more sustainable lifestyle and economy?

Moderator:

Dr. Anthony Socci, Senior Science Fellow, American Meteorological Society

Speakers:

• Dr. Juliet B. Schor, Professor of Sociology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
• Betsy Taylor, Consultant, Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions, Strategic & Philanthropic Consulting on Climate Solutions & Sustainable Development, Takoma Park, MD

Program Summary

Sustainability, Consumption and the Path Forward

At the center of the US ecological dilemma lies consumption. We have been a consumer nation for more than a century, having made a directed choice in the 1930s toward that path. Today, in the midst of the simultaneous crises of the economy and the environment, we are again faced with choices about how to move forward. Although it has gotten far less attention, business-as-usual spending is as problematic as BAU energy use. The US ecological footprint, which is twice the level of comparably rich European countries, exceeds the equitable global sustainability level by a factor of 5. Rising per capita consumption underlies the ecological overshoot of the world economy, which now exceeds biological capacity by 40%. In the United States, inflated-adjusted personal consumption expenditures increased 88% from 1973 to 2003, which resulted in a 37% rise in our ecological footprint. This is important because it has accompanied decades of attempts to save energy and de-materialize production, all of which have proved inadequate. Fortunately, there is increasing awareness of these issues, and a grassroots movement to transform consumer patterns and habits is underway. However, it has had virtually no legislative presence to date.

In Dr. Schor’s presentation, the issue of consumption will be placed into its historical and comparative context. New data will be presented on the magnitude of the ‘cheap import’ boom in material (and therefore ecological terms) over the last 15 years. Underlying economic factors such as labor market policies and the distribution of income affect the path of consumption and ecological impact. A medium term consumption path will be sketched out, which yields high levels of human well-being, is becoming broadly popular, and is ecologically sustainable.

Ms. Taylor will discuss an array of policy instruments that could promote a more sustainable standard of living and more sustainable consumerism. In the lead-up to address climate change through cap & trade or carbon fees, it would serve our collective interests to simultaneously address the root causes of ecological degradation and collapse. Ms. Taylor will also call for a rekindled debate on policies and programs that might steer our economy and culture in a more sustainable and durable direction. Biographies

Dr. Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. Her most recent book is, Born to Buy: the Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Scribner, September 2004). She is also author of the national best-seller, The Overworked American: the Unexpected Decline of Leisure (Basic Books, 1992) and The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need. The Overworked American appeared on the best seller lists of The New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, the Chicago Tribune, the Village Voice, the Boston Globe as well as the annual best books list for the New York Times, Business Week and other publications. The book is widely credited for influencing the national debate on work and family. Schor also the author of Do Americans Shop Too Much?, co-editor of Consumer Society: A Reader (The New Press 2000) and co-editor, with Betsy Taylor of Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the Twenty-first Century (Beacon Press 2002). Dr. Schor is currently working on a book on issues of environmental sustainability and their relation to American lifestyles which will be published by The Penguin Press next year. She is a co-founder and co-chair of the Board of the Center for a New American Dream (newdream.org), a national sustainability organization headquartered in Maryland.

A graduate of Wesleyan University, Dr. Schor received her Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts. Before joining Boston College, she taught at Harvard University for 17 years, in the Department of Economics, and the Committee on Degrees in Women’s Studies. Her scholarly articles have appeared in professional venues such as the Economic Journal, The Review of Economics and Statistics, World Development, Industrial Relations, The Journal of Economic Psychology, Ecological Economics, The Journal of Industrial Ecology, Social Problems and others. Dr. Schor has also served as a consultant to the United Nations, at the World Institute for Development Economics Research, and to the United Nations Development Program. She was a fellow at the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1995-1996 for a project entitled “New Analyses of Consumer Society”. In 1998 Dr. Schor received the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language from the National Council of Teachers of English. In 2006 she received the Leontief Prize from the Global Development and Economics Institute at Tufts University for expanding the frontiers of economic thought.

Dr. Schor has lectured widely throughout the United States, Europe and Japan to a variety of civic, business, labor and academic groups. She appears frequently on national and international media, and profiles on her and her work have appeared in scores of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and People magazine. She has appeared on 60 Minutes, the Today Show, Good Morning America, The Early Show on CBS, numerous stories on network news, as well as many other national and local television news programs.

Betsy Taylor is the principal consultant with Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions, a consulting firm that serves clients dedicated to addressing climate change and promoting sustainable economic practices & policies. She is co-founder and Board President of 1Sky (www.1sky.org) a national campaign created in 2007 to focus the power of millions of concerned Americans on a single goal: federal actions by 2010 that can effectively address global warming and create five million green jobs. She co-founded and served as president of the Center for a New American Dream (www.newdream.org) a national organization that helps Americans live and consume prudently in the interest of a more sustainable world and improving the quality of life. During her tenure at CNAD, the Center launched the Responsible Purchasing Network, an association of socially and environmentally responsible purchasers representing over fifty billion dollars in buying power. The effort earned numerous awards, including being named in Washingtonian Magazine’s as one of the top fifty places to work in the D.C. metropolitan area. Betsy has appeared frequently on national television and radio and is the co-editor and author of Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st Century. She previously served as Executive Director of the Merck Family Fund, Stern Family Fund, and Ottinger Foundation and has consulted with numerous foundations and donors. She has an M.P.A. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. from Duke University.

The New York Times (John Broder and Peter Baker) and Washington Post (Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson) report that President Obama “plans to instruct key federal agencies to reexamine two policies that could force automakers to produce more fuel-efficient cars that yield fewer greenhouse gas emissions” Monday morning.

Obama’s main directives relate to California’s petition for an Environmental Protection Agency waiver to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the 2007 Energy Policy Act’s raised fuel economy standards. Under Bush, the EPA denied the California waiver and the Department of Transportation failed to issue the standards called for under the energy act.

In addition, the president will direct federal agencies to take steps to increase efficiency and reduce pollution.

From the Times:

Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process. . . .

Beyond acting on the California emissions law, officials said, Mr. Obama will direct the Transportation Department to quickly finalize interim nationwide regulations requiring the automobile industry to increase fuel efficiency standards to comply with a 2007 law, rules that the Bush administration decided at the last minute not to issue.

To avoid losing another year, Mr. Obama will order temporary regulations to be completed by March so automakers have enough time to retool for vehicles sold in 2011. Final standards for later years will be determined by a separate process that under Mr. Obama’s order must take into consideration legal, scientific and technological factors.

He will also order federal departments and agencies to find new ways to save energy and be more environmentally friendly. And he will highlight the elements in his $825 billion economic stimulus plan intended to create jobs around renewable energy.

Wishing to meet with President Obama’s White House energy and environment adviser Carol Browner, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has delayed the nomination of Lisa Jackson to be Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator. He placed an anonymous objection to the unanimous consent resolution to move the nomination without a roll call vote on Tuesday, and raised his concerns with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Cal.), chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, on Wednesday.

Barrasso spokesman Gregory Keeley tells E&E News:

The bottom line is Senator Barrasso is concerned about this new structure with an appointed energy czar in the White House with no accountability in the White House. Just about how that will operate. He wants to know that. He wants to ensure sufficient transparency and oversight. He wants to be convinced Congress will have the ability to get answers from the appointed czar, Carol Browner. At this stage, he’s not convinced that’s the case.

Yesterday, Browner participated in President Obama’s economic briefing, with National Economic Director Lawrence Summers, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag and White House Policy Council Director Melody Barnes.

Granta Nakayama, a Bush administration appointee, is the interim EPA administrator. According to E&E News, Nakayama “has been a noncontroversial figure since joining EPA as its top enforcement official in July 2005.”

UPDATE: E&E News reports that Granta Nakayama has resigned, with Mike Shapiro replacing him as interim EPA administrator.

Shapiro, 60, has previously been a senior official in the Office of Water, director of EPA’s Office of Solid Waste, and deputy assistant administrator in EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, where he helped implement the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. He also has held positions in EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances.

From the Wonk Room.

Today, in the first hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee under the leadership of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), a coalition of corporations and environmental organizations renewed their call for an industry-friendly cap and trade system. The U.S. Climate Action Partnership made a tremendous splash two years ago by coming out in favor of a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gases. Though their recommendations overly benefited polluting industries, USCAP’s call for mandatory action changed the political tide in Washington. They deserve credit for moving past conservative rhetoric that denies the need to act, and for stating that “action by the U.S. should not be contingent on simultaneous action by other countries,” a common excuse for delay.

But climate change science and politics have moved on in the past two years, and USCAP has lost its mantle of leadership. Their proposal fails to satisfy the scientific, economic, and societal principles that must underlie any “framework for legislation to address climate change”:

EMISSIONS TARGETS. USCAP’s recommended emissions limits are insufficient to prevent catastrophic climate change. They call for U.S. emissions to be reduced by at most 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. However, as Center for American Progress fellow Joseph Romm indicated in a recent report, “A U.S. climate bill should set a target of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 20 to 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.” Furthermore, USCAP calls for “generous limits on the use of offsets” of two to three billion tons of CO2 a year, which means actual emissions wouldn’t have to begin reducing until 2030.

MONEY. USCAP calls for provisions to prevent emissions permits from exceeding a “threshold price” and for “a significant portion of free allowances should be initially distributed to capped entities and economic sectors.” In other words, polluters should be protected from paying the cost of compliance with the already fatally weakened cap. This will lead to windfall profits for polluters at the expense of consumers. President-elect Barack Obama and other progressive leaders have joined the Center for American Progress in calling for full auction of emissions permits to fund public investments and protect low-income consumers from economic hardship.

USCAP members include major global warming polluters in multiple industries—chemical (Dow, DuPont, Johnson & Johnson), oil and gas (Rio Tinto, Shell, BP America), manufacturing (Alcoa, Caterpillar, Siemens, GE, Boston Scientific), automotive (Ford Motor, GM, Chrysler, Deere), and utilities (Duke, PG&E, Exelon, FPL, PNM), as well as the financial services industry that would administer a cap-and-trade system (AIG, Marsh, Xerox).

The environmental organizations in the partnership are the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Resources Institute, the Pew Center for Climate Change, and the Nature Conservancy. However, the National Wildlife Federation has left the partnership, saying that it instead will work to “enact a cap-and-invest bill that measures up to what scientists say is needed and makes bold investments in a clean energy economy.”

Responses below:

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the Working Group for Investment in Reliable and Economic Electric Systems (WIRES) invite you to the first of two briefings designed to explore key issues associated with the planning, construction, operation, and regulation of the nation’s high voltage interstate electric transmission network. Transmission issues have emerged as a major concern to policymakers and a broad variety of stakeholders over the past few years. As the new Congress and Administration prepare to take action on matters involving clean energy development, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, energy independence, and the reliability and security of electricity supplies, the investment in the “grid” has become an increasingly important matter of national energy policy. The physics and evolution of modern transmission systems are complex. An understanding of grid operations, planning, facilities siting, finance, and regulation nevertheless starts with these basics.

The first session (January 15) will provide a basic explanation of how the high-voltage “grid” actually works, what it accomplishes, and how it is regulated. A panel of experts on electric transmission operations and regulation will address the history and basic components of the grid, how electric power flows are controlled, the basics of grid interconnection and operations, the limitations of the system, and how operators address those limitations. This briefing also will survey the fundamentals of rate regulation and cost allocation, organized (Regional Transmission Organizations, or RTO) and bilateral (non-RTO) markets, regional transmission planning, siting, and reliability concerns. Although this briefing is for the uninitiated, the panel will invite questions at any technical level.

Speakers for this event include:

• James Hoecker, former Chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and Counsel to WIRES
• Kevin Kelly, Director, Policy Analysis and Rulemaking, FERC
• Wayne Galli, PhD, Director, Transmission Development, NextEra Energy Resources (formerly FP&L Energy)
• Gregory Ioanidis, Vice President, Business Strategy, ITC Holdings

This briefing is free and open to the public. No RSVP required. For more information, contact Laura Parsons at (202) 662-1884 or lparsons@eesi.org.

A second session will follow in February, with details posted at www.eesi.org as they become available. This briefing will tackle the major high-visibility policy challenges facing policy makers as they balance the need for investment in transmission with other energy-related objectives.