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Allen, Kara[Kara.Allen@mail.house.gov]
Allen, Kara
Thur 4/10/2014 2:01 :32 PM
SEEC Daily Clips 4.10.14

Sustainable Energy & Environment

Coalition

Top news stories:

Two California Democrats introduced a bill that would provide a bond program that would sell bonds to
pay for clean energy tax incentives. SEEC Member Rep. Zoe Lofgren and SEEC Vice Chair Rep. Doris
Matsui are calling the proposed bonds "victory bonds," after war debt that the Treasury Department
sold to fund World Wars I and II.

In 1999, I participated in my first beach cleanup with I Love A Clean San Diego and the San Diego
Surfrider Foundation. The San Diego region in many ways is defined by our relationship with the ocean.

The Obama administration released a comprehensive strategy document Wednesday aimed at reducing
wildfires, which it says are being exacerbated by climate change. The strategy recommends preventive
measures like controlled burns, municipal and state zoning to reduce the effects of sprawl and
incorporating watersheds into local management plans.

Senior Environmental Protection Agency officials consulted with at least 210 separate groups
representing a broad range of interests in the Washington area and held more than 100 meetings and
events with additional organizations across regional offices as the agency prepared its carbon pollution
regulation for existing power plants.

A House subcommittee passed a bill proposed by Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) on Wednesday aimed at

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expediting liquefied natural gas exports to U.S. allies. Gardner proposed the bill in light of the crisis in
Ukraine, which has highlighted the dependence of Eastern Europe on Russia for natural gas supplies.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted Wednesday to restrict the
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authority to block permits to dump dredge or fill material into
waterways. The measure would prohibit EPA from revoking a dredge or fill permit after the Army Corps
of Engineers grants the permit. EPA would still be able to veto the permit while the Army Corps is
considering it.

The concentration of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that drives climate change, hit 402 parts per
million this week - the highest level recorded in at least 800,000 years.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed $9. 78 million in civil penalties
against pipeline operators for alleged violations of federal law in 2013, the agency announced this week.

Energy news:

Sixty-five percent of people in the United States support the renewable fuel standard (RFS) that
mandates production and blending of a certain amount of fuel from renewable sources, according to a
survey commissioned by the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA).

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will propose a new rule requiring all trains carrying oil to be
crewed by at least two people, the agency announced Wednesday. The FRA also said it planned to
propose a rule on train securement and that the agency wanted a rulemaking on the movement of
hazardous materials in general.

One of the answers to that is likely to be energy storage, which means using batteries or other
technology such as flywheels to capture renewable energy and allow it to flow into the power grid as
needed.

Researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) developed technology to extract carbon dioxide
from seawater while simultaneously producing hydrogen, and then converted the gasses into
hydrocarbon liquid fuel.

The developer of a proposed 25-megawatt wind farm off the coast of New Jersey yesterday appealed a
state agency's decision to reject the project. Cape May, N.J.-based Fishermen's Energy asked the state's
Board of Public Utilities to revisit what would be the first wind project built in state waters, about 3
miles from Atlantic City.

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Federal regulators have issued four permits for oil and gas wastewater disposal wells in Pennsylvania in
the past six months, and those are unlikely to be the last. Industry groups and researchers are renewing
their efforts to find sites in the state where the salt- and metals-laden waste fluids produced from ever
more shale gas wells can be entombed deep underground.

Legislation intended to quickly add muscle into Massachusetts' greenhouse gas emissions reduction
program is drawing fire from both power producers and clean energy advocates because it would lock
the state into long-term hydropower contracts with Canadian utilities and hinder the state's homegrown
clean energy sector.

Mike Bloomberg, the United Nations special envoy on cities and climate, said U.S. tariffs on solar cells
are helping a handful of manufacturers more than the American public. The protectionist policies were
sought mainly by a small number of U.S. solar companies that are struggling to compete against Chinese
rivals, Bloomberg said.

India is slowly building upon its installed solar power capacity, thanks to the comprehensive and
ambitious National Solar Mission, state solar policies, and relatively increased enforcement of the
Renewable Purchase Obligation.

Climate news:

Can science tell us how much ethical responsibility different countries bear for combating climate
change? It's going to try. According to a draft of a forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) report, ethics takes a front-and-center role in a forum traditionally reserved for exploring
scientific consensus.

A group of Senate Democrats is urging President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline by the end
of next month, saying the process "has already taken much longer than anyone can reasonably justify."
The letter, spearheaded by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who faces a tough reelection bid this year,
requests that Obama set a hard deadline for Secretary of State John Kerry to make his national interest
determination.

President Obama's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency's clean air office will be
getting at least one "no" vote from a lawmaker who on Monday said he can't support someone who
accepts that climate change can aggravate extreme weather events.

Scheduled for release on Sunday in Berlin, Germany, the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

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Change (IPCC) report will point to many possible ways-from burying greenhouse gases to going nuclear
to encouraging biofuel production-to save humanity from the ravages of climate change.

The drought that is withering vegetable and fruit crops in California may push up food prices more than
the dry spell that ravaged the Corn Belt in 2012, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

For the first time, San Diego County officials are including effects of climate change in their update of
the local Hazard Mitigation Plan. The region's 18 city governments, county and several fire protection
and water districts are joining to update the plan - with the public's input via this online survey.

The director and some cast members of "Sharknado 2: The Second One" appeared on stage in a
Pasadena hotel on Tuesday to preview the upcoming airborne shark sequel and touched on a very
serious topic: climate change.

With the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change preparing to release its longawaited report assessing options for fighting global warming, a fossil fuel industry-funded research
group made the case on April 9 that the phenomenon is actually beneficial to the planet.

In February 2013, the journal Frontiers in Psychology published a peer-reviewed paper which found that
people who reject climate science are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. Predictably enough,
those people didn't like it.

Vast stretches of the Somerset Levels, an expanse of coastal plains and wetlands in southwest England,
have spent much of the winter underwater. At the peak of the crisis, some 11,500 hectares (28,420
acres) was submerged as violent storms brought "biblical" deluges week after week, for months on end.

The Norwegian government, seeking to sustain oil revenues that have fueled the country's prosperity,
has floated plans to let drillers push closer than ever to the ice cap -- only to run into the strongest
opposition yet. The uproar frames a larger and increasingly contentious fight over whether the Arctic
Ocean's mostly untouched oil and gas reserves can be safely or economically exploited.

The U.K. government said it's forming a "lab" to study ways to boost funding for climate-protection
projects, part of a United Nations-led effort to channel $100 billion a year into the industry by 2020.

Summer is just around the corner and, after a winter like this one, it's high time to start making those
vacation plans. Of course, our buoyant spirits were somewhat dampened by the latest U.N. climate
report. Spoiler alert, it wasn't real good, well, unless you're into horrific droughts, monster storms, heat
waves, mass extinctions, failing crops, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, in which case,
jackpot!

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Environment & Health news:

In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, all eight Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee said the agency's proposed rule would hurt economic recovery and represents an overreach
of authority.

China plans to ban imports of coal with high-ash and high-sulfur content as the nation seeks to limit the
dirtiest fuels to fight pollution. The world's largest coal consumer will encourage imports of higherquality supplies, according to Ren Lixin, the head of the coal division at the National Energy
Administration.

A bill that would place a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in oil drilling in
California was approved by a state Senate panel on Tuesday.

The South Portland Planning Board on Tuesday endorsed a 180-day extension of the moratorium on tar
sands developments, which is set to expire May 5.

Those cutbacks - continuing a trend, the Center for Public Integrity found, that began in 2006 and
accelerated last year - mean the EPA will conduct thousands fewer inspections and evaluations each
year, and initiate and conclude thousands fewer judicial and administrative enforcement cases.

About the only thing former President Ronald Reagan doesn't have named after him is a mountain, not
one recognized by the federal government anyway.

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting the "Advancing Sustainable Ports"
summit to mark the kickoff of a new EPA initiative to recognize ports that take action to improve
environmental performance. EPA will also award $4.2 million in grant funding for clean diesel projects at
six U.S. ports.

We already know that poverty and climate change are inextricably linked, and that poor communities
often bare the brunt of the other negative impacts of fossil fuel extraction. We, as environmentalists,
can't afford to ignore the issue of poverty, and we shouldn't assume that the policies we advocate for
are automatically benign in terms of their human-scale impact.

Walmart has recognized that 91 percent of its shoppers would be interested in purchasing organic

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groceries if they were more affordable, and on Thursday the company announced that it's going to
finally give customers what they want -- a line of organic foods that costs the same as non-organic.

We recently found out that K-Cups, those single-serve thingers you use in your office's Keurig
coffeemaker, create so much trash that debris from the ones sold just in the last year would circle the
planet almost 11 times.

The oil industry has set its sights on this swath of the state, with a proposed drill site just 1,000 feet from
the Du rans' house. That would mean noise, dust and dozens of trucks passing each day. But the Du rans
are most concerned about their drinking water, which they fear could be poisoned by toxic waste from
the well.

Beijing artist Liang Kegang returned from a business trip in southern France with well-rested lungs and a
small item of protest against his home city's choking pollution: a glass jar of clean, Provence air.

A popular tourist town in western Puerto Rico has become the island's first municipality to ban plastic
bags. Rincon Mayor Carlos Lopez tells reporters that plastic bags have been affecting marine life at a
nearby reserve. He urged other municipalities to follow his lead.

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