The Wonk Room

Breaking: EPA Appeals Board Strikes Down Construction Of New Coal-Fired Power Plant»

In a landmark action, the Environmental Protection Agency’s final decision-making board has ruled that all new and proposed coal-fired power plants must have their carbon dioxide emissions regulated. The Environmental Appeals Board ruled today that the EPA has no valid reason for refusing to place limits on the global warming emissions from Desert Power’s proposed 110-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Vernal, Utah.

Deseret Power’s Bonanza Generating Station would have emitted 3.37 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. In July 2007, the EPA issued a permit for the plant, ignoring the Clean Air Act’s stipulation that all such permits must include a “best-available control technology” emissions limit for each pollutant “subject to regulation under the Act.” Before the Sierra Club brought suit, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform opened an investigation into the EPA’s decision, saying:

It is reckless to approve a huge coal-fired power plant with no global warming emission controls. This one massive plant will negate the emissions reductions being implemented by the Northeastern states in the first mandatory regional program to cut global warming pollution. The Administration’s shameful decision rewards polluters, flouts the Clean Air Act, and fails the American people.

Joanna Spalding, the Sierra Club attorney who successfully argued the case, delivered this statement:

Today’s decision opens the way for meaningful action to fight global warming and is a major step in bringing about a clean energy economy. This is one more sign that we must begin repowering, refueling and rebuilding America. The EAB rejected every Bush Administration excuse for failing to regulate the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States. This decision gives the Obama Administration a clean slate to begin building our clean energy economy for the 21st century.

The 69-page decision described the Bush administration’s arguments as “weak,” “questionable,” “not sustainable,” and “not sufficient,” and rebuked EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson for failing to issue CO2 regulations, repeatedly recommending an “action of nationwide scope.”

Pollution Industry Says ‘It’s Scary’ To Think Of Waxman In Charge Of Climate Legislation»

This week, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) announced his intent to replace Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) as chair of the House Energy Commerce & Committee, which has jurisdiction over global warming legislation. On Thursday, Dingell told WJR Radio’s Frank Beckmann that Waxman is an “anti-manufacturing left-wing Democrat” with a “serious lack of understanding of people in the auto industry and manufacturing generally.”

Representatives of major greenhouse gas-emitting industries have also recoiled at the prospect of Waxman being in charge instead of Dingell.

R. Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “took issue with the idea of a Waxman-led committee given the Californian’s support for far more aggressive greenhouse emission limits compared with Dingell,” telling E&E News, “It’s scary, isn’t it?”

The Chamber’s public comments reinforce the anonymous “refining industry insider” who told E&E News “all hell will break loose legislatively” if Waxman won.

The coal lobby has also weighed in on this dispute. Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association, told Bloomberg News that Waxman likely would be “a very slow learner on the importance of coal for affordable energy. It would have been problematic in the best of times to have Mr. Waxman’s views prevail.”

Climate Progress’s Joe Romm responds, “If actually trying to prevent catastrophic global warming is ’scary’ then all I can say is ‘Boo!‘”

Digg it!

UPDATE: Josten and Popovich are the top figures in the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth, the front group formed in 2001 to promote the Cheney energy bill.

UPDATE 2: In 2006, the New Republic’s Bradford Plumer wrote this review of Dingell’s impact on clean-air legislation during his 50-year tenure: More »

On Election Day, King Coal Celebrates Public Relations ‘Landslide’»

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), the coal industry’s propaganda front group, is upbeat about this election day, as indicated by their press release today. ACCCE VP Joe Lucas claimed:

If “support for the use of coal for generating electricity” were on the ballot today, it would win by a landslide.

His choice of words is unfortunate, as landslides are only one of the many deadly hazards of coal mining, especially under the lax safety enforcement of the Bush administration.

ACCCE is celebrating a poll that showed their $50 million propaganda campaign influenced “adults with $80,000 or more in household income and a four-year college degree or more and a professional or managerial job title or a business owner and a high degree of involvement in politics and policy matters.”

However, all the PR spin in the world can’t affect scientific reality. America’s coal plants produce about 49 percent of U.S. electricity but account for 83 percent of power-sector emissions. And we need to reduce net emissions to zero as fast as humanly possible to preserve our civilization from catastrophic global warming.

The tobacco industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars to obscure the scientific fact that their product is an addictive, deadly drug. After decades of debate, after millions of Americans had their lives unnecessarily shortened, our government crafted policies that protected tobacco farmers and reduced the tobacco industry’s grip. Even so, the needless deaths continue, all to protect the profits of a very powerful few.

Our current situation with the coal industry is similar, but the stakes are even more grave. No matter what actions Washington D.C. takes, the 80,000 people in the coal mining industry — 0.02% of the U.S. population — should be taken care of. These workers deserve better than they are getting today, as the union-busting coal barons ignore safety regulations and cut benefits. But make no mistake — the burning of coal is burning up the planet.

The world is not going to stop using coal for decades, even if the United States were to move entirely to a fossil-free power grid. If we can develop the technology needed to economically capture the emissions of coal plants, and I hope we can, then the coal industry will have the opportunity to rake in billions of dollars in profits for a few more generations.

The saddest thing about the ACCCE campaign is not its facile dishonesty, but that we continue to have a political discourse that places more weight on perception than reality.

McCain And Obama Criticize New Coal Plants — Right Wing Goes Insane»

Both presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) have called for a mandatory cap on carbon emissions in the United States. Coal-fired power plants, which produce about 49 percent of U.S. electricity, account for 83 percent of power-sector emissions. Because of the global warming footprint, the cheapness of coal-fired electricity is illusory. Under a cap-and-trade system, the cost of those emissions — now a market externality — would have a dollar cost. In a January 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama used blunt language to describe how a cap and trade system would change the future of the power sector:

That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants are being built, they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted-down caps that are imposed every year. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches.

The right wing has gone insane over these remarks, falsely claiming that Obama said he “will bankrupt the coal industry.” This false claim is the headline of a Newsbusters story — the same right-wing front group that falsely attacked Al Gore using doctored audio clips. This time, the piece is based on an anonymous YouTube video. After being pumped by a top link on the Drudge Report, the right-wing — including the Weekly Standard, Michelle Malkin, and Power Line — went wild and repeated the lie that Obama talked about “bankrupting” the “coal industry.”

In reality, Obama’s statements, while blunt, are neither revelatory nor controversial. At a September 15 townhall meeting in Orlando, FL, McCain warned against building new coal plants:

We’re going to build new plants that generate energy, my friends, we’re going to build them. We’ve got to. There’s an increased demand for it. And it seems to me, it’s going to be coal, which I believe will increase greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, or it’s going to be nuclear, or it’s going to be clean coal technology.

In the San Francisco Chronicle interview , Obama similarly stated that the future of power involves coal:

But this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion. Because the fact of the matter is, is that right now we are getting a lot of our energy from coal. And China is building a coal-powered plant once a week. So what we have to do then is figure out how can we use coal without emitting greenhouse gases and carbon. And how can we sequester that carbon and capture it. If we can’t, then we’re gonna still be working on alternatives.

Under either candidate’s cap and trade program, constructing new coal plants that do not employ “clean coal technology” — that is, carbon capture and sequestration technology — would raise costs “dramatically.” Independent analysts have found that new coal plants would “create significant financial risks for shareholders and ratepayers” because of the likely cost of their greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, energy providers will have a financial incentive to pursue alternative energy and energy efficiency. McCain explained the market signal of a cap and trade program in his May 12 speech on climate change:

And the same approach that brought a decline in sulfur dioxide emissions can have an equally dramatic and permanent effect on carbon emissions. Instantly, automakers, coal companies, power plants, and every other enterprise in America would have an incentive to reduce carbon emissions, because when they go under those limits they can sell the balance of permitted emissions for cash. As never before, the market would reward any person or company that seeks to invent, improve, or acquire alternatives to carbon-based energy. . . A cap-and-trade policy will send a signal that will be heard and welcomed all across the American economy. Those who want clean coal technology, more wind and solar, nuclear power, biomass and bio-fuels will have their opportunity through a new market that rewards those and other innovations in clean energy.

McCain emphasized who the winners under a carbon cap-and-trade system are: “clean coal technology, more wind and solar, nuclear power, biomass and bio-fuels.” The market “incentive,” “reward,” or “signal” is a euphemism that the winners will make money because the losers will pay more. And the losers, above all, are traditional coal plants — no matter who is elected president.

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll calls Obama’s quotes a “blockbuster story,” the Corner’s Mark Steyn hyperventilates that this was a “****-me story,” and Hugh Hewitt’s Bill Dyer calls it “madness masquerading as policy.” This video from Jed Lewison puts matters into perspective:

Coal Industry Gloats: We Will Run This Country»

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is celebrating on its “Behind the Plug” blog about their successful photo-op with Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE):

Joe Lucas, an ACCCE lobbyist, gloats:

With just nine days left in the campaign, we still don’t know who will be running the country, but we know what will: American coal.

ACCCE is spending about $50 million to pollute our national discourse with the toxic myth of “clean coal.” The coal and oil industries have spent nearly $1 billion on an army of lobbyists, advertisements, and campaign contributions this year.

We have reached a new low in our democracy when corporate polluter flacks are willing to publicly state that their industry runs this nation.

Sierra Club: Coal Is Not The Answer»

The Sierra Club has launched CoalIsNotTheAnswer.org, which debunks the multimillion propaganda campaign by the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity to greenwash coal.

The coal industry has spent over $40 million on misleading advertising that touts coal as the next great thing to solve the energy crisis. It’s time for a reality check. We will not stand by idly as they spew their propaganda.

The Sierra Club’s website and the accompanying video brilliantly eviscerate ACCCE’s lies. Watch it:

The Sierra Club’s campaign joins earlier efforts to combat the propaganda coming from this greenhouse pollution industry. Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network, and DeSmogBlog teamed up to launch Coal Is Dirty.com back in May.

See also some of the Wonk Room’s exposure of the truth about coal since this site’s launch in March: More »

ACCCE’s $40 Million ‘Clean Coal’ Lie»

Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal credited the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity’s (ACCCE) president, Stephen Miller, for convincing politicians, the media and the public that “clean coal” is a cure all for global warming pollution from coal-fired power plants:

Mr. Miller, 55 years old, is president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a Virginia group funded by the country’s major coal-burning utilities, coal producers and railroads that haul coal. Over the past year, his organization has spent nearly $40 million on television and radio spots and other outreach efforts to bolster public support for coal, and to reinforce fears that limits on its use will raise living costs.

ACCCE’s TV ads feature a diverse group of American archetypes saying “I believe” in achieving energy independence, using new technologies, and other similar platitudes. Only at the end does it mention that the ad is about “clean coal.”

What does ACCCE mean by “clean coal”? To the degree it means anything, it’s a euphemism for reducing greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants via carbon capture and storage (CCS), a promising but unproven technology. In fact, the International Energy Agency yesterday released a report that determined that CCS is a long way from commercialization: More »

McCain’s Opposition To Energy Independence»

Our guest blogger is Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In the third and final presidential debate on October 15, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said one of his goals is that “we become energy independent and we will create millions of jobs in America.”

However, he conclusively demonstrated that he advocates policies that will achieve neither “energy independence” nor “millions of jobs.”

Plank #1: Nukes, Baby, Nukes

Sen. McCain said that to achieve “energy independence…. We have to have nuclear power.”

Building 100 new nuclear plants, as he has proposed, will do nothing to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Nuclear power generates approximately 20% of U.S. electricity, while oil produces less than 2%, and only 2% of oil use goes to producing electricity.

Nuclear power will not lead to energy independence because the U.S. must import over 90% of its uranium, with nearly one-third coming from Russia. If we double the number of nuclear plants, as McCain has called for, we would become even more dependent on countries that, in McCain’s words, “don’t like us very much.” More »

How Deregulation Killed The Wild West»

Our guest blogger is Todd Darling, a documentary filmmaker whose film, “A Snow Mobile For George,” is being featured tonight in Washington, D.C., by Reel Progress.

Back on January 13, 2004, when I left Los Angeles loaded down with cameras, winter gear, and a threadbare credit card, few, if any heads would turn at the mention of “deregulation.” Head movement would be limited to a nod, as in “nod out.”

Wall Street’s wipe out changes that. Now we realize that we let the fox into the hen house, and now the fox wants to be reimbursed for the chickens he ate. But, when I set out to make “A Snow Mobile for George,” a film about environmental deregulation, the concept of deregulation was too abstract for most viewers. That’s why I picked the environment because the effects of deregulation had no place to hide. My drive across America, trailing my two-stroke snowmobile, looking for tales of environmental deregulation, didn’t turn up a lot of joy. The reason why should not have surprised me. Simply put, the same deregulation that mangled the environment, also ruined people’s lives. Watch the trailer:

This discovery hit us hard out on a snow-covered ridge in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. A tall cowboy told us his land had been invaded by oil companies. They had come onto his land, uninvited, looking for natural gas — “Coal Bed Methane.” The companies drilled four wells every 80 acres, built roads, installed pipe lines, pumped away his water supplies, polluted his top-soil, installed noisy pressure stations, damaged the natural vegetation, and he had almost no say in the matter. He has been virtually forced off his own private land. More »

McCain’s Confusing Coal Criticisms»

This morning, CNN anchor John Roberts questioned Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) about Gov. Sarah Palin’s statement that the U.S. should go into Pakistan after terrorists, a clear contradiction with McCain’s position that such measures should never be discussed publicly. Roberts asked why McCain called this “gotcha journalism.” McCain responded that the “circumstances were very different.” Roberts asked, “How so?”

I believe it was a town hall meeting that he said it. Hers was an encounter in a pizza parlor where the question was framed, so that of course we’re going to go after terrorists.

Watch it:

McCain is wrong. In fact, at a town hall meeting of his own that same week, Sen. McCain said that he supported an end to mountaintop removal, a position his campaign initially denied. McCain also criticized the construction of new coal plants, saying they “will increase greenhouse gas emissions dramatically.” A week later, at the Clinton Global Initiative, McCain said, “We now know that fossil fuel emissions, by retaining heat within the atmosphere, threaten disastrous changes in climate.”

Unfortunately, no one in the media has challenged McCain on these statements, which strongly imply that McCain considers the continued use of coal “disastrous.”

UPDATE: Factcheck.org calls the ads “false.”

McCain Confuses Coal With ‘Clean Coal’ In New Ads»

On a day when Congress focuses on the deteriorating financial markets, John McCain has given up his pledge to stay in Washington to get a deal done. Instead, back on the campaign trail, he wants to talk about coal. McCain is selling a fantasy of a coal- and oil-based economy, in ads airing in Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia:

“Clean coal” is important to America. And to Colorado. For Coloradoans, coal means thousands of jobs. Economic growth. More affordable electricity. For America, coal means energy independence. And “clean coal” means cleaner air. But Obama-Biden and their liberal allies oppose “clean coal.”

Listen here:

In fact, coal is a dirty, deadly fuel that is becoming increasingly expensive. And a coal-based economy doesn’t promise real job growth, either. The coal industry has in fact been cutting jobs while increasing production and profits. Finally, continued use of coal — as the most concentrated global warming pollutant — is threatening the future of human civilization, something McCain himself seems to recognize.

McCain’s ads confuse coal with “clean coal” — the industry’s preferred term for technologies still in development to sequester coal’s deadly pollution. Such advanced coal technology may promise “cleaner air” — in comparison to the continued use of traditional coal plants — if and when it is developed. The “clean coal” propaganda campaign must not substitute for real technological innovation. This is what Al Gore meant when he said last week:

If the coal companies can actually sequester CO₂ safely, then okay. But don’t, don’t pretend to do it. Don’t, don’t, don’t give us this illusion. Because that’s what they did on Wall Street. “The risk isn’t there. Don’t worry about it. Just keep focusing on the short term profit.”

More »

Al Gore: ‘Clean Coal’s Like Healthy Cigarettes’»

At the Clinton Global Initiative, Al Gore ripped apart “clean coal,” the coal industry catch-all propaganda term for advanced coal technologies, both existing ones that reduce traditional pollutants and developmental ones, like carbon capture and sequestration. Gore was asked by Bill Clinton, “Do you believe that the current economic difficulties will make it harder or easier to pass good climate legislation?” Here’s Gore’s answer:

For the first time in all of human history, we, as a species, have to make a decision. If we make the right decision then the answer to the question you asked is, the economic crisis can provide an opportunity to make the right kind of changes.

What should we do? We should stop burning coal . . . without sequestering the CO₂. The coal and oil companies have spent in the United States alone a half a billion dollars in the first eight months of this year promoting a lie that there is such a thing as “clean coal.” Clean coal’s like healthy cigarettes — it does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant was canceled. How many, how many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero.

Watch it:

Gore continued with a discussion of how the United States and the rest of the world should build a new, smart electricity infrastructure based on wind, solar, and geothermal power “to take the energy from the places where the sun falls and the wind blows to the places where the people live” — including a link from places like Darfur to Europe:

We are now — what we should do is make a one-off investment to switch our energy infrastructure from one that depends on fuel that is dirty, dangerous, destroying the habitability of this planet, and rising in price, to a new global energy infrastructure that is based on fuel that is free forever: the sun, and the wind, and geothermal. There’s a myth that the technology is not available. It is available. Concentrating geothermal [Ed.: He means “solar”] power is competitive today. Wind is competitive, though intermittent, today. Geothermal is competitive today.

More »

Exclusive Video Of Gore’s Remarks At The Clinton Global Initiative: ‘It Is Time For Civil Disobedience’»

Vice President Al Gore, speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative yesterday, called on young people to “prevent the construction of new coal plants” through civil disobedience, repeating a call he made last year in an interview with Nick Kristof. At CGI, Gore said:

If you’re a young person, looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now and not done, I believe we’ve reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.

Watch it:

The New York Times’s Paul Vitello claimed there was only “scattered applause,” despite the boisterous reaction from the crowd.

People, young and old, have been committing acts of civil disobedience against coal plants and mountaintop coal mining across the planet — including England, North Carolina, Wise County and Carbo, Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

Bright Green Blog’s Eoin O’Carroll responds:

Leaving aside whether breaking the law is ever justified, it seems odd that Gore doesn’t seem to include himself in the category of the “young people” he thinks should risk jail to halt global warming. After all, at age 71, Ghandi was arrested and served two years in prison. The US labor organizer Mother Jones was still facing charges of sedition in her 80s. Even TV president Martin Sheen, who is eight years older than Gore, managed to get himself arrested at an antinuclear action in Nevada last year, for what he says is the 65th time.

Climate Progress’s Joe Romm argues, “there is something young people can do that is vastly more important right now — and that is to get politically involved immediately.”

McCain: New Coal Plants ‘Will Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions Dramatically’»

Last week, the Wonk Room reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) joined Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) in opposing mountaintop removal, an ecologically and economically disastrous form of coal mining that has devastated Appalachia. This position, expressed at a Florida townhall meeting, caught his campaign and his supporters off guard, with Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) responding that “such a stance could hurt McCain in West Virginia.”

At the same meeting, McCain also criticized the idea of building new coal plants that do not sequester their greenhouse gas emissions. He said:

We’re going to build new plants that generate energy, my friends, we’re going to build them. We’ve got to. There’s an increased demand for it. And it seems to me, it’s going to be coal, which I believe will increase greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, or it’s going to be nuclear, or it’s going to be clean coal technology.

Watch it:

Carbon capture and sequestration (sometimes described as “clean coal” technology) is still a developmental technology. Does McCain’s careful separation of coal plants that “increase greenhouse gas emissions dramatically” from “clean coal technology” mean that McCain opposes the construction of new traditional coal plants?

If so, McCain is joining activist organizations like 1Sky, the Energy Action Coalition, and the League of Women Voters, who have all called for a moratorium on new coal plants to prevent climate catastrophe.

Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) criticized Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) for comments criticizing coal’s health threats, noting that Biden “here in Ohio recently said that they weren’t supporting clean coal either.” The comments, first reported by the Wonk Room, were picked up today by the Politico’s Ben Smith and then promoted on the Drudge Report. Sen. McCain’s blogger, Michael Goldfarb, copied the Wonk Room transcript without attribution.

Following McCain’s remarks, McCain representative George “Macaca” Allen (R-VA) spoke with reporters about coal. Allen confused traditional coal plants, advanced “clean coal” technology, and climate-killing liquid coal. In the twenty-minute call, neither Allen, Capito, Scott McInnis (R-CO) — a registered lobbyist for the mining industry — nor the other speakers mentioned any of the following:

– Global warming, which McCain considers a central priority.

– The health effects of coal pollution.

– Mountaintop removal mining, which McCain says he opposes.

Unlike his campaign, McCain seems to have no difficulty recognizing the threat traditional coal plants pose to the planet and thus to our national security and economic future.

UPDATE: The McCain-Palin campaign has announced the “Coalition to Protect Coal Jobs:”

The coalition will help spread the message about the importance of clean coal technology and the advantages of tapping the country’s vast coal reserves. As part of John McCain’s “all of the above” energy plan, the Lexington Project, clean coal will be a strong component of the drive to energy independence. In addition to providing domestic energy, the coal industry is a key part of the economy in several states.

The Obama-Biden campaign later announced the “Clean Coal Jobs Task Force”:

Today, the Obama-Biden campaign announced a Clean Coal Jobs Task Force, aimed at furthering Senator Obama and Senator Biden’s commitment to creating jobs and energy independence through clean coal. The Task Force is made up of members representing workers from key coal-producing states and will work to promote the Obama-Biden agenda to invest in advanced coal-based technologies, create more jobs in the coal sector and enhance mine safety.

Smokey Joe Barton Kills Air Pollution Clean-Up, Wants To Review ‘The Entire Clean Air Act’»

Our guest blogger is Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.

It may seem like a sideshow to the congressional battle over drilling, but tens of thousands of people may see their lives cut short by air pollution – and they have Joe Barton (R-TX) to thank.

This week, Rep. Barton (given the moniker “Smokey Joe” by the Dallas Morning News for his efforts on behalf of polluters) blocked efforts in Congress to advance a compromise plan to reduce power plant emissions. The compromise, put together by Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) and Rick Boucher (D-VA), was designed to codify the first phase of the Bush EPA interstate air pollution rule (the so-called “clean air interstate rule” or CAIR) struck down by a federal court.

The Carper-Dingell-Boucher plan also would have taken away a “coal bonus” that the Bush administration inserted into the rule to reward coal-burning companies such as Southern Company. (Among other things, this would have had the effect of reducing costs to Texas electricity consumers compared to the original CAIR plan.) The plan was also designed to trigger more aggressive long-term pollution reductions than contained in the original Bush plan. (The Bush administration spent considerable energy in recent weeks trying to sidetrack this more aggressive long-term strategy.)

Southern Company has vigorously opposed the Carper-Dingell-Boucher initiative. It did not want to lose that coal bonus, and has the power to take action. The head of Southern Company is also chair of the influential power industry lobby, the Edison Electric Institute). The man who crafted the original CAIR rule while at the EPA, Jeffrey Holmstead, is now a top lobbyist for Southern Company at Rudy Giuliani’s lobbying firm.

And EEI is a major contributor to Barton, the Texas Republican who is the “ranking member” of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. So is the coal lobbying front group, the National Mining Association. In fact, Barton has received over a million dollars in campaign contributions from electric utilities.

Because there are only a few working days left in Congress, Dingell and Boucher hoped to proceed under a streamlined process that required Barton’s cooperation.

But Barton said no deal. As reported by E&E News, Barton said he wanted to spend time in the next Congress “thoroughly reviewing not only the CAIR regulations, but the entire Clean Air Act.”

So there you have it. Barton, who in the past has introduced legislation to weaken the Clean Air Act, now is holding the CAIR fix hostage. He wants another crack at weakening the Clean Air Act. The result, according to the EPA, will be thousands of premature deaths, as well as heart attacks, emergency room visits and lost work days. This, of course, will include significant public health damage in Barton’s own state — and will make it harder for Texas and other states to meet national clean air standards.

Biden: ‘No Coal Plants Here In America’»

At a campaign stop today in Maumee, OH, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) talked to Carolyn Auwaerter, a young 1Sky campaigner, about energy policy. Questioned about his campaign’s support for “clean coal,” Biden vigorously defended his record in favor of renewable energy, and outlined what he sees as the key challenge: developing carbon capture and sequestration technology (which he calls “clean coal”) to limit the pollution from China’s rapidly increasing fleet of coal plants. In his words, captured on video by the Energy Action Coalition:

No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they’re going to build them over there make ‘em clean because they’re killing you.

Watch it:

Both 1Sky and the Energy Action Coalition are opposed to the development of new coal-fired power plants. Energy Action Coalition is running Power Vote, a national youth based campaign to get 1,000,000 youth voters voting for clean energy this election season. They are also working with Green For All and the Center for American Progress on the Green Jobs Now Day of Action, this September 27.

Transcript: More »

McCain: ‘I Do’ Support An End To Mountain-Top Removal, But Coal Companies Also ‘Doing A Much Better Job’»

UPDATE: Video via Progressive Accountability added.

In a townhall meeting yesterday in Orlando, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was asked if he supported an end to the economically and ecologically destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. His reply:

I do.

Mountaintop removal is decimating Appalachia — 25 percent of Wise County’s historic mountain ranges have been destroyed forever.

McCain couldn’t let well enough alone. He then incoherently continued, “I’ve seen a dramatic improvement in the behavior of the coal companies. They are doing a much better job.”

Watch it:

McCain’s answer may have been influenced by the many coal lobbyists running his campaign, like Frank Donatelli (Dominion Resources), Jerry Kilgore (Alpha Natural Resources), and Nancy Pfotenhauer (Koch Industries). In the past eight years, the use of mountaintop removal — destructively blowing up mountain peaks to reach coal seams with as few workers as possible — has steadily risen. Coal companies are making record profits by exploiting workers and raping the land at an ever faster clip. Here are just a few of the crimes and misbehaviors of King Coal in recent years:

Massey Energy, The Largest Coal Company In Appalachia, Has A Horrendous Labor, Safety, and Environmental Record. Between 1997 and 2006 there were 12 fatalities at Massey mines. Less than 4% of Massey’s workforce is unionized. An EPA suit for $2.4 billion worth of fines for thousands of Clean Water Act violations, including a 300 million gallon coal slurry flood, was settled in January 2008 for $20 million. Former Massey executives hold top regulatory positions in the Bush Administration. [RAN; Gristmill, 12/19/07]

Massey’s Corrupt Judges Overturn $76 Million Verdict. Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship spent millions to install corrupt judges on the West Virginia Supreme Court, even sharing Monte Carlo vacations. In April, the Supreme Court overturned a $76 million verdict against Massey, with Brent Benjamin, on whose election Blankenship spent $3.5 million, casting the deciding vote. [Gristmill, 4/5/08]

Utah Coal Company Sues To Prevent Voter Oversight Of Power Plants. “Attorneys for a power company are suing to remove a ballot initiative in Sevier County that could stand in the way of a new coal-fired power plant. Proposition 1 would require voter approval before the county can issue a ‘conditional-use’ permit for facilities like a power plant. It would also revoke permits already approved for construction of a power plant.” [AP, 9/1/08]

‘Reckless Disregard For Safety’ Led To Deadly Crandall Canyon Disaster. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration asked for a criminal investigation into the August 2007 Crandall Canyon coal mining disaster, which killed nine men. MSHA official Richard E. Stickler said, “Through its investigation of the tragic accidents last year at Crandall Canyon, MSHA determined that the operator and its engineering consultants demonstrated reckless disregard for safety.” [MSHA, 9/3/08; Mineweb, 9/4/08]

Peabody Coal Bankrolling ‘Drill Here, Drill Now’ Propaganda. Peabody Energy, the largest coal company in the world, is the largest corporate backer of American Solutions for Winning the Future, Newt Gingrich’s 527 corporation selling the false “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” campaign to block progressive energy solutions. [Wonk Room, 7/30/08]

So what is the “much better job” that McCain claims the coal companies are now doing? The only act King Coal has cleaned up is their propaganda campaign to sell “clean coal,” joining Big Oil to spend two million dollars a day promoting their agenda of continuing to dig America deeper into the pollution pit.

Digg it!

See extended video from Progressive Accountability.

Coal Crimes: Saving The Planet Or Blowing It Up»

Today brings news of two acts of criminality on either side of the Atlantic Ocean involving coal, the fossil fuel with the highest global warming pollution intensity. In the United Kingdom, activists who shut down a coal plant have been acquitted by a jury of all charges of property damage. In the United States, right-wing coal company Massey Energy is planning to start illegally destroying a mountain to extract its coal. Our two nations are evidently separated by more than an ocean — one is breaking from the destructive dependency on fossil fuels, while the other is digging in deeper.

In the United Kingdom, a jury decided the threat of burning coal was much greater to the planet than the damage caused by six Greenpeace activists who painted a coal chimney with UK prime minister Gordon Brown’s first name:

Six Greenpeace climate change activists have been cleared of causing criminal damage at a coal-fired power station in a verdict that is expected to embarrass the government and strengthen the anti-coal movement.

The jury of nine men and three women at Maidstone crown court cleared the six, five of whom had scaled a 200m tall chimney at Kingsnorth power station at Hoo, Kent in October 2007.
Kingsnorth chimney Greenpeace activists on the painted chimney.

The activists admitted trying to shut down the station by occupying the smokestack and painting the world “Gordon” down the chimney, but argued that they were legally justified because they were trying to prevent climate change causing greater damage to property around the world.

The defense, who called NASA climate scientist James Hansen, environmentalist Zac Goldsmith, and an Inuit leader from Greenland, cited coastal England, the Pacific island state of Tuvalu, areas of Greenland, the Arctic ice sheet, China’s Yellow river region, the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica, coastal areas of Bangladesh and the city of New Orleans as regions under immediate threat from global warming.

Meanwhile, as Kevin Grandia writes at the Huffington Post, Massey Energy is planning to “begin blowing up the mountains in the Bee Tree Branch area of Coal River Mountain, West Virginia” as early as today. At Grist, David Roberts explains that Gov. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is ignoring his own environmental officers in greenlighting the illegal dynamiting of Coal River Mountain:

Massey wants to start blowing the mountain up as early as today, but according to state Department of Environmental Protection secretary Randy Huffman, “If they blast, they do so illegally in our opinion.” Seems they lack the requisite permits.

Despite the impending lawbreaking, WV governor Joe Manchin has refused to intercede, rejecting a request letter sent yesterday from citizen groups. Manchin, apparently not in touch with his own DEP, says Massey has the permits they need.

Locals have been trying to build a wind farm atop the mountain Massey plans to destroy. Roberts opines: “Massey is already the most evil company in the world, with the most evil CEO in the world. If they pull this off, they will have basically lapped the other evildoers.”

UPDATE: James Hansen spoke today on behalf of the Power Vote campaign to get one million young people to “cast their vote for the presidential candidate with the greenest energy record.” Hansen said:

Even in those places where we thought politicians were the greenest, in many cases it’s a case of green-wash, where they’re saying the right words but their actions don’t correspond.

Check out the Wonk Room’s interview with Jessy Tolkan, the head of Power Vote.

Denver Video: Pollution CEOs Versus Youth Activist Jessy Tolkan»

Last week the Rocky Mountain Roundtable hosted a day-long symposium on energy and climate change. One session included top officials from major global warming polluters — electric utility Xcel Energy, Arch Coal, Dow Chemical, natural gas corporation GHK, and top coal corporation Peabody Energy. The five men have, of course, become millionaires as their companies have spewed millions of tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere. At the Roundtable, the pollution executives defended government subsidies for their respective industries, claimed solidarity with average Americans, and pooh-poohed any possibility of change from the status quo:

– Xcel Energy CEO Dick Kelly complained, “Consumers want access to renewable energy and information. People have expectations that the solutions are readily available. That’s not true.”

– Arch Coal CEO Steven Leer — whose company has spent decades litigating and lobbying against the Clean Air Act — admitted, “The Clean Air Act worked.” Leer, who owns $27 million in Arch stock options, continued, “Everybody’s seen pain at the pump.”

– Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris — who made $10 million last year and has fired 7000 American workers — complained, “It’s been a tough couple of years,” and urged the audience, “We can’t as a government abdicate helping corporations.”

– GHK founder Robert A. Hefner III argued, “We can have totally green natural gas plants” in order “to replace coal.”

– Peabody Executive Vice President Fred Palmer — a $25,000 donor to Gingrich’s ASWF 527 corporation — claimed “Clean coal is not an oxymoron.” He then stated, “The United States is not the problem,” putting blame on China.

The Wonk Room interviewed Jessy Tolkan, leader of the Power Vote campaign and executive director of the Energy Action Coalition, for a response:

As one of the most powerful voting blocs in America, we are going to make it abundantly clear that we don’t want an abundance of dirty energy in this country. We want an abundance of clean energy, and we’re going to force our elected officials to listen to us and not the oil and coal and natural gas industry.

Watch it:

In the interview, Tolkan also called Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign “a bunch of bullshit,” saying she’s still naive enough believe we should tell the truth. Tolkan recommends that everyone check out PowerVote.org and join the Energy Action Coalition on September 27th in the Green Jobs Now Day of Action.

See also the Wonk Room video interview with Van Jones of Green For All.

Report: King Coal And Big Oil Unite To Buy The Future, Spending More Than Two Million Dollars A Day»

As Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) sets foot on a drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana, his “drill everywhere” message is being amplified by political spending of more than two million dollars a day by the oil and coal industries. The Public Campaign Action Fund has released a major report finding that King Coal and Big Oil have united in an attempt to buy the future:

We estimate that the coal and oil industries spent an astounding $427.2 million over the first six months of 2008 to influence public opinion and public policy.

These industries are on track to spend about a billion dollars influencing energy policy this year, with their “clean coal” and “drill drill drill” messaging. They are supporting pollution-friendly candidates and spreading false doubt about the seriousness of global warming.

This total includes the $12.2 million dollars spent in six months by Newt Gingrich’s billionaire-and-coal-funded 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), on its “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign, and the $40 million that coal industry front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (now part of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity) pledged to spend influencing the public. It also includes John McCain’s million-dollar haul from the oil and gas industry.

The Public Campaign Action Fund’s estimate of $427.2 million fails to include the expenditures of pollution-agenda front groups that are “organized under sections of the Internal Revenue Code that do not require the public disclosure of their spending.” These groups include the likes of:

• Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth
• American Council for Capital Formation
• American Energy Alliance
• American Enterprise Institute
• Americans for Prosperity
• American Future Fund
• Business & Media Institute
• Coalition for Affordable American Energy
• Competitive Enterprise Institute
• FreedomWorks
• Heartland Institute
• Institute for Energy Research
• National Association of Manufacturers
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Therefore the Public Campaign’s estimate is rather conservative.

The Coal Time Bomb Is Ticking»

King Coal’s front groups — Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) — are continuing to spread misleading propaganda about its dirty and expensive fuel:

Coal is affordable and reliable. Electricity from coal costs about half as much as electricity from other energy sources. In fact, twenty-two of the nation’s 25 lowest-cost power plants use coal to generate electricity. And the price of coal has remained stable over the years, especially when compared to other energy sources. The cost of electricity from coal has risen only four percent since 1979, while costs for energy from oil have risen over 50 percent and the costs for energy from gas have increased more than 200 percent during the same time period.

Unfortunately, it is an dirty illusion that coal is our “cheapest power source” — even if the terrible costs of its pollution are ignored. A time bomb of a price explosion is ticking, with massive increases in the cost of coal-powered electricity to come, year after year after year. In the coal spot markets, high-quality Appalachian coal has nearly tripled in price in the past year:

Average Weekly Coal Commodity Spot Prices (Dollars per Short Ton) Business Week Ended August 8, 2008

These price increases in the spot market are driven by surging international demand, the collapse of the dollar, fuel surcharges in transporting coal, investor speculation, and climate-change-related “wild weather” that played havoc with Australian exports of coal. These seemingly disparate influences are are all tightly interlocked by our global dependence on fossil fuels.

Because coal contracts are purchased on a multi-year basis, changes in the market can take years to hit the consumer. But the first signs of this massive price shock are starting to appear. Coal-country utility American Electric Power, a backer of ACCCE, stated on Thursday that it “must raise electricity rates 45 percent for its nearly 1.5 million customers in Ohio over the next three years, to cover soaring coal prices and the cost of modernizing its systems to keep them reliable.” Joe Hamrock, AEP Ohio president and chief operating officer declared:

The fact is that coal has doubled in cost in the last year alone, dramatically affecting AEP Ohio’s costs.

The coal companies who also fund ACCCE — when they talk to investors, not consumers — are gleeful about how the high prices of coal will guarantee “significant earnings increases for many years to come.” As Gregory H. Boyce, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, explained when he announced record second-quarter profits last month:

The structural changes driving demand much higher than supply, across all coal markets, look to be very long-lived. We are just beginning to benefit from the repricing of legacy coal supply contracts at higher levels, which could drive significant earnings increases for many years to come.”

As it revels in record profit, King Coal is bankrolling a fossil-dependent future of energy poverty and pollution: Peabody Energy is also the top corporate funder of Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here, Drill Now” 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future.