Category: Environmental Defense

By Andrew Williams

The one fact that Pennsylvania lawmakers needed to hear today is this: Natural gas waste is up 28%.

And yet, the state senate held a hearing yesterday to discuss the impacts of natural gas development in the state, and not one environmental expert was on tap to speak. Consequently, senate leaders don’t have the full picture.

Here’s what state legislators need to know.

Industry-reported data made available this week by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection indicate that in the year ended 2015, emissions of methane – the main component of natural gas – were up over 28% although production grew by only 12%.

The amount of methane waste is even higher than what was found via a preliminary analysis of the data earlier this month. The simple truth is that while some companies are working to do the right thing and reduce emissions, the bulk of the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania has a significant methane pollution problem.

Methane is the same product that these companies are aiming to sell. That means there is usable energy, and real dollars, literally going up into thin air. With emissions increasing nearly 30% without a congruent rise in production, it’s clear the industry isn’t doing an adequate job of controlling emissions and conserving Pennsylvania’s natural resources.

This is not only a problem for industry’s bottom line, it’s a problem that impacts millions of Pennsylvanians.

More than 1.5 million Pennsylvanians live within half a mile of an oil or gas facility, and methane isn’t the only emission that’s concerning. These facilities also emit other harmful pollutants that can trigger asthma attacks, increase smog, and exacerbate health problems.

The good news is that Pennsylvanians don’t have to choose between their environment and their economy. With the right policies in place, both can thrive. But that’s only possible if the state moves forward to address industry’s methane emissions.

Fortunately, technologies that can reduce nearly half of these emissions are some of the most affordable pollution controls in the energy industry. And many of the service and manufacturing companies that develop these technologies are headquartered in Pennsylvania, meaning there’s a huge opportunity for companies to affordably reduce their pollution as they grow good-paying jobs.

With emissions on a rapid rise, it’s clear that the state should step in and require pollution controls to be implemented statewide.

In January 2016, Governor Tom Wolf proposed a blueprint to reduce industry’s emissions. A year and a half later, there has been little action.

That’s due in no small part to a bill championed by many of the same senators in yesterday’s hearing that aims to prevent Pennsylvania from taking any action on methane that goes beyond federal efforts. That’s hugely problematic, and here’s why.

In April, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a 90-day stay on existing protections that would have cut methane pollution from new oil and gas facilities, and there is a possibility that the agency will rescind these protections altogether. This means that if Pennsylvania defers to the federal government for protections, well, they won’t be there. Tying Pennsylvania policies to whatever is happening in D.C. hardly serves the interest of Pennsylvania citizens and communities – instead, it’s a bouquet to industry.

Other major energy producing states, including: Colorado, Wyoming and Ohio, have been successful at crafting policies that require companies to use affordable and readily available technology to reduce emissions. And industry growth hasn’t been impacted – seven out of 10 gas companies surveyed in Colorado confirm that.

Since promising to reduce methane emissions, Pennsylvania has green-lighted nearly 2000 new drilling projects, yet zero new protections have been implemented.

With emissions increasing at an alarming rate, that has to change. We have to have a better balance. Pennsylvania’s elected leaders must be willing to put measures in place that can support Pennsylvania’s economy while protecting the health of our citizens and communities. The record clearly shows that both are possible.

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The Government of Canada announced draft regulations to curb air and climate pollution from the oil and gas industry, as a[…]

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By Erica Morehouse

Auction results from the May California-Quebec carbon auction showed increased demand after a California Court of Appeal upheld the legality of California’s auction design last month.

These auction results should send a clear message to legislators that California has a strong carbon market design that can weather legal challenges and the inevitable bumps of the political process.

They also indicate it’s high time to extend, adapt, and strengthen the cap-and-trade program as the backbone of California’s effort to meet its ambitious 2030 target – something the California legislature has an opportunity to do by June 15 in concert with the governor’s budget.

Results from the May 16 auction

• The auction offered more than 75 million current vintage allowances (available for 2017 or later compliance) and all of them sold at a price of $13.80, 23 cents above the minimum floor price. This is the first time the auction has cleared above the floor since November of 2015.
• Allowances held by the utilities, Quebec, and ARB sold with over $500 million expected for California’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF).
• Almost 10 million future allowances were offered that will not be available for use until 2020 or later; a little over 2 million of those allowances sold. This is significantly higher than the 600,000 that sold in February but future allowances tend to have the most variability in demand.

Demand increased significantly from February, but why?

1. The market has clearly reacted positively by increasing demand in the wake of the Court of Appeals ruling. The appeal to the California Supreme Court and uncertainty about cap-and-trade’s future after 2020 may still be impacting market behavior, however.

2. Regulated businesses need a certain number of allowances to cover their emissions. Demand for allowances is in part driven by this simple reality, and since businesses have been laying low the last few auctions, it makes sense they would need to buy allowances this quarter. Economist Chris Busch describes why these “market fundamentals” led him to predict that at least 50-65 million allowances would be sold in this auction.

3. The stabilizing forces built into California’s program prevent big price swings when the market reacts to new developments. We can see this through California’s private secondary market, which shows daily allowance prices, and acts as a kind of barometer for how and whether the market is reacting to particular events. For example, after the California Court of Appeal on April 6 upheld the legality of California’s auction design, prices on the secondary market went up by 54 cents. When the California state senate on May 1 introduced SB 775, which would have overhauled the current cap-and-trade program and eliminated the auction allowances after 2020, the market dipped by roughly 20 cents – but recovered May 10 after the bill did not come up for a vote as anticipated. This means price shifts have been very small – mostly less than one dollar.

What will happen in the auctions if the legislature extends the cap-and-trade program?

An extension of the cap-and-trade program would lead to more robust demand for allowances — leading to a rising allowance price that better reflects the cost of a ton of carbon pollution reductions, taking into account the 2030 target that was put into law last year. With the price likely rising above the floor, we would expect to see future auctions being fully subscribed — translating into significantly more revenue for the GGRF to invest in projects that reduce carbon pollution.

Some observers have painted a dire picture of allowance prices spiking overnight. But that’s not how we’ve seen carbon markets behave in the past — and there’s no reason to think it will happen now. Instead, we’d expect a gradual strengthening of the allowance price over time, as compliance entities weighed the current price of allowances against the anticipated cost of reducing emissions in the future as the cap becomes more ambitious.

What’s more, the system already has a number of design features in place to protect against such a surge in prices, including offsets, the ability to draw on allowances “banked” from previous years, and a reserve pool of allowances (the “allowance price containment reserve”) that would be released into the market if prices rise high enough.

The governor is pushing hard for a deal on cap and trade by the budget deadline of June 15, so I’m hopeful the next auction will give us much to celebrate.

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A new report from Environmental Defense Fund reveals key barriers to innovation in an important, but challenging class of chemistry – preservatives.[…]

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By Jack Pratt

Today, Environmental Defense Fund joined other groups in challenging a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule that allows chemical and food manufacturers to decide for themselves – in secret – what chemicals and food additives can be added to foods. The practice puts our health at risk and does not fulfill Congress’ requirement that FDA determine that chemical additives are safe before they can be used in food.

Americans would be shocked to learn that food companies routinely add novel chemicals to our food without first getting FDA approval. In doing so, the companies are exploiting a loophole exempting ingredients “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) from formal FDA review and approval.

Originally intended for ingredients like vinegar and olive oil, industry now abuses the GRAS loophole by bypassing FDA review and making safety determinations in secret. The alarming result: even FDA does not know what is in our food. In fact, FDA has no way to know what chemicals are actually being used in which food or in what quantities—even in baby food.

Last year, the FDA issued a final rule formalizing this outrageous practice. We described this decision as a lost opportunity for safer food additives when the decision was made. Today, EDF and our colleagues at the Center for Food Safety (CFS), Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, Center for Science in the Public Interest, and Environmental Working Group, represented by CFS and the environmental law firm Earthjustice, joined in filing suit against the FDA for unconstitutionally and illegally delegating that authority to self-interested food and chemical manufacturers.

It is disappointing that the groups were forced to take legal action. In addition to being a bad policy that doesn’t comply with law, or protect public health, the FDA is oddly out of touch with public sentiment. Just last week an industry funded survey showed overwhelming consumer concern about chemicals in food, including cancer causing chemicals, while showing diminished confidence in the food supply. This continues a trend that has been building for years. Food companies would be wise to take notice: adding secret chemicals without FDA scientific review to our food is no way to improve confidence in their products.

But with thousands of secret chemicals in our food, we can’t wait for industry or FDA to wise up. Today’s lawsuit seeks to force FDA to do what should be common sense—determine that food additives are safe before they can be added to our food.

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President Trump unveiled a budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2018 that would significantly set back coastal restoration and protection efforts[…]

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By Tom Neltner

By Tom Neltner, J.D., EDF Chemicals Policy Director and Maricel Maffini, Ph.D., Consultant

Until recently, we have known very little about lead exposure from food. Shockingly, a recent report from the EPA found that two-thirds of one-year olds get most of their lead exposure from food. This and other developments in recent years have prompted FDA to reevaluate its procedures regarding lead levels in food. Leading companies should take notice.

We have written about the health risk of lead exposure from major sources such as paint and water and the well-known fact that there is no safe level of lead in the blood of children. We also wrote about what agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are doing to reduce or eliminate persistent sources of lead exposure as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

In its recently released FAQs for lead in food, FDA describes what it has done, its current standards and its planned next steps. The agency makes no reference to EPA’s assessment and attributes all of the lead in food to contaminated soil. Because it assumes that the environment is the only source, contamination is unavoidable and lead cannot be removed from the food supply.

To limit lead in food to the greatest extent possible, FDA set the following tolerances:

• Bottled water: 5 parts per billion (ppb);
• Juices from berries and other small fruits, including grapes, and passion fruits: 50 ppb;
• Other fruit juices and nectars, including apple: 30 ppb;
• Candy likely to be consumed by small children: 100 ppb; and
• Dried fruits, including raisins: 100 ppb.

Only the bottled water tolerance is established in regulations. For the rest, FDA provides only guidance.

How did FDA set the tolerances?

The 5 ppb limit in bottled water was established by FDA in 1995 based on the inability to reliably measure below that level and that only 2 of 48 (4%) samples collected by FDA exceeded those levels. For comparison, in 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended lead levels in drinking water at schools be less than 1 ppb.

The fruit juice limits are based on international food standards set by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), an organization representing 188 countries and the European Union. Those standards were designed to ensure that only about 5% of the juice samples would exceed them. While Codex recognizes the risks posed by lead, its standard was not based on those risks.

For all other foods, FDA relies on a maximum daily intake level of 6 micrograms of lead per day (µg/day) for young children that it established in 1993 based on CDC’s Level of Concern of 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood (µg/dL).

One million children exceed FDA’s current maximum daily intake level

In the FAQs, FDA affirmed that “there is no known identified safe blood lead level” and acknowledges that scientific information has become available in the last decade that indicates neurotoxic effects at low levels of exposure to lead. It notes that the evidence has prompted EPA to lower its air quality standard, CDC to strengthen its standards, and the Joint WHO and FAO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) to withdraw its limit for lead because it concluded there was no safe level in food. With this backdrop, FDA is reevaluating “its methods for determining when it should take action with respect to measured levels of lead in particular foods, including those consumed by infants and toddlers.”

At EDF, we are pleased to see FDA has undertaken this long overdue reevaluation. EPA’s draft report estimates that more than 5% of children between 2 and 7 years consume more than the 6 µg of lead/day FDA says is tolerable. This estimate excludes drinking water. With 20 million children in those age groups, that means 1 million children exceed the maximum daily intake level. And, by all accounts, this 1993 level does not reflect the mounting scientific evidence that has led other science-based organizations to reduce their standards. We are also encouraged to see that FDA is willing to be more protective of children’s health by conducting its own assessment rather than just following the Codex standards for fruit juices.

Food manufacturers and retailers can better earn consumer trust and avoid more costly reactions to regulations by updating their preventive controls and supply chain management programs now to reduce lead levels in food.

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By Jim Marston

Among Rick Perry’s first acts as Secretary of Energy was calling for a 60-day “study” of whether any policies or regulations have led to the premature retirement of coal or nuclear plants. I – and many others in the clean energy industry – are concerned this so-called study will amount to little more than a pro-coal fluff piece.

To people familiar with energy policy and the coal industry’s rhetoric, Perry’s request is a transparent promotion of coal and a backdoor attack on clean energy resources, like solar, wind, and energy efficiency. Besides, 60 days is barely enough time to fill job vacancies in a new administration, much less conduct a thorough analysis of America’s complex energy policies.

But until the report is released, we can only look at what Perry and other Trump appointees have said and done about energy, generally, and coal, specifically, to predict what arguments Perry’s office will make.

Over the next few weeks, EDF will examine several of the administration’s pro-coal arguments and explain why:

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What we know so far about Rick Perry’s power grid “study”
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• Perry’s coal propaganda has nothing to do with reliability and everything to do with giving the pollution industry what it wants. The “grid reliability” angle is a ruse, and one Perry used a decade ago when he tried to fast track new coal plants in Texas. This issue has been studied relentlessly by grid operators and government agencies around the country, and the grid is handling coal’s decline just fine. The Trump administration is using the reliability argument as cover to distract the American people from their close ties with the coal industry. Just look at Perry’s staff at DOE – it’s a who’s who of the fossil fuel industry lobby. His Chief of Staff, who will manage the study, worked for the Edison Electric Institute – where he led its anti-solar campaign.
• Perry’s (and Trump’s and Pruitt’s) flip-flop on states’ rights is hypocritical. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt recently took time off from decimating our clean air and water protections to second Perry’s argument that some state policies that encourage fuels other than coal could be a national security risk and should be reversed. I must admit, suggesting that coal makes America safer is a clever tactic. But it’s not true, and I suspect this tack is little more than a way for Perry and Pruitt to counter all their vile attacks against the federal government when they were governor of Texas and attorney general of Oklahoma. Apparently, states’ rights are so 2016.
• Coal is terrible for the economy, human health, and the environment. Propping up the ailing coal industry will hurt the economy and American jobs, serving as another broken promise from Trump. Market trends undeniably show that cleaner, smarter energy – like solar and wind – is creating more jobs than fossil fuel electricity. Furthermore, we know doubling down on dirty coal means more asthma attacks, more health problems for elderly Americans, and a more polluted future.

The Trump administration may look chaotic, but its actions suggest it is meticulously and unapologetically laying the groundwork for four years of pro-coal policy. This so-called study is just another step of the plan. See also Trump’s latest 2018 budget proposal – leaked last week – which aims to cut funding for DOE’s renewable and energy efficiency program by 70 percent.

So stay tuned. It’s going to be an interesting few weeks.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

This post originally appeared on our EDF Voices blog.

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“President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget is a full-scale attack on America’s most fundamental health and safety protections. It would gut[…]

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By EDF Blogs

By Christie Hicks, Manager, Clean Energy Regulatory Implementation

Many experts anticipate the electric utility industry evolving more in the next 10 years than it has in the past 100.

So noted the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC), when it recently initiated the “NextGrid” Utility of the Future Study. NextGrid is a statewide, collaborative effort to rethink the roles of the utility, the customer, and energy solution providers in a 21^st-century electric grid.

The ICC invited stakeholders to participate in NextGrid, welcoming suggestions for how the process should work. Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), partnering with the Citizens Utility Board (CUB), recommended NextGrid ensure that upcoming technological advances enable a more dynamic grid – one that is cleaner, affordable, reliable, equitable, and more responsive to customer needs. But how do we get there?

Smart evolution

Over the last several years, Illinois has taken steps that put it on the forefront of the smart grid revolution. In 2011, Illinois’ Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act propelled the state’s two largest electric utilities, Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) and Ameren, to undertake billions of dollars in smart-grid investments, like AMI (advanced metering infrastructure). As a result, smart meters will be deployed throughout most of the state by 2019, and customers are anxious to start enjoying the benefits, like easier access to energy-use data and enhanced efficiency.

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What’s next for NextGrid – Illinois’ ‘Utility of the Future’ process
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Further underlining its role as a clean-energy innovator, Illinois passed the bipartisan Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) in December of last year. Utilizing the new smart grid infrastructure in the state, FEJA encourages the adoption of distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar; expands the state’s existing energy efficiency standard; and includes a focus on economically-disadvantaged groups (like through the new solar job training program). The historic legislation provides exciting opportunities for Illinoisans to enjoy the economic, health, and societal benefits of clean energy advances.

The NextGrid journey

FEJA takes effect on June 1, and the ICC is responsible for implementing many of the new law’s requirements. To kick-start the law into action, ICC will use NextGrid as an 18-month customer-focused and collaborative study led by an outside, expert facilitator. Here’s what NextGrid will do:

• Identify and explore future technological advancements and utility and regulatory models;
• Inform policymakers on potential issues and challenges of the quickly-evolving energy landscape; and
• Provide recommendations to the ICC and Illinois legislators on actions that ensure customers and communities benefit.

Charting a path

Numerous innovations in energy-related technology are on the horizon, and many new, innovative products and services are already available. Meanwhile, customer expectations for utilities are evolving: Customers want more information about, and greater control over, their energy sources and use.

Fortunately, a changing energy system presents many opportunities for building a smarter, more connected electric grid. For example, system reliability – which was a key selling point of advanced metering investments – can be improved using a number of tools, from solar panels to microgrids to battery storage. Rooftop and community solar are largely nonexistent in Illinois right now, but the Future Energy Jobs Act will facilitate significant growth in the next decade (it’s already starting to take off in Chicago).

The ICC should prioritize system reliability, as well as equitable access to these new opportunities.

First, we recommend an educational process to develop a “problem statement” that provides guidance and establishes a sound analytical foundation. EDF and CUB warned against putting the cart before the horse – i.e. before the Commission can make policy decisions or identify potential areas of consensus or disagreement, everyone should have a strong knowledge base for the emerging technologies, system trends, opportunities, and challenges. This phase of NextGrid should be facilitated by a neutral third-party, such as a university, who will invite local and national experts to provide input on identified trends and possible future scenarios.

Once the problem statement has been created, working groups can be established to identify, evaluate, score, and test possible future scenarios. Scenarios could include significant adoption of rooftop solar, innovative energy efficiency measures, or increased electric vehicle adoption, and the impact of each will be measured against the possibility of maintaining the status quo.

Led by a process management facilitator with expertise in energy system regulatory processes, this phase would consider what customers expect and desire out of the energy system. This will be different for different people: While some customers put reliability at the top of their list, others say affordability is most important, and still others focus on reduced air and water pollution. Environmental sustainability, energy affordability, system reliability, customer satisfaction, and equity should all be considered. Then, the parties should consider how to use new technologies, services, third parties, market designs, and other solutions identified in the first phase to achieve their goals.

The formal process should kick off this summer. EDF and CUB are excited to engage in NextGrid and will work to ensure that it paves the way for a cost-effective, environmentally sustainable energy future for Illinois.

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