EPA Plans, SC Response and path forward for clean energy discussion

[Jim Wylie]

Sharing a few headlines and you may not have seen. And some analysis from people I trust.

EPA - Rollback of Carbon Pollution Endangerment Finding

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed rescinding the Endangerment Finding which stipulates that carbon dioxide and methane are pollutants - and therefore can be regulated like other pollutants via the Clean Air Act. And was upheld by the Supreme Court and is the basis for vehicle and power plant emissions standards. EPA Announcement

Sierra Club Response

If EPA ultimately finalizes this disastrous proposal, Sierra Club will explore all legal options in response, including the possibility of litigation. See full press release.

Jim's Opinion

[Jim is not a lawyer or a spokesperson for Sierra Club] 

This will take time. Court challenges, Appeals. My understanding is that EPA regulations cannot be just re-written. They need to show cause - explain why they believe that CO2 is not a pollutant with impacts to global climate. I would think that the argument of "it costs too much to not pollute" would not win the day, but what do I know?

What I do know is that even if the administration drops this plan 2 or 3 years from now, they will have achieved their goals - uncertainty. Investors will avoid the clean energy sector. You would think they would avoid the fossil sectors as well for the same reason, but fossil energy has a track record and I expect they will feel safer to stay the course.

Is Decarbonization in the US Dead?

No, but ...

One of the podcasts on my usual rotation is the Ezra Kline Show - a NY Times progressive columnist and frequent Dem Party critic. I usually don't make it through a whole hour of the show (or even 15 minutes), but I listened to every minute of this week's show.

Has Trump Doomed Progress on Climate Change? YouTube (free)

Guests: Jesse Jenkins is a professor at Princeton, where he leads the ZERO lab.

             Jane Flegal was a member of the Biden administration’s climate policy team.

NYT site with transcript - you might see a paywall

Here are a few quotes that caught my attention.

• Flegal: ... part of what happened here was we passed the I.R.A. as a Democrat-only bill. We live in a world now, where when that happens, there is a tendency to turn up the polarization on whatever is in the Dem-only bill on the other side of the aisle. This bill was framed as Biden’s signature climate achievement. It’s not, in some ways, surprising that the Republicans wanted to tear it down.
  
  
• Kline: What’s left?
  
  Flegal: Lots of stuff, actually. President Trump, who has a lot of authority in that party, called for full repeal of the “Green New Scam.” That is not what happened....  We mentioned that they tried to rationalize a clean energy tax incentive program by allowing any zero emissions technology to qualify. Basically, any technology that can claim that it is zero emissions can still get this production or investment tax credit for clean energy.
  
  Jenkins: And through the long term, commencing construction through the end of 2033, they can get the full credit — and then it steps down over a couple more years. Basically, Republicans just endorsed a decade-long tax credit for carbon-free electricity. It’s just not wind and solar.
  
  
• Flegal:  it is worth noting that part of the reason there was a larger target on solar and wind is because they’re pretty mature technologies that are being widely deployed because it makes economic sense. So those tax credits look expensive as a matter of fiscal scoring. Whereas tax credits for more innovative technologies tend to not look expensive because no one thinks they’re going to get built in the next 10 years.
  
  
• Flegal: What I actually mean is not that the impacts are better than we thought. It’s that our emissions themselves are not as high as we predicted them to be. That’s largely because we’ve seen such rapid cost declines in these technologies and wide-scale deployment of these technologies. The world is decarbonizing faster than we thought that it would. But the climate is not responding in the ways that we predicted that it would.
  
  Kline: When you say the climate is not responding, you’re referring to the fact that things have been extraordinarily hot.
  
  Flegal: Yes. Things are warming much more rapidly.
  
  
• Flegal: And if we’re being honest, any deal that happens federally on this stuff is probably going to have to apply — not just preferentially to clean energy technologies, it will probably be like a truly all-of-the-above permitting regime. But the thing is, if you look at all current energy projects in the U.S. that have completed environmental impact statements under NEPA over the last decade, clean energy dominates fossil projects. It would almost undoubtedly advantage clean energy over fossil.

And lots of interesting discussion. I encourage everyone to put this on their playlist for their next walk, ride or bed-time story.

Jim

[Wanko, Cheryl]

Thank you, Jim!

 

Here’s the page that explains how to submit a public comment on the EPA proposal (for what it’s worth):

https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/proposed-rule-reconsideration-2009-endangerment-finding

 

 

The same duo that was on Kline was also on David Roberts’ Volts podcast – every episode a great listen, though I imagine most of you are familiar with that outlet already.

Cheryl

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