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

• Congressional Democrats, bowing to political pressure, have agreed to let the ban on offshore oil drilling expire, a decision that could allow exploration just three miles off the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines, reports the Washington Post.
• Hot solar panels, but not in a good way: the popularity of residential solar installations has led to a rash of thefts of the panels, according to The New York Times.
• The continuing debate over solar energy projects in the desert, and the federal government's effort to assess environmental impacts, is recounted by The New York Times. Of course, this is a topic Climate Law Update has also covered, and more than once. 
• A prominent policy adviser in China says that nation should bind itself to international goals to slash greenhouse gases, in a "striking break with Beijing's official stance," according to this dispatch from Reuters.
• Former Vice President Al Gore, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has urged young people to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants that don't have the ability to store carbon, from another Reuters report.
• The results of the nation's first auction of greenhouse gas emission allowances for power plants will be made available on Monday, according to an announcement from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
• European Union lawmakers will vote next month on steps to lower carbon penalties for industry and funnel billions of euros annually into climate change-fighting technologies, according to a European Parliament document cited by Reuters.
• The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was not truthful with Congress about rejecting a request from California for permission to regulate global warming emissions from motor vehicles, says Sen. Barbara Boxer, according to Reuters.  

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The U.S. House on Tuesday scuffled over the nation's energy policy, an issue in which the sides sometimes have appeared to grow farther apart the longer the debate goes on.

However, late in the day majority Democrats in the House muscled through a massive bill that would allow for some expansion of offshore oil drilling, as well as extend federal tax credits for renewable energy considered vital to the industry. The 236-189 vote was largely along party lines, although there was some bipartisan crossover on both sides.

While the House opened hours of debate on the measure, there also appeared to be some movement among the leadership of the U.S. Senate on a separate measure that would also extend federal incentives for renewable energy, according to a statement from the top lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee. 

The House bill has mostly gained attention because of Democrats' support for what The New York Times last week called a "fundamental shift" in energy policy, new offshore oil drilling. But the measure also would keep in place federal tax credits for renewable energy, including wind, solar and other forms, some for as many as eight years. Such an extension has been held up repeatedly in Congress.

Those tax incentives expire at the end of the year. Advocates for renewal, including the head of GE Energy, quoted by the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital (which separately put together a pretty good comparison of competing energy proposals in Washington),  have warned of dire consequences for the renewable energy industry if they lapse. At the same time, renewable energy groups, such as the Solar Energy Industry Association, and their allies in the environmental community, have touted studies showing, variously, that as many as 440,000 jobs in the solar sector, or two million jobs in overall clean energy technology could be created by investing in the industries, via tax breaks or other means, such as proceeds from carbon auctions.

Coincidentally, the Energy Information Administration, the federal government's statistical agency for energy, issued a report showing that nuclear power and "refined" coal (treated to reduce certain emissions) received far fatter subsidies in 2007 than did renewable energy.   

Nevertheless, it was the wrenching issue of drilling that operated as a lightning rod for criticism. The bill's provisions did not go far enough to satisfy pro-drilling Republicans, and  environmentalists were badly split on the subject.

The bill would allow new drilling at least 50 miles offshore, only with the permission of the affected coastal states, according to a description put forward by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It would also close tax breaks for big oil companies and address an ethics controversy that has erupted following an Interior Department inspector general's somewhat salacious report issued last week. The document cited "a culture of ethical failure" among a handful of officials of the Minerals Management Service, the primary federal agency overseeing offshore development. It even suggested some were literally in bed with their counterparts in the petroleum industry. 

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• A federal appeals court Monday decided against a request by the federal government to take another look at a 2007 ruling that effectively required officials to consider the effects on global warming when setting fuel economy standards for certain vehicles such as pickups and sport utility vehicles, but the court did make some modifications. An environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, issued a statement calling the changes "minor" but it said the Bush administration is still not doing enough. 
• Congress will apparently get a chance to vote on offshore oil drilling but a measure being  prepared by the majority Democrats in the House will also include boost for renewable energy, reports The New York Times. Meanwhile, there's lots to consider as this whole energy debate plays out in Washington and elsewhere, demonstrates this posting from the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog. 
• Icebreakers -- they aren't just for singles parties any more. The big boats that can cruise through solid water without going all Titanic are in big demand as, ironically, climate change reduces the amount of Arctic ice, see more in this story from The New York Times.
• The booming renewable industry in Colorado provides a preview of the debates that are likely to emerge nationally, suggests this article from the Washington Post.
• And here's more on that pivotal state's energy picture, focusing on the politically and environmentally contentious issues raised by oil shale, from the Denver Post.
• A conflict of interest case involving a private firm advising the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "offers a rare glimpse at one of the consequences of the government's unprecedented reliance on contractors to help federal agencies," reports the Washington Post.
• Canadian reporters venture south and find a North Carolina couple with tons of ideas on how to cut a home's carbon footprint -- and who've of course written a book about it, from the Globe and Mail.
• The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2008 tied with 2001 and 2003 as the fifth warmest July since worldwide record-keeping started in 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

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• California's summer wildfire epidemic could be a product of global warming, suggests this story in the San Francisco Chronicle.
• Drilling for oil in offshore waters hasn't produced a huge spill in a while but that doesn't mean the enterprise is risk-free, as demonstrated by government statistics documenting numerous spills over the years, reports the Houston Chronicle.
• Britain may be shifting from "Great" to "Green," with the use of such devices as smart meters to monitor energy consumption, or so implies this article from The New York Times.
• Wetlands, often derided in human history as swamps or impediments to civilization, could have the last say, according to scientists who predict the marshy areas could unleash a carbon "bomb" if destroyed, reports Reuters.
• The wolves of Michigan's remote Isle Royal National Park have faced severe problems before, but now they may be doomed because of the effects of global warming, according to an account in the Washington Post.  
• More on the Bush administration's interior back-and-forth on the regulation of greenhouse gases, this time from a new report from a Congressional subcommittee that suggests some officials reversed course under the influence of Vice President Dick Cheney and the oil industry, according to a Dow Jones Newswire dispatch carried by CNN Money.
• A "sense of caution" seems to be infusing the debate over energy, as exemplified by the somewhat lukewarm and skeptical reaction -- even from those who might be his allies -- to former Vice President Al Gore's recent call for a zero-carbon electricity future within a decade, says the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog.
• Some might suggest less hot air would do the trick, but a new report on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the Washington, D.C., area instead points to some serious changes in lifestyles, reports the Washington Post.
• Two Welsh universities that are already studying, ahem, gaseous emissions from cows will benefit from a big grant awarded to help forge an alliance between the institutions working on problems posed by climate change, the BBC reports.
  
   

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As California officials get ready to formally unveil a host of measures to curb greenhouse emissions, environmentalists are working to support the effort, promoting reports showing all the good the effort would do, and demonstrating public support.

The Natural Resources Defense Council on Tuesday weighed in with a study the group said showed that many of the strategies for reducing global warming would also combat other forms of air pollution, saving lives and reducing illnesses. That document followed by just a day the release of a new poll suggesting that people support energy policies to reduce the threat of climate change, even if prices go up.

All of this comes just before the California Air Resources Board is scheduled to hear recommendations from government officials on what the state should do to comply with the state's Global Warming Solutions Act, better known as AB 32. The 2006 law requires the state to reduce its emissions of heat-trapping gases to 1990 levels by 2020, about a 30 percent cut compared to what would otherwise happen. The state has also taken other steps, such as a governor's executive order that requires emissions to be reduced to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and legislation and rules to reduce emissions from cars and trucks.

The board on Thursday is to get its first overall look at the proposed blueprint or "scoping plan" for implementing the law. Everything from the types of light bulbs people use to the cost of electricity could be affected. 

The NRDC report, which was co-produced by Redefining Progress, said the measures being considered could prevent as many as 700 premature deaths and 18,000 cases of asthma and respiratory illnesses. It calculated a savings of up to $5 billion in health costs for year 2020 alone.

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• Did you hear the one about the Italian opera based on Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"? So did John Tierney and The New York Times writer passes along some production notes.
• Businesses interested in addressing the "risks and opportunities associated with climate change" have a new guide they can turn to, which also includes examples of partnerships involving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a statement from the EPA (which includes a link that leads to further information about the programs and the guide itself).
• Energy is on the minds of top officials from the United States and China, who began two days of talks Tuesday with an admonition from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that, as the two largest net importers of oil, the countries face similar challenges, according to this Reuters dispatch.
• Oregon's governor Tuesday outlined a set of legislative proposals that could require all new buildings in the state to achieve zero net emissions by 2030, the Portland Business Journal reports.
• The barrier islands of Alabama and Mississippi are disappearing as a result of a lack of sand, rising sea levels and more frequent intense storms, sending officials to Congress seeking hundreds of millions of dollars to help restore them, reports the Birmingham Press-Register. 
• Former Vice President Al Gore, a champion of clean energy, endorses fellow Democrat, Sen. Barack Obama, for president, while Republican Sen. John McCain calls for ending the moratorium on offshore oil drilling, setting up this story in which The New York Times touches on the role of energy in the presidential campaign. 
• Nuclear power is gaining support among politicians and, apparently, the public in the United States and even in European countries long opposed to the concept, but it still faces vexing questions about cost and waste, reports the Wall Street Journal's blog Environmental Capital.
• Climate change, by such mechanisms as forcing people out of their traditional homelands and triggering "extreme poverty and conflict," is helping to fuel a refugee crisis, warns the head of the UN's refugee agency in this article in The Guardian.
• Some experts are concerned that noise from energy and mining exploration in the West could  disrupt the sage grouse's mating patterns, in turn leading to restrictions that could limit the industry, according to The Environment Report (audio required). 

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