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Category: Environmental Defense

Mexico’s international climate leadership and collaboration is more critical than ever

Animal Rights & Environment, Environmental Defense

By Christina McCain

love-earth

Photo credit: Sweetie187/Flickr

The stark realities of the environmental policy challenges we are likely to face, in the United States and internationally, have not faded in the month since the U.S. election.

During his campaign, I and many others were deeply troubled by the statements President-elect Trump made about Latinos, African-Americans, women, people with disabilities, immigrants and other religious groups, as well as our critical relationship with Mexico. He called climate change a “hoax”; vowed to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement; and pledged to undo the Clean Power Plan, the regulation that would put the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from power plants in the United States. Just last week, he selected a climate denier, and sworn opponent of bedrock protections for clean air and clean water, as his pick to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But in the days following the election, I have been heartened by messages of empathy and solidarity from my friends and colleagues from around the world. These messages remind me that as a community we have strength – and that we can and will keep pushing forward, together. Our resolve is greater than ever, and there are many reasons for hope.

First, no one country can solve climate change alone – and thus no one election, in any country, can put the solution out of reach. A single president cannot reverse the hard-won progress of the world’s countries, who came together in 2015 to craft the historic Paris climate agreement, and met again last month in Marrakesh to continue putting that plan into action.

Mexico has taken on global leadership on the issue of climate change – pledging ambitious reductions to its national emissions, and forging collaborations in North America with the state of California, and the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, among other international partnerships. Mexico’s leadership and international collaboration now play an even more critical and influential role in the global effort on climate change, and particularly in North America. And Mexico will not be alone in moving forward to develop a low carbon economy – emissions giants including China have pledged they will continue to move forward with their plans to reduce emissions, and use market-based mechanisms to get there.

The transformation underway toward clean energy and low-carbon economies is unstoppable.

Second, the transformation underway toward clean energy and low-carbon economies is unstoppable. In 2014, the U.S. clean energy market, which includes wind turbines, solar panels, home energy storage and energy efficiency, grew by 14 percent – at nearly five times the rate of the overall economy – to nearly $200 billion. And hundreds of major businesses just called on the new Administration to meet US carbon pollution reduction targets, invest in clean energy, and implement the Paris climate pact.

Even beyond the Paris Agreement, the world is beginning to shift. The reform and modernization of Mexico’s power sector, as one example, has the potential to transform its economic and energy future in way that is both more profitable and more sustainable.

California has been leading the way on climate change and energy innovation in the United States – and working in active partnership with Mexico on climate change since 2014. California’s also forged a collaboration among more than 130 subnational governments representing more than half of the world’s GDP through the Under 2 MOU.

And let us not overlook that two-thirds of Americans want reducing carbon pollution to be a priority and over 80% of Americans support boosting clean energy sources such as wind and solar.

Our work in Mexico has all the key ingredients we need to succeed. Our partners in Mexico, from government to civil society, are committed – as are we – to working in partnership to put our collective knowledge, expertise, creativity, and will to the task of fighting climate change – together.

I know that I will, and my organization will, continue to face and fight the battles ahead for protecting our health, the climate, and clean air, healthy ecosystems, and clean water – and there will, no doubt, be many.

I am extremely proud of my work and I am fortunate to come to work every day and be a part of the global effort to solve one of the most formidable environmental challenges of our time, and to work in partnership with dedicated leaders and committed citizens of Mexico.

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Remarks at EPA stakeholder meeting on New Chemicals Review Program

Animal Rights & Environment, Environmental Defense

By Joanna Slaney

Joanna Slaney is the Legislative Director for EDF Health.

Today the EPA held a public meeting on the new requirements for the New Chemicals Review Program under the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act. EDF oral comments, as prepared for delivery, follow below.

Strong implementation restores public and market confidence.

EDF believes that the reforms to the New Chemicals program in the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, and the robust implementation of these reforms by the EPA, are absolutely essential to the task of restoring public and market confidence in our national chemical safety system. It is this shared objective, restoring public and market confidence, that allowed disparate stakeholders and lawmakers to come together to support the Lautenberg Act in the first place. And without a strong New Chemicals program, there is no restored public confidence.

Without a strong New Chemicals program, there is no restored public confidence.

It’s a public health issue.

With between 500 and 1,000 new chemicals entering the market every year, ensuring the safety of these chemicals is clearly a public health priority. It is critical that new chemicals clear a safety bar before they are allowed in products and in our homes. For decades, chemicals have been allowed on the market simply because there wasn’t enough information to make a safety decision one way or another. In 2007 EPA reported that 85% of pre-manufacture notices contained no health data. That’s not right, and it puts the public’s health at risk, most especially the health of vulnerable populations like children, pregnant women, and workers. Any chemical entering the market should be reviewed and managed to provide a reasonable assurance of its safety. In fact, I expect that most Americans believe that their government already does so in order to protect their health and the health of their families.

It’s congressional intent.

Many in Congress worked hard to drive significant improvements to the new chemicals provisions in the new law; indeed, for some it was a central reason for their involvement in reforming TSCA. And the record is clear that even where certain Members were less inclined to see the need for change, they acknowledged that significant changes were made to the New Chemicals program as part of the compromise legislation. The changes that were made were a compromise on both sides but they were not insignificant, and the new requirements are clearly laid out in the language of the Lautenberg Act.

It’s a primary purpose of TSCA.

It has been argued that EPA’s implementation of the new chemicals program under the Lautenberg Act risks impeding innovation and is at odds with the intent of the law. In fact, the intent of the law is quite clear:

It is the policy of the United States that— authority over chemical substances and mixtures should be exercised in such a manner as not to impede unduly or create unnecessary economic barriers to technological innovation while fulfilling the primary purpose of this Act to assure that such innovation and commerce in such chemical substances and mixtures do not present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.

While innovation is central, it cannot come at the expense of protection for public health and the environment. Innovation without safety is not true innovation.

The changes made to the New Chemicals program are fundamental to the reform of TSCA and the promise of the new system. Given that the development and application of new chemicals are a clear source of innovation, how else is that primary purpose of TSCA – providing an assurance that innovation and commerce in chemicals do not present unreasonable risk – to be realized other than through robust scrutiny of new chemicals prior to their commercialization.

The public has a right to expect that chemicals to which they may be exposed will not be allowed into use without adequate assurance of their safety.  The lack of that basic assurance has undermined consumer confidence in our chemical safety system.  The most efficient and effective stage at which to provide assurance of safety is before commercial production and use begins, rather than waiting and then having to try to mitigate risks that arise after a new chemical is embedded in commerce.

Environmental Defense Fund supports the actions taken by EPA to date in implementing the New Chemicals Program and believes they are clearly required under the new law.  We look forward to EPA continuing to implement a robust New Chemicals program that can restore public and market confidence in our national chemical safety system, while both protecting human health and the environment and fostering safe innovation.

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Could Rick Perry Forego his Special-Interest Past for a Clean Energy Future? #TrumpPicks

Animal Rights & Environment, Environmental Defense

By Jim Marston

rick-perry-by-gage-skidmore-flickrBy now you may have heard that Rick Perry, former Governor of Texas, is President-elect Trump’s pick for Energy secretary. If appointed, he will be succeeding Samuel Bodman, Doctor of Science in chemical engineering from MIT; Steven Chu, PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley; and Ernest Moniz, PhD in theoretical physics from Stanford University.

Since the majority of the budget of the Department of Energy (DOE) is spent on nuclear waste clean-up and very technical research projects, the fact that Gov. Perry doesn’t measure up to his predecessors in his scientific credentials is disappointing. All the more so that his track record is one of unquestioning support of highly polluting interests in his state.

I have written about Perry plenty of times, so it should come as no surprise that I am less than thrilled with the idea of him heading the same department he famously declared he would eliminate.

Put simply: The appointment of Rick Perry is “open season” on the environment, and all who care about the health of their families should be concerned. Time and again, he has put polluters over people for political gain, and leveraged backroom deals with special interests — the rest of the economy and the air be damned. My only hope is that he takes to heart the jobs and economic growth resulting from Texas wind power, and uses it to steer the DOE toward fostering a thriving clean energy economy.

Unfortunately, we can’t count on the Environmental Protection Agency to be a check on what Perry can be expected to do, given the President-elect’s nominee Scott Pruitt has litigated against regulations on mercury, soot, and smog – actions that would lead to more harmful pollutants in the air and health conditions for American families. These are not the priorities that the majority of Americans support, and the new Administration does not have a mandate to undo our nation’s bedrock environmental and health protections.

Could Rick Perry Forego his Special-Interest Past for a Clean Energy Future?
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Suspicious behavior

Back in 2005, Dallas-based TXU Corporation wanted to build 11 new coal-fired power plants in Texas. To speed up the delivery of coal pollution into our air, then-Gov. Perry signed an executive order fast-tracking the permits, reducing a process that would normally require between one and four years to a mere six months.

There were the secret meetings held with TXU executives right before Perry signed the deal. Plus there were the hundreds of thousands of dollars rolling in to Perry’s campaign over a decade. In fact, The New York Times reported,

In the months that followed [the executive order], current and retired TXU executives, as well as the company’s political action committee, sent Mr. Perry more than $100,000 in donations, including one check dated the same day as Mr. Perry’s order.”

Former Gov. Perry’s plan would have been catastrophic for the climate. Fortunately, numerous lawsuits arose to block the coal plants, and only three of the 11 were built. Moreover, Perry’s executive order was deemed illegal by a Travis County judge.

Texas success

Perry should know firsthand the economic value of clean energy. His home state of Texas is the nation’s leading producer of wind power, largely thanks to the groundbreaking Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) system, which Perry himself signed into law in 2006. A major transmission line project, CREZ was an ahead-of-its-time tool to transport energy from windy West Texas to populous cities throughout the state.

Since then, Texas’ power mix has been getting cleaner. In fact, wind is expected to provide nearly 15 percent of Texas energy in 2016, an impressive rise from 11.7 percent last year and merely 1 percent in 2005.

Former Gov. Perry’s record on the environment tells me this appointment is a disaster for our air, water, and health.

What does Texas’ stellar clean energy growth mean? In a word: jobs. In fact, Perry has bragged about Texas’ success, even issuing a report in 2014 that concluded the renewable energy and supporting industries had added over 100,000 jobs to the state’s economy. And Texas’ clean energy economy has seen substantial growth and development since the report’s release. For example, the wind energy industry alone now employs 24,000 people in the Lone Star State.

Former Gov. Perry’s record on the environment tells me this appointment is a disaster for our air, water, and health. But I would love nothing more than for him to prove me wrong. Texas is a fine example of how policy can lay the foundation for clean energy growth that creates well-paying jobs, while improving the health of both people and the environment. If Rick Perry can create a cleaner, more energy-independent America as the head of our country’s Department of Energy, I will happily admit I was wrong.

Photo credit: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

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