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=<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-cancer-lawsuits-epa-2290270946.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-cancer-lawsuits-epa-2290270946.html</a>...ormer U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official Jess Rowland may have to testify over claims that he covered up evidence that <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/glyphosate" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">glyphosate</a>, the main ingredient in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/monsanto" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Monsanto</a>'s top-selling herbicide Roundup, could cause cancer.A federal judge said at a hearing in San Francisco on Monday that he is likely to grant the deposition of Rowland, a key figure named in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/epa-monsanto-cancer-lawsuits-2261203098.html" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">multi-district cancer lawsuits</a> alleging that Monsanto failed to warn about the cancer risks associated with exposure to glyphosate."My reaction is when you consider the relevance of the EPA's reports, and you consider their relevance to this litigation, it seems appropriate to take Jess Rowland's deposition," U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said at the hearing.The plaintiffs' lawyers argue that Rowland had a "highly suspicious" relationship with Monsanto, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-27/monsanto-cancer-suits-turn-to-alleged-whitewash-by-epa-official" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">Bloomberg</a> reported.Rowland, a former deputy division director at the EPA, chaired the agency's Cancer Assessment Review Committee (CARC). The CARC determined that glyphosate was "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans," which differs from the International Agency for Research on Cancer <a href="http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">conclusion</a> that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen. Rowland left the agency just days after a copy of <a href="http://src.bna.com/eAi" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">the CARC report</a> was leaked to the press in May 2016.This new development in the case—Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2741, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco)—is yet another <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-pcb-lawsuits-2268543132.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">litigious nightmare</a> for the St. Louis-based agrochemical giant, which is pending acquisition from Bayer AG. Incidentally, the German pharmaceutical company <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-22/bayer-fourth-quarter-profit-beats-estimates-helped-by-drugs" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">recently signaled</a> that its <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/genetically-engineered-grass-2199240489.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word;">$66 billion mega-merger</a> with Monsanto may face delays amid regulatory concerns....https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-rowland-b0962b121
li scrapeDan JenkinsDirector of Regulatory Affairs genus plshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-jenkins-7858286?trk=pub-pbmap
Lois Rossi--
Shadia M. Ihlaseh CatalanoRegulatory Toxicologist na BASF
MIRTHA SUSANA YAMADA TANAKAExpert in Regulation and Health Surveillance at Brazilian Health Surveillance Agency
Emma BarnesSenior technical Expert at Syngenta
Kimberly Shawschool bus driver at ccps
Kyle KottkeGM at Kottke Trucking
Scott Pruitt
patience browneBiologist at US EPA
Michael RowlandsRetired at D & M Rowlands.<div>=</div><div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/food/epa-succumbs-monsanto-pressure-delays-glyphosate-cancer-review">http://www.alternet.org/food/epa-succumbs-monsanto-pressure-delays-glyphosate-cancer-review</a></div><div>
</div><div> U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was slated to hold four days of public meetings, Oct. 18-21, focused on essentially one question: Is <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/iarc-scientist-reaffirms-glyphosates-link-to-cancer-as-monsantos-reque-1906676980.html" style="text-decoration: none;">glyphosate</a>, the world's <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/monsantos-glyphosate-most-heavily-used-weed-killer-in-history-1882164311.html" style="text-decoration: none;">most widely used</a> herbicide, safe?However, the EPA Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meetings <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPP-2016-0385-0380" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">were "postponed</a>," just four days before they were suppose to meet, after intense lobbying by the agrichemical industry, including <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-to-be-put-on-trial-for-crimes-against-nature-and-humanity-1882128925.html" style="text-decoration: none;">Monsanto</a>. The industry first fought to keep the meetings from being held at all, <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CropLife-comment-SAP-08-24-16.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">and argued</a> that if they were held, several leading international experts should be excluded from participating, including "any person who has publicly expressed an opinion regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate."As the meetings drew near, <a href="http://www.croplifeamerica.org/who-we-are/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">CropLife America</a>, which represents the interests of Monsanto and other agribusinesses, specifically took issue with at least two scientists chosen for the panel, alleging the experts might be unfavorably biased against industry interests. On Oct. 12, the group <a href="http://191hmt1pr08amfq62276etw2.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/CLA-Comments-on-SAP-Disqualification-10-12-16.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">sent a letter</a> to the EPA calling for <a href="http://www.cancer.org/research/acsresearchers/kenneth-portier-phd" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Dr. Kenneth Portier</a> of the American Cancer Society to be more deeply scrutinized for any "pre-formed conclusions" about glyphosate. More notably, CropLife called for leading epidemiologist <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-10/documents/fqpa_srb_panel_member_biosketches_oct_2016.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Dr. Peter Infante</a> to be completely disqualified from panel participation."EPA should replace Dr. Infante with an epidemiologist without such patent bias," CropLife told the EPA. The chemical industry group said Infante was unlikely to give industry-sponsored research studies the credibility the industry believes they deserve. CropLife said Infante has testified in the past for plaintiffs in chemical exposure cases against Monsanto.Croplife also argued that because Infante was the "only epidemiologist on the glyphosate SAP" he would have enhanced influence in the evaluation of epidemiological data about <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/does-glyphosate-cause-cancer-1891129191.html" style="text-decoration: none;">glyphosate and cancer</a>. The CropLife letter was dated Oct. 12 and by Oct. 14, the EPA announced it was looking for additional epidemiology expertise to ensure "robust representation from that discipline." The EPA also said one panelist had voluntarily departed, though the agency refused to say who that panelist was.Challenging Infante's role is a gutsy move. After all, Infante spent 24 years working for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration helping determine cancer risks to workers during the development of standards for toxic substances, including <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/asbestos-industry-knew-and-kept-secret-for-decades-that-their-product--1891149266.html" style="text-decoration: none;">asbestos</a>, arsenic and formaldehyde. His resume includes a stint at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health where he conducted epidemiological studies related to carcinogens, and he has served as an expert consultant in epidemiology for several world bodies, including the EPA and the World Trade Organization.According to sources close to the situation, Infante remains a panelist as of this week, but there is no certainty when the meetings might be rescheduled, and what the panel membership might look like when they are rescheduled. The EPA has refused to discuss who remains on the panel, but some onlookers believe that the EPA was clearly bowing to agrichemical industry interests."This is outrageous. The industry wants to say that our own government scientists, the top ones in their fields, aren't good enough for these panels," said Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist at the Consumers Union. "If the EPA wants to add extra epidemiologists that is great but why didn't they do it before? They are doing this because of pressure from industry."The industry clearly has much at stake, as does the public. Glyphosate is the key ingredient in Monsanto's branded Roundup herbicides as well as herbicides marketed by numerous agrichemical companies around the world. It is also the key to what has been 20 years of sales of genetically engineered glyphosate-tolerant crops developed by Monsanto. The future sales of both the chemical and the crops are being jeopardized by the mounting <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/does-monsantos-glyphosate-cause-cancer-1882118579.html" style="text-decoration: none;">concerns that glyphosate can cause cancer</a> and other illnesses or disease.Scientists around the world have been raising red flags for years over worrisome research findings, and last year the International Agency of Research on Cancer, said <a href="http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol112/mono112-09.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen</a>. More than <a href="https://www.schmidtlaw.com/roundup-lawsuits-centralized-in-mdl-in-northern-california/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration: none;">three dozen lawsuits have been filed</a>against Monsanto by people claiming Roundup gave them non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and both European and U.S. regulators are evaluating the chemical for continued use.Since the International Agency of Research on Cancer classification, Monsanto has asked the EPA to back industry assurances that glyphosate is safe, and so far, the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/mistaken-release-of-glyphosate-report-raises-questions-over-epas-ties--1891128830.html" style="text-decoration: none;">EPA has done exactly that</a>, issuing a series of reports and memos that dovetail with Monsanto's position. Monsanto also has sought to bolster arguments for glyphosate's safety by pointing to <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/action/doSearch?AllField=Glyphosate&SeriesKey=itxc20&startPage=&sortBy=Ppub" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">supportive research papers</a> published in late September in Critical Reviews in Toxicology. Monsanto hired the group that arranged for the panel, and most of the 16 scientists involved are former Monsanto employees or Monsanto consultants. At least one, Gary Williams, has also consulted for Monsanto on litigation matters involving glyphosate.It seems more than a little hypocritical that those scientists are presented as credible by the industry, but scientists like Infante and Portier are said to be unfit to advise the EPA because of suspected bias. Like Infante, Portier has a long track record as an independent scientist. He is vice president of the Statistics & Evaluation Center at the American Cancer Society. He has participated in more than 60 other SAP meetings and has served on expert and advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Toxicology Program, and the World Health Organization Food and Agriculture Organization.Portier also would not comment about the industry concerns about him, the postponement or changes to the makeup of the SAP, other than to say that as of today, he remains on the panel. EPA said it is "working to reschedule as soon as possible." But the delay and the maneuvering by industry to influence panel participation does little to bolster consumer confidence for the likelihood of an objective outcome.
=</div>=-<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/10/epa-fracking-methane-emissions/">http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/10/epa-fracking-methane-emissions/</a>
whistleblower...An environmental watchdog alleges that the answer may be a years-long, systematic cover-up of the true data surrounding these toxic emissions. That cover-up, the group says, was at the hands of at least one EPA researcher who accepted payments from the oil and gas industry.In an incendiary federal <a href="http://www.ncwarn.org/wp-content/uploads/EPA-OIG_NCWARN_Complaint_6-8-16.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">complaint</a> filed on Wednesday with the EPA’s Inspector General, the 28-year-old North Carolina-based group NC WARN wrote that “there has been a persistent and deliberate cover-up that has prevented the agency from requiring the natural gas industry to make widespread, urgently needed and achievable reductions in methane venting and leakage (’emissions’) across the nation’s expanding natural gas infrastructure.”“Studies relied upon by EPA to develop policy and regulations were scientifically invalid,” the organization charged.Specifically, wrote NC WARN in a <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2016/06/09/whistleblower-epa-official-covered-methane-leakage-problems-across-us-natural" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">press statement</a>, “Dr. David Allen, then-head of EPA’s Science Advisory Board, has led an ongoing, three-year effort to cover up underreporting of the primary device, the Bacharach Hi-Flow Sampler and a second device used to measure gas releases from equipment across the natural gas industry. Allen is also on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, where he has been funded by the oil and gas industries for years.”“The EPA’s failure to order feasible reductions of <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=methane" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">methane</a> leaks and venting has robbed humanity of crucial years to slow the <a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">climate crisis</a>,” said Jim Warren, director of NC WARN. “The cover-up by Allen’s team has allowed the industry to dig in for years of delay in cutting emissions—at the worst possible time.”The cover-up was discovered by NC WARN, the group wrote in its complaint, when it became aware that the very inventor of the Bacharach Hi-Flow Sampler, an engineer named Touché Howard, had been attempting to blow the whistle for years on the crucial instrument’s malfunctioning. The critical failure causes the instrument to under-report methane emissions “up to 100-fold,” the organization wrote.Studies have shown the EPA <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/04/15/study-fracking-emissions-1000x-higher-epa-estimates" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">underestimating</a> methane leaks from fracked gas production for years and Howard’s own research <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/08/04/bombshell-study-reveals-methane-emissions-hugely-underestimated" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">found</a> that the agency has been “hugely underestimating” methane emissions specifically as a result of the faulty instrument, asCommon Dreams reported.“In the extreme, that kind of failure could lead to catastrophic explosions,” Howard <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-methane-leaks-20160607-snap-story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">told</a> the Los Angeles Times.The complaint describes Howard’s repeated attempts to warn the EPA and Allen about the instrument and the silence he received in response.“It appears that the goal of the [University of Texas] team was not to critically examine the problems but to convince [Environmental Defense Fund, who co-authored the study] and its production committee members that no problems existed,” NC WARN added.“We believe Mr. Howard was specifically prevented from providing input because the [University of Texas] team knew that he would be able to show that their counterarguments were faulty and the resulting studies scientifically invalid,” the group concluded.Howard’s concerns and the specific mechanical problems of the measurement instrument he has repeatedly pointed out have to this date never been addressed, “resulting in the failure of the EPA to accurately report methane emissions for more than two years, much less require reductions,” the complaint noted. “Meanwhile, the faulty data and measuring equipment are still being used extensively throughout the natural gas industry worldwide.”Indeed, a graphic included in the complaint demonstrates that the malfunctioning Bacharach Hi-Flow Sampler is relied upon to measure methane emissions at nearly every point in the fracked gas production process:=-CF Correction: epa blew frack call b/c bound by superfund regs? nb desmog roleBack in 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a startling announcement, shaking up the battle over <a href="http://ecowatch.com/news/energy-news/fracking-2/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">fracking</a> in one of the nation’s highest-profile cases where drillers were suspected to have caused water contamination.Water testing results were in for homeowners along Carter Road in <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=Dimock" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Dimock</a>, Pennsylvania, where for years, homeowners reported their water had turned brown, became flammable or started clogging their well with “black greasy feeling sediment” after Cabot Oil and Gas began drilling in the area. The EPA seemed to conclude the water wasn’t so bad after all.“The sampling and an evaluation of the particular circumstances at each home did not indicate levels of contaminants that would give EPA reason to take further action,” EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin said in a press release.The drilling industry crowed. “The data released today once again confirms the EPA’s and DEP’s [Department of Environmental Protection] findings that levels of contaminants found do not possess a threat to human health and the environment,” Cabot said in a statement.“It’s obviously very good news for the folks who actually live there and pretty squarely in line with what we’ve known up there for a while now,” Energy in Depth <a href="http://energyindepth.org/national/more-data-from-dimock-epa-confirms-water-is-safe-again/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">told</a> POLITICOPro. “It’s not very good news for the out-of-state folks who have sought to use Dimock as a talking point in their efforts to prevent development elsewhere, but I’m sure they’ll be working hard over the weekend to spin it differently, notwithstanding the pretty clear statement made by EPA today.”Now, a <a href="http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/pha/DimockGroundwaterSite/Dimock_Groundwater_Site_HC_05-24-2016_508.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">newly published report</a> by the <a href="http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry</a>(ATSDR), part of the <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Centers for Disease Control</a> (CDC), puts EPA’s testing results into an entirely new light.The water was not safe to drink after all, the ATSDR concluded, after a lengthy review of the same water testing results that EPA used back in 2012.“ATSDR found some of the chemicals in the private water wells at this site at levels high enough to affect health (27 private water wells), pose a physical hazard (17 private water wells) or affect general water quality so that it may be unsuitable for drinking,” the ATSDR’s <a href="http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/hac/pha/DimockGroundwaterSite/Dimock_Groundwater_Site_HC_05-24-2016_508.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">health consultation</a>—launched in 2011 and published May 24—concludes.The new report lists 10 contaminants, including arsenic, lithium and 4-chlorophenyl phenyl ether, that are “chemicals of health concern,” at the levels found in Carter Road wells, found that five homes were at “immediate risk of fire or explosion” because of <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=methane" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">methane</a> in their water and another dozen showed lower, but still worrisome, levels of methane and found that the water was laced with elevated levels of metals, salts and total dissolved solids.The underlying data isn’t new to the residents of Carter Road. The EPA provided it to them individually back in 2012, which is why the EPA’s announcement that the water was safe was so baffling at the time.“I’m sitting here looking at the values I have on my sheet—I’m over the thresholds—and yet they are telling me my water is drinkable,” Nolan Scott Ely, one of the Carter Road homeowners, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/so-is-dimocks-water-really-safe-to-drink" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">told ProPublica</a> when EPA made its announcement. “I’m confused about the whole thing … I’m flabbergasted.”Opposite Conclusions?So how could two different agencies look at the exact same data and come to opposite conclusions?“Although the same data set was used, the EPA as a regulatory agency specifically looked at whether or not it was required to take action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, more commonly known as Superfund, which governs responses to environmental emergencies,” StateImpact, a National Public Radio project, <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/05/25/federal-public-health-report-highlights-contaminants-in-dimocks-water/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">explained</a>. “The ‘health consultation’ looked at the entire data set from a public health standpoint, assessing whether or not it was safe to drink the water.”In other words, EPA’s findings, which seemed to show that the water was “safe” and which were promoted by drillers as proof that nothing was wrong in Dimock, instead represented a very carefully parsed legal finding that the water did not reach Superfund levels of contamination for the specific substances EPA focused on.And the EPA’s 2012 findings had left out some of the very contaminants that had caused locals the most concern—including the natural gas or methane, itself. “EPA’s investigation does not include an evaluation of the risk posed by elevated levels of methane—which continue to exist in some homes in Dimock—and which, at extreme levels and if unaddressed, can lead to explosions,” Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Attorney Kate Sinding <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/kate-sinding/epas-water-testing-results-dimock-do-not-let-gas-industry-hook" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">wrote</a> in a blog post at the time.The EPA’s strained official interpretation of the data perhaps shows why EPA staff remained concerned even after the agency dropped its Dimock investigation in July 2012, just months after its testing results had been announced in March and April.In 2013, a Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/29/obama-epa-censored-fracking-water-contamination-study-dimock-pennsylvania" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">investigation</a> revealed that EPA’s own staff had disagreed with the agency’s public statements that the water shouldn’t be considered hazardous. An internal EPA Powerpoint <a href="http://desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Dimock%20Powerpoint.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">presentation</a>, later obtained and <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/29/obama-epa-censored-fracking-water-contamination-study-dimock-pennsylvania" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">published</a> by DeSmog, showed that agency scientists had concluded that the drilling and fracking process “apparently cause significant damage to the water quality.”The ATSDR’s new report very specifically notes that it does not look at whether the water hazards stem from drilling or pre-date Cabot’s arrival in the area. In part, that’s because of a lack of pre-drilling testing for gas and other common fracking-related chemicals in the water. “It is important to note that methane was not assessed in residential water wells prior to the initiation of natural gas drilling activities in the Dimock area,” the ATSDR wrote.Cabot Oil and Gas emphasized their belief that methane in the water was “naturally occurring” and pre-dated their arrival in a statement provided to StateImpact. “This data is consistent with thousands of pages of water data collected by both Cabot and the Pennsylvania DEP and does not indicate that those contaminants detected have any relationship to oil and gas development in Dimock,” Cabot said.The ATSDR report does often note when substances discovered in the Carter Road water are known to be associated with hydraulic fracturing or drilling industry activities, but does not reach any conclusions about whether the chemicals came from Cabot’s operations.“It’s not their job to look at who caused whatever contamination there is,” Bryce Payne, a Pennsylvania environmental scientist, <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060037920" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">told</a> E&E News. “It’s their job to see if there are health implications. They did that and concluded there are health implications.”The new report is also limited to data from four years ago—and conditions have changed, the ATSDR noted, in part because a state moratorium on fracking along Carter Road was briefly lifted after the EPA dropped its investigation and locals quickly reported more changes to their water, including higher levels of methane.Cabot Oil SettlesIn August 2012—right around the time that EPA abandoned its investigation—Cabot Oil and Gas <a href="http://www.law360.com/articles/370268/cabot-settles-fracking-pollution-claims-from-pa-residents" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">announced</a> it had settled the vast majority of lawsuits against it by Carter Road residents for an undisclosed amount of money and under terms that barred the plaintiffs from speaking negatively about their experiences with the company.This March, a federal jury handed down a $4.24 million verdict to the remaining two Carter Road families, concluding that the water was in fact contaminated because of the negligence of the drilling company. Cabot has begun the process of appealing that verdict.But while the legal filings and agency reports continue to stack up, the problem on Carter Road remains the same as it has for many years now.While those who settled with Cabot had water treatment systems installed by the company, locals familiar with those systems say that even the treated water seems too contaminated to drink and the water treatment systems break down frequently.The ATSDR’s report provides recommendations that water should have been treated to address dangerous contamination levels—but those recommendations are not binding and the agency noted that while the state government collected samples more recently, the ATSDR did not have access to the newer data.Community organizers are still calling for the federal government to resume an active role, arguing that the groundwater remains undrinkable.“We’re demanding that they reopen the investigation,” Craig Stevens, a local organizer, <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/03/16/dimock-water-contamination-verdict-leads-renewed-calls-federal-action-fracking" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">told</a>DeSmog after the March verdict was announced, “and also get water to these people.”<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/03/dimock-water-unsafe-fracking/">http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/03/dimock-water-unsafe-fracking/</a>=http://www.alternet.org/environment/exposing-epas-dark-sideenlist duo, slowIn response to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday <a href="http://bit.ly/1Xfpv0g" style="text-decoration: none;">revoked the registration</a> of the toxic herbicide “Enlist Duo,” which contains the cancer causing 2,4-D and is central to future uses of genetically engineered (GE) crops in chemical-intensive agriculture.The marketing of this chemical in genetically engineered agriculture has become integral to the chemical industry’s response to weed resistance to the widely used herbicide glyphosate (Roundup), also identified as cancer causing this year by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)...<a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/activists-score-huge-victory-epa-revokes-registration-toxic-pesticide-central-ge-crops">http://www.alternet.org/environment/activists-score-huge-victory-epa-revokes-registration-toxic-pesticide-central-ge-crops</a><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/12/06/heat-epa-environmentalists-homeowners-challenge-fracking-study">http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/12/06/heat-epa-environmentalists-homeowners-challenge-fracking-study</a><a href="http://www.globalpossibilities.org/owner-of-mine-that-spilled-toxic-waste-into-a-colorado-river-compares-the-epa-to-rapists/">http://www.globalpossibilities.org/owner-of-mine-that-spilled-toxic-waste-into-a-colorado-river-compares-the-epa-to-rapists/</a> http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/14/epa-pesticide-overturnedA federal court has overturned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/07/epa-approves-another-pesticide-toxic-bees/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">approval of sulfoxaflor</a>, a pesticide linked to the <a href="http://www.takepart.com/feature/2014/06/20/what-is-killing-bees" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">mass die-off of honeybees</a> that pollinate a third of the world’s food supply.The three-judge panel said the EPA <a href="http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/cb/csb_page/updates/2013/sulfoxaflor-decision.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">green-lit sulfoxaflor</a> even though initial studies showed the product was <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/04/obama-save-bees-toxic-insecticides/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">highly toxic to pollinators</a> such as <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/28/if-all-bees-died-what-would-happen/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">bees</a>. The chemical compound belongs to a class of insecticides, known as <a href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/06/24/are-neonicotinoids-new-ddt-bees-and-other-wildlife" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">neonicotinoids</a>, that scientific studies have implicated in bee deaths.“Because the EPA’s decision to unconditionally register sulfoxaflor was based on flawed and limited data, we conclude that the unconditional approval was not supported by substantial evidence,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel wrote in its opinion.In her opinion, Judge Mary M. Schroeder <a href="http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/sulfoxaflor-opinion.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">wrote</a> that the EPA had initially decided to conditionally approve the chemical but ordered more studies done to better understand the effects the systemic insecticide would have on bees.“A few months later, however, the EPA <a href="http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/cb/csb_page/updates/2013/sulfoxaflor-decision.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">unconditionally registered</a> the insecticides with certain mitigation measures and a lowering of the maximum application rate,” Schroeder wrote. “It did so without obtaining any further studies.”The product, sold in the U.S. as Transform or Closer, must be <a href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/06/02/big-box-stores-crunchy-organic-shops-bee-killing-pesticides-are-getting-boot" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">pulled from store shelves</a> by Oct. 18.Gregory Loarie, lead counsel for environmental group Earthjustice, which represented beekeepers and beekeeping groups in the case, said the ruling could lead to reviews of other EPA-approved pesticides.“The EPA rarely, if ever, has reliable information regarding the impact that insecticides have on<a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=honeybees" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">honeybee</a> colonies writ large, as opposed to individual, adult worker bees,” Loarie said in an email. “With the findings in this case, EPA should move quickly to re-examine other registrations for possible flawed and limited data.”Sulfoxaflor, created by Indianapolis-based <a href="http://newsroom.dowagro.com/press-release/dow-agrosciences-receives-us-epa-registration-sulfoxaflor" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">Dow AgroSciences</a>, is a systemic insecticide. When it’s sprayed on soybean, cotton, citrus, fruit and vegetable crops, it kills bugs on contact and is also absorbed into the plant’s flowers, stems and roots. When insects ingest any part of the plant, they die too.Paul Towers, spokesperson for advocacy group Pesticide Action Network, said that because sulfoxaflor was only approved in 2013, it hasn’t been widely used. “The prospect of greater use loomed, especially as other neonicotinoids are under increased scrutiny and pressure for phase-out,” Towers said.That phase-out already has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/apr/29/bee-harming-pesticides-banned-europe" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">started in Europe</a>; EU member nations banned three neonicotinoids in 2013 for two years after the chemicals were linked to the dramatic decline in bee populations there.“This is the classic pesticide industry shell game,” Towers said. “As more science underscores the harms of a pesticide, they shift to newer, less studied products. And it takes regulators years to catch up.”use // DQA?
//lucas houseS. 543: EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2015Introduced:Feb 24, 2015Status:Referred to Committee on Feb 24, 2015This bill was assigned to a congressional committee on February 24, 2015, which will consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole.Sponsor: John Boozman
Senior Senator from ArkansasRepublican<table class="item_table" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; width: 685px; line-height: 15.996px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><tbody><tr style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px;"><td class="actions" style="padding: 12px 10px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); vertical-align: top;"><a target="blank" href="https://www.congress.gov/member/joe-manchin/M001183" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Sen. Manchin, Joe, III [D-WV]</a></td><td class="date" style="padding: 12px 10px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;">02/24/2015</td></tr><tr style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px;"><td class="actions" style="padding: 12px 10px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); vertical-align: top;"><a target="blank" href="https://www.congress.gov/member/jim-inhofe/I000024" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Sen. Inhofe, James M. [R-OK]</a></td><td class="date" style="padding: 12px 10px; margin: 0px; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;">02/24/2015</td></tr></tbody></table>http://www.globalpossibilities.org/congressional-republicans-damn-the-environment-full-cuts-ahead/<section class="single-article-header" style="line-height: 18px;"><div class="small-12 columns" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span class="article-byline" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">By <a class="url fn" title="Posts by Ben Adler" href="http://grist.org/author/ben-adler/" rel="author" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Ben Adler</a> GRIST</div><div class="small-12 columns" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">
</div></section><section class="article-body clearfix" style="line-height: 18px;">In what has recently become a common ritual in American politics, Congress’ Republican majority is moving forward with its own set of appropriations bills, rather than negotiating a budget with President Obama or the Democrats in Congress. Surprise! Their bills take extreme positions — for corporate interests; against public health and safety. In particular, the appropriations bills governing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Interior (DOI) would decimate environmental spending and repeal huge chunks of federal regulatory authority — including, crucially, EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Republicans in both the <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/245137-house-panel-approves-3017b-bill-to-cut-epa-funds-block-climate" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">House</a> and the <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060020491" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Senate</a> have written and passed the EPA/DOI appropriations out of their respective appropriations committees on party-line votes. There are slight differences between the House and Senate versions, but the basic contours and spending levels are the same. Both would drastically cut spending to hold it down to the levels laid out by the sequestration process defined in the Budget Control Act of 2011.<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Remember sequestration — the fall-back budget-cutting plan designed to be so broadbrush and draconian that both parties would come to terms on a real deficit-reducing plan rather than face such a politically painful outcome? Thanks to Republican unwillingness to raise tax revenue, sequestration actually went into effect; we’re still living under it. Now Republicans are simply demanding that domestic spending cuts under sequestration be maintained, while the defense budget is allowed to grow. Meanwhile, they are attaching “policy riders” to the environmental appropriations bills that would take us back to the days before President Nixon signed the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">But the GOP has a problem: They don’t control all the levers of power. President Obama won’t sign any budget that repeals the EPA’s authority to regulate climate pollution. Senate Democrats, who can filibuster appropriations bills, won’t allow it to pass anyway. Nor will Senate Democrats agree to such severe budget cuts. In a <a href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?326643-1/senate-democrats-news-conference-budget-negotiations" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">press conference</a> Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, “Republicans know full well that Democrats cannot and will not support bills they are bringing to the floor … They know the President said he’s going to veto them.”<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Nonetheless, the contents of these Republican appropriations bills matter. They lay out the Republican baseline for budget negotiations, which sets the agenda — or at least half of it — for the ultimate budget compromise. And some of the smaller policy riders could make it into the final version. These bills also tell us what Republicans would do if they controlled the White House and Congress.<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">There are two main ways that congressional Republicans are trying to undermine environmental protection in their budget bills: through spending cuts that make it practically impossible for EPA and Interior to do their jobs, and through policy riders that make it explicitly and legally impossible.<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Relative to Obama’s budget requests, the Republicans would cut roughly $2.2 billion total from the two agencies — around half from each — to stay in line with the sequestration spending levels. Here’s what that would mean:<ul style="margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">For EPA, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/letters/fy-16-house-interior-letter-rogers.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">according</a> to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), “This reduced level of funding would significantly undermine implementation of the Clean Power Plan and the Clean Water Rule.” The former, of course, has huge implications for climate change. The Clean Power Plan <a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-nine-things-you-need-to-know-about-obamas-new-climate-rules/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">would cut</a> our energy-related emissions by 26 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030 from the 2005 level. (Really, the cuts are about half of that, because we’ve already cut more than 13 percent thanks to the renewable and natural gas boom.)</li></ul><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">That would mean that we couldn’t meet our climate pledge from the 2009 Copenhagen Accord of an economy-wide 17 percent drop from 2005 levels by 2020. That, in turn, would undermine our international credibility to negotiate a stronger deal in Paris this December. As OMB notes, “Failing to address climate change will also exacerbate poverty and contribute to environmental degradation in developing countries, potentially resulting in resource shortages, political instability, and conflict.”<ul style="margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The EPA cuts would also affect local governments that receive grants from the agency for activities like cleaning up water or contaminated industrial sites. As OMB points out, “EPA does not protect the environment or public health alone; often States and Tribes are the ones implementing environmental programs through delegated authorities. However, the bill would reduce grants to States and Tribes to carry out activities such as water quality permitting, air monitoring, and hazardous waste management programs by $118 million, or 10 percent, below the President’s Budget. In addition, grants to local communities to revitalize contaminated brownfields are reduced by $35 million, or 32 percent.”</li></ul><ul style="margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Department of the Interior cuts will hamper the department’s ability to deal with growing problems caused by climate change. Wildfires, for example, are becoming more severe due to more extreme heat waves and severe droughts. But the congressional Republicans fail to provide funding for Obama’s proposals to enhance wildfire-fighting preparedness or to pony up for similar programs in other areas vulnerable to climate change, such as federal efforts to combat coastal erosion. Funding for parks and national recreation areas would be cut by almost 40 percent from the president’s request. They would also cut more than $300 million from funding for Native American health care programs and facilities of the Indian Health Service by more than $300 million. As OMB observes, “This would result in inadequate funding for the provision of health care to a population that faces greater sickness and poverty, on average, than the national population.” The Smithsonian Institution would lose $116 million.</li></ul><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">And that’s all just the spending cuts. The policy riders are even worse, because they don’t just make it difficult for agencies to carry out their mission, but they actually ban them from doing it. There are around a dozen important policy riders in both the House and Senate bills, but here are the biggest ones:<ul style="margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Preventing or disabling of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan to limit carbon pollution from power plants. The Senate version would allow states to opt out of the plan, which — as anyone following the implementation of Obamacare knows — is a recipe for disaster. The House version goes even further by prohibiting any of EPA’s funding from being used to implement the Clean Power Plan. In effect, that prohibits it from being implemented at all.</li></ul><ul style="margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Riders in both the House and Senate bills would block EPA’s Clean Water Rule. The rule is an effort by EPA, following Supreme Court decisions on the Clean Water Act’s reach, to clarify what rules are under its jurisdiction. For example, it will incorporate tributaries whose health affects major rivers downstream. This displeases Republicans because anything that stands in the way of making a buck off despoiling nature may upset their contributors. “[Business interests] don’t want smaller streams or wetlands protected so, for example, they can build a subdivision over them,” explains Alex Taurel, deputy legislative director at the League of Conservation Voters. Taurel says he is confident, though, that Obama will veto any bill that stands in the way of the Clean Water Rule.</li></ul><ul style="margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Increasing ozone pollution. The Obama administration, after years of <a href="http://grist.org/politics/will-obama-do-the-right-thing-on-smog-this-time/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">delay</a>, finally decided to go with scientists over industry lobbyists and <a href="http://grist.org/climate-energy/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-obamas-new-rules-on-ozone-and-smog/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">lower</a> the amount of ground-level ozone, aka smog, that EPA deems safe from 75 parts per billion to between 65 and 70 ppb. In addition to directly benefiting the <a href="http://www.epa.gov/groundlevelozone/health.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">health</a> of millions of Americans, especially those with asthma, this would indirectly help fight climate change. That’s because cracking down on ozone means cracking down on its sources, which are also the source of climate pollution: power plants, factories, and cars.</li></ul><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">And you know how most Republicans feel about cracking down on power plants, factories, and cars. Their bills would stop EPA from lowering the ozone standard until 85 percent of “non-attainment” counties — meaning counties not yet in compliance with the current standard — have reached compliance. Aside from the apparent arbitrariness of the 85 percent figure, this doesn’t make sense intellectually. Even if we have a lot of catching up to do, the scientific finding regarding what level of ozone is safe for human health simply is what it is — it isn’t changed by the fact that our air is far worse than that in many places. As Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce puts it, “They’re saying we have to make a baby step before assessing the level of safe pollution for humans.”<ul style="margin: 10px 0px 10px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Killing off endangered species. When a species gets endangered status, restrictions on dangerous practices like oil and gas drilling kick in to protect its habitat. That makes fossil fuel companies unhappy — and when fossil fuel companies are unhappy, so are Republicans. That’s why they have attached riders to prevent certain species, such as gray wolves and the sage grouse, from being declared endangered. These issues are lower-profile than the battle over the Clean Power Plan, so there is a chance that the Obama administration will cave on some of them. “I’m not surprised at some of these potshots at endangered species,” says Pierce. “Those are the riders that have squeaked through in the past.”</li></ul><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Despite having to fight a war to protect progress on multiple fronts, environmental lobbyists are surprisingly optimistic. Republicans simply don’t have the votes in the Senate to get their way, nor control of the White House. Their only lever to force Obama and the Senate Democrats’ hand is to threaten to shut down the government — but when they did that in 2013 it damaged their popularity.<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">That doesn’t mean they won’t do it again: after all, they didn’t suffer any consequence in the 2014 midterms, and the average Republican congressman’s biggest fear is losing a primary to a Tea Party challenger, not a general election to a Democrat. On the other hand, their desire to win back the presidency might lead the GOP to be more careful about damaging their party brand going into a presidential election year. Moreover, Republicans are riven by internal divisions between their extremist and establishment wings, and they may not even be able to get their whole party on board for this far-right legislation.<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">“There are Republican members of Congress for whom you can’t cut EPA funding enough,” says Taurel. “But with such big cuts, you won’t find Democratic votes for this bill. So [Republicans] need to keep their caucus together, and it’s hard to find a [budget] number that doesn’t lose either moderates or conservatives.” If they fail to pass the EPA/Interior bill when it comes to the floor of the full House for a vote, they will be in a much weaker position when negotiating with Obama and the Senate.<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Taurel is probably being overly optimistic, though: The number of Republican moderates who support clean air and clean water has dwindled to almost none. The most likely outcome is that Republicans will pass their budget, and it will be up to Senate Democrats and the president to stand firm.</section><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/fighting-epa-rules-congress-thinks-your-life-worth-less-3800">http://www.alternet.org/environment/fighting-epa-rules-congress-thinks-your-life-worth-less-3800</a>Since they were first proposed nearly a year ago, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Senate-Republicans-attack-EPA-on-carbon-cuts-at-5150642.php" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Republican lawmakers</a>have <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/11/11/republicans-congress-seek-crush-epa" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">relentlessly attacked</a> the <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/obama-climate-republicans-20150505" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">EPA’s new power plant emissions standards</a>.Even this week, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/241952-senate-gop-aims-to-overturn-epa-climate-rules" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Senate Republicans introduced legislation</a> that would not only roll back the new standards but,<a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/241952-senate-gop-aims-to-overturn-epa-climate-rules" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">according to The Hill</a>, would make it nearly impossible for the EPA to rewrite the rules for power plants. Though they claim the new legislation is “bipartisan,” only one Democrat signed onto it: Senator Joe Manchin from the coal state of West Virginia.To put the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/06/18/2014-13726/carbon-pollution-emission-guidelines-for-existing-stationary-sources-electric-utility-generating" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">EPA’s rules succinctly</a>, these health and safety measures require existing power plants to reduce emissions with carbon capture technology, or by reducing total output. New power plants will be required to be built with technology that reduces emissions.The Republicans object to these standards because they claim that they will destroy the coal industry and put thousands of Americans out of work, causing a devastating ripple effect throughout the national economy. It's an age-old industry argument that never comes true, from the days when we abandoned whale oil, removed lead from gasoline or required seat belts in cars.And a new report turns the Republicans' “job killing EPA regulations” argument on its head. <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/22/3649809/clean-power-plan-will-create-jobs/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Think Progress explains</a>:Researchers at private consulting firm Industrial Economics and the University of Maryland-based Interindustry Economic Research Fund credit efficiency improvements and lower electricity bills with adding about 273,000 jobs over the next 26 years. The analysts project that the plan will add 74,000 jobs by 2020. The findings support the EPA’s contention that the Clean Power Plan will not hurt the economy.The real reason for the <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senate-bill-to-roll-back-epa-rules-draws-fire/article/2564474" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">objection from the GOP</a> is that it will cost the coal industry a little bit of money. And if the industry has to spend money making their power plants less lethal, it might not be able to match the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/totals.php?cycle=2014&ind=e1210" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">$5.6 million in campaign contributions</a> that they gave to Republicans in 2014, or even the $7.7 million that they gave to Republicans in 2012. Those campaign contributions come to a little more than $13.3 million in the last four years, and apparently that amount of money is worth more to the Republican Party than the collective lives of more than 3,500 American citizens. That’s how many lives a new study claims can be saved by implementing the new standards.<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/health/epa-emissions-plan-will-save-thousands-of-lives-study-finds.html?r=1" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">The New York Times has more</a> on the new study, which was a joint effort between Harvard University and Syracuse University:The health benefits of the rule would be indirect. While carbon emissions trap heat in the atmosphere, which contributes to a warming planet, they are not directly linked to health threats. Emissions from coal-fired power plants, however, also include a number of other pollutants, such as soot and ozone, that are directly linked to illnesses like asthma and lung disease.Researchers calculated that the changes in the EPA rule could prevent 3,500 premature deaths a year and more than 1,000 heart attacks and hospitalizations from air-pollution-related illness.The Republican Party has put the value of an American life at less than $3,800. That’s the total amount of their recent campaign contributions from the coal industry divided by the number of lives that could be saved by these new rules. If you happen to live near a power plant, you should know how much your life is worth to your elected officials.---http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/241952-senate-gop-aims-to-overturn-epa-climate-rulesSenate Republicans introduced a bill Wednesday that would overturn the Obama administration’s landmark climate regulations for power plants and make it nearly impossible to rewrite them.The bill is the GOP’s first major legislative push against the Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions limits since Republicans seized control of the Senate in November.The rules have drawn intense criticism from Republicans and industry groups, who warn they will cost billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of jobs and have negligible environmental benefits.“Our bipartisan legislation would empower the states to protect families and businesses from electricity rate increases, reduced electrical reliability and other harmful effects of the president’s Clean Power Plan,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the bill’s sponsor, told reporters Wednesday.“Our bill would also require that any greenhouse gas standard set by the EPA for new coal-fired power plants are able to be achieved by commercial power plants operating in the real world,” she said.Twenty-five Republican senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), signed into the bill as co-sponsors, as did Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).The bill, dubbed the Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act, would prevent the EPA from writing rules that are “significantly similar” to its current proposals unless it follows specific parameters that the bill outlines.The measure sets out different standards for the two separate regulations the EPA proposed last year on newly built power plants and existing ones. The latter regulation, which aims to cut the power sector’s carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030, is by far the most controversial.Environmental groups immediately criticized the Republican bill as an attack on clean air and the most significant effort yet to fight climate change.Republicans say the bill is a necessary step toward protecting states and electricity customers from the rules.“I’ve never seen anything quite this universally opposed,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.).“This is going to go down probably as, probably, the most significant thing we will do in the Environment and Public Works Committee this year,” he said. Inhofe chairs that committee.The legislation would immediately overturn both regulations and prevent the EPA from reissuing them without taking specific steps.For the existing plant rule, the EPA would have to submit to Congress reports on the rule’s effects on greenhouse gases and climate change, and would have to write individual sample compliance plans showing how each state could abide by the regulations.Still, that would not take effect until all court challenges are exhausted, and governors would be able to opt out of complying with it if they believed it would bring any of a wide range of negative impacts.If the EPA wants to regulate new plants, it would have to develop different standards for plants that use coal and those using natural gas, and technology to achieve the standards would have to be commercially available and in use on multiple existing power plants.That provision goes directly to GOP complaints that the EPA’s proposal would mandate carbon capture technology not currently on the market.“The facts are that coal’s going to be used to supply power to the United States for many, many years,” said Manchin, who famously shot cap-and-trade legislation with a rifle in an ad for his 2010 Senate campaign.“If you’re going to use it, you should use it as clean as possible. And all we’ve asked for is for the federal government to be our partner and work with us.”The court delay and state opt-out provisions are similar to, though stronger than, ones in a bill passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Manchin and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) sponsored legislation similar to the provisions for new plants last year.Capito’s bill also modifies the Clean Air Act to say power plants already regulated under one provision of the statute would not be eligible for further regulation under another.Some opponents of the rule say the Clean Air Act already says that, though there are conflicting interpretations of the law.That provision of Capito’s legislation would effectively make the Obama administration’s main climate rule moot.Green groups are sharply criticizing the bill.“Senator Capito’s radical legislation reads like a polluter’s wish list, with attacks aimed directly at the heart of the Clean Air Act,” Sara Chieffo, legislative director for the League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement.“Not only does this bill allow power plants to continue spewing unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into our air, it will prevent us from ever putting in place common sense limits,” she said.EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said the senators’ concerns are on EPA officials’ minds.“EPA continues to work toward completing the proposed Clean Power Plan that will cut harmful carbon pollution from power plants,” she said.“The plan will be affordable, will drive innovation and American jobs, and will demonstrate our leadership in the international community.”The White House Office of Management and Budget is currently reviewing the EPA’s final rule for new power plants. The Obama administration plans to make both rules final in the summer.dems <div>stray on epa 3/15</div><div>
</div><div><div class="entry-content" style="margin: 5px 0px; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 24px;"><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Article" itemref="comments" style="margin: 5px 0px;"><div itemprop="articleBody" style="margin: 5px 0px;">The word “science” is having an existential crisis in Washington.Two bills passed by the House last week that would redefine how the EPA considers science, and what science it can consider, have attracted huge interest from big EPA-regulated industries that have shown a preference for contributing to GOP campaigns — and to the handful of Democrats who voted with the Republicans.The legislation puts big money industries and scientists on opposite sides of the ring. The big agriculture, oil, utility and other corporations say they want transparency and independent thinking in the EPA, while scientists say just the opposite will result if the measures are made law.“House leaders and their allies in industry don’t like the answers science is giving,” said Andrew Rosenberg, the director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/house-passes-bills-attacking-science-0480#.VQsyOdLF_AM" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">in a statement</a>. “The titles and text of these bills are cleverly designed to conceal their purpose, which is to protect industry from any oversight and any limits on their ability to pollute.”One bill would affect the membership and operation of EPA’s Science Advisory Board. The board exists to give the agency scientific advice on potential regulations. Supporters of the<a href="https://science.house.gov/press-release/house-passes-bipartisan-bill-promote-scientific-integrity-epa" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> bill</a>, who argue that EPA has a habit of twisting science around for whatever purpose it sees fit, say the changes will make the board more well-rounded and more transparent. Opponents, <a href="http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.house.gov/files/documents/Letter%20opposing%20EPA%20SAB%20Reform%20Act%20HR%201422%20.pdf" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">including the Union of Concerned Scientists</a>, criticize the bill for permitting employees of the industries being regulated to be on the board; for requiring extensive public hearings that they say would create an undue burden on the process (though EPA is already required to do that separately); and for barring some of the most knowledgeable scientists from evaluating issues if their own work is involved.The other, the Secret Science Reform Act would keep EPA from writing regulations based upon science that isn’t <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/environment/2015/03/house-approves-epa-secret-science-bills-despite-white-house-veto-threat" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">made available to the public</a>. Supporters want the process to be more inclusive and open. Opponents say that it’s more complicated: Sometimes supporting science is based on sensitive information that can’t be made public, for example, and some scientific information is copyrighted and can’t be widely disseminated easily and at no cost.As OpenSecrets Blog <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/11/breaking-party-ranks-on-epa-science-vote/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">reported last year</a> when the advisory board bill passed the House in the last Congress, heavyweight industries — including  <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">oil and gas</a>,<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=N13" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">chemical companies</a>, and<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?cycle=2014&ind=A07" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> big ag</a> — flexed their D.C. muscles in support of that bill. A near-party line vote sent the legislation along to the Senate, and there were clear links between the handful of Democrats that strayed over and voted with House Republicans on the bill and those interest groups.Just one of the Democrats that strayed from the party four months ago returned to serve in the 114th Congress. Rep. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00004558&cycle=2014" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Collin Peterson</a> (D-Minn.), now the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, receives a lot of cash from major players in agriculture. In the 2014 cycle, he took in $344,150 from the crop production industry and $160,250 from agricultural services and products. His top two donors were two big agriculture companies: <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000055" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Monsanto</a> and <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000219" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">American Crystal Sugar</a>, which each gave $22,250 (Monsanto lobbyists pitched in another $4,000).One other Democrat joined Peterson and Republicans this year on that bill, freshman Rep. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/summary.php?cid=N00005293&year=2013" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Brad Ashford</a> of Nebraska. Ashford’s top industries don’t pop out as ones that would be interested in the advisory board bill (and, in fact, his <a href="http://atr.rollcall.com/brad-ashford-staff-fundraising-vulnerable/" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">enthusiasm for fundraising</a> appears low), but his personal finances tell a different story. His largest asset by far in 2013, the most recent year for which information is available, was a stake in oil and gas producer <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000024095&year=2010" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Apache Corp.</a> totaling between $1.1 million and $5.2 million (lawmakers are required to list their holdings only in ranges on personal financial disclosure forms).Interest in the ‘<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/billsum.php?id=hr4012-113" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">secret science’ bill last year</a> came mostly from a similar set of industries — plus <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E08" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">electric utilities</a>, according to lobbying reports; the utilities also favor the GOP with their contributions, although not so lopsidedly as oil and gas does.Four Democrats jumped ship on the ‘secret science’ bill this year to vote with Republicans, including Ashford and Peterson. The other two, Reps. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?type=C&cid=N00024978&newMem=N&cycle=2014" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Henry Cuellar</a>(D-Texas) and <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00026341&cycle=2014" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Jim Costa</a> (D-Calif.), both had strong support from the industries that lobbied on the science bills as well.Cuellar received $127,200 from the oil and gas industry last cycle, making it his top industry overall. Crop production made a showing as well (No. 6 with $45,850), as did electric utilities (No. 11, giving $26,800). <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000303" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Conoco Phillips</a> was his fifth biggest donor ($10,750, and lobbyists for the company gave another $500), and American Crystal Sugar was No. 6 ($10,000).Costa also got a lot of love from agriculture (his No. 1 at $228,950), oil and gas (No. 2 giving $101,999 — despite being an industry that doesn’t exist in his district at all), and electric utilities (No. 10 at $35,500). American Crystal Sugar was his fourth most generous donor ($20,000), and <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000129" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Exxon</a> was his seventh ($15,000).The latest go-round is a case of deja vu all over again in Congress, as both bills passed the House last year and were sent to the Senate, where they died when the Democrats were in the majority. The outcome could be different this year, though Republicans are still a handful of votes shy of the 60 they’d need for cloture. Even then, it might not matter: The Obama Administration promptly issued veto threats as the bills headed to the Senate.</div></div></div><footer class="entry-meta" style="line-height: 15px;">

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background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">oil and gas</a>, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/science/" rel="tag" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">science</a>, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/science-advisory-board/" rel="tag" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">science advisory board</a>, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/secret-science/" rel="tag" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">secret science</a>, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/union-of-concerned-scientists/" rel="tag" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Union of Concerned Scientists</a>, <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/news/tag/utilities/" rel="tag" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">utilities</a></footer></div><div></div><h4 class="yiv3242647583null" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 20px; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=ac2693bfe0&e=06876ede6b" style="line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; font-weight: normal;">EPA Releases Long-Anticipated Rules for Coal Ash Disposal</a> (Huffington Post)</h4><div>12/14</div>big carbon gamer plan: 12/14The heart of their strategy is to attack EPA’s landmark Clean Power Plan, which would take on our largest sources of climate emissions and finally end the American era of unlimited climate pollution. And they’re coming from every direction:<ul style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; line-height: 18px; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; zoom: 1;">Block and stall implementation at the state level. Anti-environmental groups like ALEC and the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity have unveiled a plan to aggressively challenge EPA at the state level. These think tanks are pushing state legislators to pass bills that would try to reject, delay, or ignore EPA’s new rule to slash carbon pollution in their states.</li><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; zoom: 1;">Starve EPA for funding through federal budget bills. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declared his intention to dismantle the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, pledging to use fights over must-pass spending bills to “rein in” the EPA.</li><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; zoom: 1;">Use their committee gavels as cudgels to browbeat the EPA and climate scientists. Next year, expect to see Congress hold hearings designed to bash the EPA, call the Clean Power Plan a “war on coal,” and use their national platform to demonize EPA in the eyes of the public and wage their own war on the Clean Power Plan.</li><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; zoom: 1;">Block or stall implementation in the federal court system. 12 states have joined a lawsuit against the EPA, suing to block the emissions rule from taking effect.</li></ul> 
epa will regulate
coates
America’s Second-Biggest Form Of Waste Is About To Be Federally Regulated For The First TimeThe EPA has confirmed that on Friday, it will release its first-ever regulations on the second-largest form of waste generated in the United States: coal ash.EPA spokesperson Rachel Dietz told ThinkProgress that the new rule will be likely be released in the early afternoon. When it is finalized, the rule is expected to include requirements on how coal ash should be disposed, how existing coal ash pits should be cleaned up, whether coal ash should be designated as a hazardous material, and who should be responsible for enforcing the rules.Coal ash is a byproduct of coal burning, and often contains chemicals like arsenic, chromium, mercury, and lead. After producing it, coal companies sometimes dispose of it by dumping it into ditches, and filling those ditches with water. Those ditches, called coal ash ponds or lagoons, are often unlined, meaning the coal ash comes in direct contact with the environment. Right now, the Sierra Club estimates there are more than 1,400 coal ash sites in the United States, most of which are located in close proximity to lakes and rivers due to the vast quantity of water needed to burn coal for power....http://www.globalpossibilities.org/americas-second-biggest-form-of-waste-is-about-to-be-federally-regulated-for-the-first-time/=<p style="margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 17.6000003814697px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">alec attacks epa and clean water act conference 12/14<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/12/05/3599846/getting-turned-away-from-the-alec-conference/">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/12/05/3599846/getting-turned-away-from-the-alec-conference/</a>

agribiz superweed<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/10/15/epa-approves-gmo-pesticide">http://ecowatch.com/2014/10/15/epa-approves-gmo-pesticide</a>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) <a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/72fde554930f3f6985257d7200591180?OpenDocument" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">announced</a> today approval, “with first-time ever restrictions,” of the new <a href="http://ecowatch.com/search/?q=herbicides" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s linear; line-height: 25.2px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">herbicide</a> Enlist Duo, manufactured by Dow AgriSciences. The pesticide is approved for use in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Approval is pending in 10 other states with public comments continuing through Nov. 14....==

<h1 style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">With Wind Energy Prices at All-Time Lows, DOE Is Cautiously Optimistic</h1>

<h3 style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em;">Wind electricity costs have dropped to about 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour, a highly competitive price in some parts of the country.</h3>

</div>

coal regs might affect wind

<a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/carbon-copy/20140819/wind-energy-prices-all-time-lows-doe-cautiously-optimistic">http://insideclimatenews.org/carbon-copy/20140819/wind-energy-prices-all-time-lows-doe-cautiously-optimistic</a>

===

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20140724/runaround-three-months-correspondence-epa

...n February, after we published <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/fracking-eagle-ford-shale-big-oil-bad-air-texas-prairie" target="_blank" style="line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none; outline: none;">our first stories on the Eagle Ford</a>, we began trying to answer that question by seeking on-the-record interviews with EPA officials in Washington, D.C., and Texas. Five months later, no such interviews have been granted.

Instead, EPA press officers have told us to put our questions in writing, an increasingly common response from federal agencies under the Obama administration. The process usually goes like this: A journalist calls the press office to schedule an interview but instead is told to submit written questions. Once these are in, a press officer gets answers from scientists or other officials and then crafts a written response. In most cases, nobody involved in the process—not even the EPA press officers—will agree to be quoted by name.

Journalists object to this policy because clarity and accuracy are easily compromised when they're forced to discuss complex issues through intermediaries who aren't subject-matter experts. To ask follow-up questions, the laborious process must begin all over again, with no opportunity for the natural give-and-take of a conversation.

The EPA's non-responsiveness in the Texas air pollution story is especially troubling because it keeps taxpayers in the dark about the agency's handling of a critical environmental issue.

===

http://www.globalpossibilities.org/another-climate-crackdown-from-obamas-epa/ cfc --> hfc -->

==

On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to release its ambitious climate rule, one aimed at cutting the carbon pollution emitted by the nation’s fleet of existing fossil fuel-fired power plants. These emissions drive up the health problems that stem from dirty air and fuel climate change and taking action to address them, particularly in light of Congress’ refusal to do the same, is widely being regarded as one of President Obama’s key accomplishments.

But the fight is far from over. While the EPA is required to regulate pollutants under the Clean Air Act, cries of overreach and unfair punishment of the coal industry have begun and will likely intensify as each state determines the best path to achieve the required reductions.

While the rule itself hasn’t even been released, several groups have already begun to attack it, largely the same well-funded entities that have fought any attempt to address global warming for decades.

<h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 20px 0px 10px; border: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 22.4400005340576px; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">U.S. Chamber of Commerce</h3>

<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0.4em 0px; border: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Chamber didn’t wait for the rule to come out, instead publishing their own speculative report Wednesday. The Chamber found that it would cost American industry $28.1 billion annually to comply with EPA’s new regulations and that as many as 224,000 jobs would be lost between now and 2030. However, as Climate Progress’ Jeff Spross <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/28/3442314/chamber-of-commerce-epa-carbon-study/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">points out</a>, the Chamber’s ‘analysis’ only counts up the negative side of the ledger — failing to account for the economic benefit that will come from cleaning up the air and creating new jobs in the clean energy sector. In its attempt to scare the country about the new plan, the Chamber “fails utterly,” <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/05/lobby-tries-fails-to-frighten-on-clean-energy.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">according</a> to Jonathan Chait. The report uses an inflated number for projected electricity demand and bases its analysis off of an ambitious proposal by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), rather than the EPA’s actual proposal, but “even the Chamber’s unrealistically dire number is still low enough that most people would barely notice it,” Chait writes.

The country’s largest business lobby, the Chamber has a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/05/2500831/chamber-carbon-tax/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">long history</a> of opposing action to address climate change. The group lobbied hard against the failed Waxman-Markey climate bill — spending a whopping $17 million in the early months of 2009 alone. The Chamber then created an entire subsidiary organization, the Institute for 21st Century Energy, to promote its view of climate and energy issues. <a href="http://chamber.350.org/poster/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">94 percent</a> of the $32 million the Chamber spent on the 2010 elections went to climate deniers.

In October, the Chamber <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/329671-us-chamber-kochs-join-social-cost-of-carbon-lobbying-battle" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">joined</a> Koch Industries, among others, to officially lobby against the use of the social cost of carbon — a calculation that takes into account all of the negative economic effects of carbon pollution.

The Chamber also helped create the Partnership for a Better Energy Future, a <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/196968-business-plans-major-pushback-on-energy-regulation" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">coalition</a> of 76 business groups that has vowed “to be present every step of the way” as the regulations are introduced and enforced.

ALEC has also “targeted a dozen state legislatures, including Kentucky and Ohio, to prevent certain states from implementing EPA carbon rules,” Reuters <a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/big-public-push-white-house-seeks-smooth-way-114229633--finance.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">reported</a> last week. Ohio has already <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/blog/ohio-energy-inc/2014/05/lawmakers-want-to-give-ohio-flexibility-with-epa.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">introduced</a> model legislation.

AFP, however, has <a href="http://americansforprosperity.org/legislativealerts/minimum-wage-more-harm-than-good" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">fought against</a> raising the minimum wage, claiming that “it does more harm than good.” Last year they launched a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/19/2806521/billionaire-koch-brothers-spending-millions-deny-health-coverage-income-americans/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">massive campaign</a> pressuring states to deny health care coverage to lower income Americans through the Medicaid expansion contained in the Affordable Care Act.

AFP has worked to protect fossil fuel interests and slander clean energy in multiple states — recently running ads attacking Kansas’ clean energy standard that former Senate President Dave Kerr, (R-Hutchinson) <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/24/3418060/koch-kansas-clean-energy-repeal/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">called</a> “provably false” and failing in their <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/07/09/2267051/koch-brothers-fund-effort-to-undermine-tea-party-support-of-solar-energy-in-georgia/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">attempt</a> to undermine Tea Party support for solar power in Georgia.

<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0.4em 0px; border: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In March, the group, which represents coal mining companies as well as owners of coal-fired plants like American Electric Power and Southern Co, released a <a href="http://www.betterenergyfuture.org/analysis-the-true-cost-of-proposed-epa-greenhouse-gas-regulations/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">report</a> claiming the EPA’s new rule would kill more than 2.85 million jobs and cause consumers’ electricity bills to rise in 29 states — a prediction even more dire than the Chamber’s. The position is in line with ACCCE’s long history of staunch opposition to any action to reduce carbon pollution. ACCCE has been a top lobbyist on climate change and energy, spending over <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000046880&year=2013" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">$20 million</a> since 2008. In 2010, they spent <a href="http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/green/news/2010/10/27/8530/interactive-big-polluters-big-ad-spending/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">$16.4 million</a> on misleading television ads and in 2012, the group launched a broad-based <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/31/611401/coal-front-group-helps-back-6-million-campaign-against-higher-renewable-energy-standard/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">$40 million</a> messaging and outreach campaign where one ad accused the EPA of attempting to raise electricity prices.

ACCCE’s tactics don’t stop with lobbying. In 2009, the group <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/green/2009/08/03/174394/accce-bonner-party/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">admitted</a> to hiring a firm to forge letters from civil rights organizations to Congress opposing climate legislation, going as far as to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/09/10/60147/veterans-14th-letter/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">impersonate veterans</a>. While being investigated by Congress, the president and CEO <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/10/29/204883/forged-letter-hearing-coal-industry-accce-lies-under-oath-lobbying/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">lied under oath</a>, claiming the group never opposed climate legislation. Congressional investigations also discovered the group <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/10/30/204887/energy-and-global-warming-news-for-october-30-coal-industry-knew-of-fraudulent-letters-senate-gop-may-try-to-stall-climate-bill/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">knew of the fraudulent letters</a> but failed to disclose it until several weeks after a major House vote on climate legislation.

The NMA has <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/22/3429463/final-coal-dust-rules-black-lung-disease/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">spoken out</a> against new coal dust regulations aimed at reducing cases of black lung disease in coal miners, claiming the administration’s long-awaited rule is unnecessary and <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/08/17/10712/gao-report-supports-science-behind-black-lung-rule" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">criticizing</a> multiple studies that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined were sound. The NMA also intervened in a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/22/3320911/mountaintop-removal-mining-stream-buffer-rule/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">recent court decision</a> to restore a law overturned by the Bush administration designed to keep toxic coal mining spoil from entering sensitive waterways, <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059994937" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">saying</a> they found the ruling “obviously very disappointing.”

Heritage has <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">long sought</a> to cast doubt on the scientific consensus behind climate change and oppose cutting greenhouse gas emissions. A 2010 white paper asserts that “the only consensus over the threat of climate change that seems to exist these days is that there is no consensus.” (In reality, 97 percent of scientists agree climate change is happening and human activity is the root cause). The think tank also has a long history of opposing any initiative that might impede fossil fuel corporations. Heritage recently <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/20/2973431/heritage-koch-brothers-fracking/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">joined</a> Americans for Prosperity and the Chamber of Commerce in supporting a bill that would have prevented the federal government from regulating fracking operations.

A recent study published in the journal Climactic Change found that conservative think tanks like Heritage, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Foundation are among the top recipients of the nearly <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/22/3099141/climate-denying-groups-funding/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">$1 billion a year</a> that funnels from conservative donors to organizations that oppose limits on carbon pollution.

<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0.4em 0px; border: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Institute for Energy Research and its political arm, the American Energy Alliance, are both<a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74643.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">funded</a> in part by the Koch brothers and their donor network and run by Tom Pyle, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. The group was recently identified as a beneficiary of the Kochs’ vast political network, which raised at least <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2014/01/06/3121881/400-million-kochs/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">$407 million</a> in the last election alone, according to a recent analysis by the Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics. In January, an IER <a href="http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/obamas-war-on-coal-continues-while-global-demand-increases/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">blog post</a> said the plan to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants “will wreak havoc on our largest source of electricity.”

Pyle <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/us/epa-staff-struggling-to-create-rule-limiting-carbon-emissions.html?hpw&rref=politics&_r=1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">told</a> the New York Times in February that the group was preparing to attack the proposal with television and radio ads. “That’s going to be a big fight, when they roll out the rule for existing plants,” Pyle said. “We’ll be ready for them.”

AEA has recently been <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/04/3017891/conservative-group-targets-carbon-tax/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">attacking</a> vulnerable Democrats in fossil-fuel friendly states — Rep. Nick Rahall (WV), Sen. Mark Begich (AK) — for supporting a carbon tax, even though they never did. In 2012, the group sought to make the Production Tax Credit for wind energy <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/19/1045661/koch-group-campaigns-to-make-wind-tax-credit-so-toxic-republicans-wont-back-it/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: underline;">“so toxic”</a> that Republicans wouldn’t back it.

Tiffany Germain, Senior Researcher with the Center for American Progress Action Fund, contributed to this piece.

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/american-coalition-for-clean-coal-electricity/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; background: rgb(221, 221, 221);">American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/american-energy-alliance/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; background: rgb(238, 238, 238);">American Energy Alliance</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/americans-for-prosperity/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; background: rgb(221, 221, 221);">Americans for Prosperity</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/carbon-emissions/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; background: rgb(221, 221, 221);">Carbon Emissions</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/chamber-of-commerce/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; background: rgb(221, 221, 221);">Chamber of Commerce</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/clean-air-act/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; background: rgb(221, 221, 221);">Clean Air Act</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/heritage-foundation/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; background: rgb(221, 221, 221);">Heritage Foundation</a></li>

<li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.33em; padding: 5px 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.6em; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline-block; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/national-mining-association/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 0.5em; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; border-radius: 6px; background: rgb(221, 221, 221);">National Mining Association</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/utility-air-regulatory-group-v-environmental-protection-agency/">http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/utility-air-regulatory-group-v-environmental-protection-agency/</a>

Linked with:

<li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 70px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: disc;"><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/american-chemistry-council-v-environmental-protection-agency/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">American Chemistry Council v. Environmental Protection Agency</a></li>

<li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 70px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: disc;"><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/coalition-for-responsible-regulation-v-environmental-protection-agency/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. Environmental Protection Agency</a></li>

<li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 70px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: disc;"><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/energy-intensive-manufacturers-working-group-on-greenhouse-gas-regulation-v-environmental-protection-agency/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Energy-Intensive Manufacturers Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Regulation v. Environmental Protection Agency</a></li>

<li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 70px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: disc;"><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/southeastern-legal-foundation-v-environmental-protection-agency/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Southeastern Legal Foundation v. Environmental Protection Agency</a></li>

<li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 70px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: disc;"><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/texas-v-environmental-protection-agency/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Texas v. Environmental Protection Agency</a></li>

<li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px 70px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: disc;"><a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/chamber-of-commerce-of-the-united-states-v-environmental-protection-agency/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Environmental Protection Agency</a></li>

</ul>

<a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/chamber-of-commerce-of-the-united-states-v-environmental-protection-agency/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">-</a>--

<div class="inner-lyt-dates" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.5px; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent;">Dec 16, 2013

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell announced today that he filed an <em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">amicusbrief in the United States Supreme Court to support Kentucky's coal miners, their families, small businesses and all those negatively affected by the Administration's War on Coal. Senator McConnell's <em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">amicus brief was joined by Senator Rand Paul and Congressmen Hal Rogers, Ed Whitfield, Brett Guthrie, Thomas Massie and Andy Barr of Kentucky. Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, also joined the brief.

The <em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">amicus brief was filed in a sequel case (<em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency) to the Supreme Court's 2007 ruling in <em style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency that the EPA may regulate greenhouse gases as hazardous pollutants under the Clean Air Act - which resulted in the EPA's 2010 first-ever permitting requirements for motor vehicles, known as the "Tailpipe Rule." The EPA has since used the Tailpipe Rule to trigger regulations on coal-fired power plants and other stationary sources.

</div>

===

<span style=" font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">UCLA’s <a href="http://www.law.ucla.edu/centers-programs/emmett-center-on-climate-change-and-the-environment/Pages/default.aspx" target="blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Emmett Center</a><span style=" font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> filed an amicus curiae <a href="http://cdn.law.ucla.edu/SiteCollectionDocuments/Centers%20and%20Programs/Emmett%20Center%20on%20Climate%20Change%20and%20the%20Environment/12-1146%20bsac%20South%20Coast%20Air%20Quality%20Management%20District.pdfhttp://" target="blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">brief</a><span style=" font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> yesterday  in <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/utility-air-regulatory-group-v-environmental-protection-agency/" target="_blank" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG)  v. EPA</a><span style=" font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 300; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 24px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, the U.S. Supreme Court case that will determine whether EPA’s greenhouse gas emissions rules under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration section of the Clean Air Act are valid.   Arguing on behalf of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (the regulatory  body overseeing the nation’s most polluted air basin) and itself, the Emmett Center  brief takes issue with a central argument of opponents: that EPA’s rules will lead to “absurd results.”

===

n April, Abbott and the attorneys general of 11 other states asked the court to review the legality of the administration’s greenhouse gas environmental regulatory scheme.

In its petition, the states argued that the federal Environmental Protection Agency violated the U.S. Constitution as well as the federal Clean Air Act by “concocting” its greenhouse gas regulations without Congressional authorization.

The states contend that the EPA ignored Congress’ law-making role by rewriting federal laws through administrative rule-making.

The states want the Supreme Court to overturn the administration’s “attempts to unilaterally implement policies in the absence of congressionally delegated authority” and to “rein in a usurpatious agency and remind the President and his subordinates that they cannot rule by executive decree.”

“The EPA’s illegal regulations threaten Texas jobs and Texas employers,” Abbott said in a statement Tuesday.

“As Texas has proven in other lawsuits against the EPA, this is a runaway federal agency, so we are pleased the Obama administration will have to defend its lawless regulations before the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The other 11 states include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality also is a petitioner.

==

R.S. RADFORD

THEODORE HADZI-ANTICH*

*Counsel of Record

Pacific Legal Foundation

==

CEI amicus for inhofe, blunt, deb fischer; jerry moran, pat roberts

=

2/14 oral args

rw?

President Obama’s plan to fight global warming was on trial Monday.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments over whether the administration had the authority to require that industrial facilities get permits when they emit large amounts of greenhouse gases.

Thirteen states, industrial groups and utility companies have petitioned the Supreme Court to rule that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from these facilities. Such a ruling would imperil Obama’s plan to fight global warming, the lynchpin of which is to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

“This case marks an extremely critical point in clarifying just how far the Obama Administration can extend their regulatory overreach, including by rewriting the Clean Air Act to suit its needs,” said Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter in a statement.

“This Administration has led a far-left agenda driven crusade to circumvent Congress at every opportunity, and this case could permit an unprecedented power grab by expanding how far it can go to regulate greenhouse gases,” Vitter said. “Legislative attempts like ‘cap and trade’ have failed because the American public knows these regulations could strangle our economy, and the implications of this case could cripple the democratic process.”

The EPA, environmentalists and public health groups argue that the agency’s requirement of permitting for facilities that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases is within the authority granted to it by the Clean Air Act.

“We need all available safeguards under the Clean Air Act to address the urgent challenge of climate change — including the advanced pollution control measures required as an essential protection in construction permits for large industrial sources,” <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2014/02/24/the-supreme-court-and-climate-pollution-what-is-and-is-not-at-stake/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 136, 178); text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; transition: 0.2s ease; -webkit-transition: 0.2s ease;">said Vickie Patton, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund</a>. “These measures are vital if we hope to minimize industrial climate pollution.”

Patton and others have also tried to downplay the importance of the case by arguing that while the case does have major policy implications, it is not challenging the EPA’s underlying authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

“What is not at stake in this case is the EPA’s determination that six greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride — endanger the health and welfare of current and future generations,” Patton added.

The background

At the center of the case Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA is the question of whether the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles allows them to regulate greenhouse gases from stationary sources.

The case follows the 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the court ruled that the EPA could regulate greenhouse gas emissions if it was determined that they were harmful to human health and that the agency needed to begin the process of making such a determination. In that case environmentalists, twelve states and several cities sued the EPA to compel them to begin the so-called “endangerment finding.”

It wasn’t until President Obama was in the White House that the EPA finally came out with its endangerment finding, saying that greenhouse gases from motor vehicles were harmful to human health and, therefore, could be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA moved quickly to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions, first limiting emissions from motor vehicles with its “tailpipe rule.” This rule limited emissions from light-duty trucks and set new fuel efficiency rules for cars and trucks. Soon after, the EPA argued that because the Clean Air Act applies to “any air pollution agent,” they had the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources.

The problem was that the Clean Air Act Title V permits that the EPA is now applying to greenhouse gases, were created before global warming was viewed as a serious policy issue. Under the Clean Air Act, Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) preconstruction permits are required for stationary sources that emit at least 100 or 250 tons per year of traditional pollutants — not greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide. Stationary facilities that could potentially emit at least 100 tons of pollutants per year need a Clean Air Act Title V permit.

Sounds simple enough, but since greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are much more common than traditional pollutants and are emitted in much larger amounts. Applying Clean Air Act permitting rules in this way meant that the agency would more than six million facilities across the country, including schools, hospitals and even some large households.

So the agency tweaked its rule so that only large facilities, like refineries and power plants, which emit more than 75,000 or 100,000 tons per year would need permits for greenhouse gas emissions.

While this Supreme Court case won’t completely prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, it will define what the agency can and can’t do in terms of fighting global warming.

“With the president announcing in his State of the Union address that he plans to expand the use of executive authority, the question of just how far the courts will let administrative agencies go in substituting what the executive wants over what Congress legislated will increasingly come to the fore,” <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/02/symposium-can-the-epa-really-rewrite-a-statute-really/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 136, 178); text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; transition: 0.2s ease; -webkit-transition: 0.2s ease;">writes attorney Pete Glaser, who helped the the Washington Legal Foundation file two amicus briefs in support of Utility Air Regulatory Group</a>. “If the EPA can ignore numerical statutory permitting thresholds, what else can federal agencies do?”

“While the rule at issue is just one example of the president’s broader executive overreach, the Supreme Court must act to curb abuse of power by the president and his EPA before it escalates any further,” said Laura Sheehan, spokeswoman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.

“Millions of American jobs and the livelihoods of communities and families across the country will be jeopardized if President Obama is granted authority to proceed with his Climate Action Plan, the most radical components of which haven’t yet even been enacted,” Sheehan added.

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stop epa from limit coalfire plants

<b style=" font-weight: bolder; color: rgb(64, 64, 64); font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Senators urged the president “to avoid any actions which damage ratepayers throughout this country, especially when those actions result in no measurable benefits and no measurable effects on the very thing that the actions are designed to address.”

<span style=" color: rgb(64, 64, 64); font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; float: none;">The letter was co-signed by: U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), John Barrasso (Wyo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Dan Coats (Ind.), John Cornyn (Texas), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Dean Heller (Nev.), John Hoeven (N.D.), Jim Inhofe (Okla.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Joe Manchin (W.V.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rob Portman (Ohio), Jim Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kan.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Thune (S.D.), and David Vitter (La.).

<a href="http://www.blunt.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news?ID=e7605cc7-ab72-4a03-b3bb-7d7e014d1fd3">http://www.blunt.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news?ID=e7605cc7-ab72-4a03-b3bb-7d7e014d1fd3</a>  see desmog

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<a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/content/republicans-strategy-new-epa-coal-rule-kill-it-now-its-finalized">http://insideclimatenews.org/content/republicans-strategy-new-epa-coal-rule-kill-it-now-its-finalized</a>

The coal industry's allies have launched pre-emptive strikes in Congress and the courts as they seek to abort the Obama administration's proposed regulations to limit the amount of carbon dioxide that power plants may spew out.

It's no surprise that coal's political friends would fight hard against a rule that would effectively ban the building of new coal plants by requiring the industry to trap some of the fuel's CO2 for storage underground. Carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, they say, is unproven and unaffordable.

What's unusual, however, is how early they are trying to derail what is still only a draft rule. They want Congress to repeal the proposal or judges to reject it now, and they're unwilling to wait until the proposal jumps through the remaining procedural hoops and is issued in final form.

At stake is one of the most significant attempts to control a greenhouse gas ever offered under the Clean Air Act. It is a pillar of President Obama's climate action plan, which attempts to deal with climate change without having to deal with Congress.

The proposed regulation, announced in September by the Environmental Protection Agency, was published in the Federal Register on Jan. 8, kicking off two months of public comments that the agency must consider in detail before making it final.

No sooner was it published than Nebraska asked a federal judge to nullify it. Then Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the minority leader, declared that Congress should block it without waiting for the final draft.

These early challenges could significantly complicate the agency's political and procedural tasks as it tries to complete the rules this year. And EPA may be put on the defensive and under pressure to weaken the rule, which it wants to get in place without further delay.

GOP'S Legal Strategy

One of the latest and most powerful objections to the rule <a href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/files/letters/20131115EPA.pdf" style=" color: rgb(0, 100, 0); text-decoration: none; outline: none;">raised in the past few months</a> by Republican Congressional leaders has already caused substantial hand-wringing during the Obama administration's internal deliberations. The rule's opponents assert that the agency violated Energy Policy Act of 2005, or EPAct, when it based its claim that CCS is a viable technology largely on recent pilot projects that were financed partly with government subsidies.

"The Energy Policy Act of 2005 clearly prohibits EPA from considering certain federally funded projects when setting the standards," said Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, who brought up the objection again at a hearing on Jan. 16. "And yet three such projects form the majority of EPA's discussion regarding new plants."

The agency says its finding that CCS is the most practical way available to reduce emissions from burning coal was more broadly based than that—and that it took into account CCS practices around the world and across several industries, as well as reviews of promising technologies and past experiences bringing novel pollution controls into common use. The proposal dwells at considerable length on precedents that the agency says support its approach.

"We're very comfortable with the standard that we proposed," Gina McCarthy, the EPA administrator, said at the combative hearing.

Perhaps so, but the ever-expanding regulatory docket reveals some last-minute consternation at other agencies reviewing the EPA proposal. Indeed, McCarthy said at the hearing that her agency had pulled together more information to bolster its case and sent it that morning to the White House office that manages internal consultations among agencies on complex rules like this.

"Our understanding of the reading of the EPAct is that we can't solely make a determination on the basis of EPAct-funded facilities," she said, adding that it didn't consider only the government-funded projects. "There's … nothing in the law that precludes us from considering those in the context of a larger, more robust data set—which is what we are actually doing."

<a href="http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dhawkins/smoke_from_capitol_hill.html" style=" color: rgb(0, 100, 0); text-decoration: none; outline: none;">Lawyers for environmental groups</a> have <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/files/2013/12/Response-to-House-Committee-Letter-on-EPAct.pdf" style=" color: rgb(0, 100, 0); text-decoration: none; outline: none;">endorsed McCarthy's interpretation</a>.

They say that while Congress didn't want the government to subsidize tests of an expensive new pollution control technology and then force an entire industry to adopt it, the law wasn't meant to rule out a new technology forever just because it received subsidies in its early development.

"That would be an absurd situation where the government is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in advanced technology and then we’re not allowed to use that technology to improve the environment," said Dan Lashof of the Natural Resources Defense Council, testifying at the same hearing. "That would not make any sense."

Ultimately, the dispute over what Congress intended in 2005 may have to be settled in court. For one thing, the statutory passages in question occur more than once in the law, with slight variations each time.

D. Cameron Prell, a senior counsel on energy and environment at McGuireWoods LLP, <a href="http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/276814/Climate+Change/The+Energy+Policy+Act+Of+2005+A+New+Headache+For+Presidents+Climate+Action+Plan+Depends+On+The+Meaning+Of+Solely" style=" color: rgb(0, 100, 0); text-decoration: none; outline: none;">said that the issue</a> "may not be as big a legal issue" as Congressional Republicans think, but "it also may be a bigger deal" than most of the environmental groups admit.

Nebraska's Beef

Either way, the state of Nebraska, which gets more than two thirds of its electricity by burning cheap coal imported from next-door Wyoming, wasted no time asking a judge to rule on the dispute.

On Jan. 15, just a week after the EPA formally published its proposal, Nebraska<a href="http://www.velaw.com/UploadedFiles/VEsite/Presentations/ComplaintDeclaratoryInjunctiveRelief.pdf" style=" color: rgb(0, 100, 0); text-decoration: none; outline: none;">asked a Federal district court there</a> to find that EPA’s approach indeed violated the 2005 law. It sought an order compelling the EPA to drop the notion of CCS as the cure for coal, and to withdraw its proposed rule without further ado.

Nebraska filed its challenge under the Administrative Procedure Act, which ordinarily rules out any such appeal until there is a "final agency action," <a href="http://climatechange.velaw.com/NebraskaFilesSuitAllegingEPAExceededAuthorityGHGNSPSProposal.aspx" style=" color: rgb(0, 100, 0); text-decoration: none; outline: none;">according to an analysis</a> by Margaret E. Peloso, a climate and energy lawyer at Vinson & Elkins LLP. "Typically this means that the agency has completed its rulemaking process and issued a final rule."

She noted that a similar lawsuit, against the first draft of the EPA regulation, was dismissed in December 2012 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit "after the court concluded that the proposed rule did not constitute final agency action."

The Political Roadblocks

As the coal industry and its backers seek their day in court, they have powerful allies in Congress who are primed for a debate with significant political resonance.

At the hearing, Vitter fumed that the agency had been biding its time and would put its final decision off until after the mid-term elections, 10 months away.

"I believe these rules are still contrary to federal law," he said, "and I think the EPA's delay is designed to postpone controversial news during an election year and give the EPA more time to make excuses about why they're taking action beyond the scope of their legal authority."

McConnell, the longest serving Republican senator ever to represent coal-veined Kentucky, is already limbered up for a long bout.

On Jan. 16, he <a href="http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/senate-joint-resolution/30/cosponsors" style=" color: rgb(0, 100, 0); text-decoration: none; outline: none;">filed a resolution</a> to repeal the proposed regulation under the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows Congress to overturn a rule within 60 days of its final effective date. This time, in a tactic just like Nevada's, he is arguing that Congress should act even before the rule is finalized. That has <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/17/3173161/mcconnell-tactic-reverse-carbon-pollution-rules/" style=" color: rgb(0, 100, 0); text-decoration: none; outline: none;">not been tried before</a>.

McConnell, who has 41 co-sponsors, all Republican, turned to the non-partisan Governmental Accountability Office to see whether the law could be used by Congress in this case to overturn a regulation that's still in draft form. In a <a href="http://assets.nationaljournal.com/pdf/130116_McConnellletterGAOCRA.pdf" style=" color: rgb(0, 100, 0); text-decoration: none; outline: none;">letter seeking an advisory opinion</a> from the GAO, he noted that the section of the Clean Air Act being used by the EPA would apply the pollution controls to any new coal plant where construction began after the publication of the proposal.

In other words, no company can build a power plant without CCS while the EPA is tweaking the rule.

McConnell's claim is that the proposed rule therefore "immediately changes the legal landscape for anyone seeking to develop a fossil fuel powered plant." It's that immediate impact he wants to prevent....

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2011

S.AMDT.183

Amends: S.493

Amendments to this amendment: S.AMDT.244

Sponsor: Sen McConnell, Mitch [KY] (submitted 3/15/2011) (proposed 3/15/2011)

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:

To prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change.

TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS SUBMITTED: CR S1686

STATUS:

3/15/2011:

Amendment SA 183 proposed by Senator McConnell. (consideration: CR S1641-1642, S1643-1644, S1649-1653, S1665-1668, S1669-1673; text: CR S1642)

3/16/2011:

Considered by Senate. (consideration: CR S1715, S1726-1728, S1741-1744)

3/17/2011:

3/28/2011:

3/29/2011:

3/30/2011:

4/5/2011:

4/6/2011:

Amendment SA 183, under the order of 4/5/2011, not having achieved 60 votes in the affirmative, the amendment was not agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 50 - 50. Record Vote Number: 54.

COSPONSORS(8):

Sen Manchin, Joe, III [WV] - 3/16/2011

Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] - 3/16/2011

Sen Toomey, Pat [PA] - 3/16/2011

Sen Cornyn, John [TX] - 3/16/2011

Sen Johanns, Mike [NE] - 3/16/2011

Sen Portman, Rob [OH] - 3/28/2011

Sen Isakson, Johnny [GA] - 3/28/2011

Sen Paul, Rand [KY] - 3/29/2011

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