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This was the climate debate we’ve been waiting for

by JuliannSimon Posted on April 15, 2016

This was the climate debate we’ve been waiting for

By on 15 Apr 2016 12:49 amcommentsShare

Savor it, climate hawks. Global warming had its short and sweet 15 minutes of fame in the ninth — and likely final — Democratic primary debate on Thursday night.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton had an intense exchange at the CNN/NY1 debate that got to the heart of the two candidates’ different philosophies on climate action. Not only did they scuffle over a topic that has been in the headlines recently — Clinton’s donations from fossil fuel interests — but they also got into it over Clinton’s support for fracking as secretary of state, the merits of a carbon tax, the Paris climate agreement, and the role of nuclear energy.

Here are the highlights:

They agree climate change is a problem: Clinton’s first point on the topic was, “we should talk about it in terms of the extraordinary threats that climate change poses to our country and our world.” And Sanders said: “You know, if we, God forbid, were attacked tomorrow, the whole country would rise up and say we got an enemy out there and we got to do something about it. That was what 9/11 was about. We have an enemy out there, and that enemy is going to cause drought and floods and extreme weather disturbances.”

But they have different philosophies about how to address it: Clinton’s bottom line was that she’ll stay the course set by the Obama administration, particularly on the Paris climate agreement and power plant regulations. “President Obama moved forward on gas mileage; he moved forward on the Clean Power Plan,” she said. “He has moved forward on so many of the fronts that he could given the executive actions that he was able to take.”

These accomplishments deserve support, she argued, particularly as they’ve come in the face of hostility from a GOP-controlled Congress. She added, “It’s easy to diagnose the problem. It’s harder to do something about the problem.”

But Sanders wants to think bigger when it comes to climate politics. “This is a difference between understanding that we have a crisis of historical consequence here,” he said. “Incrementalism and those little steps are not enough. Not right now. Not on climate change.”

On a carbon tax: Sanders, who has cosponsored a carbon tax bill and called for it as part of his platform, kept pressing Clinton on whether she supports such a tax. His opponent never exactly answered. She pointed to her clean energy proposals to build on the Clean Power Plan, saying, “I don’t take a back seat to your legislation that you’ve introduced that you haven’t been able to get passed. I want to do what we can do to actually make progress in dealing with the crisis.”

On fossil fuel contributions: Moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Clinton about Sanders’ charge that she’s in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry. She responded, “we both have relatively small amounts of contributions from people who work for fossil fuel companies … But, that is not being supported by Big Oil, and I think it’s important to distinguish that.”

On fracking: Sanders opposes fracking, and called attention to Clinton’s record in the State Department of pushing fracking abroad and promoting natural gas as a climate change solution. Clinton called natural gas “one of the bridge fuels” to cleaner energy — a comment that’s sure to make fracking opponents cringe. “For both economic and environmental and strategic reasons, it was American policy to try to help countries get out from under the constant use of coal, building coal plants all the time, also to get out from under, especially if they were in Europe, the pressure from Russia, which has been incredibly intense,” she said. “So we did say natural gas is a bridge. We want to cross that bridge as quickly as possible, because in order to deal with climate change, we have got to move as rapidly as we can.”

On nuclear: Moderator Errol Louis asked Sanders how he expects to address climate change if he supports phasing out both natural gas and nuclear energy, considering that the latter provides 20 percent of U.S. power. Sanders admitted, “you certainly don’t phase nuclear out tomorrow,” and pointed to his 10 million solar roofs program.

This is probably the only time we’ll see climate change get so much attention in a presidential debate this year. Too bad it didn’t happen earlier in the campaign season, but better late than never.

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This was the climate debate we’ve been waiting for

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Clinton Says She’ll "Put a Lot of Coal Companies and Coal Miners Out of Business"

by DRXBenkzwfn Posted on March 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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Just one day after Hillary Clinton issued a lengthy apology for a controversial comment she made about Nancy Reagan’s contribution to the fight against AIDS, the Democratic front-runner made another unforced error during a CNN town hall event on Sunday night.

Speaking in Ohio about her plans to revitalize coal country, Clinton said, “We’re going to put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business.” That comment was immediately preceded by a promise to invest in the clean-energy economy in those places, and immediately followed by a pledge to “make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people.” But it’s not hard to guess which comment will end up as a sound bite in attack ads in coal states during the general election.

Clinton’s statement likely referred to her support for President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, the cornerstone of his climate policy, which will require states to reduce their coal consumption in favor of natural gas, renewables, and energy efficiency. It garnered a quick rebuttal from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

Obama’s climate regulations have little to do with the coal industry’s decline over the last decade. For one thing, they are currently held up in court, and they wouldn’t take effect for several years anyway. More important, coal is getting hammered by competition from natural gas made cheap by fracking, as well as the exploding solar and wind industries. In the last town hall, Clinton said that under her administration, “I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.” Since a widespread decline in gas consumption would most likely lead to an increase in coal consumption, it’s possible that Clinton’s energy policy could be just the opposite of the “war on coal” Paul describes.

Although Bernie Sanders is also a vociferous proponent of clean energy, Clinton is so far the only candidate in the race to produce a specific plan for supporting coal communities affected by the transition to a cleaner energy economy. Still, Sanders appears to be crushing Clinton in coal states that have had primaries so far. So it probably doesn’t serve her campaign well to remind people that for a small number of communities, the fight against climate change could mean the end of a traditionally important field of employment.

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Clinton Says She’ll "Put a Lot of Coal Companies and Coal Miners Out of Business"

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Why Does the Supreme Court Matter to Environmentalists?

by BYUSamira6 Posted on March 13, 2016

One of the hottest issues in any presidential race usually has to do with the Supreme Court, the highest court in the U.S. The 9 justices who sit on the court hold the fate of the nation in their hands. They decide lawsuits, interpret the Constitution and can change the way society is forced to behave, simply by reaching a majority decision on a case that’s brought before them.

The President nominates justices, and the U.S. Senate votes them in or out. Once appointed, a Supreme Court justice serves a life term that ends only when the justice dies or voluntarily resigns. Because a justice can stay on the court for 30 or 40 years, many people believe that of the thousands ofdecisions a president makes during his or her tenure, the nomination of a Supreme Court justice is among the most important.

Supreme Court decisions have determined whether and how the environment is protected for many decades. Here is a sample of some important decisions the court has made regarding the planet.

Endangered Species – Antonin Scalia, who recently died after 30 years as a justice, led the court’s conservative wing on limiting environmental groups’ ability to sue corporate polluters, protect public land and enforce federal water regulations.

Environmentalists use lawsuits to force polluters to obey state and federal laws on such issues as releasing toxic chemicals into the air or waterways or to protect endangered species. Scalia’s 1992 opinion in

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife

determined that Defenders (ergo, other environmental organizations) did not have “standing” to challenge endangered species protections. In other words, the Court essentially decided, in an

opinion written by Scalia

, that industry attempts to blockthe Endangered Species Act should be taken more seriously than environmental groups’ efforts to enforce it.

Clean Power Plan

– President Obama and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have issued a rule requiring states to develop plans to lower carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The

CPP

is an attempt to reduce greenhouse gases that cause climate change as well as limit soot and other fine particles that contribute to air pollution.

The current court has

blocked

the government’s ability to implement the plan because opponents have filed a lawsuit in the D.C. Circuit Court, which will hear arguments about the law pros and cons June 2. If the D.C. Circuit Court upholds the constitutionality of the plan, opponents could stillappeal to the Supreme Court, which could decide the plan is unconstitutional. The fate of the Clean Power Plan remains to be seen.

Mercury Pollution – Coal and oil-fired power plants emit mercury and other air pollutants. In fact, coal plants are the largest single source of mercury in our environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a federal rule aimed at reducing mercury emissions. That

rule was challenged

by twenty states that wanted the court to block the rule while the government decided how to calculate the cost of implementing it.

In a good move for the planet, Chief Justice John Roberts turned down their request and let the rule stay in effect while the costs are determined.

Citizens United

– In 2010, the Supreme Court decided in the

Citizens United Case

that corporations and labor unions can contribute unlimited amounts of money to candidates running for office. The Court also essentially gave permission to polluters todonate huge sums to sitting legislatorsin the hopes of influencing the votes they cast on new laws to protect the environment.

Here is one example of how Citizens United has played out. Richmond, California in the San Francisco Bay Area is the home of a Chevron oil refinery. Prior to Citizens United, perhaps around $100,000 would have been spent on local political races there. But in 2012, reports

Garnet Goes Green,

political action committees empowered by Citizens United poured $4 million into the races for three seats on the Richmond City Council. Of that, $2 million was contributed by Chevron.

Results? Two of Chevron’s three preferred candidates won their races in that year’s election.

Citizens United reaches far beyond the environment. The

U.S. Library of Medicine

, a division of the National Institutes of Health, has found that “corporations can now make unlimited contributions to election advocacy advertising…Candidates who favor public health positions may be subjected to corporate opposition advertising.” In other words, polluters can spend a fortune trying to defeat a candidate who wants to clean up the air or water or reduce the presence of toxic chemicals in everyday products.

“The ruling expands corporate rights to disproportionately influence the electoral process and thus health policymakers,” notes the National Library of Medicine. “The effects on public health may be catastrophic. For example, corporations could spend unlimited sums for advertising against candidates who support public health positions on issues such as taxation on sugar-sweetened drinks, air quality standards or access to reproductive services.”

The environment always seems to be under attack. Often, our only recourse is to sue to invoke protections afforded the planet by suchlaws as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act or

NEPA

, the National Environmental Policy Act.

The buck stops with the Supreme Court. However justices interpret the law, whether to protect the environment or protect the polluters, will reverberate across the planet for decades to come. The Supreme Court can be our last best hopeor our worst one.

Related

What Pres. Obama’s Clean Power Plan Actually MeansSupreme Court Overturns California Ban on Slaughtering Downed Animals

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Why Does the Supreme Court Matter to Environmentalists?

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We Can Stop Pretending Any of the 2016 Republicans Believe in Science

by UlrikeSteffen Posted on November 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in The New Republic, and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Rand Paul was having a decent night in the fourth Republican debate Tuesday, until he fielded a question about climate change. With his answer, he disappointed those who thought he might deliver reality-based comments.

Paul, like the rest of the GOP candidates, wants to repeal President Barack Obama’s legacy-making Clean Power Plan reining in carbon emissions from the power sector. On Tuesday, Paul firmly aligned himself with the science-denier camp. “While I do think man may have a role in our climate, I think nature also has a role,” Paul said. “The planet is 4.5 billion years old. We’ve been through geologic age after geologic age. We’ve had times when the temperature’s been warmer. We’ve had times when the temperature’s been colder. We’ve had times when carbon in the atmosphere has been higher. So I think we need to look before we leap.”

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We Can Stop Pretending Any of the 2016 Republicans Believe in Science

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Stop trashing the climate! EPA’s new plan would crack down on landfills

by Daniella76U Posted on August 17, 2015

Stop trashing the climate! EPA’s new plan would crack down on landfills

By on 17 Aug 2015commentsShare

Municipal solid waste — commonly known as trash, garbage, or Ke$ha — is under fire. (Not literally, of course, unless you live in Sacramento.) On Friday, the EPA released two proposals for curbing greenhouse gas emissions from landfills, with the goal of reducing methane emissions from garbage by one third.

The proposals, one for existing municipal solid waste landfills and the other for new ones, call for the installation or expansion of gas collection and control systems. Beginning in 2025, the rules could reduce methane emissions by 487,000 tons a year. Since methane is upwards of 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of its greenhouse gas potential, that’s equivalent to roughly 12.2 million metric tons of CO2, or the amount produced by 1.1 million homes, the EPA said in a statement.

Aside from serving as a stain on the environment, an efficient destroyer of ecosystems, and, you know, a literally fetid monument to the unholiest facets of consumerism, trash isn’t terribly offensive in its own right; at least not in terms of methane emissions. It’s when, in the name of efficiency, you bundle so much of it together and pack it tightly enough into the earth — so as to actually squeeze out the oxygen — that you have a problem. A lack of oxygen means that anaerobic bacteria enter the picture and start to decompose the subterranean waste mountains. The filth decays and the bacteria produce methane. A lot of it.

Methane emissions account for about 10 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with landfill methane emissions composing (decomposing?) about 18 percent of that figure. Aside from methane, landfills also emit air toxics like benzene and toluene. The EPA’s proposed regulations would also tackle these pollutants.

The regulations represent the newest chunk of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. Earlier this month, the EPA revealed the final version of the Clean Power Plan, its rules for carbon emission cuts from power plants. The EPA is currently seeking public comment on the new methane rules, so if you think the landfill regulations are rubbish, now’s the time to let them know.

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Stop trashing the climate! EPA’s new plan would crack down on landfills

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"Lawless and Radical": What the 2016 Candidates Think of Obama’s New Climate Change Plan

by YolandaFoust Posted on August 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama just unveiled the final version of rules that crack down on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants—the most significant contributor to global warming in the United States. “Climate change is not a problem for another generation, not anymore,” Obama said in a video released on Sunday. But not everyone agrees. Here’s what some of the leading 2016 presidential candidates think of Obama’s Clean Power Plan:

Marco Rubio

On Sunday, at an event hosted by the Koch Brothers, the Florida senator slammed the plan. “So if there’s some billionaire somewhere who is a pro-environmental, cap and trade person, yeah, they can probably afford for their electric bill to go up a couple of hundred dollars,” Rubio said, according to The Huffington Post. “But if you’re a single mom in Tampa, Florida, and your electric bill goes up by thirty dollars a month, that is catastrophic.” Experts disagree with Rubio’s suggestion that the new rules will be costly for ratepayers. As Tim McDonnell explains, “even though electric rates will probably go up, monthly electric bills are likely to go down, thanks to efficiency improvements.”

Jeb Bush

The former Florida governor released an official statement, calling the plan “overreaching” and “irresponsible.” Bush argued that the new rules would raise energy prices while also trampling on the powers of state governments. Bush went so far as to say that the plan would “hollow out our economy” for the sake of addressing climate change.

Mike Huckabee

The former Arkansas governor has been adamant about his opposition to the Clean Power Plan, saying that it would “bankrupt families.” On Monday he doubled down on his opposition to the plan, characterizing it as the president’s “carbon crusade”:

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"Lawless and Radical": What the 2016 Candidates Think of Obama’s New Climate Change Plan

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President Obama Just Finalized His Plan to Fight Climate Change

by FloreneGKQN Posted on August 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama has been more vocal than any previous president about the need to combat climate change, and on Monday his administration is releasing a package of rules that will likely be the most important—and most controversial—piece of his climate legacy.

“Climate change is not a problem for another generation,” Obama said in a video released early Sunday morning. The Clean Power Plan, as the rules finalized Monday are known, is “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.”

Coal-fired power plants are the country’s biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions and the chief culprit driving global warming. They’re responsible for even more CO2 pollution than all the nation’s passenger vehicles. The new plan aims to slash those emissions by requiring every state to reduce the carbon “intensity” (that is, emissions per unit of energy produced) of its energy sector. By 2030, the plan is expected to slash the carbon footprint of the nation’s power sector by 32 percent below 2005 levels—a more rigorous target than the 30 percent reduction outlined in a draft version of the rules released last summer.

In the final draft, the administration has relaxed deadlines for meeting the new carbon targets—states will now have until 2018 to propose a carbon-cutting strategy and until 2022 to implement it, according to leaked versions—a serious concern for environmentalists who have stressed the necessity of immediate action to limit climate change. And although the targets might sound ambitious, they might not actually be too different from what many states would achieve without them, thanks to a boom in clean energy that is already underway. Moreover, many of the changes required by the rules will play out under Obama’s successor, leaving open the possibility that they could be undermined by a climate change-denying president.

Still, the significance of this official crackdown on the gas behind global warming is hard to overstate, said David Doniger, director of the clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The very fact that they’re regulating carbon pollution from power plants is a historic step, a huge step,” he said. “This is part of using the existing law to turn the US from doing nothing, to playing a leadership role to curb climate change.”

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President Obama Just Finalized His Plan to Fight Climate Change

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America’s Dirtiest Power Companies, Ranked

by LonnaBuley599 Posted on July 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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Coal-fired power plants are the single biggest driver of global climate change in the United States. That’s why President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is moving quickly to put the finishing touches on a new set of regulations, called the Clean Power Plan, that aim to reduce the nation’s overall carbon footprint 30 percent by 2030 by cracking down on emissions from the energy sector.

Unsurprisingly, many power companies—particularly those that rely on coal as their main source of fuel—are crying foul. Recently, one major coal company and a dozen coal-reliant states tried to block the new rules in federal court. (The court decided last month not to hear the challenge, since the rules haven’t yet been finalized.) And this week, executives from two of the country’s biggest power companies met with White House officials in an attempt to persuade them that the crackdown would be “too much too soon.”

As it turns out, those same two companies—Duke Energy and American Electric Power—emit more carbon pollution than any other power producers in the country. That’s according to a new report released from a coalition of environmental groups and power companies, which draws on public data from the EPA and the Energy Information Administration to reveal the carbon footprints of the 100 biggest power producers in the nation. Many of the names in the database, like AEP or California’s Pacific Gas & Electric, might be familiar from your monthly bill, depending on where you live. The list does leave out some big utilities, like New York’s Con Ed, that primarily distribute power they purchase wholesale from someone else. That said, the database offers a pretty comprehensive snapshot of the companies most responsible for producing climate-changing emissions in the US.

The chart below shows the top 10 climate offenders from the database, according to two different metrics, and where each company ranks nationwide in terms of total power production. The first chart shows total carbon dioxide emissions in 2013. Unsurprisingly, that list is comprised mostly of the country’s biggest power companies, such as Duke, Southern, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. These companies produce a huge amount of power, and much of it comes from coal. Duke, for example, gets about 45 percent of its power from coal; for AEP, it’s about 60 percent.

The second chart shows the companies that are the most carbon-intense—that is, the companies that emit the most carbon dioxide per unit of electricity generated. Many of these are small, regional producers that rely almost exclusively on coal. While these companies generate relatively little power overall, what they do generate is exceptionally dirty, climate-wise. Big Rivers Electric, for example, provides power for a patch of western Kentucky with four coal-fired plants, the newest of which came online in 1986. Big Rivers declined to comment for this story. But a spokesperson for Great River Energy pointed out that the dataset may not fully represent a company’s portfolio, because it accounts only for power plants that the companies own and not for contracts with third-party wind and solar farms.

Tim McDonnell/Climate Desk

Take another look at the top chart. You might have noticed that while many of the country’s largest power producers appear on the list of major carbon polluters, a few big names are absent. That’s important, and it illustrates the huge climate benefit of using low-carbon fuels. In some cases, these companies have avoided significant carbon emissions because their energy generation portfolio is made up mostly of nuclear (which practically zero-carbon) and/or natural gas-fired plants (which release relatively little CO2). For example, the nation’s number-two power producer is Exelon, which gets 59 percent of its power from nuclear. The number-four producer, NextEra, gets 52 percent of its power from natural gas, 27 percent from nuclear, and 16 percent from wind. In other words, the carbon footprint ranking is essentially a proxy for which power companies are most reliant on coal.

There’s some good news in the data, as well. In the last few years, nationwide coal use has dropped precipitously. That’s mostly a product of market forces, rather than environmental regulation: Natural gas, made cheaper by the fracking boom, has displaced coal in power plants across the country. At the same time, renewable energy sources have boomed.

“What you see in this report is a significant shift to cleaner fuels,” said Derek Furstenwerth, a contributor to the report and the director of environmental services at Calpine, one of the country’s biggest power companies. Like NextEra, Calpine gets the bulk of its power from natural gas. Calpine has also emerged as a major proponent of Obama’s climate plan.

The shift away from coal has had a significant impact on emissions: Since 2008, carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector have dropped 12 percent. Other types of air emissions reported in the database are also way down, driven by regulations from the EPA that took effect prior to the Obama years. Emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide (both of which cause acid rain and other nasty environmental impacts) are down 74 percent and 80 percent, respectively, since 1990. The trends in those emissions offer a bit of a crystal ball into what will happen when the federal limits on carbon dioxide emissions kick in, said Dan Bakal, a contributor to the report and director of the electric power program at Ceres, a group that tracks environmental issues in the private sector.

“At the time, industry really thought reducing NOx and SO2 emissions was not going to be achievable and that it would be much more costly,” he said. “But they stepped up to the challenge and found ways to reduce emissions very cost-effectively. The same thing will happen with CO2.”

Just because carbon emissions are already on the decline, doesn’t mean Obama’s rules are unnecessary. The change isn’t happening fast enough to avert dangerous climate change, Bakal said. But the current trend does show that cleaning up the power sector is possible.

Complying with the Clean Power Plan “will be a bit of a stretch for the industry, which is appropriate for a regulation intended to put us on an improving path,” Furstenwerth said. “But we believe that it’s definitely achievable.”

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America’s Dirtiest Power Companies, Ranked

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Should Your State Be Able to Ignore the Nation’s Most Important Pollution Law?

by ElviraEJKC Posted on March 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) proposed a bold solution for any state that doesn’t like President Barack Obama’s flagship plan to slash carbon emissions: Just ignore it. The new rule, issued under the Clean Air Act, aims to reduce the nation’s carbon footprint 30 percent by 2030. It would require every state to devise a plan to cut the carbon intensity (pollution per unit of energy) of its power sector. By simply ignoring the mandate, McConnell reasoned, states could delay taking steps like shuttering or retrofitting coal-fired power plants until the rules get killed by the Supreme Court (even though the chances of that happening are pretty remote).

Last week, McConnell justified his unusual suggestion that state regulators deliberately ignore federal law by arguing that the rules themselves are illegal. And yesterday, he took his campaign to a new level by introducing—on behalf of GOP co-sponsors Rob Portman (Ohio), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), and Orrin Hatch (Utah)—an amendment to the Senate’s massive budget bill. It would allow any state to opt out of the rule if that state’s governor or legislature decides that complying would raise electric bills, would impact electricity reliability, or would result in any one of a litany of other hypothetical problems. The amendment could get a vote later this week.

Meanwhile, over in the House, Reps. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.) have introduced a bill along essentially the same lines, which is set to to be debated by the Energy and Power Subcommittee, which Whitfield chairs, next month.

Republicans are pitching these proposals as necessary steps to protect Americans from the power-hungry, climate-crazed Obama administration. But if passed, they might do more to protect the interests of coal companies. In fact, the Portman amendment introduced by McConnell explicitly allows states to opt out if the rules would “impair investments in existing electric generating capacity”—in other words, if they require the early retirement of any power plants. The apparent justification is that in order to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency, states will have to quickly implement sweeping changes to their power system that could leave residents with expensive, unreliable power.

In reality, many energy economists (not to mention utility companies themselves) have found that the range of options states have to comply with the EPA—such as mandating better energy efficiency and building more renewable energy—are more than enough to keep the lights on and bills stable, while simultaneously burning less coal. (Meanwhile, regardless of any new EPA rules, coal is already on a precipitous and probably irreversible decline thanks largely to the recent glut of cheap natural gas.)

Both bills also work on the assumption that the rules grossly overstep the EPA’s authority by extending beyond coal-fired smokestacks to the whole power system. That question is likely to be at the heart of the inevitable court battles over the rule. But as leading environmental lawyer Richard Revesz testified to a House committee this month, wide-reaching plans like this have been successfully implemented under the Clean Air Act for other pollutants like sulfur and mercury throughout the legislation’s 40-year history.

In any case, giving states the option to opt out of federal air quality rules essentially undermines the entire premise of the Clean Air Act, probably the most powerful piece of environmental legislation ever passed. As Natural Resources Defense Council policy chief David Doniger put it yesterday: “These bills would force us back to the dark days half a century ago when powerful polluters had a free hand to poison our air, because states were unwilling or unable to protect their citizens.”

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Should Your State Be Able to Ignore the Nation’s Most Important Pollution Law?

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Fuels America Launches the “Clean, Secure, American Energy” Campaign

by Posted on March 6, 2015

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Fuels America Launches the “Clean, Secure, American Energy” Campaign

Posted 6 March 2015 in

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As America marks the 102nd anniversary of tax breaks for oil companies this week, the Fuels America coalition is launching the “Clean, Secure American Energy” campaign, an effort that will highlight the success of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The “Clean, Secure, American Energy” campaign will culminate in the tenth anniversary of the RFS in August.

Oil company tax breaks were first signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson as part of the very first income tax code, which took effect on March 1, 1913. In contrast, tax credits for ethanol expired several years ago, and the Renewable Fuel Standard has existed for just 10 years. In those 10 years, however, the commonsense, bipartisan RFS has tripled America’s biofuel production and helped lower our oil dependence to the lowest level in decades, while delivering significant environmental and public health benefits.

The RFS has played an important role in advancing American energy independence and national security as part of an “all of the above” energy strategy. And because Renewable Fuel is produced right here in the United States, the industry supports 852,000 American jobs.

Last week, renewable fuel champions highlighted the environmental benefits of the RFS with the release of a letter to President Obama, urging him to ensure the EPA’s new multiyear rule for the RFS supports growth for existing and new biofuels technologies and lives up to the original intent of the bipartisan law.

“The RFS is working and has resulted in significant environmental gains,” the letter said. The RFS is America’s only fully implemented policy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.”

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Fuels America Launches the “Clean, Secure, American Energy” Campaign

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