RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.EPA chief: ‘we will prevail’ in power plant lawsuits
By Devin Henry, The Hill.
The Obama administration’s top environmental regulator predicted new, broad power plant regulations will hold up despite a series of lawsuits against them.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy said that regulators knew that implementing its Clean Power Plan, a rule designed to cut emissions from power plants, “was not going to be an effort without controversy.”
The Clean Power Plan, which looks to cut power sector emissions by 32 percent by 2030, is the cornerstone of Obama's climate change agenda. Since the EPA finalized the regulation, more than half the states and scores of interest groups and businesses have sued against it, arguing regulators overstepped their bounds in issuing the rule.
Hoeven vows to block EPA climate rules in omnibus
By John Siciliano, Washington Examiner.
The Republican chairman of a Senate appropriations subcommittee is vowing to take the fight to block President Obama's climate change regulations to an omnibus spending bill slated to be taken up next month.
"I am also looking to block [the climate rules] in the omnibus appropriations bill that Congress will take up in the coming weeks," said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., while speaking on the Senate floor ahead of a vote on a resolution to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan. Hoeven is the chairman of the appropriations committee's homeland security subcommittee and also serves on the Senate energy committee.
The Clean Power Plan places states on the hook to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and is the centerpiece of the president's climate change agenda. The plan is also the linchpin in the administration's strategy to reach a global deal on emissions reductions at a United Nations conference in Paris Nov. 30-Dec. 11.
House panel to take up anti-climate rule resolutions Wednesday
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is set to advance two resolutions to block the Clean Power Plan after the White House announced President Obama would veto similar measures in the Senate.
The committee took opening statements Tuesday on two resolutions that would block greenhouse gas emissions limits on new and existing power plants. The Republican-dominated panel is expected to pass the resolutions and send them to the full House at a meeting Wednesday morning.
Using the Congressional Review Act, the resolutions would be a mostly symbolic measure to stop Obama's signature environmental regulation. The White House announced Tuesday afternoon Obama would veto Senate resolutions aiming to do the same thing, and it's unlikely either chamber would muster the two-thirds vote needed to override a veto.
Extenders time
By Bernie Becker, with help from Elena Chiriboga and Toby Eckert, Politico.
MOST WONDERFUL TIME: Ah, mid-November — when people start complaining that the holiday season is starting way too early again, and that the U.S. tax code should give businesses and individuals more certainty by ending the stop-and-start extenders cycle.
Lawmakers are still discussing what this year’s extenders package will look like, and they’re starting to get bombarded by various interest groups wanting to make sure they’re taken care of.
Charitable groups, for instance, have made their priority for the extenders package expanding the provision allowing tax-free donations from IRAs and flattening the excise tax on foundations, according to people with knowledge of the pitch. (The latter measure isn’t actually an expiring provision but was included in a set of charitable extenders passed by the House.
House passes short-term highway patch
By Keith Laing and Cristina Marcos.
The House approved a measure by voice vote on Monday to extend federal transportation funding for two weeks in an effort to prevent a highway-funding shutdown.
The measure would extend federal transportation spending — currently set to expire on Friday — until Dec. 4. The Senate is expected to quickly take the patch up at the end of this week to prevent an interruption in the nation's infrastructure projects.
Lawmakers are hoping the latest temporary highway funding patch will provide time for them to finish work on a long-sought multiyear infrastructure bill.
Landfills turn trash into energy in Wake County, NC
By Liz Horton, WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham.
Deep in the piles of trash at our area landfills lies a potent greenhouse gas: Methane.
Its global warming potential is 25 times greater than carbon dioxide alone. But if used in the right way, methane can also be converted into renewable energy.
That's exactly what John Roberson, head of Wake County Waste Services, is doing in Apex.
Casella New York Landfill Expansion on Track for December Delivery
By Megan Greenwalt, Waste 360.
To continue the reduction in odor permeating the Ontario County landfill in New York, Casella Waste Systems Inc. received permission from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) to expand gas collection at the landfill.
According to the NYDEC, the landfill is located on routes 5 and 20 in the town of Seneca, Ontario County, N.Y., which is a mixed solid waste landfill accepting non-hazardous solid waste.
The NYDEC states on its website that the landfill expansion would consist of two stages, which would cover approximately 16 acres around the northern and western boundaries of the landfill, and the Eastern, which would cover approximately 27.5 acres to the east, including the existing soil borrow area.
Senate tees up votes against Obama’s climate rules
By Timothy Cama, The Hill.
The Senate will vote as early as this week to block President Obama’s climate change rules for power plants.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Monday that the resolutions, one of which he sponsors, were placed on the Senate floor calendar, lining up a vote soon.
The resolutions are written under the Congressional Review Act, a rarely used law that gives Congress a streamlined process for blocking regulations.
Biogas CHP plant cuts power use by half, operators say
By Tildy Bayar, Cogeneration & On-site Power Production.
The operators of a biogas-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plant in the UK say they have achieved a 50% reduction in its power consumption.
The plant, located in Suffolk, is jointly operated by AgriGen Ltd and Siemens, and supplies around 5000 households with power and heat. It has been fitted with Siemens automation technology including a controller, distributed I/O and visualisation software.
Camco to sell US biogas assets
By Stock Market Wire.
Camco Clean Energy has reached a conditional agreement to sell its US biogas assets for an initial consideration of $4.6m and up to an additional $1.0m of deferred consideration dependent on the fulfilment of certain conditions.
On 30 September the Company announced that following completion of the roll-in of the minority interests in Renewable Energy Dynamics Holdings Limited, its RedT Energy Storage business would become the primary focus for Camco. It also announced that it would continue with its Africa Fund Advisory business and was continuing to progress the ongoing strategic review of its remaining US activities. Through the strategic review, the board has concluded that it is in the best interests of the Company to pursue the Transaction so as to provide additional resource to enable further investment in the RedT Energy Storage. Following completion of the Transaction, the Company will have materially enhanced resources and will have a debt free balance sheet.
The company has conditionally agreed to sell its entire interests in AG Power Jerome, LLC (which owns the Jerome biogas facility) and AG Power DCD LLC (which owns the Twin Falls facility), to Clean Power Holdings LLC, a Delaware incorporated business focused on developing, owning and operating anaerobic digestion biogas assets in the US for initial consideration of $18.9m less associated debt of approximately $14.3m.
Don’t miss an update—join our weekly newsletter below.