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Court: Polar bear habitat that interferes with oil drilling has to go

by BayalaHillesland628 Posted on January 15, 2013

Court: Polar bear habitat that interferes with oil drilling has to go

By Philip Bump

Through a bit of evolutionary serendipity, polar bears are cute. They are big and fuzzy and have thick, dopey heads. This is helpful to the polar bears, because it’s given the animals a powerful tool in their fight for existence. “Do you want polar bears to go away?” fundraising pleas ask above a sharp photograph of a bear’s clear black eyes.

To which oil companies say, “Only if they’re in the way.” Last week, a federal court in Alaska overturned a Fish and Wildlife Service habitat designation for polar bears after the fossil fuel industry sued, complaining that the habitat interefered with oil exploration. From the Wall Street Journal:

A U.S. court in Alaska has overturned a federal rule aimed at protecting polar bear habitat in the Arctic, handing a victory to the oil and natural-gas industry.

The rule, established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is “valid in many respects,” but the agency didn’t follow all the legally required steps before adopting the regulation, U.S. District Court Judge Ralph R. Beistline wrote in the decision, which was dated Thursday and published Friday. …

The government designated barrier islands, offshore sea-ice and “denning” areas, where female polar bears are known to make dens where they give birth to their young during winter months, as critical habitat. At the time of the designation, in November 2010, the Fish and Wildlife Service said the areas were “essential for the conservation of the bear.”

It’s fossil fuel industries that have put the polar bear in its current plight. Rampant greenhouse gas emission and the warming that has ensued has caused Arctic ice levels to plummet. With less ice, it becomes harder and harder for bears to conserve energy and to find food. As we noted in 2007:

As sea ice thins, and becomes more fractured and labile, it is likely to move more in response to winds and currents so that polar bears will need to walk or swim more and thus use greater amounts of energy to maintain contact with the remaining preferred habitats.

The government tried to create a protected habitat, a place where bears could hunt and rest as best they could without additional interference. But unfortunately for the bears, the Fish and Wildlife Service put the reserve on land that was already inhabited: by oil. So the Alaska Oil and Gas Association and the American Petroleum Institute sued, with the oil-obsessed state’s help.

The AOGA issued a pleased-as-punch statement [PDF] in response to the court ruling, including this quote from executive director Kara Moriarty.

AOGA members care as much about protecting Alaska’s environment and wildlife as anyone else, but we also recognize the need to responsibly develop our natural resources in order to keep the state’s number one economic driver healthy.

Emphasis added, to highlight the part of the quote that is bullshit.

Even worse was the statement from Alaska’s governor. Again from the Journal:

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell said Friday that he “applauded” the court’s decision.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service’s attempt to classify massive sections of resource-rich North Slope lands as critical habitat is the latest in a long string of examples of the federal government encroaching on states’ rights,” Mr. Parnell said.

You can hear Parnell salivating as he says resource-rich. After all, he — along with every resident of Alaska — has a dog in the fight over drilling. Last year, every Alaskan received $878 thanks to the state’s Permanent Fund, which distributes profits from oil drilling to residents. More drilling equals more money for the state, meaning happier voters in Parnell’s eyes. More polar bears don’t do him much good at all.

Making the moral of the story this: Polar bears may be cute, but the faces on dollar bills are a lot cuter.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Pinnacles in California named nation’s 59th national park

by anjunonstennyao Posted on January 12, 2013

Pinnacles in California named nation’s 59th national park

By Susie Cagle

While California’s state parks are perpetually troubled, at least the Golden State can celebrate a new national park. On Thursday, President Obama signed into law a bill by Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) that makes Pinnacles National Monument in central California a protected national park, the 59th in the country and ninth in the state.

ericinsf

The San Jose Mercury News has more:

“The park’s sanctuary for the California condor and native wildlife, its red crags, caves, impressive displays of spring wildflowers, and opportunities for star-viewing under its noteworthy dark skies make Pinnacles a special place and worthy of its national park status for future generations to enjoy,” said Neal Desai, Pacific Region associate director for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Farr had tried to make the bill stronger, but was foiled by House Republicans:

[T]he last Congress, which ended Jan. 3, was the first Congress since 1966 not to designate a single new acre of public land in America as federally protected wilderness, where logging, mining and other development is prohibited.

Farr’s bill originally called for designating 3,000 acres inside Pinnacles boundaries as wilderness. The area is where biologists in recent years have been releasing California condors as part of a captive breeding program to bring the species back from the brink of extinction. But that provision was stripped out by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Resources Committee.

Last month, Obama proposed adding 2,700 square miles off the coast of Northern California to the national marine sanctuary system, permanently protecting the area from oil and gas drilling.

That’s all well and good for the (adorable) sea otters and (unfortunate-looking) condors, Obama, but what about the rest of us? For all he might be doing, Obama is not measuring up to his predecessors when it comes to protecting public lands. According to the usually Obama-friendly Think Progress, under this president, the U.S. has protected less than 10 percent of the acreage protected under Bill Clinton, and less than 25 percent of what was protected under George W. Bush.

I know it’s cold out, but you’d best hustle outdoors this weekend if you’d like to see any of this country’s wild places before they’re turned into one giant drilling field. At least we’ll always have Pinnacles.

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Week in the News: Is 2013 the Year for Biofuel?

by Posted on January 11, 2013

Week in the News: Is 2013 the Year for Biofuel?

Posted 11 January 2013 in

National

2013 is here and so is our first weekly news roundup! Here are the top stories in renewable fuel this week:

Scientists at Texas A&M University have been awarded a $2.4m grant from the Department of Energy to research converting lignin (a plant-waste product) into a renewable fuel.
Jan Koninckx of DuPont spoke with Consumer Energy Report to discuss his company’s pioneering work on the commercial production of cellulosic ethanol.
An article in the New York Times and a follow up post on Mother Jones attempted to blame renewable fuel for hunger issues in Guatemala. In response, the Renewable Fuels Association put together a point by point takedown of the NYT piece and our own blog featured a rebuttal to Mother Jones.
The Auto Channel struck back against AAA and Fox Business News for spreading misinformation about the safety of E15 renewable fuel.
Researchers revealed this week that the world’s first 100% biofuel powered civilian flight (which took place last October) reduced aerosol emissions by 50%.
Jim Lane at Biofuels Digest took time to debunk six of the top renewable fuel myths circulating online and in the media.
Thomson Reuters read the tea leaves (as well as industry reports showing significant progress) and determined that 2013 could be the “year for biofuel.”
An analyst at The Motley Fool called the Renewable Fuel Standard “one of the most successful – and important – partnerships of private industry and state in recent years.”

Have a terrific weekend, and if you haven’t already, please sign our pledge to help us support fuel already growing in the USA!

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Like salty, warm water? Skip the Dead Sea and head to any ocean

by RubinkJoseph Posted on December 20, 2012

Like salty, warm water? Skip the Dead Sea and head to any ocean

By Philip Bump

The Dead Sea is dying, but there’s a bit of good news: We’re turning all of our oceans into the Dead Sea.

There are two qualities that set the Dead Sea apart — it’s warm and it’s salty. Happily, our oceans are picking up both of those traits. (Happily for those wishing to soak in warm, salty water. Unhappily for those who live in the water or near its shores or on Earth.)

barthelomaus

The Dead Sea, now an ocean near you!

Getting warmer

From Maine’s Bangor Daily News:

Ed Monat, a seasonal tour boat operator and scallop fisherman from Bar Harbor, has seen a lot in his more than two decades of scuba diving below the waves of Frenchman Bay. …

One thing Monat never saw underwater prior to this past summer … was a 60-plus degree thermometer reading at the bottom of the bay. For much of the year, coastal waters in the Gulf of Maine generally are expected to waver between the mid-30s and mid-50s Fahrenheit, including at depths of 40-50 feet, where Monat often descends. On a late-August dive this summer near the breakwater that helps protect Bar Harbor from the open ocean, he said, his dive thermometer registered 63 degrees.

“That’s crazy, crazy warm,” Monat said recently. “This was a really warm summer in the water.”

This warmth isn’t only in the Gulf of Maine. It’s near Massachusetts and off the coast of Connecticut. It’s warmer in the Arctic and everywhere else. Thanks to our changing climate, oceans are warming and expanding.

And not just during the summer.

Patrice McCarron, executive director of Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said this month that rising temperatures in the gulf are “a huge concern” for the organization, the membership of which includes approximately 1,200 of the state’s 5,300 or so licensed commercial lobstermen. She said she has heard from some association members that water temperatures in the mouth of Penobscot Bay still, as of December, are unusually and consistently warm, from depths of a few feet to more than 150 feet.

“It’s 50 degrees throughout the water column,” McCarron said. “That’s crazy.”

Getting saltier

From Discovery:

The saltiness, or salinity, of the oceans is controlled by how much water is entering the oceans from rivers and rain versus how much is evaporating; what my kids recognize as “The Water Cycle.” The more sunshine and heat there is, the more water can evaporate, leaving the salts behind in higher concentrations in some places. Over time, those changes spread out as water moves, changing the salinity profiles of the oceans.

Oceanographers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory fingerprinted salinity changes from 1955 to 2004 from 60 degrees south latitude to 60 degrees north latitude and down to the depth of 700 meters in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. …

Next the ocean data was compared to 11,000 years of ocean data generated by simulations from 20 of the latest global climate models. When they did that they found that the changes seen in the oceans matched those that would be expected from human forcing of the climate.

Grab your beach chair, an umbrella, and some SPF 240 and meet me at the shore. I’ve always wanted to float in the Dead Sea’s famous waters. Little did I know that doing so would become so easy.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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The EPA tightens limits on soot, predicting huge health benefits

by Myrna Posted on December 14, 2012

The EPA tightens limits on soot, predicting huge health benefits

By Philip Bump

At least there’s a bit of good news today: implementation of hard-fought public policy that will have a hugely beneficial effect on public health.

The EPA’s tightened standard on soot pollution — announced in June and sent for final sign-off to the White House earlier this week — has been approved.

National Archives

From The Washington Post:

The new rule limits soot, or fine particulate matter, which stems from activities ranging from burning wood to vehicle emissions, and which causes disease by entering the lungs and bloodstream. Fine particulate matter measuring less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or one-thirtieth the width of a human hair, ranks as the country’s most widespread deadly pollutant.

The new rule is a result of a 2009 court ruling that said the EPA standards for the amount of soot permissible in the air on an annual average ignored the advice of scientific advisers by maintaining the standard established in 1997 and must be rewritten. That limit was 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

The EPA cut the level to 12 micrograms per cubic meter.

That new level is actually on the lower end of what the EPA was considering — still higher than the 11 micrograms some health advocates sought, but significantly better than it could have been. At 12 micrograms, the EPA expects that America will save between $2.3 and $5.9 billion a year in health costs. By 2020, that figure could rise to $9.1 billion annually. The Sierra Club’s Mary Anne Hitt notes that as many as 15,000 premature deaths will be prevented annually. Other soot-related health problems that the new rules will help prevent, according to the EPA:

nonfatal heart attacks,
irregular heartbeat,
aggravated asthma,
decreased lung function, and
increased respiratory symptoms, such as irritation of the airways, coughing or difficulty breathing.

Another benefit: The new limit will also improve visibility at national parks. And you’ll be alive to enjoy the views.

For states and counties, meeting the new standard may not be that difficult. An EPA compliance map suggests that only seven counties — all in California’s Central Valley and Inland Empire — won’t meet the new standard by the end of the decade.

MAP

EPA

The industries responsible for particulate pollution said what you’d expect, according to The Hill.

Several industry groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Petroleum Institute, opposed the tougher rules and warned they would thwart economic growth. NAM CEO Jay Timmons slammed EPA’s decision on Friday and said the agency should stick with the standards set in 1997.

“This new standard will crush manufacturers’ plans for growth by restricting counties’ ability to issue permits for new facilities, which makes them less attractive for new business. Essentially, existing facilities will have to be shuttered for new facilities to be built in these areas,” Timmons said in a statement.

This is what is always said.

The soot regulation is good news: lives saved, preventable damage prevented, lobbyists defeated. Now if only we could be so rational in other areas of public policy.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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As deadline for saving wind industry nears, wind advocates fold

by Myrna Posted on December 13, 2012

As deadline for saving wind industry nears, wind advocates fold

By Philip Bump

I’ve just returned from an expedition to the Yucatan Peninsula to see for myself. And I can confirm: The Mayan prediction of the end of the world is real and the threat is imminent. Two minor caveats, though. The first is that the key date isn’t Dec. 21, it’s Dec. 31. And the second is that all of civilization isn’t at risk — just the U.S. wind industry. So that’s kind of good news, I guess.

What’s putting the wind industry at risk, as you may remember and as the Mayans savvily predicted, is the expiration of the wind production tax credit, an incentive given to electricity producers to use wind energy. It’s a key prop for the industry, allowing it to compete in a sector heavily biased toward long-standing fossil-fuel-based systems. First introduced under President George H. W. Bush, the credit (and other similar renewable credits) has been regularly renewed since. With the production tax credit in place, wind has seen growth. Without it?

ThinkProgress

If not renewed, industry advocacy group the American Wind Energy Association predicts the loss of 37,000 jobs — and perhaps a complete collapse in new wind installations.

Over the course of the summer, the future of the wind PTC was uncertain. In June, even conservative stalwarts like Karl Rove came out in support of extending it. But in September, Mitt Romney, who had yet to begin his post-election tour of middle America, came out forcefully against an extension. With Romney leading the party, the effect was to solidify Republican opposition to the tax credit, greatly complicating the situation for proponents.

Those calling for an extension, including AWEA, have seemed stumped on how to get an extension passed on Capitol Hill. Even Democratic members of Congress have been surprisingly indifferent to the issue — particularly in light of fierce, hypocritical, Koch-backed opposition.

With 18 days left before expiration, the fight is picking up. On Wednesday, former President Clinton brought his campaign mojo to Chicago, celebrating the Midwest’s spike in wind installation. A group of veterans stormed D.C. to push for a renewal and the jobs that would result. Even religious leaders are speaking out, with the Evangelical Environmental Network and others holding a press conference this morning arguing that the transition to cleaner energy sources is a moral imperative, given the health damage done by fossil fuels.

Opponents have also moved into action: Exelon, a nuclear energy provider, is asking its employees to contact Congress to oppose the extension. A coalition of groups linked to fossil fuels held its own press conference today. (Spoiler for everyone, everywhere: Press conferences are always useless and you should stop having them.)

Yesterday afternoon, a breakthrough by AWEA. No, it hadn’t cobbled together enough votes to win the fight. Instead, it agreed to support an appeasement, a gradual decrease in the PTC until it goes away completely. From AWEA’s letter to congressional leaders [PDF]:

Time and again the industry has made the case to Congress for a PTC renewal, and with overwhelming bipartisan support, the credit has been extended in order to drive more efficient, cheaper and cleaner energy. Still, the stop-start nature of short-term extensions has made it difficult to get the industry to a place where it can be fully cost-competitive. …

The industry has undertaken an extensive analytical effort to determine what level of the PTC over a specific number of years would be needed to keep the industry minimally viable. The analysis assumed that the industry would meet ambitious technology-improvement and capital cost targets. Analytical results indicate that a PTC beginning with 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour, or 100% of the current level for projects that begin construction in 2013, followed by 90%, 80%, 70%, 60%, and then 60% of the current level for projects that are placed in service in years 2014 through 2018, with no PTC in 2019 or afterwards, would sustain a minimally viable industry, able to continue achieving cost reductions.

This image, yet again.

Neville Chamberlain would be proud. There is no better way to negotiate than to accede to a tremendously weak position early in the process. Opponents of the PTC are unlikely to accept this position as-is, and will instead push for a faster, more severe reduction, making AWEA’s already-bad position even worse. And AWEA concedes a key conservative talking point: that the PTC isn’t needed, that wind can compete on a lopsided playing field in a few years. That’s probably extremely optimistic.

This proposal is also hugely damaging to other renewable energy sources, like solar, which have production tax credits expiring at the end of next year. How will the solar industry defend its extension — an extension which, again, used to be routine — if the wind industry has set a standard of a gradual phasing out?

Another thing: The fossil fuel industry’s $4 billion-a-year subsidy, now in its second century, is not subject to a phaseout. (These subsidies are something that AWEA’s CEO, Denise Bode, knows about; she used to be president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.) A large part of this is because the fossil fuel industry has grown tendrils that reach deep into the American political power structure, a slow, deliberate process. That’s made it hard for the wind industry to win political fights, but it’s not insurmountable. Acquiescing to a phaseout of wind without calling for a similar phaseout of fossil fuel subsidies is bizarre.

At some point within the next 18 days, one of two things will happen. Congress will pass legislation that enacts a phaseout of the wind PTC over time, or Congress will do nothing and the PTC will vanish. Both will damage wind’s massive growth as a provider of both electricity and jobs. The question is how much and how soon.

And how on earth the Mayans saw all of this coming.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Study finds ‘widespread seafood fraud’ at restaurants

by Myrna Posted on December 11, 2012

Study finds ‘widespread seafood fraud’ at restaurants

By Susie Cagle

Dead fish don’t lie — except for a lot of the ones served in restaurants.

Matthew Kenrick

A new study from conservation group Oceana found that 39 percent of New York restaurant fish DNA-tested by the group was mislabeled. That, combined with past studies of Los Angeles (55 percent), Boston (48 percent), and Miami (31 percent), paints a sad and even scary picture of what diners can expect when they sit down at American seafood restaurants.

Mislabeled fish was found at a range of eateries from low- to high-priced, and at every sushi spot tested. The New York Times reports:

In some cases, cheaper types of fish were substituted for expensive species. In others, fish that consumers have been urged to avoid because stocks are depleted, putting the species or a fishery at risk, was identified as a type of fish that is not threatened. Although such mislabeling violates laws protecting consumers, it is hard to detect.

Some of the findings present public health concerns. Thirteen types of fish, including tilapia and tilefish, were falsely identified as red snapper. Tilefish contains such high mercury levels that the federal Food and Drug Administration advises women who are pregnant or nursing and young children not to eat it.

Ninety-four percent of fish sold as white tuna was not tuna at all but in many cases a fish known as snake mackerel, or escolar, which contains a toxin that can cause severe diarrhea if more than a few ounces of meat are ingested.

“There are a lot of flummoxed people out there who are trying to buy fish carefully and trying to shop their conscience, but they can’t if this kind of fraud is happening,” said Kimberly Warner, a senior scientist at Oceana, who led the study.

Restaurateurs say they aren’t doing this on purpose, likening the accuracy of supply-chain information to a game of telephone, which should really boost your confidence.

Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the New York State Restaurant Association, said that restaurants were victims, too, when it came to fish fraud. “Restaurants would be very concerned that a high percentage of fish are not what they had ordered,” he said. “Unless you’re very sophisticated, you may not be able to tell the difference between certain species of fish when you receive them.”

You might notice when you have toxic severe diarrhea, though, so that’s a helpful indicator!

One surprise of the study: Big-chain grocery stores were found to have the best fish accuracy, better than smaller markets. For now, though, I’d bet American consumers would rather trust retailers’ best judgments than fish their own dinners out of tanks like big-box shoppers do in China.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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AAA, EPA, GM trade barbs over ethanol

by Myrna Posted on November 30, 2012

AAA, EPA, GM trade barbs over ethanol

By Susie Cagle

Maybe it’s holiday stress, maybe it’s seasonal affective disorder, or maybe it’s just that the American Automobile Association is still really bitter that it lost on this issue in court in August.

AAA released a statement today calling for federal regulators to stop the sale of fuel that contains more than 10 percent ethanol. EPA-approved E15 — a mix of 85 percent gasoline and 15 percent ethanol — is supposed to only be used in vehicles made after 2000, but AAA says that it might still cause damage that warranties won’t cover, and that 95 percent of people don’t even know what E15 is.

The EPA was all, We’re trying! We’re making stickers!

General Motors called the EPA “irresponsible” (hee) and AAA “eloquent” (haa).

Then the Renewable Fuels Association was all:

If AAA weren’t so deep in the Big Oil politics, they would stop manufacturing concern about the efficacy of ethanol blend use and report enthusiastically about ethanol’s consumer gasoline price savings. Their misplaced concern today, that E15 should be further tested before being offered for sale reflects a pathetic ignorance of EPA’s unprecedented test program before approving E15 for commercial use. The fact is E15 has been the most aggressively and comprehensively tested fuel in the history of the Agency. The miles driven on E15 equate to 12 round trips to the moon and back without a single failure, unless you want to count the deer that was killed on the test track!

Considering that only about 10 stations in the country offer E15 and others aren’t jumping at the opportunity, maybe AAA will quit spinning its wheels on this issue soon. Just think of all the fuel it’s wasting …

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Prominent fundamentalist: God gets sad when we don’t use the oil He gave us

by Myrna Posted on November 30, 2012

Prominent fundamentalist: God gets sad when we don’t use the oil He gave us

By Philip Bump

43rd State Blues

Bryan Fischer, ranting about something.

Bryan Fischer runs the American Family Association. He is … a piece of work. He spends most of his time bashing homosexuals, but is not afraid to dip a poison-soaked toe into the broader waters of far-right conservatism. Some tweets of his, to set context:

Charming. That last one, though, gets to the point of this story, why we’re bothering to write anything about him. Fischer is also a climate change denier. And on his radio show today (he has a radio show, apparently), he suggested that failing to use fossil fuels was an insult to God.

Fischer described being at a birthday party when he was about 6 years old. Then he went on, as transcribed by Raw Story:

“I opened up a birthday present that I didn’t like, and I said it right out, ‘Oh, I don’t like those,’” the radio host recalled. “And it just crushed — and the person that gave me gift was there. You know, I just kind of blurted it out, ‘I don’t like those.’ And it just crushed that person. It was enormously insensitive of me to do that.”

“And you think, that’s kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective fuel sources,” Fischer added. “And we don’t thank him for it and we don’t use it.”

He concluded with: “God’s buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them and put them to use.”

Here’s video of the exchange. Suffice it to say that Fischer is as smart when it comes to energy and the environment as he is when predicting electoral outcomes.

According to the Bryan Fischer cosmology, God, while all-powerful, gets His feelings hurt easily. After all, He went to all of the trouble of setting up the planet Earth as a sort of multi-millennia Easter egg hunt. Even the thought that we’d stop searching for these delectable, oily treasures makes God super-sad. That’s probably why He is unleashing all of these storms and droughts and such, since we’re not playing with the toys He gave us. (For the record, the toys suck.)

Bryan Fischer, meanwhile, was sent down by God to test our faith in the First Amendment.

Source

Bryan Fischer: ‘Enormously insensitive’ to hurt God’s feelings by not using oil, Raw Story

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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