RNG NEWS
Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.After weeks of negotiations, Congress finalizes 5-year transportation bill
By Ashley Halsey III, The Washington Post.
Congress ended weeks of contentious negotiation Tuesday, agreeing to a five-year transportation bill that will boost spending on roads and transit systems by billions of dollars each year.
In its first year, the approximately $300 billion bill increases spending on highways by $2.1 billion above current levels. By the final year, in 2020, the bump will be $6.1 billion above the approximately $50 billion that has been spent in recent years.
Spending on transit will go from the current $8.6 billion to almost $10.6 billion in 2020.
Climate Leadership Team makes 32 recommendations for updating BC's climate change policies
By Selina Lee-Andersen, McCarthy Tétrault LLP.
As reported in our earlier blog, British Columbia (BC) Premier Christy Clark appointed a Climate Leadership Team in May 2015 to provide advice and recommendations to government for its new Climate Leadership Plan. The Climate Leadership Team’s mandate was based on four cornerstone objectives: (i) achieving BC’s legislated GHG emission reduction targets; (ii) maintaining a strong economy; (iii) mitigating negative impacts on vulnerable populations; and (iv) maintaining BC’s reputation for world-leading climate policies.
Following extensive stakeholder consultations throughout the summer, the Climate Leadership Team prepared a report that was released by the BC government on November 27, 2015, in advance of the upcoming international climate negotiations in Paris. The team’s report consists of 32 recommendations addressing a number of areas including GHG reduction targets, carbon tax design, transportation, buildings, communities, offsets, and First Nations. Based on extensive modelling of different pathways to meet the objectives of their mandate, the Climate Leadership Team concluded that any pathway that achieves these objectives will require the following four elements:
Toyota’s Kentucky Landfill Gas-To-Energy Project Now Online
By Megan Greenwalt, Waste 360.
International automaker Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky Inc.’s partnership with Waste Services of the Bluegrass (WSB) to generate power for its facility from local landfill waste came online last month, marking the region’s first business-to-business landfill gas-to-energy initiative.
“The methane gas from the landfill will be directly burned in the generator,” says Chris Adkins, energy management specialist for Toyota Motors Manufacturing, Kentucky.
According to WSB’s website, up to 100 percent of the methane gas captured at Central Kentucky Landfill in Georgetown, Ky., will be purchased by Toyota, which estimates the locally generated gas will supply enough power each year for the production of 10,000 vehicles. The plant manufactures two hybrid models and has been a zero waste to landfill facility since 2006.
Bill Gates launches multi-billion dollar clean energy fund
By Jackie Wattles, CNN.
The Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist announced his latest endeavor, the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, at the climate change summit in Paris.
"We need to bring the cost premium for being clean down," Gates said Monday in an interview with CNN's New Day. "You need the innovation so that the cost of clean is lower than the coal based energy generation."
Lowering the cost of clean energy to make it competitive with fossil fuels is the best way to get poor countries to make the switch without sacrificing economic growth, Gates said. Clean energy can make air conditioning, refrigerators, stoves and fertilizer more affordable for poor people.
Bill Gates lays out vision for clean energy at Paris climate conference
By Hal Bernton, Seattle Times.
In the Monday kickoff to the historic climate conference in Paris, Bill Gates unveiled a new role as a global recruiter for billionaires willing to push clean-energy ideas out of the lab and into the marketplace.
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition lists more than two dozen members from 10 countries that span the globe from India to Africa to Saudi Arabia. In addition to Gates, they include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Alibaba Group executive chairman Jack Ma and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
The coalition will partner with 20 countries that have pledged to increase their spending in clean-energy research and try to greatly speed up a global transition away from fossil fuels.
How Obama learned from 'a mess' of a climate deal to forge a new agreement in Paris
By Michael A Memoli, Los Angeles Times.
Hoping to salvage a faltering international climate deal, President Obama’s team roamed the halls of a Copenhagen convention center in 2009 “hunting for the Chinese,” as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently put it.
Securing a commitment – any commitment – from China, the world’s leading emitter of carbon gas, would be key to the face-saving, if disappointing, agreement that emerged.
“A mess,” deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes bluntly labeled the Copenhagen summit.
Congress closes in on deal to extend tax breaks for businesses, individuals
By Kelsey Snell, The Washington Post.
House and Senate negotiators are working to complete a deal as early as this week that would revive dozens of expired tax breaks and could also seek to scale back a controversial part of Obamacare and expand some tax benefits for low income workers.
A bipartisan group of staffers from the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees worked throughout the Thanksgiving recess in hopes of hashing out an agreement to retroactively reinstate the expired tax breaks for businesses and individuals, extending many for a year while making some permanent, according to aides familiar with the negotiations. Early versions of the package circulated by lobbyists and staffers were estimated to cost as much as $700 billion over 10 years, but aides said the discussions are still preliminary and nothing is finalized.
Clean energy mandates remain battleground in N.C.
By Craig Jarvis, The News & Observer.
North Carolina has been home to a thriving solar industry for the past eight years, thanks to a tax break and requiring utilities to develop clean energy.
But opponents of targeted tax credits and government-funded advantages for certain businesses have been chipping away at those benefits – with mixed results.
This year the state legislature did away with a 35 percent tax credit for investments in renewable energy.
Obama and Bill Gates to Launch Clean Energy Initiative
By Colleen McCain Nelson, The Wall Street Journal.
PARIS—President Barack Obama and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will launch a multi-billion-dollar initiative Monday to accelerate clean-energy research and development as part of a global effort to fight climate change.
The announcement is timed to provide a jolt of momentum as world leaders gather in Paris for the start of a two-week summit focused on forging an international agreement to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. The president and Mr. Gates will join with other heads of state and investors to detail complementary public and private commitments to clean-energy innovation.
The goal, Obama administration officials said, is to speed the pace of progress on new technologies that will help curb emissions and limit the rise of global temperatures.
Oregon Supreme Court weighs in on Clean Fuels ballot measures
By Taylor W. Anderson, The Bend Bulletin.
If any of a set of initiatives that would water down a renewable fuel blending and carbon credit program reaches the 2016 ballot, the ballot measure titles must mention they would do away with the carbon credit trading scheme, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Three initiatives sought by oil companies looking to undo Oregon’s low-carbon fuel standard continued their crawl toward the November 2016 election as the high court weighed in on language proposed by the attorney general’s office that voters would see if any of the proposals make the ballot.
The low-carbon fuel standard is also known as Clean Fuels because it requires fuel producers to blend gas and diesel with alternative fuel to prevent 7.7 million tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted over a decade. Companies that can’t meet fuel requirements can do so by buying credits from other energy companies whose cleaner fuels generate credits.
Don’t miss an update—join our weekly newsletter below.