Hill Heat

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) lost the Republican primary in his bid for re-election to Indiana state treasurer and Tea Party favorite Richard Mourdock, a climate conspiracy theorist. In April, Mourdock attacked Lugar for his association with the Alliance to Save Energy and the Brookings Institution’s Energy Security Initiative:

Clearly, Lugar is out of touch with Hoosier conservatives if he thinks that serving on the board of groups that advocate ‘cap and trade’ carbon tax schemes and the junk science associated with global climate change alarmism is prudent when he represents a state that meets the majority of its electrical needs with coal-fired generators.

Following his defeat, Lugar bemoaned the extremism of the Republican Party. “Republicans cannot admit to any nuance in policy on climate change,” Lugar said.

Lugar did not actually have a record of supporting climate legislation. In 2008, he joined the filibuster of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.

The Heartland Institute has been quietly dropped from two significant coalitions with top environmental organizations. Under pressure from Forecast the Facts and Greenpeace, insurers who funded Heartland’s Washington DC vice president, Eli Lehrer, ceased their support and helped to convince Lehrer to leave the organization. With Lehrer’s departure, the Heartland Institute has been excised from the websites of two green coalitions:

The Smarter Safer Coalition, an effort to reform the National Flood Insurance Program by top insurers, environmental organizations including American Rivers, the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense Fund, Defenders of Wildlife, Ceres, and the Nature Conservancy, alongside conservative groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Conservative Union, and Americans for Tax Reform

The Green Scissors Campaign, an initiative to reduce anti-environmental government spending with Friends of the Earth and Taxpayers for Common Sense.

According to leaked documents, Lehrer brought about $700,000 a year into the Heartland Institute for his Center on Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate, including the majority of Heartland’s corporate funding. The insurers who announced their departure from Heartland include the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers, XL Group, Renaissance Re, Allied World Assurance, and State Farm Insurance.

Corporate sponsors of the Heartland Institute who have resisted calls to end their financial support include Microsoft, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Comcast, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Heartland’s seventh climate-denier conference will take place in Chicago in two weeks.

Tim DeChristopher, the climate activist jailed by the Obama administration for disrupting a last-minute Bush administration oil auction, finds his strength by accepting the terrible reality of climate change.

In an interview recorded in May 2011 before his two-year jail term began in July of that year, DeChristopher told environmental activist and author Terry Tempest Williams that he was willing to be Bidder 70 at the Bureau of Land Management auction in Utah – willing to dedicate his life to fighting global warming through nonviolent direct action – the moment he learned that the window had already closed for humanity to avoid all of the terrible catastrophes of climate pollution:

TIM: I think part of what empowered me to take that leap and have that insecurity was that I already felt that insecurity. I didn’t know what my future was going to be. My future was already lost.

TERRY: Coming out of college?

TIM: No. Realizing how fucked we are in our future.

TERRY: In terms of climate change.

TIM: Yeah. I met Terry Root, one of the lead authors of the IPCC report, at the Stegner Symposium at the University of Utah. She presented all the IPCC data, and I went up to her afterwards and said, “That graph that you showed, with the possible emission scenarios in the twenty-first century? It looked like the best case was that carbon peaked around 2030 and started coming back down.” She said, “Yeah, that’s right.” And I said, “But didn’t the report that you guys just put out say that if we didn’t peak by 2015 and then start coming back down that we were pretty much all screwed, and we wouldn’t even recognize the planet?” And she said, “Yeah, that’s right.” And I said: “So, what am I missing? It seems like you guys are saying there’s no way we can make it.” And she said, “You’re not missing anything. There are things we could have done in the ’80s, there are some things we could have done in the ’90s—but it’s probably too late to avoid any of the worst-case scenarios that we’re talking about.” And she literally put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m sorry my generation failed yours.” That was shattering to me.

TERRY: When was this?

TIM: This was in March of 2008. And I said, “You just gave a speech to four hundred people and you didn’t say anything like that. Why aren’t you telling people this?” And she said, “Oh, I don’t want to scare people into paralysis. I feel like if I told people the truth, people would just give up.” And I talked to her a couple years later, and she’s still not telling people the truth. But with me, it did the exact opposite. Once I realized that there was no hope in any sort of normal future, there’s no hope for me to have anything my parents or grandparents would have considered a normal future—of a career and a retirement and all that stuff—I realized that I have absolutely nothing to lose by fighting back. Because it was all going to be lost anyway.

DeChristopher also discussed a 2008 speech by Naomi Klein that noted that Barack Obama’s goals for climate change were centrist, that “even his pie-in-the-sky campaign promises were not enough.” “And so if the center is not good enough for our survival,” Klein argued, “and if Obama is a centrist, and will always be a centrist, then our job is to move the center.” So DeChristopher realized that “you have to go to the edge and push” :

I mean, with climate change, the center is this balancing point between the climate scientists on one side saying, “This is what needs to be done,” and ExxonMobil on the other. And so the center is always going to be less than what’s required for our survival.

Countless lives were saved this weekend by vigilant government officials who warned of deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska—states whose politics are dominated by anti-government, anti-science ideologues. Over 100 tornadoes struck down in 24 hours, but only six people died in Oklahoma, Sen. Jim Inhofe’s home state, thanks to warnings from the National Weather Service scientists he has worked to discredit:

The tornadoes were unrelenting – more than 100 in 24 hours over a stretch of the Plains states. They tossed vehicles and ripped through homes. They drove families to their basements and whipped debris across small towns throughout the Midwest. In some areas, baseball-size hail rained from the sky.

And yet, in a stroke that some officials have attributed to a more vigilant and persistent warning system, relatively few people were killed or injured.

Wichita, Kansas, the headquarters of Koch Industries, suffered $280 million in damage from a ferocious twister, but the “ever-increasing government” demonized by the Koch brothers prevented any loss of life.

Greenhouse pollution from the fossil fuel industries that control the region’s politics is making our weather more extreme and dangerous. The heat trapped by carbon pollution is powering these earlier and more intense storms with record-warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico. As Dr. Jeff Masters wrote on Friday:

This is the warmest March value on record for the Gulf of Mexico, going back over a century of record keeping. During the first two weeks of April, Gulf of Mexico waters remained about 1.5°C above average, putting April on pace to have the warmest April water temperatures on record. Only one year in the past century has had April water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico more than 1.1°C above average; that year was 2002 (1.4°C above average.) All that record-warm water is capable of putting record amounts of water vapor into the air, since evaporation increases when water is warmer. Because moist air is less dense than dry air, this warm, moist air flowing northwards from the Gulf of Mexico into the developing storm system over the Plains will be highly unstable once it encounters cold, dry air aloft. The record-warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico are a key reason for the high risk of severe weather over the Plains this weekend.

The League of Women Voters has launched a major, nationwide campaign in defense of the EPA’s work to give Americans clean air. The People Not Polluters campaign asks Americans and their elected officials to join the Clean Air Promise:

I promise to protect America’s children and families from dangerous air pollution. Because toxics and pollutants such as mercury, smog, carbon, and soot, cause thousands of hospital visits, asthma attacks, and even deaths, I will support clean air policies and other protections that scientists and public health experts have recommended to the EPA to safeguard our air quality.

Watch the campaign spot:

LWV is mobilizing its members to tell personal stories of the cost of asthma for children and families, including outreach to vulnerable populations like seniors, Latinos, and African Americans.

Senate Republicans have introduced legislation to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. The bill, introduced by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), would merge the EPA, which enforces environmental laws, with the Department of Energy, which manages nuclear energy and energy research, into one department.

In January, Newt Gingrich proposed abolishing the EPA, and several House Republicans have supported that goal. Burr’s statement announcing his bill to eliminate the EPA argues that “duplicative functions” can be eliminated:

U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) introduced a bill that would consolidate the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency into a single, new agency called the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE). The bill would provide cost savings by combining duplicative functions while improving the administration of energy and environmental policies by ensuring a coordinated approach.

Burr’s bill has fifteen co-sponsors, all of them deniers of the threat of global warming pollution, a top EPA priority: Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), John Thune (R-S.D.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), David Vitter (R-La.), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), Mike Lee (R-Utah).

After a contentious House Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday, the full chamber will take up H.R. 910, the Upton-Inhofe Energy Tax Prevention Act, on Wednesday. In the upper chamber, the Senate is scheduled to begin votes at 4 pm on the climate amendments to S. 493, including Baucus amendment no. 236, Stabenow-Brown no. 277, Rockefeller no. 215, and McConnell no. 183, which is the Upton-Inhofe bill.

At the rules hearing on H.R. 910, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) submitted several amendments to change the title of bill, including the “Koch Brothers Appreciation Act” and “Protecting Americans from Polar Bears Act.”

The small business legislation SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011 (S. 493), introduced by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), is being used as a vehicle for senators who wish to prevent regulation of greenhouse pollution from oil refineries, coal-fired power plants, heavy industry, and other major emitters. Four amendments, varying from the Upton-Inhofe legislation to prevent any and all action by the Environmental Protection Agency against climate change, to a two-year suspension of climate rules from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.), have been introduced. Votes on some combination of the amendments are expected to take place as early as Thursday afternoon.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has introduced amendment 183, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, first introduced by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). The amendment is cosponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Pat Toomey (R-Penn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). The amendment calls for:

1. The permanent prohibition on Clean Air Act regulation of greenhouse gases, other than the existing motor vehicle rules
2. Repeal of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding and reporting requirements
3. Preventing any future California waiver for tailpipe greenhouse emissions

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) has introduced amendment 215, the EPA Stationary Source Regulations Suspension Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). The amendment calls for:

1. A two-year suspension of stationary source regulations of carbon dioxide and methane

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has introduced amendment 236, which has three elements:

1. Forbidding regulation of greenhouse gases from a emitter that doesn’t also produce other regulated air pollution
2. Codification of the EPA tailoring rule that establishes a 75,000 ton CO2e/year threshold for regulation
3. Excluding regulation of biofuel emissions related to land-use changes, or any other agricultural activities whatsover

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) has introduced amendment 265, which has four elements:

1. A two-year suspension of stationary source greenhouse gas regulations
2. Preventing any future California waiver for tailpipe greenhouse emissions
3. Excluding regulation of biofuel emissions related to land-use changes, or any other agricultural activities whatsover
4. Allocating $5 billion to the Advanced Energy Project tax credit

Of the 403 amendments offered on the House budget measure, the 2011 Continuing Resolution (H.R. 1), many are focused on climate change, energy policy, and environmental protection. Republican amendments, if fully enacted, would eliminate the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Special Envoy for Climate Change, the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the NOAA Climate Service, and would block rules for cement plant pollution, coal ash, industrial boiler pollution, water quality, climate change, climate change adaptation, energy-efficient lighting, mountaintop removal, atrazine, and water conservation.

The following list was compiled by E&E News and by Hill Heat.

Administration environment programs

• Amendment No. 202 from Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) to defund the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which advises the president on environmental issues.
• Amendment No. 203 from Labrador to stop the administration from using its funding to designate new monuments under the Antiquities Act. The administration downplayed that authority last summer after Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee released a leaked Interior Department memo listing 14 possible sites for future monuments.
• Amendment No. 344 from Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) to stop the federal government from reimbursing attorneys’ fees that were incurred while seeking enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act.
• Amendment No. 204 from Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) to stop the White House from using its funds to pay for an assistant to the president for energy and climate change, a special envoy for climate change or a special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation. The first of those posts is held by departing climate czar Carol Browner.
• Amendment No. 257 from Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), also to stop the White House from paying for an assistant to the president for energy and climate change, the position held by Carol Browner.

Air and climate

• Amendment No. 165 from Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) to stop EPA from using its funding to implement new air pollution rules for cement kilns. Carter has recently drawn fire from environmentalists for introducing a resolution to block the standards, which would set limits on mercury and other types of toxic air pollution.
• Amendment No. 201 from Labrador to stop EPA from issuing or enforcing final standards for air pollution from industrial boilers. EPA sought an extension after industry groups and many lawmakers in Congress slammed the rule that was proposed last summer, but a court ordered the agency to issue a final rule by Feb. 21. The agency sent its draft to the White House for review last month, saying it would open up a reconsideration proceeding after issuing a final rule.
• Amendments No. 65 and 66 from Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) to allow EPA to limit greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act if it is deemed “necessary to protect the public health or prevent severe environmental degradation.”
• Amendment No. 198 from Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) to stop EPA from creating a cap-and-trade program or enforcing any other regulations for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Poe introduced a similar bill last month, as well as during the previous Congress.
• Amendment No. 348 from Pearce to stop Interior from putting funding toward climate change adaptation.
• Amendment No. 29 from Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) to reduce funding for the International Fund for Agricultural Development by $2.599 million. Also reduces funding for Contributions to International Organizations account by $44 million, Global Environmental Facility by $4.6 million, International Development Association by $136 million, Enterprise for American Multilateral Investment by $2.9 million, and African Development Fund by $19.5 million.
• Amendment No. 149 from Rep. Blaine Leutkemeyer (R-Mo.) to prohibit funding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
• Amendment No. 378 from Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) to prohibit the establishment of the NOAA Climate Service (NCS).

Energy policy

• Amendment No. 94 from Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) to stop EPA from using its funding to implement its decision to allow the ethanol content of gasoline to be increased from 10 percent to 15 percent. EPA issued a rule in October that said E-15 could be used in vehicles made after 2007, and in January, the agency followed up with another rule allowing cars made between 2001 and 2006 to use the fuel.
• Amendment No. 241 from Rep. John Carney (D-Del.) to stop the Department of Energy from using its funding for the Oil and Gas Research and Development Program.
• Amendment No. 181 from Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) to bar the use of federal funds to implement the section of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that phases out incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient alternatives. Republicans have gone after the provision, citing it as an example of an overreaching federal government.
• Amendment No. 251 from Scalise to stop Interior from using any funding to delay the approval of a plan or permit for energy exploration on the outer continental shelf. The agency has been rebuked twice by a federal court for slowing new oil and gas drilling as part of its response to last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Amendments No. 300 through 320 from Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) to make a variety of changes to the appropriations given to DOE for energy efficiency and renewable energy research, including eliminating solar energy, water power, building technologies, vehicle technologies, fuel cells, geothermal energy, and biomass technologies.
• Amendment No. 329 from Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) to bar additional funding for the operations and maintenance of the Southeastern Power Administration, which operates hydroelectric power projects in the southeastern United States.
• Amendment No. 27 from Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to stop Interior from issuing new oil or natural gas leases on the outer continental shelf if they do not include limitations on royalty relief based on market price.
• Amendment No. 228 from Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to prevent the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center refurbishment, and to reduce the DOE nuclear budget by $20 million.

Water and mining rules

• Amendment No. 13 from Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) would stop EPA from using its funding to implement, administer or enforce new water quality standards for Florida’s lakes and flowing waters, which were issued in November. They have been challenged by the state of Florida (E&ENews PM, Dec. 7, 2010).
• Amendment No. 109 from Griffith to stop EPA from using its funding to implement or enforce new guidance for the review of possible water pollution from proposed coal-mining projects. The guidance was challenged last summer by the National Mining Association, which claims EPA has enforced the guidance as if it were a final rule without going through the usual notice-and-comment process (Greenwire, July 20, 2010).
• Amendment No. 216 from Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) to stop EPA from administering or enforcing the sections of the Clean Water Act that govern dredge-and-fill permits. Those are the permits needed by mountaintop-removal operations such as the Spruce No. 1 coal mine, a West Virginia project that had its water quality permit revoked by EPA last month.
• Amendment No. 218 from Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) to stop EPA from issuing new rules for the circumstances under which mining may be conducted near streams or from conducting an environmental impact statement on the impact of the rules.
• Amendment No. 289 from McClintock to stop Interior from issuing grants under the WaterSMART program. The conservation initiative, which was created by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last year, is intended to find solutions for the water shortages in many areas of the West.

Chemicals and toxics

• Amendment No. 10 from Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) to stop EPA from developing or issuing standards that list coal ash as hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. After issuing a proposal last year, the agency has not signaled when it might make a final decision on coal ash, which was thrust into the public eye after a massive spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in late 2008.
• Amendment No. 217 from McKinley, also to stop the coal ash rules.
• Amendment No. 279 from Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) to stop EPA from using its funding to re-evaluate the possible health effects of the approved herbicide atrazine. In late 2009, the agency started a new review of atrazine, which is widely used by corn and sugar cane growers, to investigate whether the herbicide can have effects on the human endocrine system.

From the Wonk Room.

“Dust storms scour Iraq, freak floods wreak havoc in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, rising sea levels erode Egypt’s coast, and hotter, drier weather worsens water scarcity in the Middle East, already the world’s most water-short region,” as scientists urge Arab governments to act now against global warming.

“Approved by voters 53% to 47% on Nov. 2,” California’s Proposition 26 that reclassifies industry fees as “taxes” is “aimed at multibillion-dollar statewide issues such as a per-barrel severance fee on oil and a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases.”

“At Republican behest, controversial climate scientist Judith Curry will testify before the House Science and Technology Committee.”