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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>‘This is the start of a new era in American energy production and job creation. We will eliminate federal overreach, restore economic freedom and allow workers and companies to play on a level playing field for the first time in a long time, a long time. We’re going to have clean coal, really clean coal.’\u003cbr>\n—\u003c/em>Donald Trump, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28032017/trump-executive-order-climate-change-paris-climate-agreement-clean-power-plan-pruitt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 2017\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Been There\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\"]Analysis: The Candidates on Climate Change\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956430/joe-biden-climate-profile-surprising-embrace-of-green-new-deal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Biden\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956501/michael-bloomberg-climate-profile-shutting-down-coal-modest-federal-spending%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Bloomberg\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956514/pete-buttigieg-climate-profile-making-u-s-the-worlds-clean-tech-leader\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pete Buttigieg\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956525/amy-klobuchar-climate-profile-using-presidency-to-restore-clean-energy-policies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Amy Klobuchar\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956421/bernie-sanders-climate-profile-16-trillion-in-spending-for-most-ambitious-plan-yet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bernie Sanders\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1957439/tom-steyer-climate-profile-a-justice-centered-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956437/elizabeth-warren-climate-profile-taking-up-mantle-of-former-climate-candidate-inslee\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elizabeth Warren\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[/pullquote]When U.S. government scientists released their latest volume of the \u003ca href=\"https://science2017.globalchange.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Climate Assessment\u003c/a>, it revealed much about the robust, sobering scientific consensus on climate change. It also revealed the striking disconnect between President Donald Trump and essentially every authoritative institution on the threat of global warming. The president rejected the assessment’s central findings — based on thousands of climate studies and involving 13 federal agencies — that emissions of carbon dioxide are caused by human activities, are already causing lasting economic damage, and have to be brought rapidly to zero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“I don’t believe it. No, no, I don’t believe it,” Trump said. Immediately, his cabinet members \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30112018/fact-check-trump-climate-science-denial-national-assessment-sanders-global-warming\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">launched attacks on the report\u003c/a>, portraying it as “alarmist” and clinging to Trump’s agenda of fossil fuel energy expansion that the science says is at the root of the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Done That\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When Trump delivered his \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27052016/donald-trump-republican-party-election-fossil-fuels-coal-oil-gas-fracking-climate-change-paris\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first major energy speech in the fracking fields of North Dakota\u003c/a> as a candidate in May 2016, he called for American domination of global energy supplies. To make that happen, he wanted an end to all of President Barack Obama’s executive actions involving greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“We are going to turn everything around,” Trump declared. “And quickly, very quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As president, he has rolled back regulations on energy suppliers at a rapid clip slowed only at times\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29082019/methane-regulation-oil-gas-storage-pipelines-epa-rollback-trump-wheeler\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> by the courts,\u003c/a> while auctioning off millions of acres of new drilling leases on public land. Last year, domestic oil production hit a record high. The result of this, among other things, was the \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-estimates-for-2018/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reversal of three consecutive years of declining U.S. carbon emissions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump began the process of \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04112019/trump-pull-out-paris-climate-agreement-timing-rules\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">withdrawing the U.S.\u003c/a> from the Paris climate treaty, the agreement signed by nearly all nations to reduce fossil fuel emissions. He \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19062019/trump-clean-power-plan-climate-emissions-rule-replacement-coal-decline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">replaced Obama’s Clean Power Plan\u003c/a>, intended to sharply reduce emissions from U.S. power plants. He took the first step to weaken \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02082018/trump-fuel-efficiency-standards-rollback-climate-change-epa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fuel economy standards for cars\u003c/a>, the single most important effort for reining in the largest driver of U.S. emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His administration has undone or delayed — or tried to — most regulatory and executive actions related to climate change, while proposing new ones to accelerate fossil fuel development. Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law counts \u003ca href=\"https://climate.law.columbia.edu/climate-deregulation-tracker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">131 actions\u003c/a> toward federal climate deregulation since Trump took office. In the absence of any comprehensive national climate law, those moves have led to an erosion of the federal government’s main regulatory levers for cutting global warming emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several of those actions, including rollbacks of significant rules on \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/23/court-hands-trump-defeat-in-bid-to-block-methane-emissions-rule.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">methane\u003c/a>\u003cu>,\u003c/u> \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02102019/cross-border-smog-ruling-coal-power-trump-obama-clean-air-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cross-state air pollution\u003c/a> regulations and \u003ca href=\"https://policyintegrity.org/trump-court-roundup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">energy efficiency\u003c/a>, have been blocked or delayed by judges who have questioned the administration’s broad view of its legal authority. Some of those setbacks may be temporary, though, and the courts have yet to rule on the most consequential deregulatory actions. According to the administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaMain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agenda for 2020\u003c/a>, the president will try to fast-track as many more as possible before the end of his first term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Getting Specific\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Promoting unfettered oil, natural gas and coal development \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nRight out of the gate, Trump greased the wheels for fossil fuel development. He \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28032017/trump-executive-order-climate-change-paris-climate-agreement-clean-power-plan-pruitt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">issued a sweeping executive order\u003c/a> directing all departments to target for elimination\u003ci>\u003cem> any \u003c/em>\u003c/i>rules that restrict U.S. production of energy. He set guidance to make it more difficult to put future regulations on fossil fuel industries, and he moved to discard the use of a rigorous “social cost of carbon,” a regulatory measurement that puts a price on the future damage society will pay for every ton of carbon dioxide emitted. He swiftly signed memorandums to \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24012017/keystone-xl-dakota-pipeline-donald-trump-executive-order\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines\u003c/a>, projects blocked by Obama. And later, with the Keystone XL still stalled, he issued executive orders aimed at \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11042019/trump-pipeline-executive-order-environmental-review-keystone-xl-clean-water-act-states-rights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">speeding approval and construction of fossil fuel projects\u003c/a> by limiting state environmental reviews.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fossil fuel infrastructure adds to greenhouse gas emissions, in part by leaking methane into the atmosphere. Trump’s administration ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03032017/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency-methane-greenhouse-gas-climate-change\">stop gathering data from oil and gas companies\u003c/a> needed to rein in leaks of this potent short-lived climate pollutant. It later \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11092018/methane-flaring-rules-oil-gas-industry-climate-change-obama-trump-epa-rollback\">loosened methane regulations\u003c/a> for projects on public and private land, despite the support for them among the industry’s biggest companies. It sought drilling in pristine areas where oil companies have long sought to drill. The administration \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28042017/doanld-trump-arctic-offshore-drilling-ban-obama-executive-order\">moved to lift Obama’s offshore Arctic drilling ban\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13072017/arctic-offshore-drilling-trump-approved-eni-boem-alaska\">approved \u003c/a>a plan to drill wells there. It pushed to drill in the previously off-limits \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29032018/arctic-offshore-drilling-oil-lease-sale-beaufort-sea-alaska-trump-boem-2019\">Beaufort Sea\u003c/a>, in 1.6 million acres of the pristine \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12092019/congress-arctic-wildlife-refuge-oil-gas-drilling-offshore-trump-lease-sale-anwr\">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge\u003c/a>, and in nearly all of the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10012018/trump-offshore-oil-drilling-leases-florida-legal-questions-zinke-california-new-york-oregon\">Outer Continental Shelf\u003c/a>. It proposed to \u003ca href=\"https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/usfs-proposes-regulations-streamline-oil-and-gas-permitting-national-forests-0\">expedite oil and gas permits on national forest lands\u003c/a>, and it has limited how climate change can be used in \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13082019/climate-change-endangered-species-act-arctic-trump-changes-polar-bears-wildlife\">determining endangered status for species\u003c/a>, further opening doors to drilling in sensitive areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Trying to restore King Coal to its throne \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nMany of Trump’s regulations have been tailored to favor the coal industry, often at the expense of cheaper, cleaner energy. \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11102017/climate-denial-coal-industry-global-warming-robert-murray-energy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Murray\u003c/a>, founder of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjQsc3r95nmAhUOTt8KHRUBDY8QFjABegQIBxAG&url=https%3A%2F%2Finsideclimatenews.org%2Fnews%2F29102019%2Fcoal-bankruptcy-bob-murray-energy-chapter-11-trump-regulations-rollback&usg=AOvVaw3hV8KEcoTw-zXHhcV1dbAu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">now-bankrupt coal company Murray Energy\u003c/a> and one of Trump’s closest industry allies, gave the president a “wish list” early on that has become of virtual template for the administration’s rollback of regulations. The administration swiftly lifted an Obama moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands. It \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16022017/coal-mining-environment-stream-rule-donald-trump-mussels-species\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rolled back a stream protection rule\u003c/a> designed to reduce the environmental and climate impact of mountaintop removal coal mining, and it has proposed allowing coal plants to emit much more CO2 by \u003ca href=\"https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/epa-proposes-less-stringent-emission-standards-new-coal-plants-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">weakening New Source Review\u003c/a>, which requires big emitters to modernize pollution controls when they make major modifications to their facilities. It pushed a coal bailout rule that would have rewarded electric companies for keeping big stockpiles of fuel on hand. (\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08012018/ferc-regulators-reject-paying-coal-power-plants-nuclear-extra-trump-administration-perry-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. regulators rejected it\u003c/a>.) It also\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04112019/coal-ash-rules-rollback-trump-obama-water-pollution-power-plant-ponds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> further relaxed coal ash rules\u003c/a>, allowing coal utilities to keep unlined coal ash ponds open for years, making it less expensive to burn coal to produce electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Suppressing climate and related science\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn almost every agency overseeing energy, the environment and health, Trump selected top officials who dispute the mainstream consensus on the urgency of climate action. People with little scientific background, or strong ties to industries they would be regulating, were appointed to scientific leadership positions. One of the administration’s first actions was to order scientists and other employees at EPA and other agencies to halt public communications. Several federal scientists working on climate change have said they were silenced, sidelined or demoted. At least three—a senior employee at the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20072017/whistleblower-trump-intimidation-abuse-power-climate-scientists-joel-clement-zinke\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Department of Interior\u003c/a>, one at the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16082019/cdc-scientist-whistleblower-complaint-climate-health-research-trump-usda-epa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a> and another at the National Park Service—invoked whistleblower protections. Independent science advisors, such as members of the EPA’s \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08052017/epa-science-advisory-board-dismissed-scott-pruitt-donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Board of Scientific Counselors\u003c/a>, have also been sidelined. Scientific content on government websites has been altered and the public’s access to data reduced. Climate data from the government’s open portal website was removed. So was the EPA’s climate change website. The words “climate change” have been purged from government reports, and other reports have been buried\u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/agriculture-department-climate-change-1376413\">,\u003c/a> including by \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/agriculture-department-climate-change-1376413\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">officials at the Department of Agriculture.\u003c/a> The administration even edited a major \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/05/10/pentagon-revised-obama-era-report-to-remove-risks-from-climate-change/?utm_term=.1174b4bd9f55\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Defense Department report\u003c/a> to downplay its climate findings. Through speeches and tweets, the president has repeatedly spread misinformation to the public through his climate denial and denigration of renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EPA, meanwhile, is working to finalize its proposal to \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22032018/epa-air-pollution-soot-rules-scott-pruitt-secret-science-policy-health-regulations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">suppress the types of scientific evidence\u003c/a> the agency can use in writing its rules. This includes prohibiting the use of well-established, long-term scientific studies underpinning the nation’s air pollution rules, a change the fossil fuel industry had sought for years. Known as the “secret science” rule, it has been \u003ca href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/11/25/science.aba3197\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lambasted by scientists and health experts worldwide\u003c/a>. Related, the White House \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25042019/trump-omb-secret-science-policy-memo-pollution-health-studies-heritage-foundation-vought\">issued a memo\u003c/a> offering new ways for fossil fuel and other industries to challenge science-based policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Undermining clean energy development and energy efficiency\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn its \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12032019/trump-budget-cuts-renewable-energy-efficiency-electric-vehicle-tax-credit-deficit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">budget proposals\u003c/a>, the Trump administration has made clear its resolve to retreat from a federal role in advancing a clean energy economy and maintaining global leadership in the technology. It has proposed repeatedly to radically \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042019/trump-budget-cuts-national-labs-clean-energy-leadership-solar-wind-electric-vehicles-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">slash funding\u003c/a> for the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), a move that would cripple support for novel and promising technologies for advanced wind turbines, high-tech materials, energy-efficient buildings and more. He has tried to eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles and made several attempts to eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, an incubator for cutting-edge energy research and development. Congress has largely rebuffed this scale of funding cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The administration issued in 2019 its final rule to dramatically weaken energy-efficient light bulb standards that Congress voted to phase in a decade ago. The standards would have eliminated inefficient light bulbs nationwide, saving some 1.5 trillion kilowatt-hours by 2030 and hundreds of millions tons of CO2. And it delayed for three years standards to substantially cut the energy that household and commercial appliances consume, moving to enact them only after \u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/18-15380/18-15380-2019-10-10.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a federal appeals court ruled \u003c/a>the hold was illegal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Trying to undercut California’s world-leading climate progress\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAfter \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02082018/trump-fuel-efficiency-standards-rollback-climate-change-epa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">freezing Obama’s national fuel-economy improvements\u003c/a>, the administration stripped California of its legal authority to enact the nation’s toughest fuel-efficiency standards, a move that could squelch the nascent U.S. market for zero-emission vehicles at a critical time. It sued the state over its cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec to lower fossil fuel emissions, arguing that California exceeded its authority when it launched. It has threatened action against California on air and water pollution. Those moves run counter to the administration’s hands-off approach and deregulatory agenda. Because of that—and because California has among the best compliance records in the nation on water pollution and has invested billions to improve air quality—former federal officials have said the efforts reek of political score-settling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ICN’s Take\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn the Trump administration’s early days, climate policy optimists gamely sifted through the president’s statements, his administration’s actions, and other nations’ reactions for grains of hope. Perhaps Trump would be persuaded to maintain the United States’ seat at the table in international climate negotiations. Perhaps the \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epas-pruitt-praised-for-effectiveness-hits-bumps-in-his-rollback-campaign/2018/05/20/c6ca13d8-53b3-11e8-abd8-265bd07a9859_story.html?noredirect=on\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">efforts\u003c/a> of his early, scandal-plagued cabinet members to erase climate regulation would fail. Or perhaps \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/4800747/china-climate-change-paris-agreement-trump/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">other nations would step up\u003c/a> to fill the climate leadership void created by Trump, and the world would forge ahead with the action needed to address the climate crisis, leaving the United States behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All such hopes have been in vain. Although Trump occasionally feigns concern about climate—”\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/03/its-possible-that-trump-doesnt-actually-know-what-climate-change-is/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I think about it all the time,\u003c/a>” he once said—his policy has been an unmitigated and relentless drive toward fossil energy development. The missteps of his former EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, and others in the first round of appointees, have been erased by seasoned Washington bureaucrats and lobbyists who now are at the helm of the environmental agencies. And instead of racing to grasp the leadership baton dropped by Trump, China, the European Union and other large carbon polluters are \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/climate/cop25-un-climate-talks-madrid.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">falling behind both in their own ambition and in support\u003c/a> for the nations most vulnerable to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trump’s intentions, and his administration’s deleterious impact on global climate progress, will be evident to voters in 2020 in a way that many failed to grasp four years earlier. The only question is whether those who care about the planet’s future can unite as a political force in a way that eluded them in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Trump's first term has been a relentless drive for unfettered fossil fuel energy development. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>‘This is the start of a new era in American energy production and job creation. We will eliminate federal overreach, restore economic freedom and allow workers and companies to play on a level playing field for the first time in a long time, a long time. We’re going to have clean coal, really clean coal.’\u003cbr>\n—\u003c/em>Donald Trump, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28032017/trump-executive-order-climate-change-paris-climate-agreement-clean-power-plan-pruitt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 2017\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Been There\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "Analysis: The Candidates on Climate Change\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956430/joe-biden-climate-profile-surprising-embrace-of-green-new-deal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Biden\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956501/michael-bloomberg-climate-profile-shutting-down-coal-modest-federal-spending%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Bloomberg\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956514/pete-buttigieg-climate-profile-making-u-s-the-worlds-clean-tech-leader\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pete Buttigieg\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956525/amy-klobuchar-climate-profile-using-presidency-to-restore-clean-energy-policies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Amy Klobuchar\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956421/bernie-sanders-climate-profile-16-trillion-in-spending-for-most-ambitious-plan-yet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bernie Sanders\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1957439/tom-steyer-climate-profile-a-justice-centered-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956437/elizabeth-warren-climate-profile-taking-up-mantle-of-former-climate-candidate-inslee\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elizabeth Warren\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When U.S. government scientists released their latest volume of the \u003ca href=\"https://science2017.globalchange.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Climate Assessment\u003c/a>, it revealed much about the robust, sobering scientific consensus on climate change. It also revealed the striking disconnect between President Donald Trump and essentially every authoritative institution on the threat of global warming. The president rejected the assessment’s central findings — based on thousands of climate studies and involving 13 federal agencies — that emissions of carbon dioxide are caused by human activities, are already causing lasting economic damage, and have to be brought rapidly to zero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“I don’t believe it. No, no, I don’t believe it,” Trump said. Immediately, his cabinet members \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30112018/fact-check-trump-climate-science-denial-national-assessment-sanders-global-warming\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">launched attacks on the report\u003c/a>, portraying it as “alarmist” and clinging to Trump’s agenda of fossil fuel energy expansion that the science says is at the root of the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Done That\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When Trump delivered his \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27052016/donald-trump-republican-party-election-fossil-fuels-coal-oil-gas-fracking-climate-change-paris\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first major energy speech in the fracking fields of North Dakota\u003c/a> as a candidate in May 2016, he called for American domination of global energy supplies. To make that happen, he wanted an end to all of President Barack Obama’s executive actions involving greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“We are going to turn everything around,” Trump declared. “And quickly, very quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As president, he has rolled back regulations on energy suppliers at a rapid clip slowed only at times\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29082019/methane-regulation-oil-gas-storage-pipelines-epa-rollback-trump-wheeler\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> by the courts,\u003c/a> while auctioning off millions of acres of new drilling leases on public land. Last year, domestic oil production hit a record high. The result of this, among other things, was the \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-estimates-for-2018/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reversal of three consecutive years of declining U.S. carbon emissions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump began the process of \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04112019/trump-pull-out-paris-climate-agreement-timing-rules\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">withdrawing the U.S.\u003c/a> from the Paris climate treaty, the agreement signed by nearly all nations to reduce fossil fuel emissions. He \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19062019/trump-clean-power-plan-climate-emissions-rule-replacement-coal-decline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">replaced Obama’s Clean Power Plan\u003c/a>, intended to sharply reduce emissions from U.S. power plants. He took the first step to weaken \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02082018/trump-fuel-efficiency-standards-rollback-climate-change-epa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fuel economy standards for cars\u003c/a>, the single most important effort for reining in the largest driver of U.S. emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His administration has undone or delayed — or tried to — most regulatory and executive actions related to climate change, while proposing new ones to accelerate fossil fuel development. Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law counts \u003ca href=\"https://climate.law.columbia.edu/climate-deregulation-tracker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">131 actions\u003c/a> toward federal climate deregulation since Trump took office. In the absence of any comprehensive national climate law, those moves have led to an erosion of the federal government’s main regulatory levers for cutting global warming emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several of those actions, including rollbacks of significant rules on \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/23/court-hands-trump-defeat-in-bid-to-block-methane-emissions-rule.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">methane\u003c/a>\u003cu>,\u003c/u> \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02102019/cross-border-smog-ruling-coal-power-trump-obama-clean-air-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">cross-state air pollution\u003c/a> regulations and \u003ca href=\"https://policyintegrity.org/trump-court-roundup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">energy efficiency\u003c/a>, have been blocked or delayed by judges who have questioned the administration’s broad view of its legal authority. Some of those setbacks may be temporary, though, and the courts have yet to rule on the most consequential deregulatory actions. According to the administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaMain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agenda for 2020\u003c/a>, the president will try to fast-track as many more as possible before the end of his first term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Getting Specific\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Promoting unfettered oil, natural gas and coal development \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nRight out of the gate, Trump greased the wheels for fossil fuel development. He \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28032017/trump-executive-order-climate-change-paris-climate-agreement-clean-power-plan-pruitt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">issued a sweeping executive order\u003c/a> directing all departments to target for elimination\u003ci>\u003cem> any \u003c/em>\u003c/i>rules that restrict U.S. production of energy. He set guidance to make it more difficult to put future regulations on fossil fuel industries, and he moved to discard the use of a rigorous “social cost of carbon,” a regulatory measurement that puts a price on the future damage society will pay for every ton of carbon dioxide emitted. He swiftly signed memorandums to \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24012017/keystone-xl-dakota-pipeline-donald-trump-executive-order\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines\u003c/a>, projects blocked by Obama. And later, with the Keystone XL still stalled, he issued executive orders aimed at \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11042019/trump-pipeline-executive-order-environmental-review-keystone-xl-clean-water-act-states-rights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">speeding approval and construction of fossil fuel projects\u003c/a> by limiting state environmental reviews.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fossil fuel infrastructure adds to greenhouse gas emissions, in part by leaking methane into the atmosphere. Trump’s administration ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03032017/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency-methane-greenhouse-gas-climate-change\">stop gathering data from oil and gas companies\u003c/a> needed to rein in leaks of this potent short-lived climate pollutant. It later \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11092018/methane-flaring-rules-oil-gas-industry-climate-change-obama-trump-epa-rollback\">loosened methane regulations\u003c/a> for projects on public and private land, despite the support for them among the industry’s biggest companies. It sought drilling in pristine areas where oil companies have long sought to drill. The administration \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28042017/doanld-trump-arctic-offshore-drilling-ban-obama-executive-order\">moved to lift Obama’s offshore Arctic drilling ban\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13072017/arctic-offshore-drilling-trump-approved-eni-boem-alaska\">approved \u003c/a>a plan to drill wells there. It pushed to drill in the previously off-limits \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29032018/arctic-offshore-drilling-oil-lease-sale-beaufort-sea-alaska-trump-boem-2019\">Beaufort Sea\u003c/a>, in 1.6 million acres of the pristine \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12092019/congress-arctic-wildlife-refuge-oil-gas-drilling-offshore-trump-lease-sale-anwr\">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge\u003c/a>, and in nearly all of the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10012018/trump-offshore-oil-drilling-leases-florida-legal-questions-zinke-california-new-york-oregon\">Outer Continental Shelf\u003c/a>. It proposed to \u003ca href=\"https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/usfs-proposes-regulations-streamline-oil-and-gas-permitting-national-forests-0\">expedite oil and gas permits on national forest lands\u003c/a>, and it has limited how climate change can be used in \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13082019/climate-change-endangered-species-act-arctic-trump-changes-polar-bears-wildlife\">determining endangered status for species\u003c/a>, further opening doors to drilling in sensitive areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Trying to restore King Coal to its throne \u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nMany of Trump’s regulations have been tailored to favor the coal industry, often at the expense of cheaper, cleaner energy. \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11102017/climate-denial-coal-industry-global-warming-robert-murray-energy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robert Murray\u003c/a>, founder of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjQsc3r95nmAhUOTt8KHRUBDY8QFjABegQIBxAG&url=https%3A%2F%2Finsideclimatenews.org%2Fnews%2F29102019%2Fcoal-bankruptcy-bob-murray-energy-chapter-11-trump-regulations-rollback&usg=AOvVaw3hV8KEcoTw-zXHhcV1dbAu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">now-bankrupt coal company Murray Energy\u003c/a> and one of Trump’s closest industry allies, gave the president a “wish list” early on that has become of virtual template for the administration’s rollback of regulations. The administration swiftly lifted an Obama moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands. It \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16022017/coal-mining-environment-stream-rule-donald-trump-mussels-species\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rolled back a stream protection rule\u003c/a> designed to reduce the environmental and climate impact of mountaintop removal coal mining, and it has proposed allowing coal plants to emit much more CO2 by \u003ca href=\"https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/epa-proposes-less-stringent-emission-standards-new-coal-plants-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">weakening New Source Review\u003c/a>, which requires big emitters to modernize pollution controls when they make major modifications to their facilities. It pushed a coal bailout rule that would have rewarded electric companies for keeping big stockpiles of fuel on hand. (\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08012018/ferc-regulators-reject-paying-coal-power-plants-nuclear-extra-trump-administration-perry-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. regulators rejected it\u003c/a>.) It also\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04112019/coal-ash-rules-rollback-trump-obama-water-pollution-power-plant-ponds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> further relaxed coal ash rules\u003c/a>, allowing coal utilities to keep unlined coal ash ponds open for years, making it less expensive to burn coal to produce electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Suppressing climate and related science\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn almost every agency overseeing energy, the environment and health, Trump selected top officials who dispute the mainstream consensus on the urgency of climate action. People with little scientific background, or strong ties to industries they would be regulating, were appointed to scientific leadership positions. One of the administration’s first actions was to order scientists and other employees at EPA and other agencies to halt public communications. Several federal scientists working on climate change have said they were silenced, sidelined or demoted. At least three—a senior employee at the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20072017/whistleblower-trump-intimidation-abuse-power-climate-scientists-joel-clement-zinke\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Department of Interior\u003c/a>, one at the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16082019/cdc-scientist-whistleblower-complaint-climate-health-research-trump-usda-epa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a> and another at the National Park Service—invoked whistleblower protections. Independent science advisors, such as members of the EPA’s \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08052017/epa-science-advisory-board-dismissed-scott-pruitt-donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Board of Scientific Counselors\u003c/a>, have also been sidelined. Scientific content on government websites has been altered and the public’s access to data reduced. Climate data from the government’s open portal website was removed. So was the EPA’s climate change website. The words “climate change” have been purged from government reports, and other reports have been buried\u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/agriculture-department-climate-change-1376413\">,\u003c/a> including by \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/agriculture-department-climate-change-1376413\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">officials at the Department of Agriculture.\u003c/a> The administration even edited a major \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/05/10/pentagon-revised-obama-era-report-to-remove-risks-from-climate-change/?utm_term=.1174b4bd9f55\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Defense Department report\u003c/a> to downplay its climate findings. Through speeches and tweets, the president has repeatedly spread misinformation to the public through his climate denial and denigration of renewable energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>EPA, meanwhile, is working to finalize its proposal to \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22032018/epa-air-pollution-soot-rules-scott-pruitt-secret-science-policy-health-regulations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">suppress the types of scientific evidence\u003c/a> the agency can use in writing its rules. This includes prohibiting the use of well-established, long-term scientific studies underpinning the nation’s air pollution rules, a change the fossil fuel industry had sought for years. Known as the “secret science” rule, it has been \u003ca href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/11/25/science.aba3197\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lambasted by scientists and health experts worldwide\u003c/a>. Related, the White House \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25042019/trump-omb-secret-science-policy-memo-pollution-health-studies-heritage-foundation-vought\">issued a memo\u003c/a> offering new ways for fossil fuel and other industries to challenge science-based policies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Undermining clean energy development and energy efficiency\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn its \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12032019/trump-budget-cuts-renewable-energy-efficiency-electric-vehicle-tax-credit-deficit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">budget proposals\u003c/a>, the Trump administration has made clear its resolve to retreat from a federal role in advancing a clean energy economy and maintaining global leadership in the technology. It has proposed repeatedly to radically \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042019/trump-budget-cuts-national-labs-clean-energy-leadership-solar-wind-electric-vehicles-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">slash funding\u003c/a> for the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), a move that would cripple support for novel and promising technologies for advanced wind turbines, high-tech materials, energy-efficient buildings and more. He has tried to eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles and made several attempts to eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, an incubator for cutting-edge energy research and development. Congress has largely rebuffed this scale of funding cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The administration issued in 2019 its final rule to dramatically weaken energy-efficient light bulb standards that Congress voted to phase in a decade ago. The standards would have eliminated inefficient light bulbs nationwide, saving some 1.5 trillion kilowatt-hours by 2030 and hundreds of millions tons of CO2. And it delayed for three years standards to substantially cut the energy that household and commercial appliances consume, moving to enact them only after \u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/18-15380/18-15380-2019-10-10.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a federal appeals court ruled \u003c/a>the hold was illegal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• \u003cstrong>Trying to undercut California’s world-leading climate progress\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAfter \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02082018/trump-fuel-efficiency-standards-rollback-climate-change-epa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">freezing Obama’s national fuel-economy improvements\u003c/a>, the administration stripped California of its legal authority to enact the nation’s toughest fuel-efficiency standards, a move that could squelch the nascent U.S. market for zero-emission vehicles at a critical time. It sued the state over its cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec to lower fossil fuel emissions, arguing that California exceeded its authority when it launched. It has threatened action against California on air and water pollution. Those moves run counter to the administration’s hands-off approach and deregulatory agenda. Because of that—and because California has among the best compliance records in the nation on water pollution and has invested billions to improve air quality—former federal officials have said the efforts reek of political score-settling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ICN’s Take\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn the Trump administration’s early days, climate policy optimists gamely sifted through the president’s statements, his administration’s actions, and other nations’ reactions for grains of hope. Perhaps Trump would be persuaded to maintain the United States’ seat at the table in international climate negotiations. Perhaps the \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epas-pruitt-praised-for-effectiveness-hits-bumps-in-his-rollback-campaign/2018/05/20/c6ca13d8-53b3-11e8-abd8-265bd07a9859_story.html?noredirect=on\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">efforts\u003c/a> of his early, scandal-plagued cabinet members to erase climate regulation would fail. Or perhaps \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/4800747/china-climate-change-paris-agreement-trump/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">other nations would step up\u003c/a> to fill the climate leadership void created by Trump, and the world would forge ahead with the action needed to address the climate crisis, leaving the United States behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All such hopes have been in vain. Although Trump occasionally feigns concern about climate—”\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/03/its-possible-that-trump-doesnt-actually-know-what-climate-change-is/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I think about it all the time,\u003c/a>” he once said—his policy has been an unmitigated and relentless drive toward fossil energy development. The missteps of his former EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, and others in the first round of appointees, have been erased by seasoned Washington bureaucrats and lobbyists who now are at the helm of the environmental agencies. And instead of racing to grasp the leadership baton dropped by Trump, China, the European Union and other large carbon polluters are \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/climate/cop25-un-climate-talks-madrid.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">falling behind both in their own ambition and in support\u003c/a> for the nations most vulnerable to climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trump’s intentions, and his administration’s deleterious impact on global climate progress, will be evident to voters in 2020 in a way that many failed to grasp four years earlier. The only question is whether those who care about the planet’s future can unite as a political force in a way that eluded them in 2016.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Elizabeth Warren Climate Profile: Taking Up Mantle of 'Climate Candidate' Inslee",
"headTitle": "Elizabeth Warren Climate Profile: Taking Up Mantle of ‘Climate Candidate’ Inslee | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cem style=\"font-weight: 400;\">‘Before the 2008 crash, investors and the government failed to address growing risks in our financial system. We’re making the same mistake with climate change today — we know it’s coming, but we’re not doing enough to stop it.’\u003cbr>\n—\u003c/em>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Elizabeth Warren, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1041756395140464641\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 2018\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\"]Analysis: The Candidates on Climate Change\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956430/joe-biden-climate-profile-surprising-embrace-of-green-new-deal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Biden\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956501/michael-bloomberg-climate-profile-shutting-down-coal-modest-federal-spending%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Bloomberg\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956514/pete-buttigieg-climate-profile-making-u-s-the-worlds-clean-tech-leader\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pete Buttigieg\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956525/amy-klobuchar-climate-profile-using-presidency-to-restore-clean-energy-policies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Amy Klobuchar\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956421/bernie-sanders-climate-profile-16-trillion-in-spending-for-most-ambitious-plan-yet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bernie Sanders\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1957439/tom-steyer-climate-profile-a-justice-centered-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1957088/donald-trump-climate-profile-this-president-is-all-about-fossil-fuels\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donald Trump\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cstrong>Been There\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who represents Massachusetts, a state with strong ties to Puerto Rico, paid attention to Hurricane Maria when it spread death and lasting destruction across Puerto Rico in 2017. Warren was already fighting for debt relief for the territory before the storm. Maria brought the island’s plight into a climate focus. “There are people who have no food, there are people who have no water, there are people who have no medicine, there are people who need our help,” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1040268624542543873\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">she said\u003c/a>. “This is the responsibility of our government, the government that is supposed to work for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Done That\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warren came to political prominence in her detailed response to the financial crisis of 2008, and that has carried over into her increasingly developed position on climate change. Look at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-colleagues-unveil-bill-to-require-every-public-company-to-disclose-climate-related-risks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Climate Risk Disclosure Act\u003c/a> that she introduced in September that would require companies to disclose the risk climate change poses to their financial assets. The bill would require companies to release information on their greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel holdings and how they would be impacted by both climate policies and the effects of climate change. The bill languished, but the issue has been\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31052017/exxon-shareholder-climate-change-disclosure-resolution-approved\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> gaining traction\u003c/a> among fossil fuel company shareholders in recent years and appears to also be \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/17/democrats-energy-industry-climate-risk-1483586\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gaining traction\u003c/a> among other candidates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Getting Specific\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• If Warren’s campaign had a single slogan, it would be “\u003ca href=\"https://time.com/longform/elizabeth-warren-2020/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I have a plan for that.\u003c/a>” While she entered the race with a reputation based on issues other than climate change — some environmentalists \u003ca href=\"https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060108745/print\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dismissed her leadership\u003c/a> in this realm — she has made up for it with a series of expansive and fairly detailed prescriptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Warren sought to pick up the baton of climate leadership from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee after he ended his climate-focused run for president. She met privately with him and then adopted his aggressive \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24062019/jay-inslee-climate-change-global-warming-election-2020-candidate-profile\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">multipart action proposal\u003c/a>. She has challenged all of the presidential candidates to make the same commitment to \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/100-clean-energy-for-america-de75ee39887d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">100 percent clean energy, buildings and transportation\u003c/a>. Warren’s plan calls for all new buildings to be zero-emissions by 2028, all electricity to be carbon-neutral by 2030, and all new passenger cars, trucks and buses to be zero emissions by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Warren struck early with a pledge in April to prohibit all new fossil fuel leases on \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-plan-for-public-lands-e4be1d88a01c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">public lands\u003c/a>. She had co-sponsored legislation on the same theme, but it never moved in the Republican Senate. Some, but not all, of the other candidates quickly echoed the promise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Warren’s opening climate gambit was a $2 trillion \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-green-manufacturing-plan-for-america-fc0ad53ab614\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">package\u003c/a> of investment in green research, manufacturing and exporting, all to help “achieve the ambitious targets of the Green New Deal” over the next 10 years. She then raised that to $3 trillion, matching Inslee’s commitment, and explained exactly where the funds would come from: reversing the Trump tax cuts of 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Her plan would include $1.5 trillion for American-made clean energy products, $400 billion in funding for green research and development and $100 billion in foreign assistance to purchase emissions-free American energy technology. In her \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/fighting-for-justice-as-we-combat-the-climate-crisis-597727c296bb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://medium.com/@teamwarren/fighting-for-justice-as-we-combat-the-climate-crisis-597727c296bb&source=gmail&ust=1570820447120000&usg=AFQjCNEL3dx-InEKdhjtQJajIsep-MI-_A\">plan for environmental justice\u003c/a>, Warren said she would direct one-third of her proposed climate investments or “at least $1 trillion” to vulnerable communities most impacted by climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Warren’s \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/a-new-farm-economy-8db50fac0551\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agriculture plan\u003c/a> aims to incentivize farmers to invest in sustainable farming practices that reduce carbon emissions. It calls for expanding the voluntary Conservation Stewardship Program, which compensates farmers for implementing more sustainable practices, from $1 billion to $15 billion annually. Her \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/leveling-the-playing-field-for-americas-family-farmers-823d1994f067\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">platform\u003c/a> also takes aim at breaking up the megamergers of agricultural corporations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Her “\u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/we-need-a-blue-new-deal-for-our-oceans-4efd971e0992\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Blue New Deal\u003c/a>” plan for the oceans would fast-track permitting for offshore wind energy while phasing out offshore drilling for oil and gas. Warren’s plan calls for electrification of ports to reduce local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It also includes a “blue carbon” program that would support natural, ocean-based carbon sequestration projects including those involving coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds and wetlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>ICN’s Take\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Warren built her career in the Senate railing against Wall Street and championing consumer protection and economic equality. But her priorities are evolving as environmental and economic impacts of climate change increasingly merge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the campaign trail, Warren is increasingly taking a leadership role on climate issues — as when she became one of the first presidential candidates to sign the No Fossil Fuel pledge. When she released a detailed policy proposal in April to ban new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, other candidates quickly followed suit. And when Joe Biden put out a big climate pledge, Warren was able to quickly trump him with an even bigger commitment of her own. By aligning herself with Inslee’s climate ideas, Warren clearly is making a bid for climate voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ci>\u003cem>Read Elizabeth Warren’s \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/100-clean-energy-for-america-de75ee39887d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">climate platform\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/newsletter/icn-weekly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "After the single-issue climate change-candidate Washington Gov. Jay Inslee dropped out of the race, Warren adopted his aggressive, multipart climate action plan.\r\n",
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"description": "After the single-issue climate change-candidate Washington Gov. Jay Inslee dropped out of the race, Warren adopted his aggressive, multipart climate action plan.\r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cem style=\"font-weight: 400;\">‘Before the 2008 crash, investors and the government failed to address growing risks in our financial system. We’re making the same mistake with climate change today — we know it’s coming, but we’re not doing enough to stop it.’\u003cbr>\n—\u003c/em>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Elizabeth Warren, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1041756395140464641\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 2018\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "Analysis: The Candidates on Climate Change\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956430/joe-biden-climate-profile-surprising-embrace-of-green-new-deal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Biden\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956501/michael-bloomberg-climate-profile-shutting-down-coal-modest-federal-spending%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Bloomberg\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956514/pete-buttigieg-climate-profile-making-u-s-the-worlds-clean-tech-leader\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pete Buttigieg\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956525/amy-klobuchar-climate-profile-using-presidency-to-restore-clean-energy-policies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Amy Klobuchar\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956421/bernie-sanders-climate-profile-16-trillion-in-spending-for-most-ambitious-plan-yet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bernie Sanders\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1957439/tom-steyer-climate-profile-a-justice-centered-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tom Steyer\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1957088/donald-trump-climate-profile-this-president-is-all-about-fossil-fuels\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donald Trump\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cstrong>Been There\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who represents Massachusetts, a state with strong ties to Puerto Rico, paid attention to Hurricane Maria when it spread death and lasting destruction across Puerto Rico in 2017. Warren was already fighting for debt relief for the territory before the storm. Maria brought the island’s plight into a climate focus. “There are people who have no food, there are people who have no water, there are people who have no medicine, there are people who need our help,” \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1040268624542543873\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">she said\u003c/a>. “This is the responsibility of our government, the government that is supposed to work for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Done That\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warren came to political prominence in her detailed response to the financial crisis of 2008, and that has carried over into her increasingly developed position on climate change. Look at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-colleagues-unveil-bill-to-require-every-public-company-to-disclose-climate-related-risks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Climate Risk Disclosure Act\u003c/a> that she introduced in September that would require companies to disclose the risk climate change poses to their financial assets. The bill would require companies to release information on their greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel holdings and how they would be impacted by both climate policies and the effects of climate change. The bill languished, but the issue has been\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31052017/exxon-shareholder-climate-change-disclosure-resolution-approved\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> gaining traction\u003c/a> among fossil fuel company shareholders in recent years and appears to also be \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/17/democrats-energy-industry-climate-risk-1483586\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gaining traction\u003c/a> among other candidates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Getting Specific\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• If Warren’s campaign had a single slogan, it would be “\u003ca href=\"https://time.com/longform/elizabeth-warren-2020/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I have a plan for that.\u003c/a>” While she entered the race with a reputation based on issues other than climate change — some environmentalists \u003ca href=\"https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060108745/print\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dismissed her leadership\u003c/a> in this realm — she has made up for it with a series of expansive and fairly detailed prescriptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Warren sought to pick up the baton of climate leadership from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee after he ended his climate-focused run for president. She met privately with him and then adopted his aggressive \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24062019/jay-inslee-climate-change-global-warming-election-2020-candidate-profile\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">multipart action proposal\u003c/a>. She has challenged all of the presidential candidates to make the same commitment to \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/100-clean-energy-for-america-de75ee39887d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">100 percent clean energy, buildings and transportation\u003c/a>. Warren’s plan calls for all new buildings to be zero-emissions by 2028, all electricity to be carbon-neutral by 2030, and all new passenger cars, trucks and buses to be zero emissions by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Warren struck early with a pledge in April to prohibit all new fossil fuel leases on \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-plan-for-public-lands-e4be1d88a01c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">public lands\u003c/a>. She had co-sponsored legislation on the same theme, but it never moved in the Republican Senate. Some, but not all, of the other candidates quickly echoed the promise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Warren’s opening climate gambit was a $2 trillion \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-green-manufacturing-plan-for-america-fc0ad53ab614\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">package\u003c/a> of investment in green research, manufacturing and exporting, all to help “achieve the ambitious targets of the Green New Deal” over the next 10 years. She then raised that to $3 trillion, matching Inslee’s commitment, and explained exactly where the funds would come from: reversing the Trump tax cuts of 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Her plan would include $1.5 trillion for American-made clean energy products, $400 billion in funding for green research and development and $100 billion in foreign assistance to purchase emissions-free American energy technology. In her \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/fighting-for-justice-as-we-combat-the-climate-crisis-597727c296bb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://medium.com/@teamwarren/fighting-for-justice-as-we-combat-the-climate-crisis-597727c296bb&source=gmail&ust=1570820447120000&usg=AFQjCNEL3dx-InEKdhjtQJajIsep-MI-_A\">plan for environmental justice\u003c/a>, Warren said she would direct one-third of her proposed climate investments or “at least $1 trillion” to vulnerable communities most impacted by climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Warren’s \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/a-new-farm-economy-8db50fac0551\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agriculture plan\u003c/a> aims to incentivize farmers to invest in sustainable farming practices that reduce carbon emissions. It calls for expanding the voluntary Conservation Stewardship Program, which compensates farmers for implementing more sustainable practices, from $1 billion to $15 billion annually. Her \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/leveling-the-playing-field-for-americas-family-farmers-823d1994f067\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">platform\u003c/a> also takes aim at breaking up the megamergers of agricultural corporations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Her “\u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/we-need-a-blue-new-deal-for-our-oceans-4efd971e0992\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Blue New Deal\u003c/a>” plan for the oceans would fast-track permitting for offshore wind energy while phasing out offshore drilling for oil and gas. Warren’s plan calls for electrification of ports to reduce local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It also includes a “blue carbon” program that would support natural, ocean-based carbon sequestration projects including those involving coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds and wetlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>ICN’s Take\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Warren built her career in the Senate railing against Wall Street and championing consumer protection and economic equality. But her priorities are evolving as environmental and economic impacts of climate change increasingly merge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the campaign trail, Warren is increasingly taking a leadership role on climate issues — as when she became one of the first presidential candidates to sign the No Fossil Fuel pledge. When she released a detailed policy proposal in April to ban new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters, other candidates quickly followed suit. And when Joe Biden put out a big climate pledge, Warren was able to quickly trump him with an even bigger commitment of her own. By aligning herself with Inslee’s climate ideas, Warren clearly is making a bid for climate voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003ci>\u003cem>Read Elizabeth Warren’s \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/@teamwarren/100-clean-energy-for-america-de75ee39887d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">climate platform\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/newsletter/icn-weekly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Reject Newsom's $1 Billion Green Loan Fund, California Legislature's Analyst Says",
"headTitle": "Reject Newsom’s $1 Billion Green Loan Fund, California Legislature’s Analyst Says | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The California Legislative Analyst’s Office is recommending the state legislature reject Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal for a $1 billion green loan fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote citation=\"Newsom Press Secretary Vicky Waters\"]‘We disagree with the LAO’s assessment of the climate catalyst fund. California cannot wait to make major investments that deploy and scale technologies to meet our climate goals.’[/pullquote]When Newsom released his state budget proposal in January, he announced the four-year revolving loan program, meant to help grow small- and medium-sized climate-friendly businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The progam is intended to jumpstart businesses like electric vehicle charging stations, climate-friendly farming initiatives and other sustainability projects that have a hard time attracting private capital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we grow, we must demand that the benefits of this growth be widely shared by workers and small businesses – not just those with access to huge amounts of capital,” Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1955578/california-climate-budget-to-include-1-billion-green-loan-fund\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a> at the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in a \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4155\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a> released Thursday by the LAO, a nonpartisan advisory agency for the state Legislature, analysts said the loan program would be problematic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t clear exactly what projects would be eligible and whether those projects would actually be appropriate for a loan,” said Brian Weatherford, a senior fiscal and policy analyst for the LAO, in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The LAO said investing in businesses that could potentially provide the most benefit in terms of reducing emissions can be risky because many may not end up being feasible, can’t get regulatory approval or do not have a way to repay the loan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program is designed to be self-sustaining — as borrowers repay loans, the state can use the money to issue additional ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Weatherford said the administration hasn’t identified projects that could both repay the loan and not be able to attract financing from the private sector or elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The analysts also wrote in the report that the governor had not documented the demand for this kind of loan:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We acknowledge that appropriate projects could benefit from access to the low‑cost financing this fund would provide. However, the administration has not demonstrated the actual size of this need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moreover, the analysts wrote, staff at the governmental entities that would authorize the loans don’t necessarily have “the deep technical knowledge or practical expertise that might be needed to accurately assess the risks of the eligible projects — especially those projects that conventional lenders, who have access to the necessary expertise, have refused to finance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there is value in helping to finance these kind of businesses, the LAO said, it would be “inappropriate” given the risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration rejected the LAO’s reasoning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We disagree with the LAO’s assessment of the climate catalyst fund,” said Vicky Waters, Newsom’s press secretary, in an email. “California cannot wait to make major investments that deploy and scale technologies to meet our climate goals. We look forward to working with the Legislature on this issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report assessed all of Newsom’s major climate change proposals, including a $965 million cap-and-trade expenditure and a $4.75 billion climate bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the climate bond, analysts said the governor’s proposal is one approach to designing the bond, “but the Legislature has other options.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They recommend the state focus on its top climate priorities and consider how much to spend on immediate effects of climate change as compared to longer term impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>When Newsom released his state budget proposal in January, he announced the four-year revolving loan program, meant to help grow small- and medium-sized climate-friendly businesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The progam is intended to jumpstart businesses like electric vehicle charging stations, climate-friendly farming initiatives and other sustainability projects that have a hard time attracting private capital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we grow, we must demand that the benefits of this growth be widely shared by workers and small businesses – not just those with access to huge amounts of capital,” Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1955578/california-climate-budget-to-include-1-billion-green-loan-fund\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a> at the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in a \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4155\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a> released Thursday by the LAO, a nonpartisan advisory agency for the state Legislature, analysts said the loan program would be problematic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t clear exactly what projects would be eligible and whether those projects would actually be appropriate for a loan,” said Brian Weatherford, a senior fiscal and policy analyst for the LAO, in an interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The LAO said investing in businesses that could potentially provide the most benefit in terms of reducing emissions can be risky because many may not end up being feasible, can’t get regulatory approval or do not have a way to repay the loan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program is designed to be self-sustaining — as borrowers repay loans, the state can use the money to issue additional ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Weatherford said the administration hasn’t identified projects that could both repay the loan and not be able to attract financing from the private sector or elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The analysts also wrote in the report that the governor had not documented the demand for this kind of loan:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We acknowledge that appropriate projects could benefit from access to the low‑cost financing this fund would provide. However, the administration has not demonstrated the actual size of this need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moreover, the analysts wrote, staff at the governmental entities that would authorize the loans don’t necessarily have “the deep technical knowledge or practical expertise that might be needed to accurately assess the risks of the eligible projects — especially those projects that conventional lenders, who have access to the necessary expertise, have refused to finance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there is value in helping to finance these kind of businesses, the LAO said, it would be “inappropriate” given the risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Newsom administration rejected the LAO’s reasoning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We disagree with the LAO’s assessment of the climate catalyst fund,” said Vicky Waters, Newsom’s press secretary, in an email. “California cannot wait to make major investments that deploy and scale technologies to meet our climate goals. We look forward to working with the Legislature on this issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report assessed all of Newsom’s major climate change proposals, including a $965 million cap-and-trade expenditure and a $4.75 billion climate bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the climate bond, analysts said the governor’s proposal is one approach to designing the bond, “but the Legislature has other options.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They recommend the state focus on its top climate priorities and consider how much to spend on immediate effects of climate change as compared to longer term impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The top regulator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in San Francisco left that job Wednesday without an explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As EPA’s Region 9 administrator, Mike Stoker supervised environmental enforcement in California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands and 148 tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molly Block, a spokeswoman for the EPA, confirmed in an email that Stoker is “no longer with the Agency.” She did not elaborate on the reason for his departure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deb Jordan is the acting regional administrator, Block added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan is a 30-year EPA employee. She’s worked as an assistant regional administrator in San Francisco since 2016, the San Francisco Chronicle \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Controversial-head-of-EPA-s-San-Francisco-15034001.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the get-go, elected officials and environmentalists criticized Stoker as the Trump administration’s choice to run the regulatory office. He publicly doubted the scientific consensus around man-made climate change and had previous ties to the oil and gas industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Californians will not miss Mike Stoker, a climate skeptic and former oil lobbyist who spent tens of thousands of dollars on taxpayer-funded travel,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, of Palo Alto, said in an emailed statement. “My constituents and all Californians need an EPA administrator who day in and day out is dedicated to promoting clean air, clean water and addressing climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalists protested his appointment when he took the job in 2018, and celebrated his abrupt dismissal less than two years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Stoker’s departure is good news, but this oil industry ally should never have been in charge of protecting our environment,” said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the job, he received fierce \u003ca href=\"https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061653561\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">criticism\u003c/a> from EPA lawyers, watchdog groups and Sen. Dianne Feinstein for managing a San Francisco-based staff of hundreds from his home city of Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last March, the EPA’s inspector general documented what it called a pattern of Stoker’s taxpayer-funded travel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the San Francisco Chronicle story:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In March 2019, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General investigated a ‘hotline complaint’ about how much time Stoker was spending away from San Francisco and ‘his excessive number of trips.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office issued a ‘Management Alert’ that documented how he spent $43,875 in taxpayer funds on 35 separate trips between May 2018 and February 2019, including two trips to Hawaii, one to Japan and another to Saipan, in the Mariana Islands. The report, which did not reach any conclusions about the propriety of his travel, said he spent only 30 out of 145 workdays in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after he became the region’s top EPA regulator, Stoker \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926287/new-epa-region-chief-questions-climate-science-but-favors-co2-cuts\">told\u003c/a> KQED’s Danielle Venton that his priority was to clean up sewage at the border between the U.S. and Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote] About climate change, the former EPA regional administrator told KQED: “I personally believe there’s questions on how much of it is man-made and how much of it is caused by Mother Nature and I have my personal feelings on global warming.”[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, he told KQED’s Venton that he doubted the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. He did add that he \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926287/new-epa-region-chief-questions-climate-science-but-favors-co2-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">supported\u003c/a> “anything that reduces carbon emissions because that’s good for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I personally believe there’s questions on how much of it is man-made and how much of it is caused by Mother Nature and I have my personal feelings on global warming,” he said. “The whole global warming debate is a debate for Washington DC, and whatever they tell me is what I implement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to Stoker’s departure, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Siegel said, “He accomplished virtually nothing at the EPA besides helping oil companies get permission to pollute California aquifers and alienating agency staff who actually care about our planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added, “the fact that Stoker lasted this long highlights the Trump administration’s utter contempt for the air we breathe and the water we drink.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From Washington, the environmental agency’s administrator Andrew Wheeler thanked Stoker “for his service to the EPA” and wished “him and his family the best in their future endeavors,” the Chronicle reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stoker’s Background\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker is a Republican from Central California who served as a Santa Barbara County supervisor from 1986 to 1994.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also was chairman of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board and he spent two years as California deputy secretary of state, from 2000 to 2002. Afterward, he worked as a lawyer for the agricultural industry and as a spokesman for an oil and gas company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker has run unsuccessfully for Congress and the California Legislature. He was a Trump delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention and has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1924459/new-chief-of-epa-region-9-has-deep-ties-to-industry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly\u003c/a> been \u003ca href=\"https://www.independent.com/news/2017/jan/19/santa-barbarans-stoked-trump/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">credited\u003c/a> with starting the “lock her up” chant about Hillary Clinton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker has taken reliably pro-industry stances in the past, Nick Welsh, managing editor of the Santa Barbara Independent, told Venton. He has known Stoker for about 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a county supervisor, Stoker argued against a ballot measure that would have placed limits on offshore oil drilling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The top regulator for the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in San Francisco left that job Wednesday without an explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As EPA’s Region 9 administrator, Mike Stoker supervised environmental enforcement in California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands and 148 tribes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Molly Block, a spokeswoman for the EPA, confirmed in an email that Stoker is “no longer with the Agency.” She did not elaborate on the reason for his departure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deb Jordan is the acting regional administrator, Block added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jordan is a 30-year EPA employee. She’s worked as an assistant regional administrator in San Francisco since 2016, the San Francisco Chronicle \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Controversial-head-of-EPA-s-San-Francisco-15034001.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the get-go, elected officials and environmentalists criticized Stoker as the Trump administration’s choice to run the regulatory office. He publicly doubted the scientific consensus around man-made climate change and had previous ties to the oil and gas industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Californians will not miss Mike Stoker, a climate skeptic and former oil lobbyist who spent tens of thousands of dollars on taxpayer-funded travel,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, of Palo Alto, said in an emailed statement. “My constituents and all Californians need an EPA administrator who day in and day out is dedicated to promoting clean air, clean water and addressing climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalists protested his appointment when he took the job in 2018, and celebrated his abrupt dismissal less than two years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Stoker’s departure is good news, but this oil industry ally should never have been in charge of protecting our environment,” said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the job, he received fierce \u003ca href=\"https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061653561\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">criticism\u003c/a> from EPA lawyers, watchdog groups and Sen. Dianne Feinstein for managing a San Francisco-based staff of hundreds from his home city of Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last March, the EPA’s inspector general documented what it called a pattern of Stoker’s taxpayer-funded travel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the San Francisco Chronicle story:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In March 2019, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General investigated a ‘hotline complaint’ about how much time Stoker was spending away from San Francisco and ‘his excessive number of trips.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The office issued a ‘Management Alert’ that documented how he spent $43,875 in taxpayer funds on 35 separate trips between May 2018 and February 2019, including two trips to Hawaii, one to Japan and another to Saipan, in the Mariana Islands. The report, which did not reach any conclusions about the propriety of his travel, said he spent only 30 out of 145 workdays in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after he became the region’s top EPA regulator, Stoker \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926287/new-epa-region-chief-questions-climate-science-but-favors-co2-cuts\">told\u003c/a> KQED’s Danielle Venton that his priority was to clean up sewage at the border between the U.S. and Mexico.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, he told KQED’s Venton that he doubted the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. He did add that he \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1926287/new-epa-region-chief-questions-climate-science-but-favors-co2-cuts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">supported\u003c/a> “anything that reduces carbon emissions because that’s good for everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I personally believe there’s questions on how much of it is man-made and how much of it is caused by Mother Nature and I have my personal feelings on global warming,” he said. “The whole global warming debate is a debate for Washington DC, and whatever they tell me is what I implement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to Stoker’s departure, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Siegel said, “He accomplished virtually nothing at the EPA besides helping oil companies get permission to pollute California aquifers and alienating agency staff who actually care about our planet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added, “the fact that Stoker lasted this long highlights the Trump administration’s utter contempt for the air we breathe and the water we drink.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From Washington, the environmental agency’s administrator Andrew Wheeler thanked Stoker “for his service to the EPA” and wished “him and his family the best in their future endeavors,” the Chronicle reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stoker’s Background\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker is a Republican from Central California who served as a Santa Barbara County supervisor from 1986 to 1994.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He also was chairman of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board and he spent two years as California deputy secretary of state, from 2000 to 2002. Afterward, he worked as a lawyer for the agricultural industry and as a spokesman for an oil and gas company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker has run unsuccessfully for Congress and the California Legislature. He was a Trump delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention and has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1924459/new-chief-of-epa-region-9-has-deep-ties-to-industry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly\u003c/a> been \u003ca href=\"https://www.independent.com/news/2017/jan/19/santa-barbarans-stoked-trump/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">credited\u003c/a> with starting the “lock her up” chant about Hillary Clinton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stoker has taken reliably pro-industry stances in the past, Nick Welsh, managing editor of the Santa Barbara Independent, told Venton. He has known Stoker for about 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a county supervisor, Stoker argued against a ballot measure that would have placed limits on offshore oil drilling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "After Setbacks, Calif. Governments Press Their Climate Suit Against Fossil Fuel Companies",
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"content": "\u003cp>Three federal judges heard arguments in Pasadena Wednesday about whether major oil and gas companies are financially responsible for the damages caused by climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In lively back-to-back hearings, the judges, from the 9th District Circuit Court, pushed with skepticism at both sides’ arguments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco, Oakland, and a coalition of about a dozen other cities and counties want to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for the remediation costs and property damage from increasingly severe wildfires, rising sea levels and intense storms that batter coastal communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cities seek damages related to climate change from Chevron, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66 and major other oil and gas companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuits are reaching a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956277/cities-lawsuits-seeking-damages-for-climate-change-reach-critical-juncture\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">critical juncture\u003c/a>. After a string of losses in federal courts, the cities asked the federal panel Wednesday to allow them to argue their lawsuit in the California state courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the panel agrees that the cases belong in state court, it would be the state judge, applying state laws, who decides whether we can proceed with this case to protect our residents, workers, and businesses from the costs and damage these fossil fuel companies knowingly imposed on our communities,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker said in a written statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fossil fuel companies are trying to move the cases into the federal courts with the aim of obtaining the ear of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“State tort law is not an appropriate vehicle—and state courts are not an appropriate forum—for regulating worldwide energy policy or punishing lawful, global commercial activity that is vital to every sector of the global economy,” lawyers for Chevron wrote in a legal brief. \u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe 9th Circuit panel heard arguments in two separate lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawyers representing San Francisco and Oakland are trying to revive their lawsuit in state court after William Alsup, a judge for the Federal District Court in San Francisco, tossed it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The law and precedent supporting our position is strong, and such a ruling would be consistent with orders issued by four other federal judges,” Herrera and Parker said in their statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of his deliberation, Alsup asked the cities to offer him a primer in climate change science. The tutorial included a seminal 1992 \u003ca href=\"http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20180323_docket-317-cv-06011_exhibit.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">paper\u003c/a> published in the journal \u003cem>Nature\u003c/em> that detailed rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a June \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/26/climate/document-Judge-Dismisses-Climate-Suit-Against-Oil-Companies.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">opinion\u003c/a>, the judge wrote that the “problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal court has already remanded to state court the other case, brought by San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Marin counties, along with Richmond, Santa Cruz and other cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has been two years or more since our communities first filed these cases to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the climate change-related damages they knowingly caused and the high costs our taxpayers are already incurring as a result,” the governments said in a written statement. “It is time for the defendants to be held accountable for their decades-long campaign of public deception about climate change and its consequences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Katz, a spokesman for the Oakland city attorney’s office, said that the city does not know when the judges will decide on the case. He suggested it could take several months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Bay Area cities and counties want the fossil fuel industry to pay for property damage from climate change. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Three federal judges heard arguments in Pasadena Wednesday about whether major oil and gas companies are financially responsible for the damages caused by climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In lively back-to-back hearings, the judges, from the 9th District Circuit Court, pushed with skepticism at both sides’ arguments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco, Oakland, and a coalition of about a dozen other cities and counties want to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for the remediation costs and property damage from increasingly severe wildfires, rising sea levels and intense storms that batter coastal communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cities seek damages related to climate change from Chevron, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66 and major other oil and gas companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuits are reaching a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956277/cities-lawsuits-seeking-damages-for-climate-change-reach-critical-juncture\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">critical juncture\u003c/a>. After a string of losses in federal courts, the cities asked the federal panel Wednesday to allow them to argue their lawsuit in the California state courts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the panel agrees that the cases belong in state court, it would be the state judge, applying state laws, who decides whether we can proceed with this case to protect our residents, workers, and businesses from the costs and damage these fossil fuel companies knowingly imposed on our communities,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker said in a written statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fossil fuel companies are trying to move the cases into the federal courts with the aim of obtaining the ear of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“State tort law is not an appropriate vehicle—and state courts are not an appropriate forum—for regulating worldwide energy policy or punishing lawful, global commercial activity that is vital to every sector of the global economy,” lawyers for Chevron wrote in a legal brief. \u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe 9th Circuit panel heard arguments in two separate lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawyers representing San Francisco and Oakland are trying to revive their lawsuit in state court after William Alsup, a judge for the Federal District Court in San Francisco, tossed it out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The law and precedent supporting our position is strong, and such a ruling would be consistent with orders issued by four other federal judges,” Herrera and Parker said in their statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of his deliberation, Alsup asked the cities to offer him a primer in climate change science. The tutorial included a seminal 1992 \u003ca href=\"http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2018/20180323_docket-317-cv-06011_exhibit.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">paper\u003c/a> published in the journal \u003cem>Nature\u003c/em> that detailed rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a June \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/26/climate/document-Judge-Dismisses-Climate-Suit-Against-Oil-Companies.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">opinion\u003c/a>, the judge wrote that the “problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal court has already remanded to state court the other case, brought by San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Marin counties, along with Richmond, Santa Cruz and other cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It has been two years or more since our communities first filed these cases to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the climate change-related damages they knowingly caused and the high costs our taxpayers are already incurring as a result,” the governments said in a written statement. “It is time for the defendants to be held accountable for their decades-long campaign of public deception about climate change and its consequences.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Katz, a spokesman for the Oakland city attorney’s office, said that the city does not know when the judges will decide on the case. He suggested it could take several months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "On the Environment, Trump Is Getting Trounced in the Courts. At Least, So Far ...",
"headTitle": "On the Environment, Trump Is Getting Trounced in the Courts. At Least, So Far … | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">California has been involved in 54 major legal cases with the Trump administration on a variety of issues, a \u003ca href=\"https://attorneysgeneral.org/multistate-lawsuits-vs-the-federal-government/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">tracker\u003c/span>\u003c/a> developed by a Marquette University political scientist reveals. Of these, the state has sparred with President Trump over climate change and the environment more than on any other issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has won injunctions, policy reversals or other favorable rulings in 15 of the 16 major environmental cases that the courts have ruled on, with 15 cases pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state initiated many of the lawsuits, and other states have joined onto them. For example, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico and four other states joined California when it successfully \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/court-ruling-msj.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">challenged\u003c/span>\u003c/a> the EPA for undermining regulations that control greenhouse gas emissions from landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we take action, it’s not just to file a case or delay an action, it’s to win,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said. “We’re fighting and winning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the lawsuits, California sued the administration over the science that the Environmental Protection Agency used to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1923269/california-sues-over-plan-to-scrap-car-emission-standards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">roll back emission standards\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956060/epa-rolls-back-obama-era-rules-protecting-rivers-and-wetlands\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">justification for new water rules\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, and its plan to ease methane regulations. Becerra \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1946927/feds-propose-rolling-back-rules-on-climate-changing-methane-emissions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">called\u003c/span>\u003c/a> that last proposal “monumentally stupid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California has also brought 23 solo challenges against the administration, which Marquette hasn’t included in its tally yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In total, the state has been involved in at least 77 legal fights with the Trump administration in just three years. \u003cspan class=\"s2\">That’s plenty more than \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2019/04/california-sues-trump-more-becerra-lawsuit-tracker-update/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Texas had with the Obama administration over eight years\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, when rising \u003c/span>partisanship gripped the nation \u003cspan class=\"s2\">and \u003c/span>conservative state attorneys general challenged the federal government in record numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Republicans’ win rate against Obama hovered around 60%. \u003cspan class=\"s2\">Democratic attorneys generals’ rate is close to 80% against Trump.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>But … the Conservative Supreme Court …\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California’s win rate shows that lawyers in its attorney general’s office are bringing strong cases, says legal scholar Buzz Thompson, founding director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It is also true that the Trump administration has been pushing the boundaries of legitimate environmental deregulation more than any prior administration,” he said. “He has been doing it quickly and in some cases sloppily. As a result, there are a lot more opportunities to revise environmental actions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Paul Nolette, chair of the political science department at Marquette University, \u003c/span>says losses are more likely if the challenges from California rise to the Supreme Court, which has a majority of strongly conservative judges. At the same time, he added, not all of the cases will reach that level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Becerra maintains that he’s “optimistic and confident” that California’s environmental challenges will be successful in the Supreme Court because of what he calls his “three allies” — facts, science and the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">“It should be no different when we get to the Supreme Court with most of these cases,” he said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Mary Nichols, the top air quality regulator with the California Air Resources Board, said in an \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-01-10/california-clean-air-case-supreme-court-mary-nichols\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">interview\u003c/span>\u003c/a> with the L.A. Times that the environmental case she’s most concerned about is the state’s dispute with the federal government over vehicle emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California challenged the Trump administration after it moved to revoke a waiver that granted authority to the state to set its own tailpipe emissions standards for cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Our strategy is to win, but to win in a way that does not precipitate a Supreme Court taking of this case until Mr. Trump is out of office,” Nichols said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pushing Federal Policy From California\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Nolette said Becerra and other state attorneys general are more involved in national policy now because new federal statutes allow them to enforce environmental policy, consumer protections, Medicaid regulations and other federal law. “Also,” he added, “lawsuits work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“Twenty years ago, if you said that somebody like Becerra, who was pretty high up in House leadership, is going to resign his seat and go back to California for a state position that is not governor, people would have said: ‘Why would he do that? That’s a terrible career move,’” Nolette said. “Becerra realized he’s able to get more done and get more attention for his policy agenda as the attorney general of California than he was even in House leadership.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Becerra worked as a California deputy attorney general in the late 1980s, before voters elected him to statewide office in 1990 and eventually to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992. He sat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and chaired the House Democractic Caucus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Becerra replaced Kamala Harris as California attorney general after she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fight over the Trump administration’s travel ban — an executive action that blocked people from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. — shows that even if a court throws out a legal challenge, the state can first extract policy concessions from the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The administration’s first travel order sparked \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11291018/protesters-rush-to-airports-as-trump-order-targeting-refugees-take-effect\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">chaos\u003c/span>\u003c/a> at San Francisco International Airport before the courts knocked it down. The Justice Department responded by altering the measure, and the Supreme Court reinstated it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">The Supreme Court decision was one of California’s few legal losses against this administration, but President Trump didn’t celebrate the victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">Instead, he \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/871675245043888128?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">complained\u003c/span>\u003c/a> on twitter that his Justice Department “should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked if he’s been more effective in shaping federal policy as California’s top lawyer than he was as a congressman, Becerra said he doesn’t want to “disparage my time in Congress … but it’s true, in a way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">“\u003c/span>This agency can be pretty nimble and move fast as compared to a legislative body, which requires a majority vote and approval by an executive to actually get anything done,” he said. “\u003cspan class=\"s2\">I have found that over these last two-plus years that it’s been a great opportunity to actually implement policy without having a vote.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "California has taken the lead in challenging the Trump administration on its environmental policies. Out of 16 multistate lawsuits that California has been involved in, 15 have resulted in favorable rulings, according to a case tracker out of Marquette University.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">California has been involved in 54 major legal cases with the Trump administration on a variety of issues, a \u003ca href=\"https://attorneysgeneral.org/multistate-lawsuits-vs-the-federal-government/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">tracker\u003c/span>\u003c/a> developed by a Marquette University political scientist reveals. Of these, the state has sparred with President Trump over climate change and the environment more than on any other issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has won injunctions, policy reversals or other favorable rulings in 15 of the 16 major environmental cases that the courts have ruled on, with 15 cases pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state initiated many of the lawsuits, and other states have joined onto them. For example, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico and four other states joined California when it successfully \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/court-ruling-msj.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">challenged\u003c/span>\u003c/a> the EPA for undermining regulations that control greenhouse gas emissions from landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we take action, it’s not just to file a case or delay an action, it’s to win,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said. “We’re fighting and winning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the lawsuits, California sued the administration over the science that the Environmental Protection Agency used to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1923269/california-sues-over-plan-to-scrap-car-emission-standards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">roll back emission standards\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1956060/epa-rolls-back-obama-era-rules-protecting-rivers-and-wetlands\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">justification for new water rules\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, and its plan to ease methane regulations. Becerra \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1946927/feds-propose-rolling-back-rules-on-climate-changing-methane-emissions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">called\u003c/span>\u003c/a> that last proposal “monumentally stupid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California has also brought 23 solo challenges against the administration, which Marquette hasn’t included in its tally yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In total, the state has been involved in at least 77 legal fights with the Trump administration in just three years. \u003cspan class=\"s2\">That’s plenty more than \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2019/04/california-sues-trump-more-becerra-lawsuit-tracker-update/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Texas had with the Obama administration over eight years\u003c/span>\u003c/a>, when rising \u003c/span>partisanship gripped the nation \u003cspan class=\"s2\">and \u003c/span>conservative state attorneys general challenged the federal government in record numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Republicans’ win rate against Obama hovered around 60%. \u003cspan class=\"s2\">Democratic attorneys generals’ rate is close to 80% against Trump.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cb>But … the Conservative Supreme Court …\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">California’s win rate shows that lawyers in its attorney general’s office are bringing strong cases, says legal scholar Buzz Thompson, founding director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It is also true that the Trump administration has been pushing the boundaries of legitimate environmental deregulation more than any prior administration,” he said. “He has been doing it quickly and in some cases sloppily. As a result, there are a lot more opportunities to revise environmental actions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Paul Nolette, chair of the political science department at Marquette University, \u003c/span>says losses are more likely if the challenges from California rise to the Supreme Court, which has a majority of strongly conservative judges. At the same time, he added, not all of the cases will reach that level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Becerra maintains that he’s “optimistic and confident” that California’s environmental challenges will be successful in the Supreme Court because of what he calls his “three allies” — facts, science and the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">“It should be no different when we get to the Supreme Court with most of these cases,” he said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Mary Nichols, the top air quality regulator with the California Air Resources Board, said in an \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-01-10/california-clean-air-case-supreme-court-mary-nichols\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">interview\u003c/span>\u003c/a> with the L.A. Times that the environmental case she’s most concerned about is the state’s dispute with the federal government over vehicle emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California challenged the Trump administration after it moved to revoke a waiver that granted authority to the state to set its own tailpipe emissions standards for cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“Our strategy is to win, but to win in a way that does not precipitate a Supreme Court taking of this case until Mr. Trump is out of office,” Nichols said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Pushing Federal Policy From California\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Nolette said Becerra and other state attorneys general are more involved in national policy now because new federal statutes allow them to enforce environmental policy, consumer protections, Medicaid regulations and other federal law. “Also,” he added, “lawsuits work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">“Twenty years ago, if you said that somebody like Becerra, who was pretty high up in House leadership, is going to resign his seat and go back to California for a state position that is not governor, people would have said: ‘Why would he do that? That’s a terrible career move,’” Nolette said. “Becerra realized he’s able to get more done and get more attention for his policy agenda as the attorney general of California than he was even in House leadership.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">Becerra worked as a California deputy attorney general in the late 1980s, before voters elected him to statewide office in 1990 and eventually to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992. He sat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and chaired the House Democractic Caucus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">\u003cspan class=\"s3\">Becerra replaced Kamala Harris as California attorney general after she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fight over the Trump administration’s travel ban — an executive action that blocked people from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. — shows that even if a court throws out a legal challenge, the state can first extract policy concessions from the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The administration’s first travel order sparked \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11291018/protesters-rush-to-airports-as-trump-order-targeting-refugees-take-effect\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">chaos\u003c/span>\u003c/a> at San Francisco International Airport before the courts knocked it down. The Justice Department responded by altering the measure, and the Supreme Court reinstated it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">The Supreme Court decision was one of California’s few legal losses against this administration, but President Trump didn’t celebrate the victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p5\">Instead, he \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/871675245043888128?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">complained\u003c/span>\u003c/a> on twitter that his Justice Department “should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked if he’s been more effective in shaping federal policy as California’s top lawyer than he was as a congressman, Becerra said he doesn’t want to “disparage my time in Congress … but it’s true, in a way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p4\">\u003cspan class=\"s2\">“\u003c/span>This agency can be pretty nimble and move fast as compared to a legislative body, which requires a majority vote and approval by an executive to actually get anything done,” he said. “\u003cspan class=\"s2\">I have found that over these last two-plus years that it’s been a great opportunity to actually implement policy without having a vote.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Can natural gas be part of a climate change solution?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s what the American Petroleum Institute argues in a \u003ca href=\"https://energyforprogress.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new campaign\u003c/a> it has launched ahead of this year’s elections, pushing back against some Democratic candidates who support bans on new development of oil and gas. The campaign echoes a refrain that supporters from both political parties have pushed for years: that gas is a cleaner fuel than coal and can serve as a bridge to a low-carbon future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The industry points to data showing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions are at their \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07012020/infographic-united-states-emissions-2019-climate-change-greenhouse-gas-coal-transportation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lowest level in decades\u003c/a>, as coal power generation has been replaced by gas, which produces about half the carbon dioxide emissions when burned, and by renewable energy sources like wind and solar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But experts agree that those official figures understate emissions of methane, the primary component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas released in leaks throughout the oil and gas development supply chain. And while there’s uncertainty about how much methane is leaking, several studies show that the benefits of the switch from coal to gas over the last decade are smaller than government data suggests, perhaps substantially smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many oil and gas companies have pledged to reduce their methane emissions. But beyond the methane leaks, emissions from new petrochemical plants and liquid natural gas export facilities in coming years, spurred by the gas boom, are set to surge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With costs of renewable energy sources like wind and solar now competitive with natural gas, many experts who have studied the industry’s emissions say that even though the switch from coal to gas has likely provided some climate benefits, marginal as they may be, it’s harder to argue that it can continue doing so in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">David Lyon, a scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, which has collaborated with the oil and gas industry in working on methane, said asking whether gas is better than coal may be the wrong question. “Compared to coal, I think there are a lot of advantages to natural gas,” he said. “But renewables have a lot more advantages.””Compared to coal, I think there are a lot of advantages to natural gas,” he said. “But renewables have a lot more advantages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jessika Trancik, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society, who recently co-authored a study about the coal-to-gas switch, said continuing to rely on natural gas will grow increasingly difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“It has served as a bridge,” she said. “But we’re kind of nearing the end of the bridge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Far Have Emissions Fallen?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Official EPA data says \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-04/documents/us-ghg-inventory-2019-chapter-3-energy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">methane emissions from the oil and gas industry\u003c/a> were down slightly from 2005 to 2017 and were down significantly from 1990 levels. Over the same period, oil and gas production has grown substantially, and the industry points to this as a sign of its efforts to limit emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Given the seriousness and risks of climate change, natural gas and oil operators are working harder than ever to capture as much methane as possible during production and transmission,” said Reid Porter, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet while EPA hasn’t published data for the past two years, other sources suggest methane emissions may be rising. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the industry’s venting and flaring—venting is the intentional release of methane to the atmosphere, while flaring burns the methane to emit carbon dioxide instead—\u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_prod_sum_a_EPG0_VGV_mmcf_a.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">jumped by about 66 percent\u003c/a> in 2018. That doesn’t include unintended leaks from equipment. An \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">analysis by the Rhodium Group\u003c/a> of more recent data found that the industry’s methane emissions were up last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever the official numbers say, actual emissions are almost certainly far higher. Figuring out how much methane is leaking is critical for climate accounting: while methane remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter period than carbon dioxide, it traps far more heat while it’s there. Scientists say methane is responsible for about one-quarter of the warming the world has experienced so far. And the oil and gas sector appears to be a growing source of these emissions globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1956353 alignright\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"766\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529.png 529w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529-160x232.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\">\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/186\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a study by scientists\u003c/a> with the Environmental Defense Fund and more than a dozen research institutions pulled together measurements taken around the country and estimated that the industry leaked about 2.3 percent of all the gas it produced in 2015. That’s about 60 percent more than EPA reported. Others have suggested the rate could more like 3 percent. Lyon, one of the study’s authors, said the scale of the leaks suggests the benefits of gas are much less than they appear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Probably the average national loss rate is low enough that there are immediate climate benefits of replacing coal with gas,” he said. “But it’s going to be close.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the biggest uncertainties comes from so-called “super-emitters”—a term that refers to uncommon events that release massive volumes of methane. Last year, Dutch scientists published research drawing on satellite data suggesting that one 2018 accident at an Ohio gas well \u003cb>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html\">l\u003c/a>\u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eaked more methane\u003c/a> than the entire oil and gas industry of Norway does in a year. ExxonMobil, which operated the well through a subsidiary, said internal data had shown the volume of leaked gas was smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The American Petroleum Institute has also \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03032017/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency-methane-greenhouse-gas-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">supported\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29082019/methane-regulation-oil-gas-storage-pipelines-epa-rollback-trump-wheeler\">steps\u003c/a> by the Trump administration to weaken regulations enacted by the Obama administration to improve reporting and reduce leaks. Porter said other state and federal regulations already control methane emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beyond the U.S., new evidence suggests natural gas use is \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">growing so fast globally\u003c/a> that the rise in carbon dioxide emissions from gas has eclipsed the decline in emissions from coal. And that’s not even counting methane leaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Looking Ahead\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even if gas has provided a benefit so far, there’s growing evidence it’s becoming an increasingly bad bet for the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Precisely how bad depends in part on how methane is compared with carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. Since methane traps more heat but breaks down much more quickly, scientists use a sliding scale to convert methane emissions into “carbon dioxide equivalents.” If you compare the two gases over the course of a century, methane is roughly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. If you look over a 20-year timeframe, methane is more than 80 times stronger. The EPA uses the 100-year conversion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“What that does is it greatly discounts what methane can do for the decade or three that it’s in the atmosphere,” said Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology at Cornell University, speaking about the EPA’s approach. “I and others have been arguing we should use a shorter time frame, because we’re concerned about reaching tipping points in the climate system over the next one to two to three decades, and methane can drive us over those tipping points.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In December, Trancik and Magdalena Klemun, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, \u003ca href=\"https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2577\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published a study\u003c/a> about whether gas can continue to help drive down greenhouse gas emissions by replacing coal in the electricity mix, given the methane leaks from the supply chain. They found that if you focus on methane’s short-term warming impact, the industry would need to eliminate up to 90 percent of its methane emissions in order to help meet a goal of cutting total greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But methane leaks are just part of the story. While a natural gas-fired power plant emits only about half the carbon dioxide as a coal plant, that’s still far from zero. And record-high gas production has sent prices plummeting, driving a boom in industrial activity to use all that cheap gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A pair of recent studies used data from permits for planned and recently completed projects such as chemical plants and liquid natural gas export facilities to estimate what this boom in industrial development could mean for emissions. One, \u003ca href=\"https://www.environmentalintegrity.org/news/oil-and-gas-industry-expansions-could-add-as-much-greenhouse-gas-pollution-as-50-coal-plants-by-2025/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">by the Environmental Integrity Project\u003c/a>, an advocacy group, found that by 2025, the planned development could contribute a level of emissions equal to that of 50 coal plants. Another, \u003ca href=\"https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e6f/pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published this month\u003c/a> by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, projected out to 2030 but limited its scope to development in Texas and Louisiana. It found even higher figures. If every proposed project were to move forward, they determined, the industry’s expansion in the region could lead to an additional 541 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2030, equal to about 8 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And methane leaks were only a piece of that. The expansion of petrochemical plants, like those that \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012020/plastics-marine-oceans-climate-change-oil-gas-carbon-emissions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">produce plastics from gas\u003c/a>, account for nearly 40 percent of the additional emissions. New liquified natural gas terminals, which allow companies to export gas overseas, make up nearly 20 percent of the emissions. The study was funded by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, which was founded by a former energy executive who pioneered using hydraulic fracturing to produce gas from shale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea of natural gas as a bridge fuel to a more renewable future “is a thing that is said,” said Andrew Waxman, the paper’s lead author. “My main response is that the jury is still out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Another Way\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You only build a bridge as long as it needs to be. And increasingly, many advocates and energy experts are saying that in the transition to low-carbon energy, we’ve already reached the other side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wind and solar power are now often cheaper than gas. The costs of large batteries are coming down rapidly, too, which could allow wind and solar power to provide a higher proportion of the grid’s electricity, even though they produce energy intermittently. Already, construction of new renewables \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/campaign-archive/clean-economy-weekly/1827189\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">is outpacing gas\u003c/a> in terms of capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the aim is to get to zero net emissions by midcentury, Trancik said, “then you have to transition away from natural gas.” At this point, she said, any new natural gas power plant or pipeline, which may be expected to continue operating for decades, creates a new financial incentive to continue to use more gas, making it that much harder to phase out fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“I think we should be very hesitant of investing in new infrastructure with a long life,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cem>An earlier version of this article incorrectly characterized the Environmental Defense Fund’s relationship with the oil and gas industry. EDF collaborates with companies in working on the methane problem but does not receive money from the industry.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Can natural gas be part of a climate change solution?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That’s what the American Petroleum Institute argues in a \u003ca href=\"https://energyforprogress.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new campaign\u003c/a> it has launched ahead of this year’s elections, pushing back against some Democratic candidates who support bans on new development of oil and gas. The campaign echoes a refrain that supporters from both political parties have pushed for years: that gas is a cleaner fuel than coal and can serve as a bridge to a low-carbon future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The industry points to data showing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions are at their \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07012020/infographic-united-states-emissions-2019-climate-change-greenhouse-gas-coal-transportation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">lowest level in decades\u003c/a>, as coal power generation has been replaced by gas, which produces about half the carbon dioxide emissions when burned, and by renewable energy sources like wind and solar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But experts agree that those official figures understate emissions of methane, the primary component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas released in leaks throughout the oil and gas development supply chain. And while there’s uncertainty about how much methane is leaking, several studies show that the benefits of the switch from coal to gas over the last decade are smaller than government data suggests, perhaps substantially smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many oil and gas companies have pledged to reduce their methane emissions. But beyond the methane leaks, emissions from new petrochemical plants and liquid natural gas export facilities in coming years, spurred by the gas boom, are set to surge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With costs of renewable energy sources like wind and solar now competitive with natural gas, many experts who have studied the industry’s emissions say that even though the switch from coal to gas has likely provided some climate benefits, marginal as they may be, it’s harder to argue that it can continue doing so in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">David Lyon, a scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, which has collaborated with the oil and gas industry in working on methane, said asking whether gas is better than coal may be the wrong question. “Compared to coal, I think there are a lot of advantages to natural gas,” he said. “But renewables have a lot more advantages.””Compared to coal, I think there are a lot of advantages to natural gas,” he said. “But renewables have a lot more advantages.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jessika Trancik, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society, who recently co-authored a study about the coal-to-gas switch, said continuing to rely on natural gas will grow increasingly difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“It has served as a bridge,” she said. “But we’re kind of nearing the end of the bridge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Far Have Emissions Fallen?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Official EPA data says \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-04/documents/us-ghg-inventory-2019-chapter-3-energy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">methane emissions from the oil and gas industry\u003c/a> were down slightly from 2005 to 2017 and were down significantly from 1990 levels. Over the same period, oil and gas production has grown substantially, and the industry points to this as a sign of its efforts to limit emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Given the seriousness and risks of climate change, natural gas and oil operators are working harder than ever to capture as much methane as possible during production and transmission,” said Reid Porter, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet while EPA hasn’t published data for the past two years, other sources suggest methane emissions may be rising. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the industry’s venting and flaring—venting is the intentional release of methane to the atmosphere, while flaring burns the methane to emit carbon dioxide instead—\u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_prod_sum_a_EPG0_VGV_mmcf_a.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">jumped by about 66 percent\u003c/a> in 2018. That doesn’t include unintended leaks from equipment. An \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">analysis by the Rhodium Group\u003c/a> of more recent data found that the industry’s methane emissions were up last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever the official numbers say, actual emissions are almost certainly far higher. Figuring out how much methane is leaking is critical for climate accounting: while methane remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter period than carbon dioxide, it traps far more heat while it’s there. Scientists say methane is responsible for about one-quarter of the warming the world has experienced so far. And the oil and gas sector appears to be a growing source of these emissions globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1956353 alignright\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"766\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529.png 529w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/gas-oil-methane-problem-529-160x232.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\">\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018, \u003ca href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/186\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a study by scientists\u003c/a> with the Environmental Defense Fund and more than a dozen research institutions pulled together measurements taken around the country and estimated that the industry leaked about 2.3 percent of all the gas it produced in 2015. That’s about 60 percent more than EPA reported. Others have suggested the rate could more like 3 percent. Lyon, one of the study’s authors, said the scale of the leaks suggests the benefits of gas are much less than they appear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Probably the average national loss rate is low enough that there are immediate climate benefits of replacing coal with gas,” he said. “But it’s going to be close.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the biggest uncertainties comes from so-called “super-emitters”—a term that refers to uncommon events that release massive volumes of methane. Last year, Dutch scientists published research drawing on satellite data suggesting that one 2018 accident at an Ohio gas well \u003cb>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html\">l\u003c/a>\u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">eaked more methane\u003c/a> than the entire oil and gas industry of Norway does in a year. ExxonMobil, which operated the well through a subsidiary, said internal data had shown the volume of leaked gas was smaller.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The American Petroleum Institute has also \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03032017/scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency-methane-greenhouse-gas-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">supported\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29082019/methane-regulation-oil-gas-storage-pipelines-epa-rollback-trump-wheeler\">steps\u003c/a> by the Trump administration to weaken regulations enacted by the Obama administration to improve reporting and reduce leaks. Porter said other state and federal regulations already control methane emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beyond the U.S., new evidence suggests natural gas use is \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">growing so fast globally\u003c/a> that the rise in carbon dioxide emissions from gas has eclipsed the decline in emissions from coal. And that’s not even counting methane leaks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Looking Ahead\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even if gas has provided a benefit so far, there’s growing evidence it’s becoming an increasingly bad bet for the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Precisely how bad depends in part on how methane is compared with carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. Since methane traps more heat but breaks down much more quickly, scientists use a sliding scale to convert methane emissions into “carbon dioxide equivalents.” If you compare the two gases over the course of a century, methane is roughly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. If you look over a 20-year timeframe, methane is more than 80 times stronger. The EPA uses the 100-year conversion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“What that does is it greatly discounts what methane can do for the decade or three that it’s in the atmosphere,” said Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology at Cornell University, speaking about the EPA’s approach. “I and others have been arguing we should use a shorter time frame, because we’re concerned about reaching tipping points in the climate system over the next one to two to three decades, and methane can drive us over those tipping points.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In December, Trancik and Magdalena Klemun, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, \u003ca href=\"https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2577\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published a study\u003c/a> about whether gas can continue to help drive down greenhouse gas emissions by replacing coal in the electricity mix, given the methane leaks from the supply chain. They found that if you focus on methane’s short-term warming impact, the industry would need to eliminate up to 90 percent of its methane emissions in order to help meet a goal of cutting total greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But methane leaks are just part of the story. While a natural gas-fired power plant emits only about half the carbon dioxide as a coal plant, that’s still far from zero. And record-high gas production has sent prices plummeting, driving a boom in industrial activity to use all that cheap gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A pair of recent studies used data from permits for planned and recently completed projects such as chemical plants and liquid natural gas export facilities to estimate what this boom in industrial development could mean for emissions. One, \u003ca href=\"https://www.environmentalintegrity.org/news/oil-and-gas-industry-expansions-could-add-as-much-greenhouse-gas-pollution-as-50-coal-plants-by-2025/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">by the Environmental Integrity Project\u003c/a>, an advocacy group, found that by 2025, the planned development could contribute a level of emissions equal to that of 50 coal plants. Another, \u003ca href=\"https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e6f/pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published this month\u003c/a> by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, projected out to 2030 but limited its scope to development in Texas and Louisiana. It found even higher figures. If every proposed project were to move forward, they determined, the industry’s expansion in the region could lead to an additional 541 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2030, equal to about 8 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And methane leaks were only a piece of that. The expansion of petrochemical plants, like those that \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012020/plastics-marine-oceans-climate-change-oil-gas-carbon-emissions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">produce plastics from gas\u003c/a>, account for nearly 40 percent of the additional emissions. New liquified natural gas terminals, which allow companies to export gas overseas, make up nearly 20 percent of the emissions. The study was funded by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, which was founded by a former energy executive who pioneered using hydraulic fracturing to produce gas from shale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea of natural gas as a bridge fuel to a more renewable future “is a thing that is said,” said Andrew Waxman, the paper’s lead author. “My main response is that the jury is still out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Another Way\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You only build a bridge as long as it needs to be. And increasingly, many advocates and energy experts are saying that in the transition to low-carbon energy, we’ve already reached the other side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wind and solar power are now often cheaper than gas. The costs of large batteries are coming down rapidly, too, which could allow wind and solar power to provide a higher proportion of the grid’s electricity, even though they produce energy intermittently. Already, construction of new renewables \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/campaign-archive/clean-economy-weekly/1827189\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">is outpacing gas\u003c/a> in terms of capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the aim is to get to zero net emissions by midcentury, Trancik said, “then you have to transition away from natural gas.” At this point, she said, any new natural gas power plant or pipeline, which may be expected to continue operating for decades, creates a new financial incentive to continue to use more gas, making it that much harder to phase out fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“I think we should be very hesitant of investing in new infrastructure with a long life,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u003cem>An earlier version of this article incorrectly characterized the Environmental Defense Fund’s relationship with the oil and gas industry. EDF collaborates with companies in working on the methane problem but does not receive money from the industry.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "business-is-booming-but-public-anger-toward-plastics-grows-with-environmental-harms",
"title": "Business is Booming, But Public Anger Toward Plastics Grows With Environmental Harms",
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"headTitle": "Business is Booming, But Public Anger Toward Plastics Grows With Environmental Harms | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Frustrated with the sight of plastic bags and styrofoam containers piling up in its harbor, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, rang in the new year with a promise to start enforcing a ban on single-use plastic containers and utensils.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s one of hundreds of similar bans that have been launched across the U.S. and \u003ca href=\"https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_2631\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Europe\u003c/a>, amid a growing backlash to an industry that is expanding despite increasing evidence of the harm its products can do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In just the past year, researchers have shown that tiny particles of plastic are pervasive in the environment, even high in the mountains and inside human bodies. Dead whales have washed up with dozens of pounds of plastic waste in their stomachs. And a new awareness of the role the plastics industry plays in climate change is emerging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“If it’s in our marshes, it’s in our oysters, it’s in our fish and it’s in our dolphins,” said Caroline Bradner, the Land, Water & Wildlife Project Manager for the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League. “And if there is plastic in them, there is plastic in us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scientific studies and images of plastic waste have been shifting how the public sees plastics, and that has gotten the industry’s attention at the highest levels. The industry has been simultaneously fighting to prevent local plastics bans and trying to promote itself as a solution, while its production keeps growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, one giant plastics plant is under construction, and a second awaits a decision on financing in an Appalachian region that federal officials \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/12/f58/Nov%202018%20DOE%20Ethane%20Hub%20Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have said\u003c/a> could support even more manufacturing—an effort that the Trump administration may assist with loan guarantees this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Gulf Coast, seven large petrochemical facilities have been approved since 2015. Environmentalists are fighting them, with the latest lawsuit filed last week over the federal permits for what would be one of the world’s largest plastics plants, planned near a wetlands area along the Mississippi River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is “an incredible disconnect” between public concerns about what plastics pollution is doing to the environment and all of the industry funding and tax dollars being invested in new plastics manufacturing, said Judith Enck, a former official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who in 2019 founded the Beyond Plastics campaign, a nonpartisan initiative that seeks to end plastic pollution. \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1956118 alignright\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/Plastics-Demand-Chart-529px.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"764\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/Plastics-Demand-Chart-529px.png 529w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/Plastics-Demand-Chart-529px-160x231.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Industry officials contend that they are just trying to meet consumer demand, and they say they are looking for ways to improve recycling and reduce waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We fundamentally think plastics don’t belong in the environment,” said Keith Christman, managing director of plastics markets for the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry lobby group with members in the alliance. But, he added, plastics are essential. “You may be able to do without a plastic bag, but most products there really isn’t a substitute for or an ability to go without it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘A Climate Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">From scientific research papers to reports by environmental groups, 2019 delivered a relentless stream of evidence about environmental and health concerns related to plastics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I must say it’s been pretty uncomfortable … as we have watched images of plastic strewn over beaches and pictures of sea animals with ingested plastic,” Patty Long, the interim chief executive officer of the Plastics Industry Association, lamented at the Global Plastics Summit last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We see it over and over and over again,” she \u003cb>\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06072019/plastic-waste-ocean-global-summit-industry-solutions-recycling-climate-change\">told\u003c/a>\u003c/b> the industry gathering, co-hosted by the Plastics Industry Association and IHS Markit, which closely tracks the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">For example:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul style=\"font-weight: 400\">\n\u003cli>Plastic particles were found in the stomachs of the deepest known marine animals, nearly seven miles below the surface of the sea.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The wind\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-47947235\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> deposited\u003c/a> as much microplastic per square meter in a secluded area high in the Pyrenees Mountains, along the French and Spanish border, as researchers would expect in the city of Paris.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The average American now ingests more than 70,000 particles of microplastics per year, according to a\u003ca href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> study\u003c/a> in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The carcass of a dead sperm whale\u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/dead-pregnant-whale-plastic-italy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> washed ashore\u003c/a> in Italy with 49 pounds of plastic in its stomach; and a beached young Cuvier’s beaked whale died in the Philippines, with a necropsy\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/704471596/stomach-of-dead-whale-contained-nothing-but-plastic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> revealing\u003c/a> 88 pounds of plastic including plastic bags from grocery stores.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Center for International Environmental Law also\u003ca href=\"https://www.ciel.org/reports/plastic-health-the-hidden-costs-of-a-plastic-planet-may-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> published\u003c/a> a report in May that found greenhouse gas emissions from the plastics lifecycle—from natural gas extraction to plastics production and disposal—could reach 850 million metric tons in 2019, about the same as 189 new 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The total is projected to rise to 1.34 billion metric tons per year by 2030, equivalent to the emissions from nearly 300 coal plants of that size.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The group, working with the Environmental Integrity Project, FracTracker Alliance and others, concluded that the plastics’ and petrochemical industries’ plans could make it impossible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, the most challenging benchmark established under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Plastics have been a climate crisis hiding in plain sight,” said Carroll Muffett, president and chief executive officer of the law center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Christman, with the chemical industry lobby group, argued that the law center should have compared the carbon emissions from plastics when they are used as substitutes to materials like glass or steel. Greenhouse gas emissions are spared when cars are made lighter and more fuel-efficient with plastic parts, he said, and when plastic wrapping preserves food to avoid spoilage and disposal in methane-producing landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“With all of these issues, yes, we have to avoid regrettable substitution,” Muffett responded. But the “simple argument that all the possible substitutes are going to be worse than plastics” is wrong, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plastics Could Grow 3.5 to 4 Percent Annually Through 2035\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">For years, the public relied on recycling to justify its plastics use, but now that, too, is in crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2018, China’s decided to stop accepting most plastic materials for recycling, and last May, 187 countries added plastics to an international treaty that controls the movement of hazardous waste around the globe, requiring exporters to obtain government permission before shipping lower quality plastic wastes to their countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s not all that’s preventing effective recycling. The economics of recycling “are still upside down,” largely because of a glut of the fossil fuels used to make plastic, said Nina Bellucci Butler, the chief executive officer of More Recycling, a research and consulting company that works with the plastics industry on recycling,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We are just awash in natural gas and oil,” she said. “The only thing we can do is make an incredible amount of plastics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The plastics industry has tried to show that it is responding to waste concerns. It \u003ca href=\"https://endplasticwaste.org/latest/the-alliance-launches-today/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced\u003c/a> a $1.5 billion Alliance to End Plastic Waste with the goal of improving plastic waste management in Asia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it is also moving ahead with new plastics manufacturing plants, as the oil and gas industry eyes plastics as a growing part of its future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The data firm IHS Markit has forecast that plastics production will grow on average 3.5 to 4 percent per year through at least 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In western Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh, hundreds of workers \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25022019/plastics-hub-appalachian-fracking-ethane-cracker-climate-change-health-ohio-river\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">are building\u003c/a> a massive Shell Polymers plant to turn ethane—a product of a decade-old natural gas fracking boom there—into the basic building blocks of plastic products. Analysts have \u003ca href=\"https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/petrochemical-cluster-a-bright-future-for-the-tristate-region.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a> the region could support as many as five of these plants, which “crack” ethane molecules to make ethylene and polyethylene resin pellets. \u003ca href=\"http://pttgcbelmontcountyoh.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">One \u003c/a>has already obtained environmental permits in Belmont County, Ohio, and is awaiting a financing decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2020, the Trump administration could decide whether to provide $1.9 billion in loan guarantees for the development of \u003ca href=\"https://aongrc.wvu.edu/reports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">underground storage\u003c/a> for ethane it\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-perry-announces-appalachian-ethane-storage-hub-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> says\u003c/a> would help establish a whole new plastics manufacturing hub in Appalachia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/sites/default/files/organizational_sign_on_letter_opposing_dept._of_energy_backing_petro_hub-2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Environmental groups\u003c/a> and some Democrats in Congress are fighting the loan guarantees, which would go to a West Virginia business, Appalachia Development Group, that has proposed developing the storage in mined salt or limestone caverns underground.\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1956119 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"924\" height=\"693\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px.png 924w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px-160x120.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px-800x600.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px-768x576.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Near the Gulf Coast, environmentalists are also fighting new or expanding petrochemical and plastics manufacturing plants. The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate\u003cb>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_70830ffe-0a1c-11ea-b387-b768e1c2ecc8.html\"> reported\u003c/a>\u003c/b> in late November that seven large petrochemical facilities and expansions had been approved in that area since 2015, and five more were awaiting permits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of them stands out for its cost and size: the $9.6 billion Formosa plastics and petrochemical complex, proposed on 2,400 acres in St. James Parish. In early January, it was granted air quality permits, and the Center for Biological Diversity is now \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/lawsuit-challenges-trump-administrations-fast-tracking-of-louisiana-plastics-project-2020-01-15/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">suing\u003c/a>, arguing that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to disclose environmental damage and public health risks of the plastic facility under the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09012020/trump-nepa-environmental-review-changes-climate-change-infrastructure-pipelines\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Environmental Policy Act\u003c/a>. More lawsuits are expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Congress Eyes Competing Approaches to Plastics Regulation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the state level, lawmakers introduced at least 95 bills in 2019 related to plastic bags, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most, including those in \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/nyregion/plastic-bag-ban-.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/maine-bans-single-use-plastic-grocery-bags-by-earth-day-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Maine\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/vermont-adopts-most-comprehensive-single-use-plastics-ban/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vermont\u003c/a>, sought to ban or place a fee on plastic bags. However, some went in the opposite direction, attempting to prevent local governments from making their own decisions on how to manage plastic waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oklahoma, Tennessee and North Dakota all blocked their cities from passing local bag rules in 2019. South Carolina lawmakers have been trying to pass a similar law, \u003ca href=\"https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article226176810.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">promoted by lobbyists\u003c/a> for the industry. A “ban on bans” bill, \u003ca href=\"https://www.scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=394&session=123&summary=B\">S.394\u003c/a>, will pick up this month where it left off last year, and could come to a vote before the full South Carolina Senate, said Bradner, of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether a divided Congress in a heated election year can pass meaningful legislation remains an open question. But some federal lawmakers are trying, with competing approaches focused either on government funding or manufacturer responsibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The industry backs bills like Save Our Seas 2.0 and the\u003ca href=\"https://cardenas.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/c-rdenas-bucshon-introduce-recover-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> RECOVER Act\u003c/a>, which aim to improve waste management and recycling. Neither would slow the production of plastics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) are floating another proposal that would require plastics producers to establish a national container deposit program, collect fees on non-reusable plastic bags, increase the amount of recycled plastic used in new products and establish a moratorium on new plastics manufacturing plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The financial burden of cleaning up pollution should not be solely on the taxpayers,” Lowenthal said at a Congressional hearing last fall. “It’s imperative the the companies that manufacture and sell these products take ownership of their environmental impacts.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Environmentalists cite “an incredible disconnect” between government support for plastics manufacturing and evidence of the industry’s pollution and climate impact.",
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"title": "Business is Booming, But Public Anger Toward Plastics Grows With Environmental Harms | KQED",
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"headline": "Business is Booming, But Public Anger Toward Plastics Grows With Environmental Harms",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Neq_CwpkPvsGmMG7hVOy7A?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">InsideClimate News\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pD-rCxklQwf1V61yTviMEq?domain=insideclimatenews.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Frustrated with the sight of plastic bags and styrofoam containers piling up in its harbor, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, rang in the new year with a promise to start enforcing a ban on single-use plastic containers and utensils.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s one of hundreds of similar bans that have been launched across the U.S. and \u003ca href=\"https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_2631\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Europe\u003c/a>, amid a growing backlash to an industry that is expanding despite increasing evidence of the harm its products can do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In just the past year, researchers have shown that tiny particles of plastic are pervasive in the environment, even high in the mountains and inside human bodies. Dead whales have washed up with dozens of pounds of plastic waste in their stomachs. And a new awareness of the role the plastics industry plays in climate change is emerging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“If it’s in our marshes, it’s in our oysters, it’s in our fish and it’s in our dolphins,” said Caroline Bradner, the Land, Water & Wildlife Project Manager for the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League. “And if there is plastic in them, there is plastic in us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scientific studies and images of plastic waste have been shifting how the public sees plastics, and that has gotten the industry’s attention at the highest levels. The industry has been simultaneously fighting to prevent local plastics bans and trying to promote itself as a solution, while its production keeps growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, one giant plastics plant is under construction, and a second awaits a decision on financing in an Appalachian region that federal officials \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/12/f58/Nov%202018%20DOE%20Ethane%20Hub%20Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">have said\u003c/a> could support even more manufacturing—an effort that the Trump administration may assist with loan guarantees this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the Gulf Coast, seven large petrochemical facilities have been approved since 2015. Environmentalists are fighting them, with the latest lawsuit filed last week over the federal permits for what would be one of the world’s largest plastics plants, planned near a wetlands area along the Mississippi River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is “an incredible disconnect” between public concerns about what plastics pollution is doing to the environment and all of the industry funding and tax dollars being invested in new plastics manufacturing, said Judith Enck, a former official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency who in 2019 founded the Beyond Plastics campaign, a nonpartisan initiative that seeks to end plastic pollution. \u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1956118 alignright\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/Plastics-Demand-Chart-529px.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"764\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/Plastics-Demand-Chart-529px.png 529w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/Plastics-Demand-Chart-529px-160x231.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Industry officials contend that they are just trying to meet consumer demand, and they say they are looking for ways to improve recycling and reduce waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We fundamentally think plastics don’t belong in the environment,” said Keith Christman, managing director of plastics markets for the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry lobby group with members in the alliance. But, he added, plastics are essential. “You may be able to do without a plastic bag, but most products there really isn’t a substitute for or an ability to go without it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>‘A Climate Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight’\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">From scientific research papers to reports by environmental groups, 2019 delivered a relentless stream of evidence about environmental and health concerns related to plastics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I must say it’s been pretty uncomfortable … as we have watched images of plastic strewn over beaches and pictures of sea animals with ingested plastic,” Patty Long, the interim chief executive officer of the Plastics Industry Association, lamented at the Global Plastics Summit last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We see it over and over and over again,” she \u003cb>\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06072019/plastic-waste-ocean-global-summit-industry-solutions-recycling-climate-change\">told\u003c/a>\u003c/b> the industry gathering, co-hosted by the Plastics Industry Association and IHS Markit, which closely tracks the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">For example:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul style=\"font-weight: 400\">\n\u003cli>Plastic particles were found in the stomachs of the deepest known marine animals, nearly seven miles below the surface of the sea.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The wind\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-47947235\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> deposited\u003c/a> as much microplastic per square meter in a secluded area high in the Pyrenees Mountains, along the French and Spanish border, as researchers would expect in the city of Paris.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The average American now ingests more than 70,000 particles of microplastics per year, according to a\u003ca href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> study\u003c/a> in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The carcass of a dead sperm whale\u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/dead-pregnant-whale-plastic-italy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> washed ashore\u003c/a> in Italy with 49 pounds of plastic in its stomach; and a beached young Cuvier’s beaked whale died in the Philippines, with a necropsy\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/03/18/704471596/stomach-of-dead-whale-contained-nothing-but-plastic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> revealing\u003c/a> 88 pounds of plastic including plastic bags from grocery stores.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Center for International Environmental Law also\u003ca href=\"https://www.ciel.org/reports/plastic-health-the-hidden-costs-of-a-plastic-planet-may-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> published\u003c/a> a report in May that found greenhouse gas emissions from the plastics lifecycle—from natural gas extraction to plastics production and disposal—could reach 850 million metric tons in 2019, about the same as 189 new 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The total is projected to rise to 1.34 billion metric tons per year by 2030, equivalent to the emissions from nearly 300 coal plants of that size.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The group, working with the Environmental Integrity Project, FracTracker Alliance and others, concluded that the plastics’ and petrochemical industries’ plans could make it impossible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, the most challenging benchmark established under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Plastics have been a climate crisis hiding in plain sight,” said Carroll Muffett, president and chief executive officer of the law center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Christman, with the chemical industry lobby group, argued that the law center should have compared the carbon emissions from plastics when they are used as substitutes to materials like glass or steel. Greenhouse gas emissions are spared when cars are made lighter and more fuel-efficient with plastic parts, he said, and when plastic wrapping preserves food to avoid spoilage and disposal in methane-producing landfills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“With all of these issues, yes, we have to avoid regrettable substitution,” Muffett responded. But the “simple argument that all the possible substitutes are going to be worse than plastics” is wrong, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plastics Could Grow 3.5 to 4 Percent Annually Through 2035\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">For years, the public relied on recycling to justify its plastics use, but now that, too, is in crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2018, China’s decided to stop accepting most plastic materials for recycling, and last May, 187 countries added plastics to an international treaty that controls the movement of hazardous waste around the globe, requiring exporters to obtain government permission before shipping lower quality plastic wastes to their countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s not all that’s preventing effective recycling. The economics of recycling “are still upside down,” largely because of a glut of the fossil fuels used to make plastic, said Nina Bellucci Butler, the chief executive officer of More Recycling, a research and consulting company that works with the plastics industry on recycling,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We are just awash in natural gas and oil,” she said. “The only thing we can do is make an incredible amount of plastics.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The plastics industry has tried to show that it is responding to waste concerns. It \u003ca href=\"https://endplasticwaste.org/latest/the-alliance-launches-today/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced\u003c/a> a $1.5 billion Alliance to End Plastic Waste with the goal of improving plastic waste management in Asia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it is also moving ahead with new plastics manufacturing plants, as the oil and gas industry eyes plastics as a growing part of its future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The data firm IHS Markit has forecast that plastics production will grow on average 3.5 to 4 percent per year through at least 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In western Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh, hundreds of workers \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25022019/plastics-hub-appalachian-fracking-ethane-cracker-climate-change-health-ohio-river\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">are building\u003c/a> a massive Shell Polymers plant to turn ethane—a product of a decade-old natural gas fracking boom there—into the basic building blocks of plastic products. Analysts have \u003ca href=\"https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/petrochemical-cluster-a-bright-future-for-the-tristate-region.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said\u003c/a> the region could support as many as five of these plants, which “crack” ethane molecules to make ethylene and polyethylene resin pellets. \u003ca href=\"http://pttgcbelmontcountyoh.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">One \u003c/a>has already obtained environmental permits in Belmont County, Ohio, and is awaiting a financing decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2020, the Trump administration could decide whether to provide $1.9 billion in loan guarantees for the development of \u003ca href=\"https://aongrc.wvu.edu/reports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">underground storage\u003c/a> for ethane it\u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-perry-announces-appalachian-ethane-storage-hub-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> says\u003c/a> would help establish a whole new plastics manufacturing hub in Appalachia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/sites/default/files/organizational_sign_on_letter_opposing_dept._of_energy_backing_petro_hub-2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Environmental groups\u003c/a> and some Democrats in Congress are fighting the loan guarantees, which would go to a West Virginia business, Appalachia Development Group, that has proposed developing the storage in mined salt or limestone caverns underground.\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1956119 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"924\" height=\"693\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px.png 924w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px-160x120.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px-800x600.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/natural-gas-to-plastics-manufacturing-1058px-768x576.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Near the Gulf Coast, environmentalists are also fighting new or expanding petrochemical and plastics manufacturing plants. The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate\u003cb>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_70830ffe-0a1c-11ea-b387-b768e1c2ecc8.html\"> reported\u003c/a>\u003c/b> in late November that seven large petrochemical facilities and expansions had been approved in that area since 2015, and five more were awaiting permits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of them stands out for its cost and size: the $9.6 billion Formosa plastics and petrochemical complex, proposed on 2,400 acres in St. James Parish. In early January, it was granted air quality permits, and the Center for Biological Diversity is now \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/lawsuit-challenges-trump-administrations-fast-tracking-of-louisiana-plastics-project-2020-01-15/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">suing\u003c/a>, arguing that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to disclose environmental damage and public health risks of the plastic facility under the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09012020/trump-nepa-environmental-review-changes-climate-change-infrastructure-pipelines\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Environmental Policy Act\u003c/a>. More lawsuits are expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Congress Eyes Competing Approaches to Plastics Regulation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the state level, lawmakers introduced at least 95 bills in 2019 related to plastic bags, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most, including those in \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/nyregion/plastic-bag-ban-.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/maine-bans-single-use-plastic-grocery-bags-by-earth-day-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Maine\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/vermont-adopts-most-comprehensive-single-use-plastics-ban/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vermont\u003c/a>, sought to ban or place a fee on plastic bags. However, some went in the opposite direction, attempting to prevent local governments from making their own decisions on how to manage plastic waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oklahoma, Tennessee and North Dakota all blocked their cities from passing local bag rules in 2019. South Carolina lawmakers have been trying to pass a similar law, \u003ca href=\"https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article226176810.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">promoted by lobbyists\u003c/a> for the industry. A “ban on bans” bill, \u003ca href=\"https://www.scstatehouse.gov/billsearch.php?billnumbers=394&session=123&summary=B\">S.394\u003c/a>, will pick up this month where it left off last year, and could come to a vote before the full South Carolina Senate, said Bradner, of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether a divided Congress in a heated election year can pass meaningful legislation remains an open question. But some federal lawmakers are trying, with competing approaches focused either on government funding or manufacturer responsibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">The industry backs bills like Save Our Seas 2.0 and the\u003ca href=\"https://cardenas.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/c-rdenas-bucshon-introduce-recover-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> RECOVER Act\u003c/a>, which aim to improve waste management and recycling. Neither would slow the production of plastics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) are floating another proposal that would require plastics producers to establish a national container deposit program, collect fees on non-reusable plastic bags, increase the amount of recycled plastic used in new products and establish a moratorium on new plastics manufacturing plants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The financial burden of cleaning up pollution should not be solely on the taxpayers,” Lowenthal said at a Congressional hearing last fall. “It’s imperative the the companies that manufacture and sell these products take ownership of their environmental impacts.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Environmentalists to California Restaurants: Drop Lawsuit Over Berkeley Gas Ban",
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"content": "\u003cp>Environmental organizations are urging the board members of a major lobbying group for California restaurants to reconsider their support for a lawsuit against Berkeley over the city’s ban on natural gas in new buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organizations including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council released a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/Letter%20to%20Restaurants%20on%20Board%20of%20CRA.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">letter\u003c/a> they sent Tuesday to the restaurants of the California Restaurant Association’s board members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By carrying out this lawsuit, CRA is positioning themselves in alliance with oil and gas industry executives, and not on the side of the majority of Californians who support solutions to the climate crisis,” the letter said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote]While environmental organizations claim all-electric construction will make homes and businesses more affordable, the California Restaurant Association contends the gas ban will raise the cost of building and operating restaurants.[/pullquote]The restaurant association filed the lawsuit in November. It claims that a city ordinance allowing only electric appliances and temperature controls in new buildings is unlawful and will have a negative effect on restaurants. The suit argues that restaurants would not be able to properly prepare food or heat their buildings without access to natural gas. The association also questioned Berkeley’s rush toward a fully electric future amid increasing and irregular power outages across the state.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Berkeley City Council unanimously passed the ordinance in July 2019 as part of an effort to curb the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. Proponents say the city adopted the measure after extensive research and public review. The law went into effect this month. Because the law applies only to new construction, Berkeley restaurants in existing buildings may continue using gas appliances, even if those restaurants require renovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1956086\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1956086 size-full\" style=\"font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent; color: #767676;\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley.jpg\" alt=\"frying pan over gas burner\" width=\"1020\" height=\"726\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley-800x569.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley-768x547.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Restaurant Association in November 2019 sued Berkeley over its natural gas ban, arguing the measure violates state law and will hurt the city’s restaurants. (Matthew Green/KQED) \u003ccite>(Matthew Green/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sierra Club has tracked more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2019/12/forward-looking-cities-lead-way-gas-free-future\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">20 cities\u003c/a> across the state that have adopted legislation similar to Berkeley’s banning natural gas or promoting electricity in new construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is in the middle of a climate crisis,” said Sierra Club representative Matthew Gough. “We know that without aggressive policy to move off of dirty and dangerous fossil fuels, natural disasters and strains on our resources are going to get worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added that Berkeley’s ordinance both supports California’s statewide framework to move to 100% carbon-free energy by 2045 and aligns with the city’s public health goals. The environmentalists’ letter refers to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23962958\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> that showed children who grow up in homes with gas stoves are 42% more likely to develop asthma than children who don’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While environmental organizations claim that all-electric construction will make homes and businesses more affordable, the California Restaurant Association contends that the gas ban will raise the cost of building and operating restaurants at the same time it limits consumers’ appliance choices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, Jot Condie, president and CEO of the California Restaurant Association, said that while his organization supports California’s climate goals, declining to sue over the Berkeley ordinance would amount to “malpractice.” He added that the ordinance harms restaurants because chefs rely on open flames to heat woks, sear meat and char vegetables. The association says they can’t achieve the same effects with electric stoves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like taking paint away from a painter and asking them to create a masterpiece,” said Robert W. Phillips, a professional chef and chairman of the Chef De Cuisine Association of California in the press release that announced the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I understand that that’s a concern,” said the Sierra Club’s Gough, but he questioned why the issue wasn’t raised during the public comment period before Berkeley’s City Council voted on the ban.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Condie responded that neither the Sierra Club nor its allies in support of the Berkeley ordinance reached out to the California Restaurant Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not the first time environmental groups have put pressure on the California Restaurant Association over the lawsuit. In December 2019, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and other groups \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11788199/environmentalists-say-natural-gas-industry-behind-restaurant-groups-challenge-to-berkeley-gas-ban\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">alleged\u003c/a> that the gas industry was behind the lawsuit. The association denies that claim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Environmental organizations are urging the board members of a major lobbying group for California restaurants to reconsider their support for a lawsuit against Berkeley over the city’s ban on natural gas in new buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organizations including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council released a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/Letter%20to%20Restaurants%20on%20Board%20of%20CRA.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">letter\u003c/a> they sent Tuesday to the restaurants of the California Restaurant Association’s board members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“By carrying out this lawsuit, CRA is positioning themselves in alliance with oil and gas industry executives, and not on the side of the majority of Californians who support solutions to the climate crisis,” the letter said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The restaurant association filed the lawsuit in November. It claims that a city ordinance allowing only electric appliances and temperature controls in new buildings is unlawful and will have a negative effect on restaurants. The suit argues that restaurants would not be able to properly prepare food or heat their buildings without access to natural gas. The association also questioned Berkeley’s rush toward a fully electric future amid increasing and irregular power outages across the state.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Berkeley City Council unanimously passed the ordinance in July 2019 as part of an effort to curb the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. Proponents say the city adopted the measure after extensive research and public review. The law went into effect this month. Because the law applies only to new construction, Berkeley restaurants in existing buildings may continue using gas appliances, even if those restaurants require renovation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1956086\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1956086 size-full\" style=\"font-weight: bold; background-color: transparent; color: #767676;\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley.jpg\" alt=\"frying pan over gas burner\" width=\"1020\" height=\"726\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley-160x114.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley-800x569.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2029/01/Natural-gas-ban-Berkeley-768x547.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California Restaurant Association in November 2019 sued Berkeley over its natural gas ban, arguing the measure violates state law and will hurt the city’s restaurants. (Matthew Green/KQED) \u003ccite>(Matthew Green/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sierra Club has tracked more than \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2019/12/forward-looking-cities-lead-way-gas-free-future\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">20 cities\u003c/a> across the state that have adopted legislation similar to Berkeley’s banning natural gas or promoting electricity in new construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California is in the middle of a climate crisis,” said Sierra Club representative Matthew Gough. “We know that without aggressive policy to move off of dirty and dangerous fossil fuels, natural disasters and strains on our resources are going to get worse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added that Berkeley’s ordinance both supports California’s statewide framework to move to 100% carbon-free energy by 2045 and aligns with the city’s public health goals. The environmentalists’ letter refers to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23962958\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">study\u003c/a> that showed children who grow up in homes with gas stoves are 42% more likely to develop asthma than children who don’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While environmental organizations claim that all-electric construction will make homes and businesses more affordable, the California Restaurant Association contends that the gas ban will raise the cost of building and operating restaurants at the same time it limits consumers’ appliance choices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, Jot Condie, president and CEO of the California Restaurant Association, said that while his organization supports California’s climate goals, declining to sue over the Berkeley ordinance would amount to “malpractice.” He added that the ordinance harms restaurants because chefs rely on open flames to heat woks, sear meat and char vegetables. The association says they can’t achieve the same effects with electric stoves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like taking paint away from a painter and asking them to create a masterpiece,” said Robert W. Phillips, a professional chef and chairman of the Chef De Cuisine Association of California in the press release that announced the lawsuit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I understand that that’s a concern,” said the Sierra Club’s Gough, but he questioned why the issue wasn’t raised during the public comment period before Berkeley’s City Council voted on the ban.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Condie responded that neither the Sierra Club nor its allies in support of the Berkeley ordinance reached out to the California Restaurant Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not the first time environmental groups have put pressure on the California Restaurant Association over the lawsuit. In December 2019, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and other groups \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11788199/environmentalists-say-natural-gas-industry-behind-restaurant-groups-challenge-to-berkeley-gas-ban\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">alleged\u003c/a> that the gas industry was behind the lawsuit. The association denies that claim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California Sues Federal Government Over Central Valley Drilling Proposal",
"headTitle": "California Sues Federal Government Over Central Valley Drilling Proposal | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>California on Friday officially \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/1%20Complaint.pdf\">challenged\u003c/a> a Trump administration plan to open up more than a million acres of public land in the state to fossil fuel development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, the Bureau of Land Management \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1951605/its-official-feds-open-up-central-california-to-more-drilling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">finalized\u003c/a> a fracking and drilling plan that spans eight counties in Central California, ending a federal moratorium on new leases in the state. The proposal includes land in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura Counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Attorney General Xavier Becerra called the federal plan “half-baked” and “misguided” and says it conflicts with California policy of reducing emissions of planet- warming gases 40% by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the big concerns is this would set us back in our goals to address emissions of greenhouse gases,” Becerra said. “But it goes far beyond that. This is an issue of health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit is the latest action in California’s ongoing fight with the Trump administration over energy and climate policy. The state is aggressively scaling back fossil fuel extraction, increasing oversight of drilling operations and pursuing ambitious climate targets. At the same time, the Trump administration is seeking to expand drilling on public land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re talking about a million acres in California, federal public land, that this administration wants to open up to a process which is now substantiated to pose lots of risks,” Becerra said. “When you try to move forward with the plan that you didn’t run through the process properly, according to the law — whether it’s the environmental law, or our procedures law — we’re going to take action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California contends that more drilling will damage ecologically sensitive areas and endanger millions of Californians by contributing additional pollution in places already choked by dirty air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Becerra said that the risks to the state are too high to ignore. “One in every four children in the Central Valley suffers from asthma,” he said. “And all the issues that would confound our ability to protect the health of residents in the state are involved. It’s not just the risk of asthma, but heart disease, lung disease, cancer, all those things go up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Becerra says the plan is based on “incorrect assumptions” about the amount of fracking that could take place on public lands, and that energy companies have shown little to no interest in the locations proposed, a point on which industry experts \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1951384/california-is-phasing-out-fossil-fuels-trump-wants-to-expand-drilling-somethings-gotta-give\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agree\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokeswoman for the BLM’s Central California District, Serena Baker, said in an emailed statement that the bureau received a copy of the lawsuit and is reviewing it. The agency’s environmental analysis relied on the best available science, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that the environmental impact of any new drilling project would be “addressed at the site or project-specific level in subsequent tiered environmental analysis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“BLM manages less than 10% of oil and gas operations in California with the state managing the remaining 90%,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom co-signed the lawsuit, which the state filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, along with the California Air Resources Board, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the California Department of Water Resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October, BLM released a separate plan that opened up nearly 800,000 acres of the state’s Central Coast plus land in Alameda and Contra Costa counties for gas and oil extraction. California has not sued the agency over this plan, but conservation groups, led by the Center for Biological Diversity, have filed suit over both drilling plans.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California on Friday officially \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/1%20Complaint.pdf\">challenged\u003c/a> a Trump administration plan to open up more than a million acres of public land in the state to fossil fuel development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, the Bureau of Land Management \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1951605/its-official-feds-open-up-central-california-to-more-drilling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">finalized\u003c/a> a fracking and drilling plan that spans eight counties in Central California, ending a federal moratorium on new leases in the state. The proposal includes land in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura Counties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California Attorney General Xavier Becerra called the federal plan “half-baked” and “misguided” and says it conflicts with California policy of reducing emissions of planet- warming gases 40% by 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the big concerns is this would set us back in our goals to address emissions of greenhouse gases,” Becerra said. “But it goes far beyond that. This is an issue of health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit is the latest action in California’s ongoing fight with the Trump administration over energy and climate policy. The state is aggressively scaling back fossil fuel extraction, increasing oversight of drilling operations and pursuing ambitious climate targets. At the same time, the Trump administration is seeking to expand drilling on public land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re talking about a million acres in California, federal public land, that this administration wants to open up to a process which is now substantiated to pose lots of risks,” Becerra said. “When you try to move forward with the plan that you didn’t run through the process properly, according to the law — whether it’s the environmental law, or our procedures law — we’re going to take action.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California contends that more drilling will damage ecologically sensitive areas and endanger millions of Californians by contributing additional pollution in places already choked by dirty air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Becerra said that the risks to the state are too high to ignore. “One in every four children in the Central Valley suffers from asthma,” he said. “And all the issues that would confound our ability to protect the health of residents in the state are involved. It’s not just the risk of asthma, but heart disease, lung disease, cancer, all those things go up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Becerra says the plan is based on “incorrect assumptions” about the amount of fracking that could take place on public lands, and that energy companies have shown little to no interest in the locations proposed, a point on which industry experts \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1951384/california-is-phasing-out-fossil-fuels-trump-wants-to-expand-drilling-somethings-gotta-give\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agree\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokeswoman for the BLM’s Central California District, Serena Baker, said in an emailed statement that the bureau received a copy of the lawsuit and is reviewing it. The agency’s environmental analysis relied on the best available science, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that the environmental impact of any new drilling project would be “addressed at the site or project-specific level in subsequent tiered environmental analysis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“BLM manages less than 10% of oil and gas operations in California with the state managing the remaining 90%,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom co-signed the lawsuit, which the state filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, along with the California Air Resources Board, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the California Department of Water Resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October, BLM released a separate plan that opened up nearly 800,000 acres of the state’s Central Coast plus land in Alameda and Contra Costa counties for gas and oil extraction. California has not sued the agency over this plan, but conservation groups, led by the Center for Biological Diversity, have filed suit over both drilling plans.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California has been dreaming of a clean, modern \u003ca href=\"https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/hydrogen/hydrogen_cah2net.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hydrogen highway\u003c/a> since 2004, when former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered preparations for a traffic jam of zero-emission, hydrogen-fueled cars, buses and trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote citation=\"Tyson Eckerle, Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development\"]‘Its moment is due. You are starting to see a sea change, as we get more aggressive about meeting our zero-carbon goals.[/pullquote]That revolution, part of the battle against climate change, never materialized. The technology remains expensive and hasn’t gained wide traction, ceding the green-transportation crown to battery-powered electric vehicles, which are more widely available and support an ever-growing recharging network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with successful pilot projects using hydrogen buses and freight trucks, and car manufacturers preparing to expand model options in the tiny consumer car market, proponents say this may be the year when the “fuel of the future” finally arrives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Its moment is due. You are starting to see a sea change, as we get more aggressive about meeting our zero-carbon goals,” said Tyson Eckerle, deputy director of zero-emission infrastructure in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.business.ca.gov/Programs/Zero-Emission-Vehicles-ZEV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has continued to foster the promise of hydrogen fuel to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/projects/can-california-put-cars-in-the-rear-view-mirror/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pry carbon from transportation\u003c/a>, California’s biggest source of planet-warming emissions. It has spent more than $300 million in the past 10 years funding rebates for those who buy or lease hydrogen cars, construction of refueling stations and the purchase of transit buses, as well as subsidizing development of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2019/12/california-controversial-advanced-clean-trucks-regulation-air-pollution/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hydrogen-driven freight trucks\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, at the moment, California\u003cem> is\u003c/em> the hydrogen market: All but a handful of the 7,800 hydrogen-powered cars in the U.S. are here. For car-centric Californians, there’s much to like: Hydrogen vehicles fuel up in a few minutes —\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>as opposed to hours of charging for most electric vehicles — and their efficiency affords a long driving range.\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1955713 alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/HYDROGEN-FUEL-graphic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/HYDROGEN-FUEL-graphic.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/HYDROGEN-FUEL-graphic-160x266.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hydrogen as a transportation fuel has many applications. More than 26,000 hydrogen-powered forklifts are whirring around warehouses today, for example. The U.S. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/space-applications-of-hydrogen-and-fuel-cells\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">space program\u003c/a> has long used hydrogen as rocket fuel. And more than a decade of testing hydrogen engines in transit bus fleets has produced results that surpassed projections, exceeding time without major repairs or replacement needed as compared to diesel engines. Hydrogen-fueled trucks are lighter, which translates into efficiency for long-haul drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eckerle said the dozen or so \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/transportation/altfueltech/hydrogen.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">state programs\u003c/a> encourage hydrogen technology to increase consumer choice — “seed-planting.” This investment will soon be eclipsed by that of private companies, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The challenge for the automotive industry is overcoming basic market forces. There may be nearly 8,000 hydrogen cars on California roads, but that’s a microscopic number amid the state’s 35 million registered vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cars are not easy to find, nor are the \u003ca href=\"https://cafcp.org/stationmap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fueling stations\u003c/a>: California has only 44 such stations, mainly in populous cities. It’s nearly impossible to fuel up a hydrogen car at home, so a broad network of stations is critical to wider adoption, experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One reason motorists may not notice the hydrogen cars in their midst is that hydrogen-fueled Toyotas, Hondas and Hyundais don’t look much different from other sedans. That obscurity\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>could end this summer, though, when hydrogen cars and shuttle buses built in Japan will be showcased at the \u003ca href=\"https://fuelcellmaterials.com/tokyo-2020-the-first-hydrogen-olympic-games/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tokyo Olympics\u003c/a>. Even the Olympic Torch will be lit with a hydrogen flame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The international exposure, coupled with increased consumer education from manufacturers, could catapult hydrogen to front-of-mind for car buyers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are at a really interesting point right now,” said Keith Malone, spokesman for the California Fuel Cell Partnership, which brings together state agencies, vehicle manufacturers and natural gas companies that make hydrogen fuel. “It’s no longer about proving the technology. It’s about bringing the technology to scale to drive down costs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hydrogen fuel is much more efficient than gasoline, but it’s also four times more expensive, roughly equivalent to about $16 a gallon. Even though hydrogen cars, which run electric engines, have cruising ranges of more than 350 miles — longer than any battery-electric and some gas-fueled vehicles — the cost of a fillup is significant. \u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incentives have eased that financial hit somewhat. Manufacturers offer refueling cards loaded with three years’ worth of credit, and the state offers a $4,500 \u003ca href=\"https://cleanvehiclerebate.org/eng/eligible-vehicles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">clean-car rebate\u003c/a>. That rebate mostly offsets the first year of leasing a hydrogen vehicle, which most drivers choose over purchasing. New hydrogen cars are in the $60,000 range, and lack the variety of model options available for battery-powered electric cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aaron Slavin and his wife, who live in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, made a spreadsheet to weigh the pros and cons of driving a hydrogen-fueled car and concluded that continuing to own a gas-electric hybrid “didn’t pencil out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a big fan of this car; I preach about them,” Aaron Slavin said, while refueling his 2017 Toyota Mirai at a one-bay hydrogen pump tucked into a conventional gas station in South Pasadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1955711\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 768px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1955711\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/RS40728_HYDROGEN-FUEL-photo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"880\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/RS40728_HYDROGEN-FUEL-photo.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/RS40728_HYDROGEN-FUEL-photo-160x183.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aaron Slavin fuels his hydrogen-powered Toyota Mrai. \u003ccite>(Julie Cart/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Slavin, a performing-arts producer, said he is a perfect candidate for the car — self employed, with no regular commute, and with a hybrid SUV as backup.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second car became critical last year when an \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/hydrogen-fuel-cell-car-california-explosion/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">explosion at fuel-production facility\u003c/a> choked supplies for months, leaving some hydrogen stations with empty tanks, stranding some drivers or necessitating long trips to alternative stations. The crisis, which some drivers dubbed the “hydropocalypse,” sent Slavin to a smartphone app that provided a real-time inventory of fuel at each station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fuel hiccup has been resolved, but it raised a red flag. “Our lease is up in April, and I really have to give some thought to what we’ll do,” Slavin said. “I like the car, but I’m concerned about the fuel situation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Producing energy from hydrogen has long been an enticing goal. After all, hydrogen is the world’s most abundant element, it’s energy-dense yet lightweight and, when used in transportation, emits not greenhouse gases but\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>tiny pools of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a carbon backstory to this clean-burning fuel. Even though after it is formulated it powers zero-emission electric motors, about 95% of hydrogen fuel is made with an energy-intensive process that relies on methane, the worst of the planet-warming gases. That makes it difficult for some environmental groups to support hydrogen vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to get methane out of the system, not establish a dependence on producing more,” said Kathryn Phillips, Director of the Sierra Club in California. “If you look at hydrogen fuel cells through an environmental lens, right now it’s not the best use of state funds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proponents respond in two ways: While the state transitions to a zero-carbon economy, why not capture and use methane that today is spewing, unchecked, into the atmosphere from oil and gas facilities and landfills?\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Why not switch to a process that doesn’t require methane and instead uses the state’s surplus of solar power to do it, rendering the manufacturing clean and green?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the advantages of faster refueling, lighter weight and longer range than battery electrics or gasoline cars, hydrogen vehicles can’t compete in a critical category: price. A conventional city bus may carry a price tag of $450,000. A hydrogen bus with the same specifications runs closer to $1 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Lewis Fulton, a transportation researcher at UC Davis, hydrogen presents “several different chicken-egg problems at the same time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until more cars are produced and purchased, he said, there won’t be more \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/transportation/altfueltech/hydrogen.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hydrogen fueling stations\u003c/a>. And until there are enough fueling stations, consumers may worry they’ll be stranded and won’t feel comfortable driving the cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only way to solve it is a really massive policy push,” Fulton said. “There’s already a fairly big one going on in the state, but I don’t know if it’s big enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s efforts to encourage the hydrogen car market could be thwarted as part of its ongoing battle with the Trump administration, which last year withdrew the state’s authority to set its own tailpipe emissions standards. Car makers who sided with the feds in favor of lower emissions rules will \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2019/11/california-says-it-wont-buy-cars-from-gm-toyota-others-opposing-tough-fuel-standards/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pay a price\u003c/a> by being excluded from the state’s vehicle fleet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Toyota, which took Washington’s side, would be left out at a time when the company is ramping up its hydrogen program and, by dint of its status as a major international car maker, is expected to significantly raise consumer awareness about hydrogen vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proponents downplayed the issue. Eckerle admitted, “It is an elephant in the room.” But he added that the state has no indication from car makers that they intend to back away from their commitment to making hydrogen vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a bump in the road,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://calmatters.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CalMatters.org\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California has been dreaming of a clean, modern \u003ca href=\"https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/hydrogen/hydrogen_cah2net.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hydrogen highway\u003c/a> since 2004, when former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered preparations for a traffic jam of zero-emission, hydrogen-fueled cars, buses and trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That revolution, part of the battle against climate change, never materialized. The technology remains expensive and hasn’t gained wide traction, ceding the green-transportation crown to battery-powered electric vehicles, which are more widely available and support an ever-growing recharging network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with successful pilot projects using hydrogen buses and freight trucks, and car manufacturers preparing to expand model options in the tiny consumer car market, proponents say this may be the year when the “fuel of the future” finally arrives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Its moment is due. You are starting to see a sea change, as we get more aggressive about meeting our zero-carbon goals,” said Tyson Eckerle, deputy director of zero-emission infrastructure in the \u003ca href=\"http://www.business.ca.gov/Programs/Zero-Emission-Vehicles-ZEV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state has continued to foster the promise of hydrogen fuel to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/projects/can-california-put-cars-in-the-rear-view-mirror/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pry carbon from transportation\u003c/a>, California’s biggest source of planet-warming emissions. It has spent more than $300 million in the past 10 years funding rebates for those who buy or lease hydrogen cars, construction of refueling stations and the purchase of transit buses, as well as subsidizing development of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2019/12/california-controversial-advanced-clean-trucks-regulation-air-pollution/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hydrogen-driven freight trucks\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, at the moment, California\u003cem> is\u003c/em> the hydrogen market: All but a handful of the 7,800 hydrogen-powered cars in the U.S. are here. For car-centric Californians, there’s much to like: Hydrogen vehicles fuel up in a few minutes —\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>as opposed to hours of charging for most electric vehicles — and their efficiency affords a long driving range.\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1955713 alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/HYDROGEN-FUEL-graphic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/HYDROGEN-FUEL-graphic.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/HYDROGEN-FUEL-graphic-160x266.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hydrogen as a transportation fuel has many applications. More than 26,000 hydrogen-powered forklifts are whirring around warehouses today, for example. The U.S. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/space-applications-of-hydrogen-and-fuel-cells\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">space program\u003c/a> has long used hydrogen as rocket fuel. And more than a decade of testing hydrogen engines in transit bus fleets has produced results that surpassed projections, exceeding time without major repairs or replacement needed as compared to diesel engines. Hydrogen-fueled trucks are lighter, which translates into efficiency for long-haul drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eckerle said the dozen or so \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/transportation/altfueltech/hydrogen.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">state programs\u003c/a> encourage hydrogen technology to increase consumer choice — “seed-planting.” This investment will soon be eclipsed by that of private companies, he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The challenge for the automotive industry is overcoming basic market forces. There may be nearly 8,000 hydrogen cars on California roads, but that’s a microscopic number amid the state’s 35 million registered vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cars are not easy to find, nor are the \u003ca href=\"https://cafcp.org/stationmap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fueling stations\u003c/a>: California has only 44 such stations, mainly in populous cities. It’s nearly impossible to fuel up a hydrogen car at home, so a broad network of stations is critical to wider adoption, experts say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One reason motorists may not notice the hydrogen cars in their midst is that hydrogen-fueled Toyotas, Hondas and Hyundais don’t look much different from other sedans. That obscurity\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>could end this summer, though, when hydrogen cars and shuttle buses built in Japan will be showcased at the \u003ca href=\"https://fuelcellmaterials.com/tokyo-2020-the-first-hydrogen-olympic-games/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tokyo Olympics\u003c/a>. Even the Olympic Torch will be lit with a hydrogen flame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The international exposure, coupled with increased consumer education from manufacturers, could catapult hydrogen to front-of-mind for car buyers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are at a really interesting point right now,” said Keith Malone, spokesman for the California Fuel Cell Partnership, which brings together state agencies, vehicle manufacturers and natural gas companies that make hydrogen fuel. “It’s no longer about proving the technology. It’s about bringing the technology to scale to drive down costs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hydrogen fuel is much more efficient than gasoline, but it’s also four times more expensive, roughly equivalent to about $16 a gallon. Even though hydrogen cars, which run electric engines, have cruising ranges of more than 350 miles — longer than any battery-electric and some gas-fueled vehicles — the cost of a fillup is significant. \u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incentives have eased that financial hit somewhat. Manufacturers offer refueling cards loaded with three years’ worth of credit, and the state offers a $4,500 \u003ca href=\"https://cleanvehiclerebate.org/eng/eligible-vehicles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">clean-car rebate\u003c/a>. That rebate mostly offsets the first year of leasing a hydrogen vehicle, which most drivers choose over purchasing. New hydrogen cars are in the $60,000 range, and lack the variety of model options available for battery-powered electric cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aaron Slavin and his wife, who live in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, made a spreadsheet to weigh the pros and cons of driving a hydrogen-fueled car and concluded that continuing to own a gas-electric hybrid “didn’t pencil out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a big fan of this car; I preach about them,” Aaron Slavin said, while refueling his 2017 Toyota Mirai at a one-bay hydrogen pump tucked into a conventional gas station in South Pasadena.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1955711\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 768px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1955711\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/RS40728_HYDROGEN-FUEL-photo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"880\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/RS40728_HYDROGEN-FUEL-photo.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/RS40728_HYDROGEN-FUEL-photo-160x183.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aaron Slavin fuels his hydrogen-powered Toyota Mrai. \u003ccite>(Julie Cart/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Slavin, a performing-arts producer, said he is a perfect candidate for the car — self employed, with no regular commute, and with a hybrid SUV as backup.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The second car became critical last year when an \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/hydrogen-fuel-cell-car-california-explosion/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">explosion at fuel-production facility\u003c/a> choked supplies for months, leaving some hydrogen stations with empty tanks, stranding some drivers or necessitating long trips to alternative stations. The crisis, which some drivers dubbed the “hydropocalypse,” sent Slavin to a smartphone app that provided a real-time inventory of fuel at each station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fuel hiccup has been resolved, but it raised a red flag. “Our lease is up in April, and I really have to give some thought to what we’ll do,” Slavin said. “I like the car, but I’m concerned about the fuel situation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Producing energy from hydrogen has long been an enticing goal. After all, hydrogen is the world’s most abundant element, it’s energy-dense yet lightweight and, when used in transportation, emits not greenhouse gases but\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>tiny pools of water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a carbon backstory to this clean-burning fuel. Even though after it is formulated it powers zero-emission electric motors, about 95% of hydrogen fuel is made with an energy-intensive process that relies on methane, the worst of the planet-warming gases. That makes it difficult for some environmental groups to support hydrogen vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to get methane out of the system, not establish a dependence on producing more,” said Kathryn Phillips, Director of the Sierra Club in California. “If you look at hydrogen fuel cells through an environmental lens, right now it’s not the best use of state funds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proponents respond in two ways: While the state transitions to a zero-carbon economy, why not capture and use methane that today is spewing, unchecked, into the atmosphere from oil and gas facilities and landfills?\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Why not switch to a process that doesn’t require methane and instead uses the state’s surplus of solar power to do it, rendering the manufacturing clean and green?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the advantages of faster refueling, lighter weight and longer range than battery electrics or gasoline cars, hydrogen vehicles can’t compete in a critical category: price. A conventional city bus may carry a price tag of $450,000. A hydrogen bus with the same specifications runs closer to $1 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Lewis Fulton, a transportation researcher at UC Davis, hydrogen presents “several different chicken-egg problems at the same time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until more cars are produced and purchased, he said, there won’t be more \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/transportation/altfueltech/hydrogen.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hydrogen fueling stations\u003c/a>. And until there are enough fueling stations, consumers may worry they’ll be stranded and won’t feel comfortable driving the cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The only way to solve it is a really massive policy push,” Fulton said. “There’s already a fairly big one going on in the state, but I don’t know if it’s big enough.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s efforts to encourage the hydrogen car market could be thwarted as part of its ongoing battle with the Trump administration, which last year withdrew the state’s authority to set its own tailpipe emissions standards. Car makers who sided with the feds in favor of lower emissions rules will \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2019/11/california-says-it-wont-buy-cars-from-gm-toyota-others-opposing-tough-fuel-standards/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pay a price\u003c/a> by being excluded from the state’s vehicle fleet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Toyota, which took Washington’s side, would be left out at a time when the company is ramping up its hydrogen program and, by dint of its status as a major international car maker, is expected to significantly raise consumer awareness about hydrogen vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proponents downplayed the issue. Eckerle admitted, “It is an elephant in the room.” But he added that the state has no indication from car makers that they intend to back away from their commitment to making hydrogen vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a bump in the road,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://calmatters.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CalMatters.org\u003c/a> is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "These 6 Charts Explain the Story of U.S. Carbon Emissions Right Now",
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"content": "\u003cp>Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States dropped last year after a sharp increase in 2018, new data released Tuesday show. The drop resumed a long-term downward trend driven chiefly by a shift away from coal power generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story of the emissions decline has largely been one of \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">market forces\u003c/a>—rather than policies—that have made utilities close coal plants in favor of cheaper natural gas and renewable energy. But this shift to lower-carbon energy has been restricted to the electricity sector, and the nation’s emissions cuts are still not on track to meet the targets it agreed to under the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/paris-climate-agreement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paris climate accord\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to meet those goals, experts say, federal policies will likely need to target other sectors that collectively make up a majority of U.S. emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954784\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart1.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart1-160x91.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell about 2 percent in 2019, according to \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">preliminary estimates\u003c/a> by \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rhodium Group\u003c/a>, an economic analysis firm. The previous year, strong economic growth and other factors had pushed emissions up roughly 3 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2019 drop was driven by a nearly 10 percent fall in emissions from the power sector, the biggest decline in decades, according to Rhodium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the story there is all about coal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954785\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart2.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart2-160x97.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coal generation in the U.S. fell by 18 percent last year, the largest annual decline on record, according to Rhodium. \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\">Another study\u003c/a>, published in December, found a smaller but still dramatic drop for coal generation last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Renewable power sources such as wind and solar have seen sharp increases in recent years as \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/content/chart-renewable-energy-costs-are-falling-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their costs of generation\u003c/a> have fallen below that of coal. But natural gas has replaced far more coal generation capacity than renewables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954786\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart3.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart3-160x97.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fracking boom sent natural gas prices plummeting, helping drive a rapid shift by electric utilities away from coal. But while burning gas is cleaner than burning coal, natural gas power generation still emits carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more about how the natural gas rush is driving a global rise in fossil fuel emissions\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emissions from natural gas power generation increased by more than 40 million metric tons last year, compared to a drop of 190 million metric tons for coal, according to Rhodium. That does not include emissions during oil and gas \u003cem>production,\u003c/em> such as methane, a potent short-lived climate pollutant, which are counted separately (see below).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the good news on emissions cuts ends with the power sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954787\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"376\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart4.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart4-160x93.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transportation is now the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and emissions were essentially flat in 2019, declining by 0.3 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That does represent a shift after several years of small increases, but emissions remain about where they were before the Great Recession started in 2007. Hannah Pitt, a senior analyst with Rhodium, said improved fuel efficiency is helping slow or end the rise in emissions, even as people fly and drive more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954788\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportGDP.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"376\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportGDP.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportGDP-160x93.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the change from 2018 to last year can be explained by the economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP (the value of all final goods and services produced in the country), expanded by a relatively robust 2.9 percent. But the first three quarters of last year saw slower GDP growth of 2.3 percent, according to Rhodium. A slower economy tamped down growth in domestic air travel and also in shipping by trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet emissions from other sectors of the economy continued to rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954790\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart5.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart5.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart5-160x97.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emissions from industry rose slightly last year and are now greater than those from coal-fired power plants. Emissions from buildings were up, too. And emissions from other sectors of the economy collectively grew by more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of the growth within the “other” category came from methane emitted by oil and gas production. The U.S. is now the world’s top oil and gas producer, and it is \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">projected to continue\u003c/a> expanding output in coming years. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has started the process of pulling out of the Paris accord, and it has been working to \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29082019/methane-regulation-oil-gas-storage-pipelines-epa-rollback-trump-wheeler\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">roll back regulations\u003c/a> adopted by the Obama administration that limited methane emissions from new and existing oil and gas wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These other, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28062018/global-warming-pollution-industrial-sources-cement-steel-trade-solutions-technology-shipping\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">harder to tackle sectors\u003c/a> are an increasingly important piece of the story, and Pitt said federal policies will have to target them if the U.S. is to hit the targets it agreed to as part of the Paris climate agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In order to meet those, we would need to really be seeing some pretty sizable annual declines in emissions that we’re not seeing now,” she said. “And if we’re relying purely on the power sector market dynamics to get there, I don’t see that happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States dropped last year after a sharp increase in 2018, new data released Tuesday show. The drop resumed a long-term downward trend driven chiefly by a shift away from coal power generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The story of the emissions decline has largely been one of \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">market forces\u003c/a>—rather than policies—that have made utilities close coal plants in favor of cheaper natural gas and renewable energy. But this shift to lower-carbon energy has been restricted to the electricity sector, and the nation’s emissions cuts are still not on track to meet the targets it agreed to under the \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/paris-climate-agreement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paris climate accord\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to meet those goals, experts say, federal policies will likely need to target other sectors that collectively make up a majority of U.S. emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954784\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"367\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart1.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart1-160x91.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Overall, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell about 2 percent in 2019, according to \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/research/preliminary-us-emissions-2019/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">preliminary estimates\u003c/a> by \u003ca href=\"https://rhg.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rhodium Group\u003c/a>, an economic analysis firm. The previous year, strong economic growth and other factors had pushed emissions up roughly 3 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2019 drop was driven by a nearly 10 percent fall in emissions from the power sector, the biggest decline in decades, according to Rhodium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the story there is all about coal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954785\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart2.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart2-160x97.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coal generation in the U.S. fell by 18 percent last year, the largest annual decline on record, according to Rhodium. \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\">Another study\u003c/a>, published in December, found a smaller but still dramatic drop for coal generation last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Renewable power sources such as wind and solar have seen sharp increases in recent years as \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/content/chart-renewable-energy-costs-are-falling-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their costs of generation\u003c/a> have fallen below that of coal. But natural gas has replaced far more coal generation capacity than renewables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954786\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart3.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart3-160x97.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fracking boom sent natural gas prices plummeting, helping drive a rapid shift by electric utilities away from coal. But while burning gas is cleaner than burning coal, natural gas power generation still emits carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03122019/fossil-fuel-emissions-2019-natural-gas-bridge-oil-coal-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more about how the natural gas rush is driving a global rise in fossil fuel emissions\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emissions from natural gas power generation increased by more than 40 million metric tons last year, compared to a drop of 190 million metric tons for coal, according to Rhodium. That does not include emissions during oil and gas \u003cem>production,\u003c/em> such as methane, a potent short-lived climate pollutant, which are counted separately (see below).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the good news on emissions cuts ends with the power sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954787\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"376\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart4.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart4-160x93.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transportation is now the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and emissions were essentially flat in 2019, declining by 0.3 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That does represent a shift after several years of small increases, but emissions remain about where they were before the Great Recession started in 2007. Hannah Pitt, a senior analyst with Rhodium, said improved fuel efficiency is helping slow or end the rise in emissions, even as people fly and drive more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954788\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportGDP.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"376\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportGDP.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportGDP-160x93.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the change from 2018 to last year can be explained by the economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP (the value of all final goods and services produced in the country), expanded by a relatively robust 2.9 percent. But the first three quarters of last year saw slower GDP growth of 2.3 percent, according to Rhodium. A slower economy tamped down growth in domestic air travel and also in shipping by trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet emissions from other sectors of the economy continued to rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1954790\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart5.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"648\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart5.png 648w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2020/01/2020EmissionsReportChart5-160x97.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emissions from industry rose slightly last year and are now greater than those from coal-fired power plants. Emissions from buildings were up, too. And emissions from other sectors of the economy collectively grew by more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of the growth within the “other” category came from methane emitted by oil and gas production. The U.S. is now the world’s top oil and gas producer, and it is \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">projected to continue\u003c/a> expanding output in coming years. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has started the process of pulling out of the Paris accord, and it has been working to \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29082019/methane-regulation-oil-gas-storage-pipelines-epa-rollback-trump-wheeler\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">roll back regulations\u003c/a> adopted by the Obama administration that limited methane emissions from new and existing oil and gas wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These other, \u003ca href=\"https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28062018/global-warming-pollution-industrial-sources-cement-steel-trade-solutions-technology-shipping\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">harder to tackle sectors\u003c/a> are an increasingly important piece of the story, and Pitt said federal policies will have to target them if the U.S. is to hit the targets it agreed to as part of the Paris climate agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In order to meet those, we would need to really be seeing some pretty sizable annual declines in emissions that we’re not seeing now,” she said. “And if we’re relying purely on the power sector market dynamics to get there, I don’t see that happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"radiolab": {
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},
"rightnowish": {
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"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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