WolfeNotes.com

The guys in ski masks with Uzi’s weren’t parading on the tarmac demanding a flight to Cuba.

They were wearing $600 suits, talking on cell phones, packing Bradbury’s, and asking legislators for amendments to the bill.

This was the latest Trenton spectacle yesterday, before the Senate Economic Growth Committee on a substitute version of Senate global warming bill No. 2976 (Sweeney/Smith)
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/S3000/2976_I1.HTM

Sponsor Senator Sweeney summarized the bill in 30 seconds. He characterized the extensive closed door negotiations on the bill as “mud wrestling.” Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Lisa Jackson – only half in jest – was careful to distance herself on the record by testifying that:

“I watched the mud wrestling but did not participate in it”.

It only got uglier from then on.

The Committee spent just minutes discussing the merits of the bill being rammed through in the lame duck session.

Deliberations focused almost exclusively on whether Valero or Sunoco oil refineries – or both – should be provided loopholes. Chairman Lesniak sought to eliminate some of the most egregious loopholes (listen to hearing by clicking on http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/media/archive_audio2.asp?KEY=SEG&SESSION=2006

So, the mask is off and it is now obvious for all to see that the Corzine Administration’s first attempt to begin reductions in green house gas emissions to meet the ambitious goals of his own Global Warming Response Act (GWRA) is in the process of being hijacked.

The legislative process thus far has transformed a very modest initiative known as the “Regional Green House Gas Initiative” (RGGI) into a special interest money bill. If the economic special interests have squealed like stuck pigs in response to the modest 1% RGGI solution, what will they do when the real emission reductions initiatives are proposed?

RGGI is a cooperative effort of 10 northeastern states intended to limit future increases in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants (see: Global Warming showdown in Trenton?
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2007/11/global_warming_showdown_in_tre.html

RGGI’s regional emission reduction goals are modest – 10% by year 2019 – and NJ’s burden is even lighter. NJ’s 22.9 million ton emission share amounts to a 1% reduction from current in state power plant emissions. The RGGI emissions inventory and “caps” do NOT consider emissions from energy imports from coal plants. RGGI does not address 60-70% of the problem from other major green house gas emissions sectors, such as transportation and buildings. So RGGI is only a small part of major efforts that will be required to meet the Corzine GWRA emissions reduction goals.

After describing RGGI as a “brave step” last week in testimony in the Assembly, DEP Commissioner Jackson has dampened the rhetoric and conceded that RGGI is “modest by design” and merely a “first step” to anticipate and spur federal action by the Bush Administration. (see, Profiles in courage on Global Warming?
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2007/12/profiles_in_courage_on_global.html

But instead of focusing on expanding the scope of a very modest RGGI to begin truly reducing green house gas emissions, the energy and utility lobbyists convinced legislators to load the bill up with “Christmas tree” amendments that would provide monopoly profits to public utilities and huge loopholes to – of all things – oil refineries.

Prior to yesterday’s hearing, a similar bill was heard and approved last week by Assembly committees. In those sessions, testimony focused on whether the amendments sought by energy utility companies would provide monopoly profits. The so-called “rate decoupling” approach is intended to allow utilities to earn excess profits for investments in energy efficiency.

The proposed amendments in Section 13 of the bill would fundamentally alter the current economic oversight by the Board of Public Utilities and allow utilities to pass on costs to ratepayers while continuing to earn record profits for shareholders.

During this absurd lame-duck legislative process, the special interests essentially have taken us all hostage. Perhaps even worse, they have done so under the pretext of responding to the hugely strong and growing public demand to act to reduce green house gas emissions and respond to global warming threats.

Given where we are now, it’s time to pull the plug on the bill and start all over in next year’s legislative session. There simply is no way, procedurally at this point in the waning lame duck session, for amendments to the bill to repair fatal flaws.
Or the Governor can sit back and wait and attempt to fix the bill via a “Conditional Veto”

The ball is now in Corzine’s court.

(Correction: my prior post contained an error – the 600 Megawatt proposed LS energy plant in Sweeney’s district is NOT to be fuled by coal, but natural gas,. I relied on dated DEP information to support the coal claim.)

Yesterday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a devastating Report: “Political Interference with Climate Change Science Under the Bush Administration” http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20071210101633.pdf

The Report provides a rare inside look and detailed blow by blow account of exactly how the Bush Administration corrupted government and science to serve the interests of its oil and energy industry corporate backers.

The Report provides dozens of examples of how EPA Administrator Whitman rolled over and allowed Bush political hacks to dictate EPA science and law.

The Report serves as a virtual indictment of the the failures of leadership and professional integrity of major NJ political players: former Governor Christie Whitman and her legal counsel, Bob Fabricant, who she took to Washington and named EPA Chief Counsel.

How could such a critically important and poliiically juicy story go completely unreported in NJ press and political outlets

For the past 16 months, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee conducted an investigation into serious allegations of political interference with government climate change science under the Bush Administration.

During the course of the investigation, the Committee obtained over 27,000 pages of documents from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Commerce Department, held two investigative hearings, and deposed or interviewed key officials.

The inescapable conclusion of the investigation was that:

“the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.”

The report found:

“In 1998, the American Petroleum Institute developed an internal “Communications Action Plan” that stated: “Victory will be achieved when … average citizens ‘understand’ uncertainties in climate science … [and] recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.'” The Bush Administration has acted as if the oil industry’s communications plan were its mission statement. White House officials and political appointees in the agencies censored congressional testimony on the causes and impacts of global warming, controlled media access to government climate scientists, and edited federal scientific reports to inject unwarranted uncertainty into discussions of climate change and to minimize the threat to the environment and the economy.”

To get a flavor of how systematic and corrupt the Bush people were – enabled at virtually every step along the way by EPA Administrator Whitman – the report made detailed findings to support conclusions that:

1. The White House Censored Climate Scientists
2. The White House Controlled which Climate Scientists Could Speak with the Media
3. The White House Extensively Edited Congressional Testimony Regarding Climate Science
4. The Bush Administration’s Censorship of Climate Scientists was Widespread
5. The White House Extensively Edited Climate Change Reports
6. The White House Edited the Strategic Plan of the Climate Change Science Program
7. The White House Edited EPA’s Report on the Environment
8. The White House Edited Our Changing Planet Report
9. The White House Eliminated the Climate Change Section of EPA’s Air Trends Report
10. The White House was Involved in Editing EPA’s Legal Opinions
11. The White House Edited the EPA Administrator’s Whitman’s Op-ed on Climate Change .

Aside from the war on science, perhaps on the most important issue – and embarassing for Whitman and Fabricant – the Report uncovered the inside story on how EPA’s legal position on global warming was reversed at the request of the energy industry.

Under the Clinton Administration, EPA’s legal position was that carbon dioxide – chief global warming gas – was a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act and that EPA had legal authority to regulate emisisons by industry and coal power plants. Based on that opinion, EPA was developing regulations to reduce emissions. That legal position was reversed by Bush:

“On April 10, 1998, EPA General Counsel Jonathan Z. Cannon issued a legal opinion regarding “EPA’s Authority to Regulate Pollutants Emitted by Electric Power Generation Sources.”203 Mr. Cannon concluded that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act and therefore subject to regulation by EPA. A year and a half later, a number of environmental organizations petitioned EPA to regulate emissions of certain greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act.204 On August 28, 2003, EPA denied this petition on the grounds that (1) EPA did not have authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and (2) EPA determined that setting greenhouse gas emissions standards for motor vehicles was not appropriate at that time.205 The same day, Robert E. Fabricant, EPA’s then General Counsel, issued a new legal opinion overturning the Cannon memo and concluding that EPA did not have authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act because they are not “air pollutants.”206 EPA’s action was subsequently challenged by states and environmental groups.

On April 2, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA. The Court rejected the arguments put forth in the Fabricant memo and ruled that EPA has authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.

Documents obtained from CEQ reveal that CEQ Chairman James Connaughton was heavily involved in the decision that EPA would deny the petition to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and personally edited the draft legal opinion of EPA’s General Counsel. The documents also show that CEQ ignored climate science when it edited these EPA decision documents, despite claims of CEQ officials that the National Academy of Sciences report on climate change was CEQ’s touchstone”.

Of course, the inside story told in the Report conflicts with prior public statements by Whitman that create the appearance that she was an environmental champion behind the scenes, working against the oil industry lobbyists, Vice President Cheney and chief White House advisor Andrew Card.

But, this sad tale on global warming is consistent with disclosures of how Whitman misled the public in the wake of 9/11 – recall that CEQ was involved in dictating Whitman’s false and misleading public statements that the air in the vicinity of ground zero was safe to breath. EPA’s own Inspector General issued a Report that chastized Whitman for those statements.

Will the NJ media hold the former Governor accountable for her role? They largely let her off the hook for the 9/11 debacle.

One Star-Ledger story today contained not one – but two – quotes of the day – straight out of the Twilight Zone:

“Doria: Eco-rules should not block affordable housing DEP seeking limits on developable land”

“There are people in the environmental community who want New Jersey to become one big green acre,” he [Assemblyman Jerry Green (D-Union)] said, referring to the state’s open space preservation program.”

Earth to Assemblyman Green (no pun intended with that name, eh Jerry?):

One Big Green Acre?

Perhaps Assemblyman Green doesn’t get out often, but New Jersey is becoming one giant housing development, strip mall, parking lot. Roads are gridlocked. Farms and forests are vanishing. Most streams and lakes are too polluted to fish or swim in. Even modest rainfalls cause localized flooding and chaos.

If the visual evidence hasn’t sunk in, maybe some facts will:

New Jersey is the nation’s most densely populated state, one of the most densely populated places in the world (over 1,100 people per square mile). New Jersey has almost 40% of its land area developed and is losing an additional 15,000 – 20,000 acres per year to development (that’s 50 football fields lost every day, for you sports fans out there). New Jersey will be the first state to reach “build out.” New Jersey has more roads, people, cars, pavement, and toxic wastes per square mile than anywhere on earth (and some of the highest cancer rates to match). Congestion in the region is so bad, the Star-Ledger reported that we soon won’t be able to ship Port imports by truck.

Can this landscape be described as a green acre?

Am I an environmental zealot for reporting these facts and expressing disgust at the power of greedy developers to destroy landscapes and communities?

But, not to be outdone in the Twilight Zone quote of the day competition, Elaine Makatura, Press Office spokesperson for DEP, sought to defend DEP from the political onslaught of both Assemblyman Green and new Corzine Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Joe Doria:

“Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Joseph Doria told the Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee that while 1.3 million acres of land in the state remains undeveloped, standards proposed by the Department of Environmental Protection would limit any future housing development to 300,000.
“That’s a serious issue,” Doria said. “Will we have the land to provide housing? We have to look at environmental regulations that impact on housing. This is an inter-departmental responsibility.”

The housing-related DEP regulations include preventing construction within 300 feet of streams that feed reservoirs, upgrading quality standards for the waterway, and prohibiting the construction of sewer lines near pristine waterways or endangered species habitats.”

So how did Makatura respond?

Holy cow, she told a Legislator and a Cabinet member to shut up and stop carrying the developers water!

“Elaine Makatura, a DEP spokeswoman, said Doria and other state officials should bring their concerns to the department before making it a public issue.

“For the DEP to be part of the equation and be part of the decision-making, they must work through the (DEP) commissioner’s office and come in and sit down and discuss it and work with staff to determine what role the DEP will play,” she said. “Developers are not happy with those kind of restrictions. Those restrictions were put in place (proposed) to protect environmental resources like water and habitat.”

The story went on to report that Assembly Speaker Roberts has a 12-bill package that seems to support Assemblyman Green and Commissioner Doria’s pro-developmnent and anti-environmental views.

Looks like a war could be brewing within the Corzine Administration and between the Democrats and environmentalists. Doria is surely not going to take that DEP Press Office rebuke laying down.

More to follow on this one next year as that 12-bill Roberts package is considered.

Once again, political deals in Trenton on the global warming front are being missed by media coverage.

For the inquiring reader and intrepid journalists out there, here is a different perspective on the story, with the critical facts and policy context that are so lacking in the news coverage.

I write particularly for those who – like me – agree with the scientists that global warming is real and that significant actions need to be taken to reduce emissions of green house gases now, before it is too late and a critical threshold is reached and irreversible impacts are triggered.

Yesterday, the Assembly Environment Committee released the Corzine Administration’s first step to implement the aggressive goals of the Global Warming Response Act he signed in July.

Those goals call for a 20% reduction in emissions by the year 2020, and a steeper 80% reduction by 2050. The goals have been praised, but the law criticized as lacking any funding or programs to achieve the goals – see: Star-Ledger Op-Ed: “No Teeth in ‘tough. pollution law”.

As we go through the details, keep in mind – for the mathematically challenged out there – that a REDUCTION in current emissions is very different than a slower rate of projected growth in pollutant emissions.

The committee released a bill that would set up a pollution “cap and trade” program. Even the name is a misnomer – it should be called the “pollute and profit” program.

Today’s news coverage leads with a quote by Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson, about “brave steps”

“This is about brave steps,” Lisa Jackson, the state’s environmental commissioner, said during the hearing in Trenton. “Just by having the opportunity to move forward on this legislation, we will continue to put pressure on the federal government to act.”

Given the following account, you decide if what was done yesterday could possibly be described as “brave steps”.

First of all, the Committee engaged in a classic bait and switch.

The Committee agenda listed Assembly bill No. A4559, sponsored by Chairman McKeon. The McKeon bill was general in nature and strictly limited in scope to the “Regional Green House Gas Initiative” (RGGI). RGGI is a pollutant “cap and trade” program that applies to power plants. The McKeon bill would authorize the DEP to develop a RGGI program and auction off the 22.9 million tons of pollution allowances allocated to NJ under the RGGI program to the highest bidder. The money from the auction would be invested in energy efficiency and renewable power (solar, wind etc).

RGGI is a cooperative agreement between the Governor’s of 10 northeastern and mid-Atlantic states to reduce green house gas emissions. These Governors got tired of waiting for the Bush administration to take action at the federal level.

But the Committee actually heard a substitute bill crafted in secret late last week by Senator Sweeney (S2976). Sweeney just happens to have a planned new 600 megawatt coal power plant in his district seeking DEP permit approvals, and seems to be meeting with construction unions and power utilities. The Sweeney bill was not formally introduced or even made available to the public until late Monday.

I was not aware that it was on the Thursday agenda. But enough of the political process arguments – here’s some facts to consider.

1. RGGI would “cap” NJ emissions of carbon dioxide at 22.9 million tons. I put the word cap in parenthesis, because the cap has many loopholes – tons of additional emissions effectively could be allowed by various private market “emission offset” programs. The emissions “cap” would be reduced by 10% by 2019. However, the 22.9 million ton “cap” is 9% MORE than current average emissions, so the actual best case “reduction” RGGI could produce is closer to 1%. Keep in mind that the Corzine emissions reduction goal for 2020 is 20%. So RGGI is comparatively small potatoes.

This discrepancy is misleadingly spun by Corzine officials who state that RGGI would result in “a 17% reduction from business as usual” (see Senate Environment Committee testimony of DEP Commissioner Jackson. April 14, 2007). The term “business as usual” is not defined, but it represents a large projection in electric energy demand. So now you can see the significance of my early emphasis on the difference between an actual reduction in emissions versus a slower rate of projected growth.

Shockingly, no intrepid reporter, legislator, or environmental activist has ever called the DEP Commissioner of this glaring spin. However, national environmental groups have lambasted exactly the same methodology by the Bush administration’s Department of energy “energy intensity” indicator.

So, with the best case and 100% compliance, RGGI can provide a 1% reduction – is this “brave”?

2. In her testimony, the Commissioner and the Committee emphasized the need to limit economic impacts on homeowner electric bills. The Commissioner pledged to limit the RGGI auction program to “$40 – 50 million” – that’s a quote – which would result in less than a 1% increase in typical homeowner electric bills.

If typical electric bills are 100 per month, is a dollar a month to prevent global catastrophe brave?

3. NJ electric consumers currently fund a $400 million per year energy efficiency program under the Board of Public Utilities’ supervised “Societal Benefits Charge”.

Green house gas emission reductions would have to greatly exceed than those resulting from the current $400 million program. So, I assumed the RGGI program would generate funds in excess of $400 million.

However, DEP Commissioner Jackson’s testimony pledged to keep the RGGI revenues between “$40 – $50 million”.
Is investing 10% more than what we’re currently already spending on energy efficiency brave?

4. The “deal” that was cut by the Assembly Committee in the compromise bill that was released stripped enforcement provisions. These safeguards are designed to assure that any emission reductions and emissions “offset projects” meet five tests to assure that they are:

a) real, b) additional, c) verifiable, d) enforceable, and e) permanent.

These safeguards are necessary to make the program work and to assure that sham counterfeit allowances are not created by sham projects. This protects not only the environment, but the energy efficiency and renewable investments of legitimate businesses.

Without government oversight and enforcement, the market can’t work.

Was it “brave” to strip enforcement provisions from the bill?

5. The ratepayer advocate, a champion of economic regulation of public utilities, opposed the bill on grounds that market competition was needed – she provided this analogy: “when we embarked on the recycling program, we didn’t guarantee the landfill operators revenues and profits for reduced garbage disposed due to recycling”.

Was it brave to provide monopoly profits to the big energy utilities?

6. Another provision of the bill would make global warming emission reduction programs at DEP voluntary and incentive based. This amounts to a preemptive strike against regulation by DEP. The business community strongly opposes DEP regulation in favor of voluntary measures, and instead supports incentives (subsidies to polluters). For example, DEP could revive the 1990 Clean Air Act Employer Trip Reduction program to reduce car emissions from single occupant vehicles commuting to major corporate campuses. Or

DEP could mandate that new development meet LEED Green Building standards and offset new emissions.

Was it “brave” to support a stealth voluntary incentive approach instead of fighting for the ability to impose necessary regulatory controls?

7. The bill released would generate $40 – $50 million, an auction price of less than $2 per ton of emission allowance. But economic studies say carbon allowances would have to be in the range of $30 – $50/ton to “internalize” the pollution costs of carbon and change utility economic decisions to continue to operate coal plants..

Was it “brave” to support a bill that would have NO impact on the price signals or economic decisions of coal power?

8. The $40 million RGGI auction revenue expectation concession was established BEFORE the first RGGI auction scheduled for June 2008. Could you imagine an auctioneer announcing his bottom line in advance of the auction?

Was it “brave” to announce your auction bottom line before the auction?

9. In the original version of the bill, DEP was slated to receive 2% of $70 million in RGGI auction revenues to support program administration (or about $1.4 million to DEP). In the compromise bill, DEP administrative costs were doubled, from 2% to 4% of $40 – 50 million in auction revenues (or about $1.6 – $2.0 million to DEP).

Was in “brave” to support a bill that guts RGGI revenue but doubles the share of funds to DEP?

10. The environmental lobbyists applauded the DEP Commissioner for avoiding an even worse train wreck! It’s gone from a simple sham, to shame.

Given all these facts and how bad this bill was, was this a “brave” move on their part?