WRAP UP

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
8/23/13

IN CONGRESS

The House voted earlier this month to bar the Obama Administration from instituting a price on carbon without prior approval from Congress. Attached to a measure that would require the legislative branch to greenlight all major executive branch regulations with an annual economic impact of more than $100 million, the lower chamber also approved an amendment—passed on a 237-176 margin with the help of a dozen Democrats—that bars the Obama Administration from putting in place a “fee, levy or price” on CO2 emissions. Republicans voted unanimously in favor of the measure. The effort was more of a symbolic one, since the bill the carbon tax provision is attached to is considered dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate. But it does put the House on the record on the prospect of a carbon tax.

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said the Clean Air Act is not the appropriate vehicle for regulating greenhouse gas emissions. In a letter to President Barack Obama earlier this month, Dingell, the longest-serving member of the House and one of the main authors of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, said Congressional legislation is a more appropriate avenue to regulate the pollutant. “The Clean Air Act as currently constituted and implemented is not the most effective way to regulate greenhouse gases, and legislation to address specifically greenhouse gas emissions is far more preferable,” Dingell, who also previously served as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote. He suggested that the President arrange a meeting between stakeholders and Congress to find some common ground on the issue. “Despite the partisan disagreements in Congress of the last few years, I believe we can return to the times of compromise and sensible legislation that can create commonsense solutions to national issues including greenhouse gas emissions,” Dingell said. The Obama Administration is using the Clean Air Act as the legal foundation for its planned carbon standards for new and existing power plants.

The top Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee sharply criticized a recent subpoena issued by Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) earlier this month requesting the underlying research data the Environmental Protection Agency uses to help formulate air quality regulations. In a letter to Smith dated earlier this month, Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson criticized the Chairman for alleged plans to hand over the research data from the “Harvard Six Cities Study” and the “Cancer Prevention Study II” to third-party groups. “I cannot begin to describe how much it saddens me that the Majority is apparently using the Committee on Science to further … industry financed attacks,” Johnson said. “The actions you are taking are wrong. You are abusing Congressional power to harass the EPA Administrator. You are undermining our legitimate scientific research enterprise. You are violating the trust that hundreds of thousands of research volunteers placed in our country’s premier research institutions. And for what purpose?” Johnson said “legitimate scientific researchers” have had the ability to access the studies’ data sets in the past.

IN EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency’s acting chief financial officer said that the draft FY 2014 spending bill being considered by House appropriators would “severely curtail” EPA’s ability to fulfill its missions to protect the environment and public health. In a blog post on EPA’s website earlier this month, Maryann Froehlich said the Interior-Environment bill being considered by the House Appropriations Committee would “turn back EPA progress protecting human health and the environment by almost a quarter century.” The measure would allocate $5.5. billion for EPA, a roughly 30 percent cut from the agency’s post-sequester budget and put the agency at its lowest funding level since 1990. “The American public deserves better. We need to preserve our hard-won gains and ensure continued progress, as well as be prepared to address new challenges on the horizon.” Froehlich highlighted the more than 50 percent cuts to EPA’s State and Tribal Assistance Grants, as well as a rider barring EPA from pursuing carbon standards. “Ignoring the impacts of a warming planet—rising sea levels, drought, wildfires, heat waves—have and will continue to have serious economic repercussions,” she wrote. Appropriators earlier this month punted final consideration of the contentious bill until after the August recess.

IN THE STATES

The Chairman of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, the utility regulatory body tasked with overseeing Mississippi Power’s Kemper County gasification facility, is leaving the Commission for a job in the private sector. Republican member Leonard Bentz announced that he is leaving the PSC to become executive director of the South Mississippi Planning and Development District and that Gov. Phil Bryant (R) would soon be appointing a successor to the three-member public utility board. Bentz has been a vocal supporter of the $4.7 billion Kemper project in recent years as it has faced stiff challenges from the Sierra Club, and his departure could impact the project’s future as it is expected to undergo a prudency review by the Commission in the coming months.

IN THE INDUSTRY

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Mississippi Power’s credit and stock ratings earlier this month due to recent cost overruns at Kemper. The credit ratings agency said recent cost increases and “ongoing difficulties being experienced by the company in completing the large and complex Kemper” plant contributed to the downgrade. “Considering the magnitude of the cost increases announced to date and the delays experienced during the construction of Duke Energy’s similar Edwardsport IGCC plant in Indiana, we believe a delay in the expected May 2014 commercial date of the Kemper plant appears increasingly likely,” the ratings service said.

A new University of Illinois-sponsored report touts the economic benefits of FutureGen 2.0, saying that the $1.65 billion carbon capture and storage project would generate $12 billion in economic benefits for the state and up to 1,600 jobs during peak construction. The report, conducted by the University’s Regional Economic Applications Laboratory, says the 166 MW oxy-combustion retrofit would generate $243 million in income and sales tax revenues and an average of 620 jobs during its first 20 years of operations. “The study affirms that FutureGen 2.0 will provide a solid economic anchor for western Illinois,” Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Director Adam Pollet said in a statement. “We have endured several bumpy years along the way, but we kept our eye on the prize and look forward to construction which, pending DOE approval, is scheduled to begin in 2014.” The project is currently moving forward with Phase II front-end engineering and design work, which was greenlighted by the Department of Energy in February.