Tag Archives: business & technology

EPA will let frackers keep on dumping chemicals into the sea

by DedraFreee Posted on January 10, 2014

EPA will let frackers keep on dumping chemicals into the sea

By

Chuck Rogers

Fracking chemicals are out there.

Companies that frack the seafloor off the coast of Southern California have some new federal rules to worry about. Unfortunately, the new rules will still allow their fracking fluids to be unleashed into the sea — including chemicals that are known to stunt human development and hurt wildlife. The companies will just have to tell the government what they’re unleashing.

Under new rules that will take effect March 1, the companies must report the “chemical formulation, concentrations and discharge volumes” to the EPA of any “chemicals used to formulate well treatment, completion and workover fluids” that end up in the ocean.

So, hey, at least we’ll know more about fracking pollution. (Assuming, that is, that the frackers are honest.)

From the AP:

The move comes after a series of stories by The Associated Press last year revealed at least a dozen offshore frack jobs in the Santa Barbara Channel, and more than 200 in nearshore waters overseen by the state of California. …

The new EPA rule applies only to new drilling jobs on nearly two dozen grandfathered-in platforms in federal waters off the Santa Barbara coast, site of a 1969 oil platform blowout that spilled more than 3 million gallons of crude oil, ruined miles of beaches and killed thousands of birds and other wildlife.

Environmentalists want the government to ban offshore fracking altogether.

“Requiring oil companies to report the toxic fracking chemicals they’re dumping into California’s fragile ocean ecosystem is a good step, but the federal government must go further and halt this incredibly dangerous practice,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The nonprofit last year analyzed some of the chemicals used in a dozen oceanic frack jobs:

[T]he Center found that at least one-third of chemicals used in these fracking operations are suspected ecological hazards. More than a third of these chemicals are suspected of affecting the human developmental and nervous systems.

The chemical X-Cide, used in all 12 offshore frack jobs examined by the Center, is classified as a hazardous substance by the federal agency that manages cleanup at Superfund sites. X-Cide is also listed as hazardous to fish and wildlife.

“Banning fracking in California’s coastal waters is the best way to protect the whales and other wildlife, as well as surfers and coastal communities,” Sakashita said. ”It’s outrageous that the EPA plans to continue allowing fracking pollution to endanger our ocean.”


Source
EPA to require S. Calif. offshore fracking reports, Associated Press
EPA Begins Requiring California Oil Companies to Report Fracking Chemical Discharges in Federal Waters, Center for Biological Diversity

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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EPA will let frackers keep on dumping chemicals into the sea

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Washington coal export project dumped by Goldman Sachs

by Lovell Mao Posted on January 8, 2014

Washington coal export project dumped by Goldman Sachs

By

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Goldman Sachs is looking a tad less evil. It has dumped its holdings in a shaky project that would build the Gateway Pacific Terminal near Bellingham, Wash., intended to be the West Coast’s biggest coal export terminal.

It’s not that the banking giant discovered a soul. Rather, it’s realizing that coal projects in the U.S. are a dumb gamble. Last year, the group’s commodity research team warned of “a sharp deceleration in seaborne demand” for coal in a paper titled “The window for thermal coal investment is closing.”

Here’s Oregon Public Broadcasting with the latest:

New York-based Goldman Sachs has sold its stock back to the companies proposing to build the Gateway Pacific Terminal. If built it would transfer 48 million tons of Wyoming coal each year from trains to ocean-going vessels bound for Asia. …

Before the stock transfer, Goldman Sachs had a 49 percent stake in the Gateway Pacific project.  …

Coal-export opponents said the departure of Goldman Sachs as an investor is the latest sign that Wall Street no longer sees a profitable future in mining, shipping and burning coal — considered the dirtiest source of energy and one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.

Not so long ago, there were six coal export terminals proposed to be built in the Pacific Northwest. Now just three such projects are still considered viable, thanks to intense local and environmental opposition and to the uncertain market for coal abroad.

The remaining investors in the Gateway Pacific Terminal are trying to sound upbeat about the latest development, but Goldman Sachs’ pullout is just the latest bad news for them. It follows the November election of Whatcom County councilors opposed to the terminal, who could now help to kill the environmental nightmare of a project.


Source
Wall Street Giant Backs Away From Washington Coal Export Project, Oregon Public Broadcasting

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Washington coal export project dumped by Goldman Sachs

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Court battle could force New Jersey to resume carbon trading

by HannahLombardo Posted on January 8, 2014

Court battle could force New Jersey to resume carbon trading

By

L.E.MORMILE / Shutterstock

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie doesn’t want carbon trading in his state, but he might not have a choice.

Last year was a good one for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a carbon-trading program in nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. And on Wednesday, environmentalists will push forward with a bid to make 2014 an even better year — by dragging New Jersey back into the program.

RGGI, the first mandatory carbon-trading program in the U.S., caps the amount of CO2 that can be released by power plants and allows those facilities to buy and exchange the rights to release the pollution. RGGI revenue, which could hit $2 billion by 2020, is poured back into clean energy programs – mostly into renewable energy and energy efficiency.

New Jersey was a participant in RGGI when it launched, but in 2011 Gov. Chris Christie (R) directed his administration to withdraw the state from the program – and it did so without calling for any kind of public comment or debate. Christie and other conservatives at the time lamented the costs to electricity ratepayers and said RGGI wasn’t performing as expected. “This program is not effective in reducing greenhouse gases and is unlikely to be in the future,” Christie said. “It’s a failure.” The majority of state lawmakers today want New Jersey to rejoin RGGI, but they don’t have enough votes to overcome an inevitable Christie veto.

So attorneys with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environment New Jersey are rolling up their lawyerly sleeves and heading into an appellate court on Wednesday to battle it out against the state’s legal team. Here is NRDC’s Dale Bryk with an explanation of the groups’ lawsuit:

In court this week, we will be arguing that the state did not follow proper administrative procedure when, in 2011, it simply posted a statement on the Department of Environmental Protection’s website declaring an end to the rules requiring pollution reductions from power plants. Rather, according to New Jersey’s Administrative Procedure Act, the agency must give the public a chance to comment before taking such action. Had it done so, the state would have heard from the many businesses and residents who benefited from RGGI when the program was still in effect in New Jersey, and who see the program as a boon to the state’s burgeoning clean-energy economy.

The department, for its part, is arguing that it followed the proper procedures when it posted information about the state’s withdrawal on its website.

Environmentalists point out that the litigation could be avoided if Christie would wake up to the growing benefits of the carbon-trading market and agree to rejoin. Again from Bryk:

As part of President Obama’s important climate plan, the Environmental Protection Agency will issue carbon pollution standards for existing power plants this June, and states will be required to develop proposals to meet those standards by 2016. If they don’t, the EPA will develop a plan for them. In all likelihood the EPA will consider RGGI to be an appropriate compliance mechanism.

That means that if New Jersey rejoins RGGI, it can meet the forthcoming federal regulatory requirements, while reaping all of RGGI’s benefits: consumer energy savings; new and much-needed jobs for the Garden State; and a reduction in the kind of pollution that turbocharges our weather, making extreme events like like Hurricane Sandy more common. Not a bad bargain, if you ask me.

The 2014 cap for CO2 pollution under RGGI was lowered from from 165 million to 91 million tons, a reduction of 45 percent, which will help the region keep shrinking its carbon footprint. The move also “spurred a recovery after years of undersubscribed auctions clearing at the price floor and illiquid secondary market trading,” wrote Thomson Reuters Point Carbon in a recent analysis of worldwide carbon markets. This is one reason why carbon markets are flourishing in North America while more established programs flounder elsewhere.

RGGIThe shaded states are members of RGGI. Click to embiggen.

See also: Chris Christie is no moderate on the environment


Source
As Court Reviews NJ’s Repeal of Power Plant Rules, State Should Rejoin Regional Climate Change Program, NRDC
Court to re-consider New Jersey’s exit from U.S. carbon market, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Stick it to ‘em: Scientists call for labeling tar-sands oil

by SybilTrevino Posted on December 24, 2013

Stick it to ‘em: Scientists call for labeling tar-sands oil

By

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Let’s slap some labels on these puppies.

For the past four years, European Union officials have been mulling a labeling system that would require fuel companies to tell their customers how much carbon pollution is produced by each of the products they sell.

The idea is deeply unpopular with oil companies, which don’t want their customers thinking about such things every time they fill up their tanks. It’s also deeply unpopular with Canada. That’s because the country’s tar-sands oil is particularly dreadful for the climate, something the government would rather not have advertised. The oil companies and Canadian government have called the labeling idea unscientific.

But the idea is popular with an independent group of experts — experts who are better qualified to determine whether or not something is “scientific.” Those would be scientists.

Reuters reports that 53 scientists from such universities as Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia, as well as from European institutions, sent a letter urging the president of the European Commission “to press ahead with a plan to label tar sands as more polluting than other forms of oil, in defiance of intensive lobbying” from the Canadian government:

They say the EU draft law, which would label fuels according to how much carbon they emit over their entire wells-to-wheels lifecycle, is scientifically sound, after criticism from the oil industry that it is not.

In the letter dated December 16, they say the policy would ensure investment in cleaner fuels and for the first time hold the oil industry accountable for carbon emitted during production of the fuels they sell in Europe.

“We live in an era during which it has become clear that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without causing dangerous climate change,” the letter, seen by Reuters, said.

U.S. lawmakers — listen up!


Source
Scientists urge EU action on tar sands – letter, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Fracking company finds new way to screw over the environment

by John Basset Posted on December 24, 2013

Fracking company finds new way to screw over the environment

By

cyenobite

Props are in order for Chesapeake Energy Corp., one of the country’s biggest natural gas producers, for finding yet another way to make a big mess with fracking. This time, it was irresponsible construction practices.

Company subsidiary Chesapeake Appalachia will pay a near-record $3.2 million in federal penalties for clean water violations at fracking facilities in West Virginia. It will also spend $6.5 million more to restore 27 sites that it damaged with construction activities and pollution. From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Most of the discharges subject to the consent decree are related to the construction of fracking facilities, but none of them involved actual fracking, said Donna Heron, spokeswoman for the EPA’s Mid-Atlantic region.

“In doing the construction, that’s where they were discharging fill material into the wetlands and the streams. And that’s what the violations were about,” she said.

The violations of the Clean Water Act involved discharges done without required Army Corps of Engineers permits, said Tom Aluise, spokesman for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. …

West Virginia, which is a co-plaintiff in the settlement, will receive half of the civil penalty.

We get that that frackers are keen to make a buck. But why, oh why, must they do absolutely everything with nary a thought given to the environment?


Source
Chesapeake Energy subsidiary to pay fine for dumping into W.Va. streams, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC Clean Water Settlement, EPA

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Fracking company finds new way to screw over the environment

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Fracking opponents win big in Pennsylvania

by TraceeZerangue Posted on December 23, 2013

Fracking opponents win big in Pennsylvania

By

William Avery Hudson

Robinson Township in western Pennsylvania is home to a couple thousand residents and about 20 fracked wells. In a resounding victory for common sense and for local governments throughout the state, residents there and in six other towns won an epic court battle last week that will give them back the right to regulate or even evict the fracking operations in their midst.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Thursday struck down elements of a state law that had prevented local governments from regulating fracking activities. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

The long-awaited decision is a blow to a 2012 law known as Act 13 that was promoted by [Gov. Tom Corbett (R)] and the Marcellus Shale natural gas industry as a means to create a uniform statewide standard for gas development.

By a 4-2 vote, the court ruled that the zoning provisions in the law were unconstitutional, though the court disagreed on the grounds for striking down the law.

“The bottom line is that the majority of the court agreed that Act 13 is unconstitutional, and that local governments can zone oil and gas drilling like they do other activities,” said Jordan B. Yeager, a Doylestown environmental lawyer who argued the case on behalf of several municipalities.

Cue bullshit bluster:

“We must not allow today’s ruling to send a negative message to job creators and families who depend on the energy industry,” Corbett said in a statement. “I will continue to work with members of the House and Senate to ensure that Pennsylvania’s thriving energy industry grows and provides jobs while balancing the interests of local communities.” …

“We are stunned that four justices would issue this ruling, which will so harshly impact the economic welfare of Pennsylvanians,” State Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) and House Speaker Sam Smith (R., Jefferson) said in a joint statement. They said the ruling likely would increase natural gas prices and cost “a multitude” of jobs.

The claim that giving local governments the right to control drilling operations within their borders will “harshly impact the economic welfare” of the state’s residents is, of course, obnoxious and false. But, then, we have become depressingly accustomed to hearing such lies from frackers and from the politicians who promulgate their talking points about economic booms and jobs.


Source
Pa. Supreme Court jolts shale industry, The Philadelphia Inquirer
What Pa. court’s ruling on gas-drilling law means, The Philadelphia Inquirer

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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China launches world’s second-biggest carbon-trading market

by BelindaPowell Posted on December 20, 2013

China launches world’s second-biggest carbon-trading market

By

Shutterstock

If you find yourself passing through the Chinese city of Guangzhou with 61 renminbi burning a hole in your pocket, you could drop by the world’s newest and bound-to-be-second-largest carbon-trading market and pick up a carbon credit as a souvenir.

The first day of trading at China’s fourth carbon-trading market was described as brisk on Thursday. A cement company kicked things off, buying 20,000 carbon permits from an energy company in early trading at the equivalent of about $10 a pop. Reuters reports:

Early trade volume in Guangdong’s carbon permit market, expected to be the world’s second largest in terms of carbon dioxide covered, surpassed full-day totals that started the country’s three other carbon exchanges.

China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, wants to use markets to achieve its target to cut emissions per unit of gross domestic product to 40 percent to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 — at the lowest possible cost.

Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have already opened markets of their own; Hubei Province and the cities of Chongqing and Tianjin are expected to follow in the next few months.

The new market will become China’s main carbon-trading hub, second in trading volume only to one operated by the European Union. There, similar carbon credits trade for a little less than $7.

Once all of China’s seven planned carbon markets are operating, they will regulate emissions that are roughly equivalent to Germany’s carbon footprint.


Source
Chinese Carbon Market Opens to a Busy First Day, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Big food companies want to call GMO foods “natural”

by FletaQYMGpzy Posted on December 20, 2013

Big food companies want to call GMO foods “natural”

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Is genetically engineered food natural? The Grocery Manufacturers Association, a trade group representing some of the world’s biggest food and food-related companies, including ConAgra Foods, Bayer CropScience, and the Coca-Cola Company, thinks so.

And it’s pressing the Food and Drug Administration to see things its way. From a Dec. 5 letter to the feds:

GMA’s members have a strong interest in “natural” labeling for foods containing ingredients derived from biotechnology. Several of the most common ingredients derived from biotechnology are from crops such as soy, corn, canola, and sugar beets. …

[T]here are approximately 65 class action lawsuits that have been filed against food manufacturers over whether foods with ingredients allegedly derived from biotechnology can be labeled “natural.” …

GMA intends to file a Citizen Petition solely direct at asking FDA to issue a regulation authorizing foods containing foods derived from biotechnology to be labeled as “natural.”

An Environmental Working Group rep told The New York Times that the association’s request is “audacious.” The Center for Food Safety is also appalled. “There is nothing natural about genetic engineering,” said Colin O’Neil, the center’s government affairs director, in a press release:

Genetic engineering, by its very definition, is not a natural process. It is an artificial and novel process, which often involves inserting foreign (often bacterial) genetic material into a food plant, crop or animal. The U.S. Patent Office has granted numerous patents on genetically engineered plants, finding that they and novel elements in them are not naturally occurring.

According to FDA policy, food labels can’t be false or misleading. A reasonable consumer would not expect foods labeled “natural” to contain GE ingredients. As such, labeling GE foods with the word “natural” would be exceptionally misleading to consumers.

The same agro-corporations and food manufacturers that want to put the word “natural” on their GMO products are aggressively opposed to putting the word “GMO” on their GMO products. Some labeling is OK, but only if Big Food gets to choose the labels.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

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Big food companies want to call GMO foods “natural”

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Maine city gives tar-sands oil the finger

by IssacTenreajbyw Posted on December 18, 2013

Maine city gives tar-sands oil the finger

By

Rainforest Action Network

Remember how voters in South Portland, Maine, narrowly rejected a ballot measure last month that would have prevented the city’s port from piping in tar-sands oil? Here’s the thing about that election result: It’s looking like it might not matter. The city council is now taking up the anti-tar-sands campaign anyway.

With a 6-1 vote Monday night, the council put in place a six-month moratorium on shipping tar-sands oil through its port. From the Portland Press Herald:

The moratorium buys time for city officials to develop a permanent ordinance that would prevent Portland Pipe Line Corp. from reversing the flow in its underground pipe that now pumps crude oil from South Portland to Montreal

“While it is a milestone, this is only a step,” said City Councilor Tom Blake, who has been vocally opposed to oil sands, often referred to by critics as tar sands.

After the vote, in which Councilor Michael Pock was the sole dissenter, cheers and a standing ovation erupted in the City Council chamber.

The council’s next step: Putting together a three-person panel to draft a law permanently banning tar-sands oil.

The oil industry next step: Threatening legal action.


Source
South Portland passes moratorium on tar sands oil, Portland Press Herald

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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GMO labeling becomes law in Connecticut

by ElisaSayers Posted on December 16, 2013

GMO labeling becomes law in Connecticut

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Put a sticker on it.

Connecticut made food history last week when Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) signed the first state law in the nation mandating the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients.

But there’s a catch that’s bigger than the fry of an escaped GMO salmon: The new law might never actually lead to the labeling of GMO foods.

That’s because the state is understandably reluctant to go it alone in the legal battles that are sure to ensue when big-spending agro-corporations are ordered to be fully transparent. The Connecticut Post explains how the Nutmeg State’s lawmakers worked around that threat:

Connecticut is the first state to enact such legislation, but the rules will take effect only after at least four other states enact similar laws. The bill also requires that any combination of Northeast states where together reside at least 20 million must adopt similar laws in order for the Connecticut regulations to take effect.

Malloy signed the legislation into law at a raw-foods café:

“This is a beginning, and I want to be clear what it is a beginning of,” Malloy said, before putting pen to paper. “It is a national movement that will requiring (food) labeling.”

Malloy said residents must speak up when they go food stores and are unable to find detailed labeling of food ingredients. “This is the time,” he said. “You better get ready; people are coming and this is not a movement you are going to stop.”

A GMO-labeling initiative died at the ballot box in Washington state last month, after agribiz interests spent big to defeat it. The same thing happened in California in 2012. But GMO-labeling bills are slowly moving through some state legislatures, so Connecticut might get company soon enough. Malloy, for one, is optimistic.


Source
Malloy signs state GMO labeling law in Fairfield, Connecticut Post
Gov. Malloy: Law gives consumers the right to know what’s in their food, Gov. Dannel Malloy’s office

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