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Press Conference Cont., Meeting with Sen. Rockefeller's State Director
In December, a climate change rally was held outside of the old Daniel Boone Hotel in Charleston, along with a press conference in the lobby. The building currently houses U.S. Sen. John D. Rockefeller's office.
People gathered in support of a strong climate change bill and later, some would go on to deliver a letter and banner to Rockefeller's staff and ask for the senator's support.
The media did little to nothing with the rally, and as you all know you need the media to help garner public support for your issue, so I'm posting it now since health care reform is getting butchered (as expected) and then once that gets shot between the eyes (as expected), hopefully climate change will actually become an issue AGAIN, this year (especially in West Virginia), since our country's economy is still hurting and fixing the problem will actually create jobs.
So let's make climate an issue in 2010 and get our Congressional delegation to push for a 35% reduction in CO2 emmissions by 2020 and create much needed jobs in the process! Wreck the world, then save it and make money off of doing so. That's the American way!
***Groups represented at rally and press conference: 1SKY WV (Andrew Porter), WV Environmental Council (Jesse Johnson), Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (Mel Tyree), UE 170 (John Thompson), Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charleston (Rev. Rose Edington)***
Today a mixed bag of WV state senators sponsored legislation to create a governor's commission to "Seize the Future of Energy for America." What could have been a step forward for america's energy independence and West Virginia's economy looks to be just another give-away to the extraction industry.
You know, I'm not surprised when I see misleading information in constituent emails from Rep. Shelley Moore Capito. Take this section from last week's letter (the first sentence alone gets two things wrong: one minor, one major):
WVU Report on Cap-and-Trade
Also on the topic of energy - this week, professors at West Virginia University released a report on the full-impact of cap-and-trade. In highlighting the prospect of severe job loss and population decline, their view is a bit different than the President's.
Of particular note, Dr. Randall A. Childs and the university's Bureau of Business and Economic Research suggest that the state could lose more than 20,000 jobs over the next few decades and see a $1.8 billion decline in state domestic product. These are troubling numbers and we must remember them as the conversation continues.
So, I went, looked, and found where a report authored by Dr. Childs was released (it is available for download; warning, large PDF). This report is such a hit, at Gov. Manchin's request the West Virginia legislature has even written some of its findings into law:
Whereas, The Act calls for the establishment of a national cap and trade program that, if effected, would reduce West Virginia's gross domestic product by an estimated $750 million by 2020 and by an estimated $1.75 billion by 2030; and
Whereas, West Virginia would lose up to 10,000 jobs by 2020 and up to 22,000 jobs by 2030 if the proposed cap and trade program is enacted;
Amazingly, Rep. Capito's newsletter is more accurate than the legislature's resolution! (There's a sentence I never thought I'd write.) Rep. Capito at least says "could" whereas the resolution says "would".
I share Rep. Capito's view that these numbers are troubling--but not for the same reasons.
Talking about Change
Now, before I go into details about the report itself, I want to remind you about a diary I posted a few days ago on talking about change. Here's a key chart:
What about that WVU BBER study?
Okay, fine... what's that got to do with the WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) study? Well, as it turns out, Childs' study focuses exclusively on just half of the decision making picture.
It says West Virginia has some good stuff right now--mainly, coal mining jobs and revenue along with electricity rates below the national average. Then it calculates how much less of the "usual" good stuff we would have if the House bill become law without any further changes and if we assume we were going to have all the same good stuff in 2030 as we have now.
In other words, it only looks at the stuff in the Resistance to Change column. No wonder the folks who like the status quo--the most resistance to change--have fully embraced this study.
What the report doesn't include
The WVU BBER report does not note that global climate change is a problem that needs to be addressed. (In fact, in the first footnote of the study, it gives credence to debunked claims of climate change denialists).
The WVU BBER report does not say what the costs of doing nothing are (it ignores the bad stuff now and in the future)--the significant costs to West Virginia of climate change. (To be fair, neither do the national government studies it relies on for much of it data.)
The WVU BBER report assumes that West Virginia's current relative electricity costs advantages will remain constant in the absence of climate change legislation. This is a difficult assumption to justify.
We're already seeing West Virginia utilities ask for large rate increases due to the drop in state industrial demand and a drop in out-of-state demand for coal-generated electricity. Multiple forecasts show a drop in Appalachian coal production in the next 20 years. Nearby states are making aggressive investments in alternative energy. Projecting the "usual" good stuff forever is an unrealistically optimistic comparison case.
Also, the WVU BBER report does not include any of the different good stuff that will result from addressing climate change. Quoting from the study itself:
The provisions excluded from EIA's analysis include: Clean Energy Deployment Program; Strategic Allowance Reserve; regulations covering HFC emissions; GHG standards for activities not covered by cap and trade; allowances to coal merchant plants; efficiency standards for transportation equipment; and, investment in energy research and development. The omitted programs and regulations, while albeit important, are not likely to significantly change the underlying results of this study.
Investments in conservation, efficiency, and alternative energy all provide benefits to the West Virginia economy. These benefits are not included in the study.
Finally, the WVU BBER report makes no attempt to include less bad stuff. A more thorough study would include the positive impacts of reduced coal usage (something that the MACED and Dr. Hendryx studies both provide a reasonable starting point to estimate).
In other words, when Rep. Capito says this is a "a report on the full-impact of cap-and-trade," that's just not true. It's a report on some of the impacts of cap-and-trade with an almost exclusive focus on the most negative impacts.
Resistance to Change
If you set out to create the most pessimistic view possible of addressing West Virginia climate change you might well end up with a study quite similar to this one. I have no reason to believe Dr. Childs' started his report with that idea in mind, but the end result is the same.
It's no wonder that Rep. Capito and Gov. Manchin are trumpeting these figures to justify their resistance to change. This is a disservice to all West Virginians.
Head in the sand on climate change. The WVU BBER report assumes the West Virginia economy will feel no effects from global climate change if it goes unaddressed. This is a reckless view to perpetuate.
All pain, no gain. The WVU BBER report assumes that West Virginia will get no benefits from the House climate bill. No new clean energy jobs. No new coal carbon-capture and storage R&D jobs (with associated increased coal demand). No retraining, tax credits, or other directed benefits to aid Appalachia in moving beyond coal.
"Good" stuff forever. The WVU BBER report assumes the status quo of coal today will be here forever. That's at odds with what the coal industry itself is saying. A real public service would be to create a more realistic baseline scenario based on all known information about coal supply.
Bad stuff never. The WVU BBER report completely ignores the documented negative externalities of the coal economy. Reductions in coal mining, processing, and burning will also have positive effects on West Virginia GDP and population numbers (along with numerous quality of life indicators).
In summary, the WVU BBER paints an unrealistic set of scary figures.
A silver lining?
As incomplete as this study is, there may be one small silver lining. While I think the WVU BBER study is misleading and inaccurate, it does demonstrate the necessity for West Virginians to constructively engage in the legislative process regarding energy and environmental policy.
It is important that climate change legislation aids West Virginians and other Appalachians who face disproportionate impacts in moving to a post-carbon economy. West Virginia political leadership--our Congresspeople and those in the state house--ought to quit demagoguing these issues and start offering real solutions.
Mining and burning the small amount of coal remaining in West Virginia even faster is not a solution to climate change in West Virginia and it doesn't address the long-term challenges our state faces to replace our dwindling coal-based wealth.
Several folks have posted about the exchange between Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito and Pres. Obama and the GOP retreat last week (h/t JB). If you haven't watched the video, here it is.
Here's how I look at this exchange. The basic assumption in Capito's question is in this part:
I represent the state of West Virginia. We're resource rich. We have a lot of coal and a lot of natural gas.
Towards the end of his response President Obama reminds her that's not the full picture.
So what I want to do is with West Virginia to figure out how we can seize that future. But to do that, that means there's going to have to be some transition. ... what does that industry look like in the next hundred years?
How would you answer the question for West Virginia--what does coal mining look like in the next 100 years?
The first thing I think about is, 100 years from now--probably just 50 years from now--there's not going to any coal mining to speak of going on in West Virginia--all the coal will be gone. Just looking out 30 years from now, there's a whole lot less coal mining than today. So, what about 20... or 10 years from today?
This is the twilight of coal wealth for West Virginia... its heyday is in the past... we're in the final lap. The President is responding to Capito--West Virginia doesn't have 100 years worth of coal--and reminds us all we need to do even more to prepare for what comes next.
Stripped to its essence, it's the most pressing question I take away from the Q&A between Capito and Obama.
To prepare for the next 100 years: what economic development do we as a state want to promote that is not coal-related?
CHARLESTON, WV - Responding to national pressure over the treatment of tree sitters on Coal River Mountain, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin asked Climate Ground Zero for an emergency meeting. This morning Roland Micklem, 81, and other group members told the Governor that the civil-disobedience campaign won't stop until mountaintop removal does. They reminded the governor that the campaign is strictly non-violent, and asked the governor to protect activists from threats of violence by Massey Energy and other coal companies.
"The governor attempted to steer the conversation away from the more massive crime of MTR," said Micklem. "We are here to oppose mountaintop removal mining, which is a crime. Massey Energy has committed any number of illegalities. We will continue non-violent civil disobedience in order to stop it."
Today is the eighth day that Eric Blevins, 28, and Amber Nitchman, 19, continue to peacefully occupy trees to prevent blasting near Massey Energy's Bee Tree strip mine on Coal River Mountain. They are preventing Massey from blasting near a sludge dam that endangers downstream communities.
The sitters have faced constant harassment from Massey Security in the form of air horns, bright lights and violent threats. The meeting resulted in a temporary moratorium on the use of the air horns and flood lights, but the sitters remain worried about the possibility of other, more dangerous, methods of harassment.
Governor Manchin recently came out against violence between the opponents and proponents of mountaintop removal mining after a meeting with coalfield residents about the effects of that type of mining.
In response to news of the harassment, hundreds of people from all over the country called Massey Energy, and then Governor Manchin to express their displeasure with his continued support of mountaintop removal mining, and to pressure him to stop the auditory abuse of the tree sitters. "The massive call-ins to the Governor and Massey Energy this week came from all over the country; mountaintop removal is a national issue with national consequences - the coal companies cannot continue to treat central Appalachia like their own personal playground," said David Aaron Smith, one of the sitters who had to come down Monday.
Today Manchin stated: "Even if we disagree, I believe we can walk away respecting each other but everyone-including activists and property owners-must do so within the letter of the law." Activists acknowledge that they are taking part in civil disobedience in response to legal violations committed by mining companies. In the debate with Robert Kennedy Jr last week, Massey CEO Don Blankenship said "I doubt it's possible [to do mountaintop removal] without having a single violation at a single time."
First off, here's all the important logistical details:
WHAT: The University of Charleston will present a public conversation between Waterkeeper Alliance President and environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Massey Energy Chairman and CEO Don Blankenship titled the Forum on the Future of Energy. The event will advance the national discussion about U.S. energy policy and its impact on jobs, the environment, the economy, and national security.
WHEN: Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010, at 6:15 pm
WHO: Don Blankenship - Chairman and CEO, Massey Energy Co.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. - President, Waterkeeper Alliance
Dr. Edwin H. Welch - President, University of Charleston, event moderator
WHERE: University of Charleston's Geary Auditorium; live remote broadcast in Eddie King Gymnasium
If you want to attend in person, the tickets for the auditorium are "sold out" (they were never available for sale to the public), but free admission is available for the remote broadcast in the Eddie King Gymnasium.
The Forum has generated considerable interest and demand for tickets has exceeded the auditorium capacity. Event organizers will distribute tickets in advance, and no additional seats will be available. For all others, the forum will be broadcast live in Eddie King Gymnasium on the university's campus.
To accommodate television coverage, the University of Charleston requests that the audience be seated prior to 6:15 p.m. Those holding tickets will be seated in their respective sections, on a first-come, first-served basis, with early arrivals seated at the front. Doors will open at 5:00 p.m. and entry into the event will be through the Keenan lot entrance of Riggleman Hall only.
All interested parties are invited to submit questions for the participants in advance. Dr. Welch, as moderator, will ask the participants a balance of representative, challenging questions chosen from those submitted.
There's a lot of national interest in the debate and the fact that it is happening at all is significant. It is one more sign that folks are starting to take planning for West Virginia's post-carbon future a little more seriously.
Groups Put Massey on Notice for Over 12,000 Clean Water Violations Company Has Pattern of Illegal Pollution
January 11, 2010
Charleston, WV: A coalition of groups, including the Sierra Club, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch, and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy took action today to hold coal giant Massey Energy accountable for over 12,000 violations of the Clean Water Act and surface mining laws associated with their mining operations in West Virginia. Massey continues to illegally dump pollution into Appalachian waterways despite a massive $20 million fine already placed on the company for thousands of previous violations.
"Massey has operated outside the law for far too long. There is a history here, not only of Massey ignoring the law, but of state officials ignoring Massey's violations," said Judy Bonds of Coal River Mountain Watch. "Massey needs to be held accountable for these very real crimes against the people of Appalachia."
Massey has a long history of environmental and social irresponsibility-including one of the largest slurry spills ever to take place in the United States and a $1.5 million fine from the Mine Safety and Health Administration. In 2008 the company was fined $20 million for Clean Water Act violations, similar to those cited by the coalition, after the federal government documented over 4,600 cases of pollution being illegally dumped into local waters by Massey and its subsidiaries. Incredibly, Massey's violations have increased in frequency since its settlement with the federal government.
"Massey seems to think that poisoning water by consistently ignoring laws is an acceptable business practice. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection seems to agree, as they continue to allow these violations. We are forced to do the agencies job, to hold Massey accountable," said Diane Bady of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
"Massey has both a legal and moral obligation to protect streams and drinking water supplies in the communities where it operates," said Jim Sconyers of the Sierra Club's West Virginia Chapter. "Their permits are not just pieces of paper - they are solemn commitments to protect the waters and people of West Virginia. Unfortunately the company has shown time and again that it is unwilling to take its obligations seriously."
Massey and its subsidiaries operate dozens of mountaintop removal and other large-scale surface mines in Appalachia, using some of the most environmentally devastating types of mining, flattening the landscape and burying miles of streams. Close to 2,000 miles of streams have already been lost and new proposed mountaintop removal permits could destroy more than 60,000 acres of the remaining forest.
The evidence is now crystal clear. The leadership of West Virginia needs to put the citizens of West Virginia--its people--ahead of corporate profits. Today we should all be calling for West Virginia political leadership to rally together to plan for an orderly end to mountaintop mining.
What we learned
This is a watershed moment in the history of mountaintop removal mining.
The science team entered the project with no preconceived notion about how effective mountain top removal mitigation might be or how damaging MTR is. After this study the interdisciplinary team of 11 scientists reached this conclusion (summarized by McClatchy):
The consequences of this mining in eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and southwestern Virginia are ""pervasive and irreversible," the article finds. Companies are required by law to take steps to reduce the damages, but their efforts don’t compensate for lost streams nor do they prevent lasting water pollution, it says.
The article is a summary of recent scientific studies of the consequences of blasting the tops off mountains to obtain coal and dumping the excess rock into streams in valleys. The authors also studied new water-quality data from West Virginia streams and found that mining polluted them, reducing their biological health and diversity.
Surprisingly little attention has been paid to this growing scientific evidence of the damages, they wrote, adding: "Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science."
New permits shouldn’t be granted, they argued, "unless new methods can be subjected to rigorous peer review and shown to remedy these problems."
In the Kinkaid interview one of the scientists said it'll take 10,000 years for mountain top removal sites to return to pre-mining condition.
Another scientist said that residents living near mining operations should consider moving to protect their health.
Another said that no known restoration/mitigation plans could work--even if you could restore water flows and vegetation mixes (something we have no idea yet how to do), there are still major down stream chemical pollution problems.
Another scientist points out that the chemical pollution problems (e.g., selenium) are not just trace amounts that could theoretically be a problem, they've already shown up in concentrations higher up in the food chain. Animals are showing up with selenium poisoning and there are no health advisories for residents in West Virginia not to eat fish from streams below certain mines out of concern of selenium exposure.
What happens next?
The most comprehensive study ever on MTR coal mining appears in arguably the most prestigious scientific journal it could appear in. It confirms what coal mining community members have been saying all along: we're dying out here.
The scientists agree: they have called for a halt to mountain top removal mining because of public health hazards.
The most responsible thing for West Virginia leaders to do today is rally together on behalf of all citizens of West Virginia--develop a plan for phasing out all existing Mountain Top Removal coal mining.
This is going to be a really hard one for the science-driven Obama EPA to ignore. They just announced new air quality standards in line with most recent smog science, now how will the EPA react to established water quality threats from mountain top removal?
I'm only making one New Year's Resolution this year: I resolve to reduce my carbon emissions by 10% in 2010.
This is going to be one of the trickier resolutions to pull off--it will require a year's worth of effort, buy-in from the rest of my household, and some real changes in behavior.
Because any New Year's Resolution is easier to stick to if you have friends joining with you, I'm also going to ask each of you reading this to join with me. Will you also resolve to reduce your carbon emissions by 10% in 2010?
Here are ten ideas to help get us all started.
#1> Learn Read up about carbon emissions and the environmental impact of the choices you make--big and small--in living, eating, and transportation. Use a carbon footprint calculator. Here's are some websites you can check out if want to learn more: ACT on CO2, 10:10 UK, and Earth Hour.
#2> Save energy. Saving energy is all about conserving (using less) and being more efficient (using what you use better). You can conserve energy by turning off the lights when you're not in the room. You can be more efficient by buying compact-fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) that create the same amount of light with less energy. The same principle applies to the big stuff, too. The Energystar website provides lots of good information for household energy efficiency. (Visit here for West Virginia specific info.)
#3> Reuse and Recycle When you buy things, purchase items with less packaging or packaging that can be recycled. If you are lucky enough to have curbside recycling, use it--otherwise, learn where the nearest recycling center is and make a habit of taking your recyclables there--to make it even easier, talk to your neighbors about combining trips (Recycling in W.Va.)
#5> Enlist Help Reach out to family, friends, and co-workers. Reducing our carbon footprint is a community effort. Talk with other members of your household about how to reduce your emissions. Talk with your friends about ways to share resources. If you are a member of an organization--a church or civic organization--discuss ways it can save money on energy bills and other non-renewable resources it uses.
#7> Grow your own fruits and vegetables. When you grown your own food you'll enjoy fresh, high quality food. You can also grow varieties you won't find in a supermarket and you'll know exactly what the food has or has not been exposed to.
There are many guides on how to grown your own fruits and vegetables. You can start small, team up with your neighbors, or--for city dwellers--even start with a view potted herbs. Growing food in your own neighborhood cuts carbon emissions considerably compared to food shipped hundreds or thousands of miles to your door.
#8> Buy local food. Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and shop at farmer's markets. Local Harvest has a wonderful directory of US local food sources.
#9> Fly Less. Yes, this is a hard one, but consider:
Planes get a respectable 43 passenger miles per gallon (pMPG), but they cause 1.9 times as much climate change per gallon of fuel burned, by virtue of their being up in the sky. So when we consider climate change, the plane's efficiency is more like 22.6 pMPG. That's worse than most cars. And if there are two people traveling in the car instead of flying, then the pMPG of the car is doubled, while the plane is stuck at 22.6 pMPG, because we're already figured the plane's pMPG on a per-seat basis. The only time that flying is better than driving for a given trip is if there's only one person in the car, and/or we're assuming a very low-mileage car.
If may be unavoidable to fly sometimes, but if you're considering you next vacation option, you might think twice and decide for the spot that is driving distance away.
A bi-partisan effort by two female senators Cantwell and Collins, promises to assist the efforts of renewable, sustainable energy projects. This represents a marked difference from previous bills. The best thing about it is that it's only 39 pages as introduced (PDF), lets see how many are added as a result of fossil interference.
The reason I keep harping about frac'ing fluids used in Marcellus Shale natural gas extraction is because, yes, they really are a threat to clean water. Our political leaders are fond of talking about "balance" between the needs of industry and the needs of individuals to enjoy a clean environment. What's scary in this case is there is no existing regulatory framework in place to protect us.
I'm not one to fear-monger, but this is an example of where commerce is out-pacing any balancing regulation. You, me, and our neighbors who have well water in the Marcellus Shale region will be ones who get screwed. Even if you have municipal water your rates could go up just to boost natural gas drilling profits.
For more than a decade the energy industry has steadfastly argued before courts, Congress and the public that the federal law protecting drinking water should not be applied to hydraulic fracturing, the industrial process that is essential to extracting the nation's vast natural gas reserves. In 2005 Congress, persuaded, passed a law prohibiting such regulation.
Now an important part of that argument -- that most of the millions of gallons of toxic chemicals that drillers inject underground are removed for safe disposal, and are not permanently discarded inside the earth -- does not apply to drilling in many of the nation's booming new gas fields.
Three company spokesmen and a regulatory official said in separate interviews with ProPublica that as much as 85 percent of the fluids used during hydraulic fracturing is being left underground after wells are drilled in the Marcellus Shale, the massive gas deposit that stretches from New York to Tennessee.
The Marcellus Shale, denoted in brown, primarily cuts across large swaths of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. (Map by Jennifer LaFleur/ProPublica)
The industry has long argued for exemptions from regulation and--so far--as largely gotten those exemptions:
If another industry proposed injecting chemicals -- or even salt water -- underground for disposal, the EPA would require it to conduct a geological study to make sure the ground could hold those fluids without leaking and to follow construction standards when building the well. In some cases the EPA would also establish a monitoring system to track what happened as the well aged.
But because hydraulic fracturing is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, it doesn't necessarily have to conform to these federal standards. Instead, oversight of the drilling chemicals and the injection process has been left solely to the states, some of which regulate parts of the process while others do not.
As the industry was lobbying Congress for that exemption -- and ever since -- the notion that most fluids would not be left underground continued to emerge as a recurring theme put forth by everyone from attorneys for Halliburton, which developed the fracturing process and is one of the leading drilling service companies, to government researchers and regulators.
"Hydraulic fracturing is fundamentally different," wrote Mike Paque, director of the Ground Water Protection Council, an association of state oil and gas regulators, to Senate staff in a 2002 letter advocating for the exemption, "because it is part of the well completion process, does not 'dispose of fluids' and is of short duration, with most of the fluids being immediately recovered."
But, that's not what is happening. Substantial amounts of water is being left in the ground. Much of the water that comes back out of the ground is disposed of without adequate treatment.
What can be done to address this?
It will fall to Congress -- and then to the EPA -- to decide whether that is truly the case. Sponsors of the Frack Act hope for a vote this spring. If it passes, and if the EPA finds reason to change the conclusions it reached in 2004, the agency would then have to decide exactly how fracturing will be addressed by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
"The thinking we did then, the study that we did then, we were really looking at a different set of circumstances," said Heare, the EPA's Drinking Water Protection Division director. "The agency has not investigated the impacts of hydraulic fracturing in other settings such as shale gas production and at this time is unable to quantify the potential threat."
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