Coal-to-Liquid: Useless

Smell manure?

FEED – May 2006

Congress may exempt factory farms from pollution laws Large agribusiness companies are pushing their friends in Congress to exempt factory farms from the pollution reporting and cleanup provisions in key pollution laws. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA, also known as Superfund) and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) provide an essential safety net for protecting water supplies from livestock pollution and for providing warnings of toxic air emissions from factory farms. Over 140 representatives are supporting a bill, H.R. 4341, that would give this sweetheart deal to factory farms. The bill may soon be attached to a “must-pass” spending bill in an effort to speed this ill-conceived measure through Congress. Please call your representative and urge him or her to oppose this dangerous legislation. To learn more, read the Sierra Club’s fact sheet (pdf) on this issue.

Factory farms tend to be located in rural areas next to communities that do not have the power to stop them/mobilize against them. This provision will further stack the deck against these communities. Anyone who thinks manure, pesticide runoff, ammonia, etc are not hazardous to the ecosystem and to human health needs to live next to one of these “farms”. I am hazarding a really wild guess that Congressman Hall (the sponsor) does not have to deal with issues such as these.

You may remember from a few weeks back when the supremes in a very rare unanimous decision ruled that the Duke Energy would have to install new pollution controls if it made modifications to its power plants that increased annual emissions without increasing hourly emissions. Well, never mind that, the EPA released a “rule” that “clarifies” this issue.

EPA Accused of Flouting Supreme Court – washingtonpost.com

The government proposed a pollution standard for power plants Wednesday that critics said flouts the spirit of a Supreme Court ruling on clean air enforcement.

The proposal would make it easier for utilities to expand plant operations or make other changes to produce more electricity without installing new pollution controls.

The proposal would allow the use of average hourly smokestack emissions when determining whether a plant’s expansion or efficiency improvements require additional pollution controls. The EPA hopes to make the proposal final before year’s end.

Opponents of the hourly standard recently argued before the Supreme Court that this standard lets a plant put more smog-causing chemicals and other pollution into the air, even if hourly releases do not increase.

Environmentalists long have contended the EPA should continue using annual emissions to determine whether new pollution controls are needed under the Clean Air Act.

Let’s get this straight, “environmentalists contend”? There is nothing to contend here, it’s simple math. If you keep hourly rates the same and run your plant for longer, you will emit more pollution, which is not good. Less pollution good, more pollution bad, there is no point of contention here. Hourly standards and annual standards are used for two different things. The hourly standard sets a lower limit on the efficiency of the pollution control operation for the plant. The annual standard measures the plant’s overall impact. Both of them need to be regulated. It is only common sense that if you put out twice the amount of pollution in a year because you run 20 hours per day instead of 10, you need to control it. The Supremes rightly tagged this argument as dishonest, only to see the EPA very happily turn around and reissue it as an official rule.

You mut have heard by now that the emperor of the US (I call him that because he thinks he is above the law and rules by fiat) announced a new meeting to tackle climate change issues. David Roberts of Grist broke it down and concluded that it was worse than nothing. It rejects targets, groups China and India with the developed world, which ensures that nothing will ever come out of his “meeting”, kicks everything down the road until after he has abdicated his throne in 2009, and tries to take advantage of climate change to push for free trade deals.

But this article by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post caught my attention for the rather surreal exchange between a CBS reporter and the White House spokesman.

Dana Milbank – As the World Warms, the White House Aspires – washingtonpost.com

In this instance, you have a long-term, aspirational goal,” Connaughton answered.

Aspirational goal? Like having the body you want without diet or exercise? Or getting rich without working?

“I’m confused,” Axelrod said. “Does that mean there will be targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions, and that everybody will be making binding commitments?”

“The commitment at the international level will be to a long-term, aspirational goal,” the Bush aide repeated.

Axelrod had his answer. “Voluntary,” he concluded.

“Well,” said Connaughton, “I want to be careful about the word ‘voluntary.’ “

Yes, please do be careful, let’s not over promise and under deliver like we always do!

Connaughton may want to be careful, but the plan the White House outlined yesterday listed no concrete targets or dates, no enforcement mechanism and no penalties for noncompliance. It also wouldn’t take effect until four years after Bush leaves office. It was, rather, a call to spend the final 18 months of the Bush presidency forming an aspirational goal.

Umm, we’re not in 1985 any more, aspirational goals have long since been established, stabilization at 450 ppm C anyone?

I love the emperor and his merry band of climate advisers!

Through the most excellent Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News blog comes notice of a book that answers a question that’s been on my mind off and on.

Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News – Post details: Reality Check: The Nature and Performance of Voluntary Environmental Programs in the United States, Europe, and Japan

Despite a growing theoretical literature trying to explain how and why voluntary programs might be effective, there is limited empirical evidence on their success or the situations most conducive to the approaches. Even less is known about their cost-effectiveness.

The book’s called Reality Check (and long byline) and at $40 is too expensive for a look see! But here’s a teaser:

The central goals of Reality Check are understanding outcomes and the relationship between outcomes and design. Most of the programs it studies have positive results, but they are small compared with business-as-usual trends and the impact of other forces–such as higher energy prices. Importantly, potential gains may be quickly exhausted as the “low-hanging fruit” is picked up by voluntary programs. By including in-depth analyses by experts from the U.S., Europe, and Japan, the book advances scholarship and provides practical information for the future design of voluntary programs to stakeholders and policymakers on all sides of the Atlantic and Pacific.

So, the answer is no, I guess. Voluntary programs catch the bulk of changes that can be carried out easily anyway and may have been part of the company plans. They also make for good Company PR. The greater the threat of regulation and good enforcement, I guess, the more power you have to set up a good voluntary program. But if it is all carrot and no stick, who knows…

For an example of what a voluntary program looks like, here’s Climate Wise from the EPA.