Smog gets in your eyes

Few things are more annoying for a pundit than when a headline fails to reflect the body of a story accurately. (A lack of stories to comment on, plus running out of granola bars, are notable exceptions.) When I first set out to write about the vote on the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act, having only read a snippet, I mistakenly believed the Republicans were declaring war on clean air rules in principle for the economy’s sake. Well, that’s not . . . completely true.

The real story is that the TRAIN Act would require the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide a full projection of how its regulations might affect “jobs, electricity, gasoline prices and competitiveness.” While the EPA has some cost-benefit analysis measures in place already, these would go substantially further. This, they say, would “allow further analyses and buy time for the economy to recover.”

On this main thrust of the bill, I have to declare the Republicans completely sane. Though I cannot recall them actually identifying an EPA regulation that can be described as a job-killer, there is nothing at all wrong with a full regulatory review in all government agencies. President Obama himself has called for one on numerous occasions. If duplications and simple unnecessities exist, by all means scrap them.

However, if we’re going by the Republicans’ talking points and nothing else, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) is justified in his concern that they’re not considering the part of a cost-benefit analysis in which there are benefits. Let’s frame this argument in a fashion that they can get behind: Bad air means lower property values means people moving elsewhere means towns (and their local businesses) suffering economically means other people (taxpayers) picking up the slack. Bad air also means higher health costs means other people (taxpayers) picking up the slack. See how that can work?

That said, I will throw my support behind the bill if the Republicans agree that truly full projections – one that estimates savings incurred through EPA regulations – are in order. No jobs are worth creating if Americans’ health must remain at risk to keep them. It would be nice if the GOP could at least acknowledge something to this effect in public so they don’t come off as completely ignorant of how frickin’ awesome clean air is.

The consistent anti-regulation message is a good political sell if all you care about is keeping your base happy. If you’re hoping to craft the legislation that best suits the American public and market it effectively, well, you’ll have to try harder than this.

What the frack is this stuff?!

Hands up if you think Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) will sign legislation requiring drilling companies to release the list of chemicals they use for “fracking.” . . . Yeah, me neither. He’ll probably agree with whoever first came up with the excuse that doing so would “harm their competitive edge.” That’s a petty problem for anyone looking to make bank on recent pushes for natural gas.

The above link gives us a rundown of fracking (hydraulic fracturing):

The contentious technique allows oil and gas companies to permeate tight shale formations and release once out-of-reach minerals. Drillers pump millions of gallons of chemically laced water into the ground to break the rock, allowing natural gas to flow.

Now I can’t claim to be a chemist, geologist, agronomist, hydrologist, ecologist or expert on public health or natural gas. But those who can might be interested to know what impact fracking could have on groundwater and soil, neither of which is a trifling matter. To do that, they would likely need to know exactly which chemicals are in use already – although it would be even more interesting to see them compare chromatographic samples of groundwater and soil from before, during and after fracking.

This is one of many examples of companies refusing to understand the importance of budgeting against externalities. Should fracking turn out to be sufficiently dangerous for anyone depending on groundwater and soil – which would include anyone involved in farming and anyone who eats, drinks or bathes – the ensuing legal damages wouldn’t exactly be fantastic for profits, not to mention all the medical bills they’ll have to ease off. Besides, ignoring practices that could put community health at risk for the sake of extra money is just wrong, y’all.

If that’s not convincing enough, perhaps these drilling companies ought to think of it this way: If it’s possible to retool the chemical mix in order to prevent any natural damage, a ”soil-safe” company would get a lot more contracts than one that hasn’t achieved such a designation. This is one way that the EPA could improve the lot of energy companies and others, as opposed to being a burden. I only mention the EPA because a mish-mash of state regulations would be insufficient if fracking takes hold in other states.

As for Perry, if he doesn’t sign this bill, he’ll have to prove that he has some concern for conservation in a very big way. Trusting drilling companies to do the right thing hasn’t proven all that effective before.

The delicate art of parks

President Obama has definitely lost his touch when it comes to political timing. This week, he released a budget I call “Death by 1.1 Trillion Cuts,” and even that wasn’t good enough for people who would prefer major slashes in entitlement and defense spending. Now he’s calling for $900 million in new spending on public land conservation, which is only at the top of the list for people whose jobs are centered on it.

Obama’s justification is that the plan will encourage Americans to spend their leisure time in public parks and keep land and water clean. He adds, for the record, that it will add jobs in the tourism and recreation sectors. No word on how many, likely because his numbers on jobs have tended to be off. “The money would be used to buy private land for public use and provide grants to states,” which immediately sends up a red flag: Whose private land would they be buying?

The argument for land and water cleanliness is definitely the most compelling. Considering that we drink this stuff and have our livestock graze on it, there is no excuse for it to be left unhealthy. I’m not convinced that government ownership of the land is the best way to ensure that, though; my expectation is that restrictions on dumping waste would turn out to be more effective.

The first Republican to step up in opposition is Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee. He has vowed to stand against any effort to “restrict farming, ranching or timber production in the name of conservation.” All industries that are unlikely to create an impactful amount of jobs in this age. However, I will side with him if he wants to protect land belonging to family farms and ranches.

In order to bolster his argument, Obama said it would help get kids some exercise and fresh air, and pointed out that Yosemite National Park was purchased during the Civil War, and FDR protected Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty, among other landmarks, during the depression. He’s really taking a gamble if he thinks this initiative will result in outdoor space as well-known as all of those. Kids these days aren’t completely sedentary or indoorsy; most of them would just rather go to the skateboard park. Besides, who has leisure time?

Obama’s heart is in the right place, but Americans are looking for someone who can take a heartless approach to spending cuts, and it doesn’t look like he can. Another argument for reducing the influence of the Office of the First Lady; it’s clear that that’s who he’s trying to impress.

Less hot air from Gingrich

When walking by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) building on my trip to D.C. last summer, the first thing I remember thinking was “Holy shit! Do they really need that much space?” It’s about the size of the Manitoba Parliament Building, and according to former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), nobody needs that much room to do nothing more than hand down regulations. His solution? Get rid of it. Not the building, the EPA. He’ll need the building to house his incredible chutzpah.

Gingrich, who may run for the Republican nomination in 2012 – along with every other Republican in the country – believes the EPA was nobly intended from the outset, but has since lost relevance and become another faceless Washington bureaucracy. He would like to replace it with something like the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation, which would focus on environmental innovation as opposed to rules.

No one, aside from Adam, is a bigger supporter of environmental innovation than I am, and I can’t give Gingrich enough credit for standing for it. Hopefully his specifics, in that regard, will be more numerous than “clean coal” and smaller-scale nuclear plants. Environmentalists remain skeptical that any coal can be clean or that any nuclear plant can be safe, so any elected Republican who runs with Gingrich’s idea will have a lot of reassuring to do.

But I am not a supporter of, essentially, disposing of environmental regulatory power. Doubtless existing rules could do with a review, lest any of them be unnecessary. However, given that Americans will never stop needing untainted water, air and land, there is no reason for pollution to be left unchecked, and for those who create it not to be held to account.

This may not be easy to implement, but it’s certainly easy to think of. The EPA should not be scrapped, but it should adopt a twofold mandate. One branch of it will be concerned with regulation and enforcement, and the other will be concerned with providing assistance to those seeking to put together green projects. I would vote for spending a moderate amount of money to research clean coal and smaller nuclear plants. They at least merit that much attention.

I didn’t think Gingrich, of all people, would be the one to do it, but he has just proven that Republicans can have a pro-environment agenda. With everyone focused on spurring jobs and global competitiveness, this provides Congress with ample opportunity to truly come together on this issue. I’m keeping optimistic.

Rules that won’t leave power plants fuming

It has consistently baffled me why a company whose production creates negative externalities (the most obvious example of which is pollution, as you will soon see) would not want to pull out all the stops to reduce them. Sure, nobody likes the upfront costs, but it’s better than unexpected costs for indirectly causing a slew of health, safety, and environmental problems. Besides, it would bring in more revenue from those who prefer buying from companies who commit to social responsibility, and they are a growing market.

Thus the political issues that may arise from the EPA’s Transport Rule, which calls for a 71% reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions and a 52% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions by 2014. This would be after the rule is implemented in 2012, giving power plants two years to figure out ways to comply with the regulations. The EPA estimates a total cost of $2.8 billion a year for these ways, which may include

• using control equipment more often;
• installing new control equipment;
• or using low-sulfur coal.

What’s even more baffling is that an act handed down by the EPA is what it takes for power plants to do these things in the first place. If you’ve already paid for the control equipment, why wouldn’t you bother using it? I can understand the financial unwillingness to do the other two things, and I respond to that by bringing this up. It’s a perfect example of the need to invest against future fallouts.

The article does not indicate, however, that the companies will be receiving anything in exchange for their compliance. I’m not one to favor giving polluters much of anything except a hard time, but a small quid pro quo might be needed in order to get them to abide by the rules. It would be an investment for the EPA against scrambling to find incentives, as well as an investment for the company against possible penalties.

In Canada, whenever politicians want people to do things, they almost automatically go for tax credits. Were the EPA to take this route, it would have to be conditional upon compliance for, say, three years after the deadline, bearing in mind that they would have to be allowed to check up on the companies every now and then. But if the substance of any of the companies’ complaints will only be financial in nature, the EPA’s offer need only be financial, too. Besides, less cost to them will (hopefully) mean less cost to consumers, which ought to keep public opinion secure. Assuming nobody turns against  the EPA for Tea Party-style reasons, or some such nonsense.

The bill vs. the spill

It should come as no surprise that a number of environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers have used the oil spill off the the Gulf Coast to attack a proposal for increased offshore drilling that has made its way into The Climate Bill. (I’m capitalizing it because it’s yet another defining piece of legislation for the Obama administration, and attention must be paid.) But this won’t get them very far. The country still runs on oil.

These people aren’t completely lacking an argument. Current attempts to contain the oil aren’t working, and wetland wildlife and fishing grounds are the most at risk. (Of the spill itself, I mean; I am well aware that 11 people died from the initial blowout.) It’s easy to see why someone would be tempted to resort to blaming the very use of oil; it takes much less effort than accepting that this was an accident on the part of one company and cannot always be prevented, especially not by a government.

Most of the quotes in this article come from representatives of various indistinguishable environmental groups. The first of the most reasonable quotes comes from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who puts it this way: “We’ve had problems with car design, but you don’t stop driving. The Challenger accident was heart-breaking but we went back to space.” Unfortunately for him and the rest of the pro-drilling faction, he is not quoted as recommending any new course of action that would alleviate some of the damage. Not a long-term thinker, this guy.

Steve Cochran of the Environmental Defense Fund and Carl Pope of the Sierra Club are, sort of. Both call for a provision in The Climate Bill that would set out a more stringent clean-up policy should a spill happen again. No, they don’t specify what it could be. But at least they’re calm enough not to snap into Teh Oil is Evil OMG.

Here’s why the rig exploded, and here’s why the oil started to spill. The first couple of solutions seem easy when you look at them: Install cement caps early, and stop listening to oil companies who tell you that any safety precaution is unnecessary because of the existence of other safety precautions. BP has already admitted that the first mechanism simply failed, but they don’t want to install acoustic switches because of how expensive they are. More so than 30 miles worth of spilled oil, lads?

And as for the oil that has already spilled: well, don’t fucking burn it. That’s a waste of good oil. Do what you can to absorb it and use it. In fact, fund research for new ways to absorb it after we’re done here.

A wildlife question you were too weak to ask

I’ve often castigated modern environmentalist groups for being insufficiently policy-oriented and behind the times when it comes to things like energy and technology. Here’s something else I’ve noticed: they really, really like their wildlife. In fact, they like it so much that, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, five of these groups – including the Sierra Club, which is generally one of the more respectable of these groups, according to Adam – are suing the federal government on its behalf.

Specifically, they’re going after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for not drawing up “critical habitat maps for the Florida Panther.” Doing this may have crippled development for Florida’s humans, however. I should remind you that this is the actual panther we’re talking about, not the NHL player, which really is an endangered species. AHAHAHAHAHA.

Other species named in the article who hope to be rescued include the American pika (like a rabbit biologically, only it looks more like a guinea pig), the Idaho slick spot pepper grass, and the Phyllostegia hispida, a type of flower that probably won’t be named after President Obama any time soon. Those last two actually were added to the endangered species list. Here’s something I’d like everyone to ask: Why? What are all of these wildlife conservation efforts good for?

By no means am I suggesting that all animals and plants that are unnecessary to humans be hacked off just so we can save money on conservation initiatives. The need for one species vis-à-vis another species may not be immediately obvious. This is exactly the thing that today’s environmentalists need to study before they begin their grandstanding. They must ask, “If this habitat is not conserved, will the balance of nature suffer or not?”

I think a lot of people throw their support behind “Save the Phyllostegia hispida“-style campaigns because it makes them feel morally superior. They know full well that humans are capable of both keeping and destroying habitats whose creatures are lower on the taxonomic scale; by choosing the former, they may feel more highly evolved than those who would put their own kind first. But that’s all subconscious. The more conscious line of reasoning is often “Come on, who wouldn’t want to save this?”

Some environmentalists quoted in the first article accept that the Obama administration has higher priorities – for humans. Let’s see if the others pony up their own cash instead.

Does the Sound need a sound federal policy?

Buried beneath endless reports of the Massachusetts Senate race (the Republican won, doncha know) and the Haiti situation was a short piece about federal legislation intended to benefit one piece of land in one state. No, it’s not Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) this time; it’s Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R) and Mark Begich (D), both of Alaska.

From a pure policy perspective, their proposal makes a good deal of sense. On Sunday, an Exxon tanker lost power in Prince William Sound – the same place where the Valdez oil spill occurred – and required two tugboats to tow it back en route. Murkowski and Begich now want all tankers passing through the Sound to be escorted by a pair of tugs lest they crash, which appears to be a frequent phenomenon in the area.

Here’s a map of the Sound. As you can see by all the tiny islands off the Kenai Peninsula, it’s a precarious trip for an oil tanker. I’d suggest going around the Peninsula and taking the Cook Inlet route to Anchorage, but considering that tankers have still been using the Sound long after Valdez, there must be a geographic explanation for it. Or maybe they just don’t learn easily.

So the tugboat idea is a good one. The line between good idea and risky one was crossed when Murkowski and Begich started asking the federal government to deal with it. The House already passed the law, apparently seeing no problem with that, and the Senate’s turn is coming up. According to the article, the tug “requirement is part of the Sound’s spill-contingency plans”; nothing is said of whether or not it’s Alaska state law, or just that of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, or PWSRCAC. (Catchy name.)

. . . the advisory council and [Murkowski] pointed at the incident as a reason why the Sound’s tanker escort system . . . should not be sacrificed. Some fear corporate cost-cutting will undermine the expensive tug escorts as the amount of oil piped from the North Slope to Valdez declines.

That’s a reasonable thing to be worried about; Exxon does have kind of a thing about spending extra money. If they knew half as much about contingency planning as the PWSRCAC, they would know that having tugs escort their tankers will cost less in the long run than rescuing them from stoppage or spills, and make the tug policy their own. This is one of several situations in which poor corporate practices makes new federal legislation seem more appealing, whether it’s necessary or not.

A tree grows in Manaus

It’s easy to sympathize with Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva when you’re a libertarian – neither one of you likes being told what to do, especially when the other party won’t do it themselves. In Lula’s case, however, it’s almost as if he has become that other party, since he expects everyone else to pay for halting deforestation in the Amazon. Oh, I’m sorry, not everyone else. Just “gringos.”

Lula’s comments came at a summit of Amazon nations in the city of Manaus as preparation for the Copenhagen climate summit on December 7. Actually, it turned out to be more like a tea party, as only two other heads of state – Guyana’s Bharrat Jagdeo and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on behalf of French Guiana – and a few VPs and cabinet ministers showed up. What came out of this tea party was a proposal for a tax on financial transactions that would provide aid to developing nations to slow deforestation.

I don’t want any gringo asking us to let an Amazon resident die of hunger under a tree. We want to preserve, but they will have to pay the price for this preservation because we never destroyed our forest like they mowed theirs down a century ago.

Ah, so he wants reparations!

I’m sure it isn’t hard to talk about this kind of arrangement when you’re not the one who will have to do most of the work. Norway, Japan, Sweden, Germany, South Korea, and Switzerland might not have to worry too much about being affected by this, as Norway has already donated to an Amazon preservation fund and the other five countries are considering doing that for themselves. That’s the way this project should be funded by other countries, if it must be funded by other countries at all.

I would definitely agree that slowing deforestation is one of the best things anyone can do to cut carbon emissions. It’s easier than just planting new trees, especially when the youngest ones have been known to worsen wildfires. But even though the U.S. did cut down many of its woods a hundred years ago, they have at least taken that step to offset the losses.

If leaders of Amazon countries are committed to preserving the forest, they might consider, I dunno, paying for it themselves. Lula’s justification for wanting to impose this on the U.S. and other gringo countries is really no justification at all. Americans hate taxes enough already, but at least they’re used within their own borders.

140 leagues over the sea

Les Blumenthal of McClatchy Newspapers would like to remind you all that the oceans are polluted and foreign ships are taking North America’s fish. He spends a good 373 words going into excruciating detail about this. If my journalism instructor were reading this article, he’d take marks off for a soft lead that just. Won’t. Stop.

So as not to be a hypocrite, I’ll get to the point. In what may be the world’s greatest example of why bureaucracy will be the end of us all, a number of lawmakers are trying to determine how many out of 140 regulatory agencies for oceans should form a proposed National Ocean Council. So far, it would include the administrators of NASA and the EPA, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (?), among others.

Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), respectively the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard (try fitting that on a business card), have both expressed confusion over why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been left off the list of agencies prepared by the White House task force overseeing the aforementioned proposal. My guess is that they simply forgot; how can’t you forget with a roster like that?

It would make perfect sense to ask for the NOAA’s input on oceanic affairs. They already oversee the science of oceans, coastlines, marine resources, climate, and air quality. The advantage of a National Ocean Council over the current set-up would be to help the NOAA explore angles they might neglect to consider, i.e. budgeting, security, and foreign competition.

Cantwell and Snowe are also confused why the NOAA is an arm of the Commerce Department, instead of, say, the Interior Department. I bet the officials who first thought up the NOAA decided which department would get it by having all the secretaries pull agencies out of a hat. It’s faster than just making a logical choice.

How this even became news is a mystery. Obviously Blumenthal was trying to demonstrate the ridiculousness of the federal government’s organization chart, and he succeeded. I’m getting a migraine just trying to grasp all the information. But couldn’t the task force just say to the subcommittee, “Yeah, we kinda forgot, but we’ll add it right now”? Or do they need to fill out a stack of forms before they can?