Challenging the Drilling Ban in Shallow Waters

  • The drillers say there’s a big difference between BP’s Deepwater Horizon, drilling at 5000 feet, and the rigs they operate in water less than a thousand feet. (Photo courtesy of Jann CC-BY)

Some smaller companies want to keep drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Lester Graham reports… a group called the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition says its members’ rigs are different than the BP operation that’s polluting the Gulf.

Transcript

Some smaller companies want to keep drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Lester Graham reports… a group called the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition says its members’ rigs are different than the BP operation that’s polluting the Gulf.

The drillers want the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to lift the moratorium on drilling in the shallow waters. In an article for Greenwire, Mike Soraghan reports… they’re getting support in letters from members of Congress.

“They’ve got about ten senators that have signed on and about 50 House members, including Ken Salazar’s brother who’s a member of Congress from Colorado, John Salazar.”

The drillers say there’s a big difference between BP’s Deepwater Horizon, drilling at 5000 feet… and the rigs they operate in water less than a thousand feet.

“They would argue that what you’ve heard in the past few weeks from BP officials is, you know, if this was in 200 feet of water, we’ve could have dealt with it a long time ago.”

Interior Secretary Salazar is to send the White House a report on the drilling moratorium by this Friday – the same day President Obama will be visiting Louisiana.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Climate and Energy Bill

  • The Senate's climate and energy bill was supposed to be introduced last April. It's release was delayed when Republican Senator Lindsey Graham withdrew his support. (Photo courtesy of The Architect of the Capitol)

The Senate is releasing their version of a climate and energy bill. And as Mark Brush reports, some political insiders are saying it’s now or never for action on energy and climate:

Transcript

The Senate is releasing their version of a climate and energy bill. And as Mark Brush reports, some political insiders are saying it’s now or never for action on energy and climate:

Most environmental groups argue that the Gulf Oil spill highlights the need to pass sweeping new energy legislation. And some political observers say Democrats will never have a bigger majority in the Senate than they do now.

So now might be the time for quick passage of the Kerry-Lieberman bill.
But a few others say there’s no need to rush things.
A climate and energy bill should be good policy first.

Frank O’Donnell is with the environmental group Clean Air Watch:

“There appears to be this real race to get something done before this window closes. The best kind of public policy is not always carved out under those circumstances.”

O’Donnell says the conventional wisdom that there will be no better time than now could be wrong.

He believes there will be other opportunities to pass climate change legislation in the future.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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New Food Safety Law?

  • Representative Bart Stupak has investigated food contamination problems from peanut butter to spinach. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

A bill to make the food system safer is stalled in the Senate. Lester Graham reports… the bill’s supporters in the House say they hope for a Senate vote soon.

Transcript

A bill to make the food system safer is stalled in the Senate. Lester Graham reports… the bill’s supporters in the House say they hope for a Senate vote soon.

Representative Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, has investigated food contamination problems from peanut butter to spinach. The House has already passed a bill Stupak supported to keep track of food in case there is a contamination problem.

“Traceability from the time it’s planted in the field, harvested in the field, processed at the warehouse, shipped to the store that traceability is a big part of it.”

“There’s been a lot of concern about overlap of agency responsibility and gaps in responsibility. Will the legislation address that?”

“I think some of those gaps have been closed. Not all of them! But, I think some of them have been. I would still rather see us limit where food enters this country so you can have some control over it and by control I just mean inspection.”

Stupak says the Senate will likely take it up the food safety bill once the Senators finish with Wall Street financial overhaul legislation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Congress Investigates Gulf Oil Spill

  • One area the investigation will focus on is whether the blowout prevention and emergency shutoff devices had been tested and properly maintained for use at the drilling facility.(Photo courtesy of the US Mineral Management Service)

Next week Congress will hold what’s likely to be the first of many hearings on the drilling rig explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Lester Graham reports this is just the latest Congressional investigation into BP’s operations.

Transcript

Next week Congress will hold what’s likely to be the first of many hearings on the drilling rig explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Lester Graham reports this is just the latest Congressional investigation into BP’s operations.

Congressman Bart Stupak chairs the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. He says you can add this oil spill in the Gulf to several oil spills on Alaska’s North Slope and the refinery explosion that killed 15 people in Texas City in 2005. He says earlier this year he fired off a letter about billions of dollars in budget cuts BP just recently made.

“We wanted to make sure these cuts don’t negatively affect the safety of the workers or the environment. I mean, we put that in writing to them in January. And when I heard about the blow-out and the fire down there and the accident, they didn’t have to tell me the company that was bitten by this. I just figured it was BP.”

Stupak’s subcommittee will be questioning BP officials, the drilling rig operators, TransOcean, and Halliburton which did maintenance work on the rig.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Budget Trimmers Target Ethanol

  • CEO of Growth Energy, Tom Buis argues ... we spend plenty of money for overseas oil ... why not support home-grown ethanol?(Photo courtesy of the NREL)

President Obama’s visit to the Corn Belt is highlighting a tough debate about the future of corn-based ethanol used in our cars.

Transcript

President Obama’s visit to the Corn Belt is highlighting a tough debate about the future of corn-based ethanol used in our cars.

Congress is looking to cut the federal budget and one target is a key ethanol subsidy.

It’s a tax credit of about 4 and a half billion dollars, and it runs out by the end of the year.

Ethanol trade groups are fighting to extend that credit.

Tom Buis is CEO of Growth Energy.

He argues … we spend plenty of money for overseas oil … why not support home-grown ethanol?

“We create jobs, jobs that can’t be outsourced. I don’t know why we want to fund economies of foreign governments. We should be looking at spurring our own economic development here in the United States.”

Last year the Government Accountability Office questioned whether we need this particular ethanol tax credit, since the government requires gasoline refiners to blend-in billions of gallons of ethanol anyway.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Politics Delay Climate Bill

  • Senator Lindsey Graham has walked out on the bill– saying he can’t go forward because the Democratic leadership is now playing politics with immigration policy.(Photo courtesy of the US Senate)

A climate and energy bill was supposed to be introduced in the Senate this week. But Mark Brush reports… politics are getting in the way:

Transcript

A climate and energy bill was supposed to be introduced in the Senate this week. But Mark Brush reports… politics are getting in the way:

Senators John Kerry – a Democrat – Joe Lieberman – an Independent – and Lindsey Graham a Republican have been working on a climate and energy bill.

There have been months of delicate negotiations.

But Senator Graham has walked out – saying he can’t go forward because the Democratic leadership is now playing politics with immigration policy.

Dan Weiss is the Director of Climate Strategy for the Center for American Progress – a liberal public policy group. He says all these delays come with costs:

“Every day that we wait to reform our energy policies, we buy a billion dollars worth of oil from other countries… Iran will earn an extra hundred million dollars in oil revenue… China will get further ahead of us in developing the clean energy technologies of the future.”

The House passed a climate and energy bill last year, but a Senate bill has been repeatedly delayed.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Climate Bill to Cut EPA Authority

  • Some senators say to pass any bill, they have to cut the EPA's authority, but environmental groups say this would be a mistake. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons GNU 1.2)

A big climate-change bill will be introduced in the U-S Senate next week.
Shawn Allee reports it’s expected to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases:

Transcript

A big climate-change bill will be introduced in the U-S Senate next week.

Shawn Allee reports it’s expected to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases.

Congress worked on climate bills for more than a year, but all that time, the US Environmental Protection Agency worked on its plans.

EPA’s got authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions on its own.

It’s doing that in case Congress waits too long or legislation’s too weak.

But some senators say to pass any, bill, they have to cut EPA’s authority.

Environmental groups say this would be a mistake.

Howard Learner is with The Environmental Law and Policy Center.

“The only justification to constrain the US EPA’s ability to do it’s job and do it well under the Clean Air Act is if Congress steps up in a comprehensive, thorough, durable, way to protect our public health and protect our environment.”

Lerner says we don’t know whether Congress’ approach to climate change will work, so the EPA should keep some power over greenhouse gas emissions … as a kind of back-stop.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Co-Opting “Cap and Dividend”

  • Senator Maria Cantwell says something has to be done to push the country toward alternative sources of energy – and away dependence on polluting fossil fuels. (Photo courtesy of the NREL, Warren Gretz)

A new climate change bill will be introduced next week. It’s expected to be very complicated because of so many competing interests. Critics say it won’t pass. Julie Grant reports another much shorter and simpler bill in the Senate is getting some overdue attention:

Transcript

A new climate change bill will be introduced next week. It’s expected to be very complicated because of so many competing interests. Critics say it won’t pass. Julie Grant reports another much shorter and simpler bill in the Senate is getting some overdue attention.

Carbon emissions come from smokestacks, tailpipes and all kinds of manufacturing processes. It’s considered the biggest culprit in the greenhouse gas pollution contributing to climate change.

We’ve heard a lot about a possible cap and trade program to reduce carbon emissions. The House of Representatives passed a cap and trade bill last summer, but it hasn’t gone far in the Senate. Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Joseph Lieberman, an independent, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican have been working on a bill for months.

But a simple bill called The CLEAR Act introduced last December has been is gaining interest. Senator Maria Cantwell is a Democrat from Washington State. She co-sponsored the bill with Republican Susan Collins of Maine.

Cantwell says something has to be done to push the country toward alternative sources of energy – and away dependence on polluting fossil fuels. That’s why they’re pushing the bill, called cap and dividend:

“We’re saying we think it’s very important to have a simple approach that the American people can understand. a 41-page bill is a lot about getting people to understand how this can work and helping us make a transition.”

Like cap and trade, the CLEAR Act would limit carbon emissions—it would put a cap on them. But it’s different from the complicated cap-and-trade plan that would target those who use energy and allow for many kinds of loopholes.

The Cantwell and Collins cap and dividend plan would concentrate on those who produce energy from fossil fuels. It would cap carbon at the tanker bringing in imported oil, the mine extracting coal, the oil and gas at the well head.

It would charge those energy producers for permits. Each year the number of permits would be reduced, so theoretically, the amount of carbon pollution would be gradually reduced.

Twenty-five percent of the money from the permits would go toward a clean energy fund. The other 75-percent would be paid at a flat rate to each person in the nation to offset higher energy prices.

So, fossil fuel energy would be more expensive, but families would get money to offset the higher costs.

Cantwell says no matter what we do, even if we do nothing, energy costs are going to rise. She says people want to know what to expect in their energy bills.

“What they want to know is how do you make that transition with the least impact to people and that’s what the Clear act is about; it’s about making a stable transition, and helping consumers along the way not get gouged by high energy prices.”

Many economists and environmentalists like the cap and dividend idea.

Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham have said they’ll fold some elements of cap and dividend into their massive proposal.

Darren Samuelsohn is the Energy and Environment Reporter for GreenWire. He says the three Senators are taking a comprehensive look at carbon pollution in relation to the entire U.S. energy policy.

“They’ve been meeting as a group of three behind closed doors working to try and satisfy the needs for a price on carbon emissions, across multiple sectors of the economy–power plants, heavy manufacturing and transportation.”

And they’re using bits and pieces of the Cantwell-Collins proposal.

Senators Cantwell and Collins say they don’t want their bill

cannibalized by that large scale bill.

One reason Cantwell is concerned is that the Kerry, Lieberman Graham bill allows trading permits. She says trading hasn’t worked in the European system. And she’s concerned it will make the price of carbon vulnerable to speculators who could drive the prices up artificially.

Instead, she wants carbon prices decided at monthly federal auctions.

Cantwell says the time is right for a simple, predictable bill like the CLEAR Act.

“You don’t have to ahve a 2-thousand page bill and figure out how many allowances you have to give away in the back room to make somebody believe in this. This is a concept the American people can understand and one they can support.”

On Monday, the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill is expected to be introduced. The vote will be very close, so they can’t afford to ignore what Senators Cantwell and Collins want.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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New Bi-Partisan Climate Change Bill

  • Darren Samuelsohn says the bill will also include a national renewable electricity standard, requiring more power to come from sources other than fossil fuel such as coal. (Photo courtesy of NREL)

A long-awaited climate change bill in the Senate is to be released next week. A prominent Republican says the bi-partisan bill won’t pass. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A long-awaited climate change bill in the Senate is to be released next week. A prominent Republican says the bi-partisan bill won’t pass. Lester Graham reports.

Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Joseph Lieberman, an independent and Lindsey Graham, a Republican have been working behind closed doors for six months to draft a climate and energy bill. They’re supposed to release it next Monday.

Darren Samuelsohn covers Washington for ClimateWire. He says no one knows everything the bill will include… but some points have been revealed.

Samuelsohn: Price on carbon emissions across multiple sectors of the economy: power plants, heavy manufacturing and transportation and then trying to ramp up a range of domestic energy supplies from nuclear to natural gas to oil.

Samuelsohn says the bill will also include a national renewable electricity standard, requiring more power come from sources other than fossil fuel such as coal.

Samuelsohn speculates this bill could pass in the Senate… but it will require some arm twisting and deal making by President Obama.

The Senate’s chief climate change denier, Republican James Inhofe told Fox News the bill won’t get half the votes it needs to pass.

For The Environment, I’m Lester Graham.

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Energy Legislation Breeding Bipartisanship?

  • Representatives from both sides of the aisle are beginning to find some common ground on energy policy. (Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol)

Members of Congress from fossil fuel states want to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. Lester Graham reports
– it’s one of the few bi-partisan efforts in Washington, but it’s not the only one:

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