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Stay up to date with the latest stories, insights, and announcements.As showdown looms, Tom Steyer airs TV ad ripping oil industry in California
By David Siders and Jim Miller, Sacramento Bee.
With an end-of-session brawl looming in the Legislature over California climate programs, billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer on Monday will start airing a television ad accusing the state’s oil industry of putting profits over the health of children.
The ad, released on the day lawmakers return from their summer recess, comes amid wavering support for extending the state’s cap-and-trade program, in which polluters pay to offset carbon emissions.
Gov. Jerry Brown, who is trying to reach an agreement with lawmakers by the end of August to extend the program beyond 2020, said last week that he will “get it one way or the other” while acknowledging he is “still working” on a plan to extend the landmark program.
Flush, then fill up: Japan taps sewage to fuel hydrogen-powered cars
By Julie Making, Los Angeles Times.
Does the future of driving start with flushing your toilet?
When Mutsuro Yuji, chief of the central sewage plant here in this southern Japanese city, first heard about the idea of making hydrogen from biogas — the combination of methane and carbon dioxide produced by the breakdown of stinky matter — he was skeptical. “I thought it was a joke,” he says.
But after a $12-million investment from Japan’s government, plus research, engineering, design and building work by Mitsubishi, Toyota and Kyushu University, Yuji is no longer laughing. Starting late last year, drivers of vehicles like the Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity have been able to roll up to the sewage plant and power up their hydrogen fuel cell cars at what you might call the world’s first toilet-to-tank filling station.
Connecticut releases new statewide waste reduction plan
By Cole Rosengren, Waste Dive.
Dive Brief:
- Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) has released a new Comprehensive Materials Management Strategy to help meet its existing goal of 60% diversion by 2024.
- The state's diversion rate is currently around 35%. According to DEEP, if residents continue to generate an average 3.5 pounds of waste per day then disposal costs could rise by $25 million per year.
- Proposed solutions include increased enforcement of municipal waste ordinances, more emphasis on waste reduction, extended producer responsibility requirements, and more recycling of construction and demolition waste.
Meet the man who is trying to change the GOP on clean energy
By Timothy Cama, The Hill.
Jay Faison is on a mission to change the Republican Party’s stance on clean energy.
Faison, a self-styled advocate for conservative clean energy policies, was an active presence at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, doing numerous public events and meeting with committees and lawmakers to plead his case.
"These are issues that are traditionally owned by Democrats; they're not traditionally trusted by Republicans," said the entrepreneur, who made a fortune with an audiovisual company before selling it and launching ClearPath last year. He has a staff of a dozen, split between his native North Carolina and Washington, D.C.
Where the 2016 Candidates Stand on Energy Issues: Hillary Clinton
By Simon Mahan, CleanEnergy.org.
This post is the second in a series of blogs examining where 2016 candidates for President or Governor of North Carolina stand on key energy issues. Note: The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy does not support or oppose candidates or political parties. Links to reports, candidate websites and outside sources are provided as citizen education tools.
As the Democratic National Convention wrapped up in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton officially became the Democratic party’s nominee for President of the United States. Clinton has a long paper trail regarding her positions on energy issues, from her time as First Lady of the United States, Senator from New York, 2008 presidential candidate, Secretary of State and now the democratic standard-bearer. While this blog is not meant to be a comprehensive assessment of Secretary Clinton’s stance on energy issues, we hope it provides a general overview for evaluating where she may stand on issues of interest to energy-focused voters: coal, climate change, renewables, efficiency, natural gas, nuclear and drilling.
Presidential Election Could Affect Air Cases at High Court
By Amena H. Saiyid, Bloomberg BNA.
July 28 — The outcome of the presidential election could determine whether the U.S. Supreme Court will revisit two pivotal Clean Air Act cases that deal with power plant regulations for greenhouse gases and air toxics, an attorney said during an American Bar Association webinar July 28.
The Clean Power Plan (RIN:2060-AR33), which limits carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector, is currently stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reviews the rule's legality ( West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1363, 7/27/16 ).
The “loser” of the challenge before the D.C. Circuit will have to decide whether to seek certiorari from the Supreme Court because “it will depend on who the presidential nominee is to the Supreme Court to replace Justice [Antonin] Scalia's seat,” said Richard Ayres of Ayres Law Group LLP.
California's cap-and-trade program has cut pollution. So why do critics keep calling it a failure?
By Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times.
After cruising along for more than two years, California’s vaunted cap-and-trade program to cut carbon emissions has run into a few recent snags.
A state appeals court has signaled that it has doubts about how officials are spending billions in revenue from the program — or even if they have the right to collect the money at all. Disagreements have erupted in Sacramento over whether environmental regulators can unilaterally extend the program past 2020 or need to get the legislature’s permission to do so.
More questions arose at the state’s most recent auction of emission permits in May. The permits are the linchpin of the system, which requires businesses to cap their greenhouse gas emissions or buy sufficient permits to cover any excess. For the first time since February 2013, when the quarterly auctions began, bidders stayed away in droves. Only 11% of the available permits were sold. That punched a hole in the state budget, for state finance officials expected that more than $500 million would be raised from the May sales. Instead only about $10 million came in.
Poll finds Californians back climate change efforts despite cost
By Jeremy B. White, Sacramento Bee.
Climate change policies appeal to a majority of Californians despite the possibility of higher energy costs, a new Public Policy Institute of California poll has found.
“Californians tend to have a hesitancy to support policies that are going to impact their pocketbooks, but in this case they seem to be willing to do so,” said PPIC president Mark Baldassare, calling the findings an endorsement of “the direction (the state) has taken in the last ten years to be a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Environmentalists laud California for its ambitious efforts to fight climate change, and Gov. Jerry Brown has placed the issue at the center of his fourth-term agenda. Last year Brown signed a measure vastly expanding the state’s use of renewable energy.
EPA: More than 1.7 billion RINs generated in June
By Erin Voegele, Ethanol Producer Magazine.
The U.S. EPA has released renewable identification number (RIN) generation data for June, reporting that more than 1.7 billion RINs were generated during the month, bringing the total for the first half of the year to nearly 9.21 billion.
More than 14.11 million D3 cellulosic RINs were generated in June, bringing the net total for the first half of the year to 76.97 million. More than 2.02 million D3 RINs have been generated for ethanol, with 44.03 generated for renewable compressed natural gas and 32.76 million for renewable liquefied natural gas. So far this year, 70.46 D3 RINS have been generated by domestic producers, with 8.35 generated by importers.
Report: New York Cap-and-trade system cuts carbon use, boosts growth
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Times Union.
The nation's first state-level emissions cap-and-trade program has vastly reduced carbon dioxide emissions in a nine-state region including New York since 2009, according to a report to be released Thursday.
The Acadia Center, a non-profit research organization that advocates for clean energy and economic growth, found that the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states involved in the cap-and-trade program have also reported more economic growth than states without a similar initiative.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which went into effect in 2009, auctions off tradable carbon dioxide allowances to power plants, authorizing them to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide.
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