Hill Heat

Witnesses

Panel I

• Harlan Watson, Ph.D., Special Representative and Senior Climate Negotiator, Bureau of Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Panel II

• His Excellency Ali’ioaiga Feturi Elisaia, Permanent Representative of the Independent State of Samoa
• Mason F. Smith, Charge d’affaires, a.i. of the Republic of the Fiji Islands
• Mr. Charles Paul, Charge d’affaires, a.i., Republic of the Marshall Islands
• His Excellency Masao Nakayama, Permanent Representative of the Federated States of Micronesia
• Her Excellency Marlene Moses, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Nauru

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) opening statement:

We are here today to review the Administration’s proposed Fiscal Year 2009 budget for the Environmental Protection Agency.

Since this is the Bush Administration’s final budget proposal, let’s ask ourselves a simple question:

Is EPA better able today to protect people and communities from serious public health and environmental problems than it was when this Administration took the reins?

The answer is a resounding “No.”

The Bush Administration’s proposed budget for 2009 represents a 26% decline in overall EPA funding since the Administration’s first budget was enacted, when adjusted for inflation. Budgets are about priorities – this shows the low priority that the Bush Administration places on environmental protection.

Witness

• Stephen L. Johnson, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency

The White House withdrew Stanley Suboleski’s nomination the night before the hearing, saying that Suboleski asked for his nomination to be withdrawn “for personal reasons” Monday afternoon.

Today, Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee will start a process to look into the choices our nation makes on food and agriculture and how those choices affect our environment, specifically the “carbon footprint” of how we grow, raise, transport, package, dispose of and otherwise provide sustenance to Americans and people around the world. And while changing the way the world creates and consumes energy is the most effective way to combat global warming, so-called “lifestyle” choices like the food we eat will play an increasing role in how to make immediate cuts in the pollution that causes global warming.

In today’s hearing—entitled “Food for Thought”—this hunger for knowledge on food and the environment starts by looking at the food service industry, and specifically at the food choices and serving options Congress makes available right here in the House of Representatives. For millions of Americans, the cafeterias that serve food in hospitals, universities, major employment centers and schools deliver the meals to get them through the day, but the environment is often an afterthought in the face of swarms of hungry patrons looking for calories instead of low-carbon food.

Witnesses

• Dan Beard, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), House of Representatives
• Carina Wong, Executive Director, Chez Panisse Foundation
• Patricia D. Millner, Ph.D, Research Microbiologist in the Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory and Environmental Microbial Systems Laboratory, USDA
• Tom Kelly, Ph.D., Chief Sustainability Officer, University of New Hampshire Office of Sustainability

Witness

• Stephen L. Johnson, Director. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

From E&E News:

Pressed by House panel, EPA chief defends waiver decision (02/26/2008) Katherine Boyle, E&ENews PM reporter

U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson defended his rejection today of California’s waiver request that would have allowed state regulation of motor vehicles’ emissions of greenhouse gases in the wake of the release of agency documents showing that top EPA officials strongly disagreed with him.

Appearing before the House Interior and Environment Subcommittee, Johnson said climate change is not a unique California problem and the state’s petition for a Clean Air Act waiver did not meet the “compelling and extraordinary conditions” required by law.

“Every time another governor, another state representative talks about the need for their state to address global climate change, they’re actually making my very point on the California waiver,” he said.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released documents showing EPA staff members strongly supported granting the waiver.

A presentation prepared for the director of EPA’s Transportation and Air Quality, Margo Oge, urged Johnson to grant the waiver and suggested he would face great outside pressure to deny it.

“If you are asked to deny this waiver, I fear the credibility of the agency that we both love will be irreparably damaged,” the presentation says. “You have to find a way to get this done. If you cannot, you will face a pretty big personal decision about whether you are able to stay in the job under those circumstances.”

It is “obvious” there is “no legal or technical justification for denying” the waiver, says the presentation prepared by Chris Grundler, Oge’s deputy director at the National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Michigan.

Johnson said he only became aware of the presentation when Congress requested documents on the waiver decision.

“It was never presented to me,” he said.

Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) pressed him, asking if Oge ever raised the issues in the presentation.

But Johnson again denied seeing the presentation, although he didn’t say whether Oge raised those points.

“I received a lot of comments from my professional staff, and they presented me with a wide range of options,” Johnson said. “One of the options was denial. One of the options was to grant the waiver.”

Johnson said he will issue a final decision document on the waiver by the end of the week.

At the hearing, Chairman Feinstein will call for passage of legislation she has sponsored to close a loophole that has allowed oil and gas companies to pay no royalty payments for drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf for leases negotiated in 1998 and 1999. This measure to close the loophole was stripped from the FY2008 Interior Appropriations bill.

Under this provision, the companies who have not renegotiated their existing contracts will have a choice.

• They can keep their existing leases royalty-free if they so choose, but be barred from bidding on new contracts, or
• They can agree to renegotiate these leases in good faith and be able to participate in the bidding for new leases.

Witnesses

• C. Stephen Allred, Assistant Secretary for Lands and Minerals Management, Department of the Interior
• Randall Luthi, Director, Minerals Management Service

In the middle of September 2007, Rick Boucher (D-W.Va.), chair of the the the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee of John Dingell’s Energy and Commerce Committee, announced he would be releasing a series of white papers “over the next six weeks” on issues related to the development of climate change legislation. The third such paper, Appropriate Roles for Different Levels of Government, has now been released.

• Oct. 3, 2007: Scope of a Cap-and-Trade Program
• Jan. 31, 2008: Competitiveness Concerns/Engaging Developing Countries

After reviewing state, local and regional initiatives to combat global warming emissions, in its discussion of the possible costs of local regulations in addition to a federal cap-and-trade system, the 25-page white paper bores in on the question of federal preemption. This issue was highlighted in December by EPA administrator Stephen Johnson’s denial of California’s waiver request under the Clean Air Act to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions. Johnson’s decision spurred a multi-state lawsuit, an investigation by House Oversight chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), and contentious Senate hearings.

The paper follows statements made previously by committee chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) supporting Johnson’s stated justification for denying the waiver:

One key factor that distinguishes climate change from other pollution problems our country has tackled is that local greenhouse gas emissions do not cause local environmental or health problems, except to the extent that the emissions contribute to global atmospheric concentrations. This characteristic of greenhouse gases stands in contrast to most pollution problems, where emissions adversely affect people locally where the emissions occur. The global nature of climate change takes away (or at least greatly minimizes) one of the primary reasons many national environmental programs have provisions preserving State authority to adopt and enforce environmental programs that are more stringent than Federal programs: States have a responsibility to protect their own citizens.

In its concluding remarks, the paper summarizes the internal committee battle:

As the debate over whether the Federal Government should preempt California’s greenhouse gas motor vehicle standards has shown, Committee Members balance these various factors in a way that can lead to different conclusions that will need to be worked out through the legislative process. Chairman Dingell has made it very clear that he believes that motor vehicle greenhouse gas standards should be set by the Federal Government, not by State governments: greenhouse gases are global (not local) pollutants, multiple programs would be an undue burden on interstate commerce and would waste societal and governmental resources without reducing national emissions, and the competing interests of different States should be resolved at the Federal level. Other Committee Members have reached the opposite conclusion given the severity of the climate change problem, the need to push technological development, and the benefits of having States act as laboratories.

Randall Luthi, the controversial chief of the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service, will be testifying at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee tomorrow morning. His decision to hold the Chukchi Sea drilling lease sale two weeks ago, the first offshore sale in over a decade, while the Fish & Wildlife Service continues to delay its ruling on the endangerment of polar bears, has garnered protests from government scientists, environmental groups and Congressional Democrats.

Sen. Feinstein, the chair of the subcommittee, released the following statement:

At the hearing, Chairman Feinstein will call for passage of legislation she has sponsored to close a loophole that has allowed oil and gas companies to pay no royalty payments for drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf for leases negotiated in 1998 and 1999. This measure to close the loophole was stripped from the FY2008 Interior Appropriations bill.

Feinstein has been pushing for this legislation at least since 2006, since the loophole in 1998 and 1999 leases issued under the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act of 1995 was discussed in Congressional hearings.

Alex Steffen at WorldChanging in January, with My Other Car is a Bright Green City (edited for publication in BusinessWeek), and Allison Arieff at the New York Times’s By Design blog on Monday, with Is Your House Making You Look Fat?, take involved and interesting looks at the environmental, energy, and health consequences of America’s love affair with sprawl. In Steffen’s words: “The best car-related innovation we have is not to improve the car, but eliminate the need to drive it everywhere we go.” Arieff mirrors his sentiment: “First, let’s talk about cars. Stop designing for them.“

Their excellent essays have spurred varied responses.

Ezra Klein at the American Prospect, yesterday: How We Live Now:

There’s often a tendency to assume that the status quo is the most “natural” way for things to be, and that rejiggering the relevant subsidies is somehow more artificial and presumptuous. But the current system was built atop a massive structure of subsidies and tax breaks. The mortgage tax deduction advantaged bigger homes; funding schools through inequitable property taxes encouraged families to move out of cities where the property taxes were low and into richer suburbs where the schools would be wealthy; putting billions into costly and little-used roads made far-flung developments appear cheap to those who only saw the finished product; underfunding public transportation heavily influenced development patterns, and so on and so forth.

Matt Yglesias picks up at the Atlantic: Dense:

What’s particularly astounding about this stuff, in my view, is that fixing the problem would hardly require some totalitarian density police to come around and force us to all live closer together. Instead, the main step we would need to take would simply be to allow people to build more densely if they want to. As a secondary measure, scrapping or limiting the tax code’s weird and destructive subsidy of big houses would do some good.

Other blogs that picked the thread up include Duncan Black’s Eschaton, 2020 Hindsight, Urban Grounds, Dove’s Eye View, Trinifar’s Some Maintenance Required, The Vigorous North, and The Velorution.