Climate Law Update: Climate Change & Sustainable Energy News : Thelen Reid Law Firm : Renewable Energy, Construction, Project Finance Lawyers & Attorneys

Coal may be a fossil but apparently it isn't dead.

The U.S. Department of Energy looks to be backing carbon sequestration projects and clean coal in a big way, despite some setbacks for the fuel in recent months (see Climate Law Update stories here and here). The Bush administration acted just as some environmentalists have raised new concerns about the technology.

The department announced this week it was supporting sequestration research efforts, which also could be used for capturing carbon from non-coal sources, in California and the Midwest to the tune of more than $126 million (see press statement here). An executive of the company where the California project will be located said the technology would be useful for many fuels. 

Then on Wednesday the department outlined the separate restructuring of its "FutureGen" program, which could help underwrite "clean coal" projects using carbon sequestration technology to the tune of  many more hundreds of millions of dollars (see press release here).

While neither of the two newest sequestration projects appeared to rely on coal as a primary fuel source, coal clearly wasn't far from the minds of Bush administration energy  officials. The energy department's announcement earlier this week said that "advancing carbon sequestration is a key component of the Bush administration's comprehensive efforts to commercially advance clean coal technology" to meet the nation's energy needs. 

In a statement, California Energy Commission Vice Chair James Boyd waxed enthusiastic about the $65.6 million headed toward the state (see press release here):

"By demonstrating how greenhouse gas emissions can be safely contained through carbon sequestration, we make strides to curb the effects of global warming. Using the newest carbon capture and storage technology, California can show how environmental and industrial concerns are working together for the same cause."

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A new lawsuit filed by environmentalists challenges Arctic oil and gas exploration efforts the groups contend threaten marine mammals such as whales.

Plaintiffs include organizations that have already sought to force new federal protections for polar bears and other animals because of alleged threats from climate change, a move that could also have implications for oil development in the region.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Alaska on Monday the lawsuit asks a judge to rule that federal authorizations allowing the explorations in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas by Shell  and BP were issued before proper environmental reviews were conducted and that the actions could seriously harm marine mammals. The plaintiffs also asked for a preliminary injunction blocking the activities, at least some of which were planned for this summer (see lawsuit text here; motion for preliminary injunction here).

Seismic surveys planned by the companies "will result in excessive noise pollution in Arctic waters that have not been subjected to such levels of concurrent seismic noise pollution for at least 15 years, if ever," claimed the documents filed by the groups. The plaintiffs, which also include a native village, focused primarily on concerns for the health of such animals as whales and seals. Polar bears are only briefly mentioned in the lawsuit, as inhabitants of both of the seas year-round. 

Officials of the federal Minerals Management Service, which issued the seismic survey permits, and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which was also named as a defendant, told Climate Law Update they would have no immediate comment on the case.  Both oil companies, neither of which was named in the lawsuit, also declined comment specifically on the case but they each defended the environmental soundness of their exploration practices.   

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Gov. Ted Strickland of coal-heavy Ohio has signed a bill pushing his state's electric distribution utilities to make sure that 25 percent of the power they sell comes from "alternative" resources by 2025.

Under Senate Bill 221, that would include juice coming from such renewable sources as wind and solar, to other forms of generation, including "clean" coal, fuel cells and advanced nuclear, according to a statement by Strickland (see statement here; bill text here) and a report in the Toledo Blade (see story here).

To meet the mandate that at least 25 percent of the power come from "alternative energy resources," Ohio's legislation requires that "at least half shall be generated from renewable energy resources, including one-half per cent from solar energy resources," in accordance with a number of annual benchmarks. 

The Blade reported that the measure allows utilities to avoid full compliance with the standards if they can demonstrate that their attempts to comply would raise consumers' bills by 3 percent or more, a provision that disappointed some environmental groups.

In his statement, Strickland (pictured) lauded the measure:

"This bill, Senate Bill 221, will ensure predictability of affordable energy prices and maintain state controls necessary to protect Ohio jobs and businesses.

We will safeguard Ohio families by empowering consumers and modernizing Ohio’s energy infrastructure.

And we will attract the jobs of the future through an advanced energy portfolio standard—and today’s action by Ohio means that a majority of states now agree that these technologies represent the future of energy in the United States." 
 

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This saving the planet stuff just isn't complicated enough, it seems.

Underscoring the importance of the finer points involved in establishing a market-based approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions, a new report (accessible here) sponsored by a fascinating collection of interests shows how huge sums are at stake depending on how such a program is structured.

The most intriguing part of the document examines one of the most controversial parts of a cap-and-trade scenario: the distribution of emissions credits or "allowances" that will determine how many tons of heat-trapping gases that, say, a power plant can emit over a year. It looks at the differences in formulas contemplated by two bills now before Congress, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act and the Bingaman-Specter Low Carbon Economy Act. The document also adds another twist, such as examining what would happen if credits were allocated based on each company's electricity output, versus its share of emissions.

The report generally seems to side with Lieberman-Warner. That bill would require selling more of the credits initially and it would also allocate some credits for sale to benefit the public.

The document also finds that some utilities, such as those with relatively cleaner technologies, would fare vastly better under a system in which credits were distributed on the basis of power output. However, both bills so far propose to allocate the allowances to electric providers based on their historic carbon dioxide emissions. 

The bills are named for their sponsors, Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., John Warner, R-Va., Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

 

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A new federal economic analysis of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act shows that the measure wouldn't impede strong growth in the United States; whereas a new federal study of the bill forecasts a gloomy future of  higher energy prices and problems for industry.

It's the same document. Just depends on who's looking at it.

Produced by the Department of Energy's statistical arm, the Energy Information Administration, the new report seems to have done little to foster agreement between the warring sides in the battle over the greenhouse gas reduction bill. The Senate is poised to take up the bill, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., in June.

Like a previous government analysis of the bill, which would cap emissions and establish a trading program, the new report shows some economic impacts but it also predicts by mid-century the legislation would produce better than 50 percent cuts in the production of heat-trapping gases (see text of report here). 

According to the new study, the drag on the gross domestic product between 2009 to 2030 would be between 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent. The bill's impacts would fall more heavily on industry than on other parts of the economy, the report predicted. While comparing the two analyses is difficult because of differences between them, the overall economic effects forecast by the new document appear to be generally smaller than those found by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its  analysis put forward earlier this year (see Climate Law Update story here).  

Perhaps not surprisingly, supporters and opponents of congressional action to address climate change saw the energy department report dramatically differently. Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, a leading Republican global warming skeptic (pictured), said the analysis showed the bill "is wrong for America." Environmental groups and congressional supporters of the legislation saw it as confirming the bill as economically benign.

    

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The U.S. Department of Interior had only a muted reaction to Monday's federal court ruling demanding a quick decision on whether to protect the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act because of global warming. But that didn't keep the department's critics from weighing in.

A spokesman for the department headed by Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (pictured), in an e-mail forwarded Tuesday to Climate Law Update, gave little clue as to the government's next step in aftermath of U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken's ruling:

"We have received the court's decision and we are reviewing it. We will evaluate the legal options and will decide the appropriate course of action." 

Wilken Monday ruled in favor of a number of environmental groups and ordered the department to decide by May 15 whether to shield the animals under the endangered species law. The judge, who sits in Oakland, Calif., also rejected calls by the government, which has previously proposed designating the bears as "threatened," to delay the effect of its decision (see Climate Law Update story below). 

The ruling gave those skeptical of the agency's motives plenty of ammunition, and also a chance to talk about the larger implications of a listing under the powerful federal statute. They also seemed to have little doubt that the government will extend law's protections to the bear.

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A federal judge in California late Monday gave the federal government barely two weeks to make a final decision on protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act, a move that could have significant implications for regulatory efforts to combat climate change.

Environmentalists pushing for protections for the iconic animals have accused the Bush administration of dragging its feet on the matter in order to avoid interfering with plans to explore for oil in parts of the bears' far northern home. Federal officials had concluded that oil and gas development would not pose a threat to the bears throughout their range. 

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken (access biography here), in a 10-page decision, told the Interior Department to issue a final ruling on the matter by no later than May 15 (see text of order here). The judge also required that whatever decision the government makes would take effect immediately at the time it is issued. Additionally, she wrote that she did not need to have the parties come to court to argue the matter because "timeliness is essential, the issues are not complex and the parties are generally in agreement" on the issue.

The ruling was a win for the environmental groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been pushing since 2005 to list the polar bear as an endangered species because of the effects of global warming on the bears' icy habitat. The interior department's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as part of a prior court agreement, had proposed to list the bear as a threatened species last year (see text of proposal here) but then took no final action (see Climate Law Update stories here and here).

 

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On Earth Day, attention naturally turns to all things green – as in money.

Pocketbook issues are at the center of a number of new reports that assess the impact of efforts to combat climate change and promote the development of renewable sources of energy. One report shows government subsidies taking a big jump in recent years with renewables such as solar and wind getting a proportionately large share of the money.

The Environmental Defense Fund has come out with a document that studies the studies out there on the economic cost of a cap-and-trade system to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Perhaps coming as no shock, the organization concludes that “a clear consensus” among the models demonstrates such a market system “is consistent with long-term economic growth.” The overall cost of capping the gases would amount to less than 1 percent of household budgets over the coming two decades, according to the EDF, which supports market approaches to the problem (see press statement here; text of study here).

Release of the analysis comes as the U.S. Senate is readying to take up the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would establish a cap-and-trade system in the country. It also comes against a background of other reports issued by the government and business organizations showing potentially significant  economic impacts from such a system (see Climate Law Update story here).

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Attorneys for the Interior Department have asked a federal judge to give officials until June 30 to make a final decision on whether to protect the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act because of climate change.

Environmentalists immediately accused government bureaucrats of dragging their feet to avoid any interference with oil explorations planned for the bears’ habitat. 

The lawyers representing Interior and its Fish and Wildlife Service asked U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland, Calif., to give the service about 10 additional weeks to make up its mind whether to list the bear under the law (see text here). Officials have already taken preliminary steps to list the animal as “threatened” but no final action has occurred.

Any decision to protect the bear under the endangered species statute could have widespread ramifications, by bringing the law into play in a variety of government decisions potentially affecting global warming, and more locally on such issues as oil and gas development in the Arctic. The lawsuit noted that earlier this year, the federal government held a lease sale offering about 30 million acres “of prime polar bear habitat” in the Chukchi Sea for oil and gas development. 

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Global warming is bad, and developing renewable energy to help solve the problem is good, right? While that might be a popular view, the reality is a bit more complicated, as experts in the field have begun noting with some frequency lately.

Talk of what UCLA School of Law Professor Ann Carlson (pictured) calls “localized environmental values clashes” over renewable projects was in the air at a recent conference at the University of California-Berkeley’s law school, Boalt Hall.

Speakers at the two-day event, “California and the Future of Environmental Law and Policy,” noted that, in particular, legal and policy fights over transmission lines pose a significant challenge for renewable development. Among them was Karen Douglas, who formerly spearheaded California climate change efforts for the  group Environmental Defense (now known as Environmental Defense Fund). She is now a member of the California Energy Commission which, among other duties, licenses large new thermal power plants in the state, as well as the transmission lines connecting them to the grid. Douglas crystallized the issue this way:

“It’s kind of a different challenge to do renewables because you’ve got to generate the power where the renewable resources are and then bring it where the people are. So that means often a lot of power lines. People don’t want that through their neighborhoods. It’s hard to site and hard to build and so on, so one issue is transmission.”

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The U.S. Senate Thursday moved forward with its version of an extension of tax credits for renewable energy. But it did so without identifying how to pay for the estimated $6 billion in incentives for wind, solar and other projects.

Introduced by Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, and John Ensign, R-Nevada (pictured), only a week ago (see Climate Law Update story), the Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act (see text here) was grafted as an amendment onto a housing bill before the Senate. Lawmakers adopted the energy amendment on an 88-8 voted and passed the entire bill 84-12.

In many ways, the Senate bill is roughly similar to a measure the House passed earlier in the year extending incentives known as the investment tax credit and the production tax credit. The renewable industry has been pushing hard for Congress to adopt some kind of legislation extending credits which expire at the end of the year.

Both bills provide short-term extensions of credits for producing electricity from renewable sources and for a longer period, until 2016, for business investment tax credits for solar and fuel cell projects. Residential solar and energy efficiency projects would also benefit under the Senate bill.

But the major difference in the Senate legislation lies in the fact that bill avoided the House approach of funding the incentives through reducing tax breaks for the oil industry. Instead, the Senate bill contains no identified funding mechanism. That could give the bill a difficult road in the House.

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British Columbia is moving forward with a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, laying the groundwork for the province's involvement in a Western North American regional trading system.

The development occurs as one new report strikes a cautionary note about how to establish a market, warning that free allocation of emissions credits has helped produce large windfall profits in Europe (see full document here). But the Western Climate Initiative, the regional system to which British Columbia and a number of states belong, is contemplating at least a partial sale of credits (see text here). 

British Columbia officials recently announced the introduction of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, also known as the Cap and Trade Act. They said it would put British Columbia out front of other Canadian provinces as it prepares for the onset of the new trading system (see press statement here, see text of legislation here).

“The Cap and Trade Act will make British Columbia the first Canadian province to introduce legislation authorizing hard caps on greenhouse gas emissions,” said Environment Minister Barry Penner (pictured) in a statement. A “hard” cap means that each emitter will face a set target, regardless of the growth of its operations, according to a report in the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail (see story here).

One expert quoted by the paper said no one in North America has done what the province is proposing. Officials from the petroleum production industry and elsewhere also expressed some concerns about the measure and how it might mesh with regulations set by other provinces and the nation’s government, as well as the province’s own newly introduced carbon tax.

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A legal action led by Massachusetts and supported by 17 other states and nearly a dozen environmental organizations was launched Wednesday to force the Environmental Protection Agency to issue a critical document that would trigger nationwide regulation of greenhouse gases.

The new move, in the form of a petition for a writ of mandamus, was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It sought to require the EPA to put forward its formal determination of whether emissions of the climate-changing gases endanger the public’s health or welfare. Such an “endangerment” finding, the filing  charged, has already been made but it is being withheld (see text).

“It is a necessary and critical step, which is why the administration is making its stand there,” said David Bookbinder, chief climate attorney for the Sierra Club, one of the groups filing the action, during a nationwide conference call with reporters. “They know once the endangerment finding is made they’re obligated to begin controlling greenhouse gases.”

He acknowledged that no final regulation was likely to be in place until after a new administration comes into office. However, he and others said that it was important to move forward now to get the process started.

“Time is not on our side,” said James Milkey, chief of the environmental protection division under Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley (pictured).

 

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No surprise in this, except perhaps for the quick timing, but last week’s decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to go slow on regulating greenhouse gases looks like it's landing the agency back in court.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown, along with attorneys representing the state of Massachusetts, the Sierra Club and others are expected to announce Wednesday new legal action to force the EPA to move forward. The action coincides with the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that the agency had the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. In a statement, Brown’s office said Tuesday the legal maneuver would be taken to force the EPA “to obey” the decision.    

EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson (pictured) sparked the ire of Democrats and environmentalists – and the praise of industry groups – by announcing that he wanted to avoid “rushing to judgment” on the issue. He laid out an administrative process to study the matter, citing the fact the EPA’s decision could have widespread ramifications beyond automobiles, which had been the immediate focus of the Supreme Court decision (see previous Climate Law Update stories here and here).

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An attorney for one environmental group that has actively sought to bring the tools of endangered species protections into the fight against global warming says the tactic could have multiple effects.

Brendan Cummings, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, suggested in an interview with Climate Law Update that the organization’s recent success in getting the National Marine Fisheries Service to examine climate-related endangered species protection for several species of seals could produce impacts both locally and much broader in scope. The agency last week announced it would review the ribbon seal, a mammal that inhabits Alaska’s Bering Sea, for listing under the Endangered Species Act, as well as three other seal species: bearded, spotted and ringed (see press release and formal notice).

The fisheries service said it was acting on a petition presented last year by the environmental organization asking it to list the seal as threatened or endangered (see text of petition). Last week's statement by the agency came a few days after the environmental group threatened to bring a lawsuit to force the government to act.  

At a regional level, the group’s petition to the government agency cited threats to the seals from such sources as oil and gas development, commercial fishing and Russian harvesting of the animals. But it also warned that the ice on which the seals live is rapidly melting due to global warming.

 

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Stephen L. Johnson, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, might be feeling a bit besieged after the reaction to his decision to go slow on regulating greenhouse gases. But he’s still got friends in the industrial community and elsewhere.

“I think he made a very sensible move,” Hank Cox, a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers, told Climate Law Up date Friday. The association, headed by former Michigan Gov. John Engler (pictured), has itself been urging a cautious approach to addressing climate change and it recently released a study warning of major economic and employment losses if Congress enacts legislation such as the Lieberman-Warner bill (see recent Climate Law Update story), which would establish a national emissions cap-and-trade system.

Johnson provoked outrage among Democrats and environmental organizations when he informed lawmakers he was going to take more time to study the regulation of greenhouse gases before acting. Some critics accused the Bush administration of acting according to an “industry script” on the issue.

Johnson’s action came nearly a year after a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which said the agency had the authority to regulate the emissions believed to contribute to global warming as pollutants, and it ordered its officials to look into such questions as whether the gases pose a threat to people. Critics threatened a new round of legal action to force the EPA to move on the issue (see Thursday’s Climate Law Update story).

Cox said he believed his organization made its views known to the EPA before Johnson announced his decision Thursday.

“I’m sure we did,” Cox said.

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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, declaring that he wanted to avoid “rushing to judgment on a single issue,” informed lawmakers Thursday he'll be taking additional time to study the critical issue of whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Outraged critics, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (pictured), said the move makes it virtually certain no action will be taken during the remainder of President Bush's term in office.

Johnson, in a letter to key members of Congress (see text), outlined an administrative procedure that would ramp up this spring and would then be followed by a period in which the public could comment. It was not immediately known how long the process would take to produce a final decision, although skeptics predicted it would push any ultimate determination into the next administration. Environmental groups vowed to return to court to force the agency to act.

The announcement, coming nearly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark Massachusetts v. EPA ruling held the agency had the authority to regulate the gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act, immediately provoked the condemnation of environmentalists and others. The Supreme Court ruling did not require the agency to issue regulations but it told the EPA it had to consider such issues as whether public health was endangered. While the ruling came in the context of regulating emissions from motor vehicles but many now want the EPA to wield broad control over substances believed to contribute to climate change, from whatever source.

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Governors in Vermont and Utah have become the latest to sign legislation intended to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, boost renewable energy generation, or both.

Of the two, Vermont’s was the more comprehensive (see text of bill). Senate Bill 209, signed by Gov. Jim Douglas, establishes an efficiency program he said was intended to help homeowners and businesses reduce fuel consumption and save money (see press release). At least part of the money would come from the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative’s cap-and-trade program.The first auction under that fast-developing program is scheduled for this fall (see press release).

One key provision in the bill appears to encourage cooperative efforts among the population to develop local renewable energy projects. 

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman put his name to a measure that establishes a renewable portfolio standard for the state. Senate Bill 202 (see text) sets a goal for Utah utilities, both municipal and privately owned, that would mean 20 percent of their “adjusted” electric sales would come from renewable sources by 2025. That’s somewhat more modest than standards set in other states, including California, which has established a 20 percent renewable goal by 2010 and is considering efforts to increase that proportion.

 

      

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The coal war, it seems, is heating up by the day. And the battlegrounds are not always in places commonly associated with aggressive environmentalism

Take Kansas and Utah, for instance.

The Kansas City star reports that lawmakers are trying to revive a modified version of a bill vetoed last week by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius that would have allowed construction of two new coal-fired plants over the greenhouse gas-related opposition of a state regulator.  Among her objections was the lack of support for wind power in the legislation (see text of vetoed bill and Sebelius press release with attached veto message). 

Farther west, a dispute over a proposed new coal plant in Utah is creating a legal vortex drawing industry, environmentalists and other states, including California, into a debate over the extent of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate emissions blamed for climate change.

All of this comes against a background of work in Congress on greenhouse legislation that would establish a market system for reducing emissions (cited by Sebelius), and more coal-specific developments, including a recent decision by a federal agency to back away from funding such projects (see recent Climate Law Update story). Lawmakers are also working on other federal legislation that would allow new coal plants to move forward only if they can capture and store the vast majority of their carbon emissions (see press release and text of bill).

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Environmental groups are pursuing a slew of lawsuits against a U.S. Department of Energy determination that large areas in the Southwest and Mid-Atlantic states could suffer from electric transmission congestion. The energy department action opens the regions to a process under which federal regulators can approve new transmission lines, even if states object.

The latest case (see docketing statement and petition for review), filed a few days ago in the 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals headquartered in San Francisco, opens a new front in the legal battle over the energy department's designation of two National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors.  Those are areas the department determines to be facing transmission congestions or constraints that harm consumers. Environmental groups earlier this year filed similar lawsuits in lower federal courts in Los Angeles and Pennsylvania separately challenging each of the corridor delineations.

All of the cases raise allegations that the energy department's decision violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 when it designated the transmission corridors. The Los Angeles lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, was recently amended (see press statement) to include a claim under the Endangered Species Act, like its sister case in Pennsylvania. Additionally, the Pennsylvania lawsuit cites the National Historic Preservation Act.

A department spokeswoman said Wednesday the designations didn't themselves affect the environment and she insisted all parties had gotten a fair chance to comment.

 

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Even during a period of scary economic headlines, some experts see efforts to control climate change through market mechanisms as a green light at the end of a dark tunnel.

The green lobbying group Environmental Defense Action Fund has enlisted top officials from manufacturing companies Deere & Co. and Eaton Corp. to appear in commercials touting the benefits of a national limit on emissions, as Congress nears a debate on the Lieberman-Warner bill that would establish a cap and trade system.

In a separate development, executives of Lehman Brothers, a major Wall Street firm, suggested that moves underway in the United States and elsewhere are likely to boost the carbon market, according to a Reuters report.

According to Reuters, Theodore Roosevelt, Lehman's council on climate change chairman, told reporters at a news conference in Tokyo that he was “fairly confident” the United States would pass “substantial climate change legislation” no later than 2010. The country’s involvement would then open “the possibility of a serious dialogue” with Asian countries on how to approach the problem. Another Lehman official quoted by the news service noted exchanges in Asia have recently indicated they want to get into carbon trading.

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Legislation in Congress to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions might carry a hefty economic price tag, according to a new analysis released Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But sponsors of the bill, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said the report actually demonstrates that the country could accomplish the cuts without sacrificing its prosperity.

Even as the costs of addressing climate change sparked discussion,  there were new signs global warming itself could prove economically destructive. Earlier in the week, another government study suggested potentially dire consequences from unchecked climate change on the nation's Gulf Coast, a vital part of the nation's shipping and petroleum infrastructure.

EPA's forecasts covered a variety of possible impacts. The agency predicted the economy might feel a drag on growth of less than 1 percent by 2030, but that the punch could also be nearly four times as strong. Among the "many uncertainties" it cited were the availability of new technologies and what other countries do regarding climate change.   

The EPA’s report followed by a day another set of estimates – this one prepared by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation – showing the bill dragging on the economy to the tune of millions of fewer jobs and slowing the growth of the gross domestic product (see press release). The Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental group, immediately attacked the business groups’ findings, noting they did not analyze the costs of doing nothing to stop climate change.

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