WRAP UP

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
5/3/13

IN CONGRESS

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) announced May 2 that the panel will vote on the nomination of Gina McCarthy for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator next week. The committee business meeting will be held May 9 at 9:15 a.m., she said. “Gina McCarthy is a strong, bipartisan candidate and is the right person for the job at this critical time,” Boxer said in a statement. Republicans on the committee criticized Boxer last week for what they said is a premature vote. In an April 25 letter, EPW’s eight Republicans said they have not yet received answers to outstanding questions from McCarthy and EPA, and argued that Boxer should hold off on scheduling a vote until that occurs. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) currently has a hold on McCarthy’s nomination. 

Rep. Ed Markey, a prominent voice on climate change mitigation in Congress, easily cruised to victory in Massachusetts’ Democratic Senate primary April 30, swiftly defeating his House colleague, Rep. Stephen Lynch, by 14 percentage points. Markey will face Republican candidate Gabriel Gomez, a former Navy SEAL, in a June 25 special election for John Kerry’s old Senate seat. Gomez, a political novice, defeated two seasoned politicians in the Republican race, also held April 30. Markey is considered the heavy favorite in a state where only about 11 percent of voters are registered Republicans, according to the Associated Press. Markey is perhaps best known for co-authoring cap-and-trade legislation in 2009 with colleague Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall (W.Va.) will not run for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Jay Rockefeller in 2014, his office confirmed this week. Rahall will not challenge Republican colleague Shelley Moore Capito, who announced her candidacy for the Senate seat in November. Capito is considered a favorite of coal groups, who think she will be a strong voice for the declining fuel source in Congress’ upper chamber. Rahall’s office said the political veteran will instead run for a 20th term in his southern West Virginia House district, which is being seen by the National Republican Congressional Committee as a top target for 2014, according to National Journal.

IN THE EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency recently submitted its rule exempting geologically sequestered CO2 from hazardous waste requirements for final White House review. The agency submitted the long-delayed final rulemaking—which would conditionally exclude supercritical CO2 injected into Class VI Underground Injection Control wells from EPA’s definition of hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act—to the White House Office of Management and Budget on April 24, according to the office’s website. The submission kicks off a final Administration review that could stretch on for as long as 90 days. Proposed in August 2011, the rulemaking aims to ease the regulatory burden on the operators of carbon sequestration sites.

The Environmental Protection Agency has lowered its estimate of the amount of fugitive methane that is typically emitted during natural gas production, the Associated Press reported this week. The EPA said that tighter environmental controls implemented by the natural gas industry in recent years has led to an average annual decrease of methane emissions by more than 41 million metric tons from 1990 through 2010, about one-fifth less than previous agency estimates, according to the AP. Oil and gas companies have long pushed for the changes, against the will of many environmental groups that have raised concerns that gas production is not nearly as “clean” compared to coal generation as many have touted. A World Resources Institute working paper released last month estimates that methane leakage from production wells, pipelines and other upstream components generally spans 2 to 3 percent of total production. Methane is considered 25 times more potent than CO2 when emitted into the atmosphere over a 100-year period.