Switchboard, from NRDC › David Doniger's Blog

Toxic Trio Attacks EPA's Carbon Pollution Safeguards

2012-02-03T13:00:00Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

In their latest attack on vital clean air safeguards, three senior House Republicans are trying to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from doing its job under the Clean Air Act to protect Americans from dangerous carbon pollution from new power plants – pollution that threatens our health and drives our increasingly extreme weather.

In a letter earlier this week, Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) joined with two other friends of the big polluters, Joe Barton (R-TX) and Ed Whitfield (R-KY), to demand that the White House block those new power plant standards.

After years of delay, EPA is on the verge of issuing the first national limits on the carbon dioxide that will spew from the smokestacks of electric power plants to be built over the next decade. EPA is following the Clean Air Act – passed by Congress, of course – and two Supreme Court decisions.

Carbon pollution threatens the health of Americans by causing more severe heat waves and contributing to more devastating floods, rising sea levels, poor air quality and many other health threats. Power plants are the nation’s biggest carbon polluters, and there are no national limits on that pollution.

Poll after poll confirms that the American people count on EPA to protect them from dangerous carbon pollution, don’t trust polluters to police themselves, and don’t buy the House Republicans’ claims that EPA safeguards kill jobs. (See here, here, here, and here.)

But that’s not good enough for the toxic trio. These are the same guys who led last year’s unprecedented assault on the nation’s public health and pollution laws in the House of Representatives. They helped pushed 191 polluter-protection measures through the House last year. Fortunately, nearly all of them died in the Senate.

Their letter attempts to blame EPA for blocking construction of a hypothetical new generation of coal-burning and carbon-spewing power plants. Well, as my colleague David Hawkins puts it, “What New Coal Plants?” Citing forecasts from the Energy Information Administration and the private sector, Hawkins writes: “Haven't they been paying attention? No one wants to build new coal plants. Except for a handful already underway, no more are planned for the foreseeable future.” The future supply of electric power belongs to natural gas, wind power and other renewables, and greater energy efficiency in our homes, offices, and industries.

This blame-EPA-for-your-own-business-decisions game is nothing new. Just last week First Energy in Ohio announced that it will close some 50-year old coal-burning plants in September 2012. As NRDC’s Henry Henderson explains, First Energy sought to blame the 2012 closures on EPA’s new mercury standards – even though it wouldn’t have to meet those standards until 2015, and even though it had idled some of those units more than a year ago.

Despite the trio’s claims, the standards EPA is expected to propose will not bar the construction of new coal plants. What they will do is set an emission rate performance standard (not a cap) that new coal plants must meet, based on what is technically feasible and economically reasonable. Such standards could and should provide the market with a genuine reason to use carbon capture and storage technology – something lacking in today’s policy environment. Unlike politicians and ideologues who blind themselves to the science, most power company executives and investors understand that they will need this technology if they are ever going to be able build coal plants again.

The Upton-Barton-Whitfield letter repeats the tired-out charge that EPA is engaged in a “back door” attempt to implement the climate and energy legislation that Congress failed to enact in 2010. They ignore the existing Clean Air Act, passed by Congress decades ago, which gave EPA the duty and the authority to tackle new pollution threats as science identifies them. As the Supreme Court held in Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007, and again in American Electric Power v. Connecticut last year, it is already EPA’s job to curb dangerous carbon pollution and protect our health and our climate under the Clean Air Act.

No matter how many times this group of angry lawmakers try to mislead the public with wild claims about EPA's standards, the people's response is the same: we believe in EPA, not you and your polluter friends.

Priceless Elevator Conversation

2012-02-03T03:21:36Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

The Washington Post reported last December that “enviros, clean-coal advocates make strange bedfellows.” It seems that my organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a coal and utility lobby group called the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity inhabit the third and fourth floors, respectively, of a shiny office building in downtown Washington. Awkward.

So today, on another extraordinarily warm day in this winterless winter, I shared an elevator ride for the first time with someone actually going to the 4th floor. Here is the complete transcript, too good not to share:

“How are you,” he says, “Nice balmy April day out there.”

“I’m fine,” I say, and after a short pause, “Could be global warming?”

Longer pause.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says he, with a twinkle in his eye.

“I figured you might say that,” I say with a smile, exiting the elevator.

Only in Washington.

King Kong vs. Godzilla: Does Big Oil Get a Pass Because Big Coal is Bigger?

2012-01-15T20:54:16Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

When EPA released the first comprehensive “right-to-know” data on America’s biggest carbon polluters last week, there was a curious reaction from the one of the biggest industries involved.

As expected, the 2010 data show that coal-burning power plants are the biggest sources of the carbon pollution that endangers our health and drives extreme weather. The nation’s oil refineries follow in second place.

Nationwide, 1,555 power plants reported more than 2.3 billion tons of carbon pollution, about 72 percent of the total reported. In second place were the nation’s 145 oil refineries, emitting 183 million tons of CO2 and other heat-trapping gases.

The giant power companies, Southern and American Electric Power, shrugged off the news. It’s just “indicative of those being among the nation’s largest generators of electricity,” a Southern spokesman told Bloomberg’s Businessweek. “The biggest greenhouse gas emitters are those that have produced the most electricity,” said American Electric Power’s spokesman.

The giant oil companies had a different reaction. Said the American Petroleum Institute’s Howard Feldman, “Why are you picking on us, when we are like the peewee league here?”

Oh. When a 40-foot-tall King Kong is stomping on your city, does he get a pass because Godzilla is 400 feet tall?

Images from Wikimedia Commons

And besides, oil refineries are mighty big polluters that go toe to toe with power plants. Consider, for example, the Exxon refinery in Baytown, TX, with 10.7 million tons of carbon pollution. Here are the top ten refineries:

Facility	Location	Tons CO2-equivalent
Exxon	Baytown, TX	10,736,000
Exxon	Baton Rouge, LA	6,617,000
Hovensa	Christiansted, VI	5,406,000
Texas City	Texas City, TX	5,015,000
Citgo Petroleum	Sulphur, LA	4,645,000
Shell	Deer Park, TX	4,357,000
BP	Carson, CA	3,961,000
ExxonMobil	Beaumont, TX	3,858,000
Norco	Norco, LA	3,649,000
Marathon	Garyville, LA	3,547,000

In fact, there are 59 refineries in 59 specific communities reporting more than 1,000,000 tons of annual carbon emissions. Go to EPA’s database and look ‘em up.

Peewees? Or King Kongs? Ask the people in those communities.

They are counting on EPA to do its job under the Clean Air Act to set standards that require America’s biggest polluters – power plants, oil refineries, and more – to curb their dangerous carbon pollution.

Scariest Christmas, and Hope for a Cooler World

2011-12-22T20:49:24Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

Smithsonian Magazine has posted some unusual portraits of jolly Saint Nick and asked readers to vote for the Scariest Santa. Here’s my choice:

Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art

It’s a 1939 Christmas card from a Hungarian-born American artist named Ralph Fabri. Surely penned against the turmoil of World War II, today it calls to mind the grave dangers of runaway global warming.

2011 has been a year of extraordinary extreme weather. Take a look at NRDC’s Extreme Weather Map. At least 2,941 monthly weather records were broken by extreme events that struck communities in all 50 states of the U.S. Floods in the Midwest. Searing drought in Texas. A hurricane washing away bridges in Vermont. Thousands of heat and smog records trashed across the country.

Fourteen disastrous weather events in the U.S. this year have resulted in more than a billion dollars in property damage – an all-time record breaking number. Their estimated $53 billion price tag doesn’t include health costs. NRDC scientist Kim Knowlton and her colleagues have shown, in a first-of-its-kind study published in the journal Health Affairs, when health-related costs of extreme events are calculated, the total tally increases substantially and will likely continue to climb due to climate change. Seven of the 14 weather disasters in 2011 – a record-high number – are the type expected to worsen as continued carbon pollution drives dangerous climate change.

The planet burns, but Congress fiddles. Meddles, actually. The House Republicans forced 191 votes this year to weaken or repeal our public health and environmental protection laws. That includes repeated votes to block or rescind the Clean Air Act provisions that the Supreme Court has twice ruled make it EPA’s job to protect our health and well-being from dangerous carbon pollution.

Fortunately, virtually all of these measures died in the Senate. President Obama, Senate leadership, and the House minority stood firm in showdowns over funding bills in April and December, to defeat “riders” that would have blocked clean air standards for carbon and other pollutants.

Facing an out-of-touch, do-nothing Congress, it falls to President Obama to use the tools he already has to fend off climate catastrophe. And the president took important steps in 2011 to use those tools to begin cutting climate-changing pollution. In July, he announced a second historic clean car peace treaty, supported by nearly every automaker, extending carbon pollution and fuel economy standards for new cars and light trucks through 2025. Carbon pollution from 2025-model vehicles will be cut nearly in half, and cars will go twice as far on a gallon of gas as those sold just a couple of years ago. With fewer trips to the gas station, consumers will save money every month – the savings will total thousands of dollars over the life of the car. The standards are good news for the auto industry’s recovery and are creating thousands of new jobs.

The next order of business is to clean up the nation’s power plants, which release more than two billion tons of dangerous carbon dioxide each year – more than any other industry and more than all our vehicles. The Obama EPA took huge steps to clean up other kinds of power plant pollution in 2011. Standards announced just yesterday will cut their mercury pollution by 90 percent. The mercury pollution controls, coupled with an expected shift in generation to cleaner-burning plants, will also sharply cut other pollutants (including the sulfur and nitrogen oxides that form dangerous fine particles), saving tens of thousands of lives and preventing hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks, heart attacks, and hospital visits. Together with standards issued earlier this year to cut power plant soot and smog that drifts across state lines, these are the most important pollution safeguards in more than two decades.

The Obama administration told the Supreme Court earlier this year that it is also moving on carbon pollution from both new and existing power plants, under a settlement agreement reached with New York State, NRDC, and others (see here and here). Unfortunately, EPA did not meet the agreed-upon schedule and has asked for more time. While discussions continue, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has announced that carbon standards for new power plants are coming early in 2012, and a proposal has been submitted to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, the last stop before it goes out for public comment. NRDC welcomes this important step forward on new plants, even as we will keep pressing for action to clean up carbon from the power plants that are operating today.

President Obama deserves huge credit for cleaning up dangerous carbon pollution from cars in 2011, and for cleaning up other kinds of deadly pollution from power plants as well. In 2012 it’s time to do the same for power plants’ carbon emissions.

Cleaner cars and cleaner power plants are critical to fending off Ralph Fabri’s apocalyptic Christmas vision from 70 years ago. Those are my wishes for the New Year.

Congress Nears End of Session: Doomed Gas Cloud Rushing Toward Black Hole

2011-12-15T21:15:37Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

AFP reports that “Astronomers have spied a giant gas cloud with several times the mass of Earth accelerating toward the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy.”

“‘It is not going to survive the experience,’ said Stefan Gillessen, a research at the Max-Planck Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics and lead author of the study.”

He might have been talking about this week in Washington, where Congress is on a crash course to implode.

We face two not very bright futures: On the one hand, closure of the federal government and expiration of payroll tax reductions that both parties claim to support, hurting more than a hundred million Americans right before the holidays. On the other hand, Republican leaders want to force Democrats and the president to swallow a host of loathsome ideological and special-interest policy riders.

Playing off the scientists’ definition of a black hole, you might say Congress “is a region in spacetime from which nothing, including light, can escape due to its gravitational force.”

Not just light, but light bulbs.

The House Republicans’ funding bill would block new energy-saving standards for light bulbs, throwing into chaos an entire American manufacturing industry that has geared up to make new products that will save money for every American family. In one stroke, this bill would destroy American manufacturing jobs and cost American families billions of dollars paying for wasted electricity. No wonder Congress has a dim-watted reputation.

Some of the riders are down-right deadly. One, attached to the payroll tax bill, could cost 28,000 lives by blocking life-saving air pollution safeguards to clean up thousands of dirty, coal-burning industrial boilers.

Others give big wet kisses to Big Oil: Another one on the payroll tax bill fast tracks the ill-conceived Keystone XL pipeline that would give the dirtiest Canadian oil access to the international market. And Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is busy taking credit for shifting clean air permitting for Arctic Ocean oil drilling from EPA (which knows something about clean air) to the Interior Department.

And then there’s a Christmas present for Big Ag – loopholes to shield a handful of huge animal factory farms from any limits on the heat-trapping pollution that wafts from their artificial lakes of manure. In fact, they’d be the only big industry in the country that doesn’t even have to disclose how much climate-changing pollution it produces.

There are other anti-environmental riders undercutting clean water and public lands safeguards sprinkled throughout the massive funding bill.

Scientists watching events unfold in deep space are excited: “This will be the first time ever that scientists will be able to observe in realtime the destruction of such a gas cloud by a supermassive black hole.”

But this is the third time this year that the American people have had to watch the House leadership and its allies in the Senate take the U.S. Congress – and our national government and economy – to the brink of destruction.

President Obama and Congressional Democrats are standing firm against these dangerous efforts to block public health and environmental safeguards. Let’s hope the radicals driving the giant gas cloud blink before they reach the black hole.

Cement Plant Standards Upheld, but Carbon Pollution Still Unchecked

2011-12-09T20:13:32Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington issued its decision today in cases challenging EPA's September 2010 Clean Air Act standards for dangerous pollution from more than 100 cement plants across the nation.

The Court largely rejected industry challenges to the public health protection standards for mercury, soot, and other dangerous pollutants coming from these cement plants. These important health standards will go into effect as scheduled while EPA reconsiders on one minor issue that the court recognized could even result in stronger standards. EPA projects that each year these standards will save as many as 2,500 lives and prevent up to 17,000 heart attacks and 130,000 days of lost productivity (i.e., days when people miss work). The American people will receive up to $19 in public health benefits for every $1 in industry compliance costs.

NRDC is disappointed that the Court refused, on jurisdictional grounds, to address EPA’s failure to curb cement plants’ emissions of another dangerous pollutant, carbon dioxide. EPA found that cement plants are the nation's third largest industrial source of carbon pollution, emitting 87 million tons every year, and that there are available, affordable control measures. Yet EPA promised only vaguely to act sometime in the future. The Court ruled that we have to take our plea to end EPA's delay to a district court. We are considering our next steps.

Giving Thanks for the Montreal Protocol - Proof That Countries Actually Can Cooperate

2011-11-25T09:01:44Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

I just posted a report on the latest meeting of the parties to the Montreal Protocol, in Bali Indonesia. Let me add a personal reflection, as this is the Thanksgiving holiday weekend back home in America. Bali is a beautiful place, but on the whole I’d rather be sharing turkey leftovers with my family right now. Wherever you are, it is worth taking a moment to give thanks for the world’s most successful environmental treaty.

We too often take the rescue of the ozone layer for granted. A whole generation has grown up not hearing about the threat to the earth's ozone layer, except maybe once a year when the recurrence of the ozone hole gets a brief mention on the news.

In fact, a global disaster was averted by global collective action. If countries hadn’t agreed, starting in 1987, to phase out nearly 100 CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals, the thin layer of stratospheric ozone that protects us from dangerous ultraviolet radiation would have been badly depleted, and rates of skin cancer, cataracts, and other illnesses would be soaring off the charts around the world. And because many of those ozone-depleting chemicals are also powerful heat-trapping gases, the dangerous weather extremes of climate change would be coming on even faster and harder.

So let us give thanks for the Montreal Protocol as proof positive that the earth’s nearly 200 countries can effectively cooperate, when they want to. Let’s remember that as those same countries assemble next week in Durban for the next round of climate treaty talks.

Delegates playing a cover version of "You Raise Me Up," made famous by Josh Grogan, on their traditional instrument, the angklung, during the opening ceremony. See if you can find me. (Where's Waldo hint: look in the upper left.) Picture courtesy of IISD Reporting Services, http://www.iisd.ca/ozone/mop23/

108 Countries Support HFC Curbs under Montreal Protocol

2011-11-24T10:29:29Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

The parties to the Montreal Protocol resumed their debate this week in Bali, Indonesia, on whether they can do more to protect the climate under the world’s most successful environmental treaty.

In other posts, I’ve explained how the Montreal Protocol has provided huge climate side-benefits because many of the ozone-depleting chemicals are also powerful heat-trapping gases. But those benefits are now being eroded by the rapid growth of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the “super greenhouse gases” that are coming into widespread use as replacements for their ozone-depleting predecessors.

The good news: Support continued to grow in Bali for taking steps to avoid disastrous increases in production of HFCs. 108 countries – more than half the world’s nations – have now backed moving forward on HFC phase-down proposals from Micronesia and from Canada, Mexico, and the United States. That’s up from 91 supporters last year and 41 two years ago. (The countries are listed below.)

The bad news: India, China, and Brazil still stand in the way.

Dozens of countries – both developed and developing – voiced support, often passionately, for the HFC proposals. Many speakers acknowledged that the rapid HFC growth is being driven by the phase-out of other chemicals ordered by Montreal Protocol. They also affirmed that the Protocol gives the parties the authority and responsibility to assure the safety of alternatives for ozone-depleting chemicals. As several speakers put it: “The Montreal Protocol created this monster, and the Montreal Protocol has to clean it up.”

India, China, and Brazil could muster fewer than a half-dozen other countries to back their rejection of negotiations on the HFC proposals. They are obviously uncomfortable in their increasing isolation – indeed, they objected to any reference in the official meeting report to the number of parties on each side of the debate. But they are still not ready to move. They continued to argue that HFCs lie exclusively in the jurisdiction of the climate treaties.

The climate treaties are the elephant in the room. The climate negotiations starting next week in South Africa are riven with conflict. Almost all the attention there goes to carbon dioxide and energy and forest policy. HFCs never even get any airtime there. In contrast, the Montreal Protocol has the expertise, the bandwidth, and tradition of cooperation to deal with HFCs.

The HFC proposals have been taken hostage in the climate talks. But it’s precisely when hostages are taken that deals are possible. China, India, and Brazil want the Kyoto Protocol parties – primarily the European Union – to make post-2012 commitments. The European Union wants those countries to make additional commitments of their own. One of those commitments could be to unblock HFCs in Montreal. Let’s see what happens in the wheeling-and-dealing in Durban.

In any case, it's a safe bet that Micronesia and the U.S., Mexico, and Canada will put their proposals forward again next year, and that pressure will continue to mount on the few countries that stand in the way.

Here's the text of the HFC declaration. It was put forward at last year's meeting of the parties, and had 90 signatories. Croatia added its name after the meeting. Here in Bali, 17 additional parties listed below affiliated themselves with the declaration, raising the total to 108.

Declaration on the Global Transition Away From Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

Recognizing that hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are replacements for ozone depleting substances (ODS) being phased out under the Montreal Protocol, and that the projected increase in their use is a major challenge for the world’s climate system that must be addressed through concerted international action,

Recognizing also that the Montreal Protocol is well-suited to making progress in replacing hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) with low-GWP alternatives,

Mindful that certain high-GWP alternatives to HCFCs and other ODS are covered by the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol and that action under the Montreal Protocol should not have the effect of exempting them from the scope of the commitments contained thereunder,

Interested in harmonizing appropriate policies toward a global transition from HCFCs to environmentally sound alternatives,

Encourage all Parties to promote policies and measures aimed at selecting low-GWP alternatives to HCFCs and other ODS,

Declare our intent to pursue further action under the Montreal Protocol aimed at transitioning the world to environmentally sound alternatives to HCFCs and CFCs.

Original signatories in Bangkok, November 2010

Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Austria, Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovinia, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Columbia, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Estonia, European Union, Federated States of Micronesia, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Macedonia, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Mozambique, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Palau, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Saint Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States of America, Vietnam

Additional signatory: Croatia

Additional signatories in Bali, November 2011

Belarus, Cote D'Ivoire, Equitorial Guinea, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Malawi, Maldives, Morroco, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Swaziland, Trinadad and Tobago, Yemen, Zambia

Congressman Issa, Please Step Away from the CARB

2011-11-15T15:25:42Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation are expected to formally propose new carbon pollution and fuel economy standards this week, implementing the Obama administration’s third historic Clean Car Peace Treaty reached last July. The new standards will nearly double new vehicles’ miles per gallon and nearly halve their heat-trapping carbon pollution by 2025.

The clean car agreement enjoys broad support from car and truck manufacturers, auto workers, environmentalists, and states. And it is highly popular, with 80 percent of the American people backing the 54.5 miles per gallon standard coming by 2025, according to a new Consumers Union-sponsored poll.

But Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, dances to his own drummer. I’ve written here how the Congressman who made his fortune selling car alarms has boldly gone where other House Republicans have declined to go, by attacking all three agreements forged by the president to curb carbon pollution and fuel use by the nation’s cars and trucks.

Other House chairmen who are no pushovers for the president or the EPA have been savvy enough to leave the clean car agreements alone. Last summer Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), for example, told Politico Pro: "If these automobile manufacturers want to reach agreements with EPA, that's their business."

But that’s not enough for Congressman Issa. Last month he hauled officials of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department before his committee, and later accused them of misleading the committee under oath for differing with him on the meaning of the federal fuel economy law. Last week he fired off a letter accusing the California Air Resources Board of violating that same law.

Well, it turns out that both federal agencies and California’s air officials are faithfully following decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and two lower federal courts. The Supreme Court has ruled – not once but twice – that the Clean Air Act covers the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. As the Supreme Court said in Massachusetts v. EPA:

[T]hat DOT sets mileage standards in no way licenses EPA to shirk its environmental responsibilities. EPA has been charged with protecting the public’s “health” and “welfare”. . . , a statutory obligation wholly independent of DOT’s mandate to promote energy efficiency. . . . The two obligations may overlap, but there is no reason to think the two agencies cannot both administer their obligations and yet avoid inconsistency.

Congressman Issa doggedly asserts that California’s standards violate the fuel economy law’s prohibition of state rules that “relate to” fuel economy. But following the Supreme Court’s lead, two federal courts rejected that very argument, holding that that the federal fuel economy law does not preempt California and other states from curbing carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. The federal court in Vermont said this:

Construing the statute as a whole, Congress could not have considered an EPA-approved California emissions standard to be automatically subject to express preemption as a "law or regulation relating to fuel economy standards," because it required that NHTSA take into consideration the effect of such standards when determining maximum feasible average fuel economy. ... Nothing in EPCA or its legislative history indicates that Congress intended to displace emission regulation by California that would have an effect on fuel economy; on the contrary, the legislative history is quite clear that Congress expected NHTSA to take such regulations into consideration. ... Unless this Court is to ignore decades of EPA-issued and approved regulations that also can be said to “relate to” fuel economy, this regulation does not “relate to” fuel economy within the meaning intended by Congress. Vermont's [greenhouse gas] emissions regulation is not expressly preempted by [the federal fuel economy law’s] preemption provision.

The federal court in California agreed:

The court concludes that, just as the Massachusetts Court held EPA's duty to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act overlaps but does not conflict with DOT's duty to set fuel efficiency standards under [the fuel economy law], so too California's effort to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the waiver of preemption provisions of the Clean Air Act overlaps, but does not conflict with DOT's activities under [the fuel economy law]. . . . State laws that are granted waiver of preemption under the Clean Air Act that have the effect of requiring even substantial increases in average fuel economy performance are not preempted where the required increase in fuel economy is incidental to the state law's purpose of assuring protection of public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act.

The clean car agreements enjoy the broadest possible support of car and truck manufacturers, auto workers, environmentalists, and states. Car owners will fill up half as often and their cars will release only half as much dangerous carbon pollution. American families will save $80 billion a year at the pump and cut our national oil addiction by 2.2 million barrels per day. And we’ll create up to 150,000 new American jobs.

Yet Congressman Issa soldiers on.

To paraphrase the words that made him famous: “Congressman Issa, please step away from the car deal.”

UPDATE -- Poles Apart: The Latest on Saving the Ozone Layer

2011-10-21T16:51:12Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

There's been a lot of news recently about the holes in the ozone layer at the North and South Poles. Here's an update of a post from May 20th, with new information, images, and links.

The 2011 Antarctic Ozone Hole:

Source: World Data Center for Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere

There’s good news and bad news from opposite ends of the earth on the condition of the ozone layer. Overall, these scientific findings show that the ozone layer is starting to recover, thanks to the Montreal Protocol, the treaty responsible for the phasing out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-destroying chemicals. But we’re not out of the woods yet.

A thin layer of ozone in the stratosphere protects life on earth by screening out dangerous ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. The ozone layer has been badly damaged by elevated levels of chlorine and bromine in the stratosphere due to man-made CFCs and other ozone-destroying chemicals. As a result, humans are at higher risk of skin cancer, cataracts, and immunological illnesses; animals and plants on land and in the ocean are also endangered.

Showing that we really can come together to solve big problems, more than 40 countries agreed to the Montreal Protocol in 1987. Now, every country on earth belongs to this treaty. Under the treaty (and the Clean Air Act here in the U.S.) we’ve already phased out CFCs and other dangerous chemicals, and many others are being eliminated world-wide over the coming decades. Scientists have long predicted that phasing out these chemicals will let the ozone layer slowly heal. And now there’s evidence that the recovery has begun.

A terrific guide, called “Twenty Questions and Answers About the Ozone Layer,” has just been published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and others. This is a great introduction – for reporters, teachers, students, and others – to the science of ozone depletion, the successful world-wide effort to save the ozone layer, and the connections to climate change. Download the guide here.

Ozone depletion, serious in the “mid-latitudes” where we live, is even worse in the extreme north and south.

The worst depletion takes place over Antarctica. A continent-sized “hole” in the ozone layer has appeared there every September (springtime in the southern hemisphere) since the early 1980s. Special conditions make the impact of ozone-depleting chemicals so severe there: A vortex of super-cold air is trapped over Antarctica every winter. It is so cold there that clouds form in the stratosphere and serve as catalytic surfaces for chemical reactions that free up the most potent ozone-destroying chlorine and bromine compounds. When the sun returns at the end of the long winter, ozone is rapidly destroyed.

NASA scientists report that this year's Antarctic ozone hole was the ninth largest on record. At the top of this post, and just below, are compelling images of this year's hole, day-by-day, from July (the depths of the Southern Hemisphere's winter) through mid-October.

Source: NASA

And here is a graphical history showing the ozone layer before and after ozone-depleting chemicals in the stratosphere had built up to the critical level (about 2 parts per billion chlorine) that cause the Antarctic ozone hole.

This and next image courtesy of NOAA ESRL Chemical Sciences Division, Boulder, Colorado, USA (http://esrl.noaa.gov/csd/)

Fully closing the ozone hole will still take decades, because these long-lived chemicals take so long to leave the air. The size of the hole can vary from year to year, depending partly on just how cold it gets in the stratosphere over Antarctica each winter. But if we keep reducing the ozone-depleting chemicals, scientists expect the Antarctic ozone layer to recover after the middle of this century.

What about the North pole? The ozone layer is damaged over the Arctic too, though we don’t usually see the same kind of ozone depletion there as over Antarctica. The reason is that Arctic stratosphere is not as cold, and air doesn’t get trapped as tightly there (think of northern cold fronts spinning south out of Canada). But there are exceptions. 1997 was a bad spring for Arctic ozone. And this spring, the World Meteorological Organization reports, ozone levels over the Arctic dropped 40 percent to record low levels. (See also this Nature article (subscription required), by scientists from NASA, NOAA, and other institutions.) The Arctic stratosphere was unusually cold this winter – in part because the lower atmosphere over the Arctic was unusually warm. (More heat trapped in the lower atmosphere by greenhouse gases means a colder stratosphere.) Scientists expect recovery of the Arctic ozone layer between 2020 and 2035. Due to broader climate changes, Arctic ozone concentrations may keep increasing through this century.

Arctic Ozone Loss March 30, 2011, courtesy of NASA’s Earth Observatory

So what is happening between the poles, where most people live? The Twenty Questions guide reports that, comparing average levels from 2005-2009 with average levels from 1964-1980, total ozone levels were down about 3.5 percent in the northern mid-latitudes (35°N-60°N) and down about 6 percent in the southern mid-latitudes (35°S-60°S). That includes all of the United States north of Raleigh, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, and Los Angeles. It includes almost all of Europe, as well as Asia north of Tehran and Tokyo. The ozone layer’s recovery is expected to take until 2030 and 2055 in the northern and southern mid-latitudes, respectively. Ozone levels have been least affected in tropical latitudes (20°N-20°S).

The Twenty Questions guide also explains the important connections between protecting the ozone layer and protecting the climate. The most direct link is that CFCs and many other ozone-depleting chemicals are also powerful greenhouse gases. The Montreal Protocol’s phase-out has produced huge climate benefits as a bonus, equivalent to 11 billion tons of CO2 reductions in 2010 alone. This is more than five times the emission reductions targeted for that year by the Kyoto Protocol, and it’s also equivalent to delaying the growth in global CO2 emissions by 7-12 years.

A second connection is that the stratosphere and the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) are tightly linked. Ozone depletion itself has slightly reduced the total amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere, since ozone itself is a greenhouse gas. But this small negative effect is far outweighed by the heat trapped by CFCs and other greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. When greenhouse gases warm the troposphere, the stratosphere gets colder, and that can worsen ozone depletion. There are other complex interactions. For instance, scientists recently reported the Antarctic ozone hole is responsible for changing rainfall patterns across the southern hemisphere.

A third linkage is in the choice of replacements as we phase out the remaining ozone-depleting chemicals. We can replace them in air conditioners, insulating foams and other uses with chemicals that are powerful greenhouse gases (e.g., most hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs). Or we can steer towards chemicals that trap less heat – including various hydrocarbons and newer, less potent members of the HFC family.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico recently renewed a proposal to phase-down the heat-trapping HFCs under the Montreal Protocol. (See here and here.) A similar proposal was relaunched by small island nations led by Micronesia. While these proposals drew the support of 90 countries last year, China and India were not willing to go along, but India and the United States have set up a bilateral task force to study HFC alternatives and options for moving forward.

International support for HFC curbs is growing. India and China were increasingly isolated in this summer's Montreal treaty negotiations. The parties gather again in Bali in November (during American Thanksgiving), and we'll see how much more progress is made.

The bottom line is that the global effort to save the ozone layer under the Montreal Protocol has been one of the world’s best investments in my lifetime. But we’re not finished yet. There’s more to be done under this valuable treaty to protect both the ozone layer and the climate.

Inhofe Brews Tempest in Teapot While Global Warming Rages On

2011-09-28T20:23:05Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

Long-time climate denier Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) thinks he’s really got the goods this time. He is trumpeting a “procedural review” by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General asserting that – depending on how you read a definition in an obscure procedural guideline – EPA may have skipped one process step in reaching its landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers public health and welfare.

The laughable premise of Sen. Inhofe’s charges is that there hasn’t been enough peer review of climate science. It’s also dishonest.

The truth is that endangerment finding stands atop an enormous, multi-layered pyramid of peer-reviewed scientific research and assessment developed over decades. And its conclusions are unassailable.

Here are the facts:

At the base of the pyramid are tens of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific publications, each one peer-reviewed before acceptance in a scientific journal.

This immense body of climate change research was then synthesized in three separate scientific assessments by the Nobel prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. Global Climate Research Program, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Those assessments involved thousands of scientists trained in pertinent fields. Each assessment was subject to rigorous peer-review.

On this base, EPA prepared a detailed summary of these peer-reviewed assessments and the underlying peer-reviewed scientific literature. EPA then subjected its own summary to review by a dozen top federal climate science experts – not once, not twice, but three times.

The final endangerment finding, at the very top of the pyramid, relies on this summary.

In addition to all this peer and expert review, members of the public had multiple chances to offer views in many rounds of public comment – over IPCC and GCRP drafts, over EPA’s scientific summary, and over EPA’s proposed endangerment finding itself.

In this thorough scientific process, no alternative theory – from sunspots, to clouds, to cosmic rays – has gone uninvestigated. And every wild charge of scientific fraud – aka, Climategate – has been examined and refuted.

The Inspector General’s report pointedly takes no issue with the science of climate change or the catalogue of dangers to our health, our environment, and our economy in EPA’s endangerment finding. Instead, the IG report picks a procedural nit, asserting that EPA failed to properly classify its own summary of the IPCC, GCRP, and NAS scientific assessments as itself being another “scientific assessment.”

Here’s the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin question: Is EPA’s document a “summary” of previous scientific assessments that were already peer reviewed (and thus does not need further review), or is it EPA’s document a new “scientific assessment,” needing yet another round of peer review.

EPA and the Office of Management and Budget (which supervises executive branch peer review and is no pushover for EPA) both agreed that EPA’s document is a summary, not a new assessment, and that there’s already been more than enough peer review. The IG disagrees.

Sen. Inhofe’s trumped up outrage about “serious flaws” in EPA’s endangerment finding and the “violation” of peer review procedures hinges on this arcane definitional disagreement: “summary” or “scientific assessment”? EPA and OMB on one side. The Inspector General and Sen. Inhofe on the other. That’s all Sen. Inhofe’s got.

By the way, what peer review procedures does Sen. Inhofe follow before he posts his “climate hoax” theories? Teapot calling the kettle black?

Support Builds for Curbing HFCs - India and China Increasingly Isolated

2011-08-04T19:26:36Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

Some quiet progress on climate protection is being made this week in the home city of Montreal Protocol, the world’s most successful example of environmental cooperation. In addition to saving the ozone layer, the Montreal treaty has already provided huge climate benefits because many ozone-depleting chemicals are also super greenhouse gases. Phasing out the ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) worldwide delivered a climate protection bonus equivalent to 11 billion tons of CO2 reductions in 2010 alone – more than five times the emission reductions provided in 2010 by the Kyoto Protocol. (See here and here for more details.)

For several years, the Montreal Protocol parties have been considering additional measures to further protect the climate from the chemicals replacing CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals. Several countries, including the United States, have reintroduced proposals to phase down the production of the CFC replacements known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The rapid growth of HFCs is a direct result of phasing out CFCs and related chemicals. Wisely, the Montreal treaty is written not only to eliminate the ozone-depleting chemicals, but also to ensure that replacement chemicals don’t create new problems, such as magnifying climate change. The HFC phase-down proposals thus fit within the mandate to assure the safety of replacement chemicals.

Avoiding HFC growth and phasing current levels down could avoid an amazing amount of heat-trapping emissions -- equal to 88 billion metric tons of CO2 worldwide through 2050. That's equivalent to eliminating 12 times the current annual carbon pollution of the United States.

This is the third year in which HFC proposals have been advanced, by the US, Canada, and Mexico, and by Micronesia and other small island nations. In 2009 and 2010, these proposals were blocked, principally by India and China – two of the largest HFC producers and users. India and China, joined by Brazil and a handful of smaller countries, continued to oppose the HFC phase down this week in Montreal.

But underneath that apparent stand-off, there’s a lot of positive change going on. This was a new issue for most countries in 2009; even so, 41 countries joined in a declaration supporting the proposals. In 2010 that number grew to 91. The supporters are a good mix of developed and developing countries, showing that this proposal has the potential to overcome the usual divide between these two camps.

This year, India and China prevented formation of “contact group,” a formal step to begin negotiating the text of a treaty amendment. But the tactic backfired, because the parties decided instead to discuss and debate the HFC proposals in the full plenary. Four productive, lengthy discussions ensued over the four days of the meeting, involving the 140 countries present in Montreal. Lots of questions were asked and answered. Most important, the questions shifted from “why” questions (why be concerned about HFCs) – to “how to” questions (what are the alternatives, how to establish our baselines, how to finance the transition).

India and China found themselves increasingly isolated. They did not try to stop the plenary discussion, but they obviously did not like it. To its credit, China maintains a generally cooperative and non-confrontational approach in the Montreal Protocol. But after four days, China’s delegation gave a defensive speech, agreeing that HFCs need to be controlled, but arguing that discussion of the amendments was “premature.” That’s a significantly softer line than the hard “no” we’d been hearing before, and the insistence that HFC curbs should be discussed only under the climate treaties. Brazil also softened its line, expressing support for formally assessing the technical and economic feasibility of HFC alternatives in the Montreal process – one of the key steps towards adopting new control measures. And while India was vocal in its opposition, it continues to participate in a bilateral HFC task force with the U.S., which is working on a joint report on HFC alternatives.

The delegations from U.S., Canada, and Mexico vigorously and skillfully advanced their proposal this week, with major contributions from Micronesia and many helpful interventions from a wide variety of countries: Australia, Burkino Faso, Cameroon, the European Union, Egypt, Georgia, Grenada, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Morocco, Switzerland, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, and others.

The meeting will end tomorrow with another discussion of HFCs, focusing especially on how to use the Montreal Protocol’s highly effective funding mechanism to help developing countries their reduction obligations under the proposed amendments.

The HFC amendments will be get their next airing at the annual meeting of the parties in Indonesia this November (the Montreal meeting was to prepare for that). Look for the number of supporters of phasing down HFCs to rise well above 100 countries.

India and China have some decisions to make.

Congressman Issa, Please Step Away from the Car Deal

2011-08-02T05:00:36Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

Last Friday, President Obama announced another historic clean car agreement, supported by car companies, the auto workers union, environmental organizations, and states, that by 2025 will double new vehicles’ miles per gallon and cut their carbon pollution nearly in half.

Car owners will fill up half as often and save $3,000 over the life of the car. American families will save $80 billion a year at the pump and cut our national oil addiction by 2.2 million barrels per day. And we’ll create up to 150,000 new American jobs.

Rare good news for the planet, according to the New York Times. Everybody wins.

But not good enough for Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He's a climate skeptic and no friend of EPA or other federal health and safety agencies. And he's not happy.

According to The Hill, Issa’s got “serious concerns.” So, he’s launched an investigation and fired off letters demanding that the automakers preserve all documents pertaining to negotiations with the Obama administration. He’s bothered by “lack of transparency.” And notwithstanding the projected economic, environmental, and national security benefits, he's worried about “the potential for vehicle cost increases on consumers and negative impact on American jobs.”

Congressman Issa made a fortune building a car alarm company – the alarm features his own voice warning: “Please step away from the car.” So he may think he knows the car business better than the car makers.

But maybe not. Maybe he should take a lesson from Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), another anti-EPA House subcommittee chair, who acknowledged last week that the carmakers can take care of themselves: "If these automobile manufacturers want to reach agreements with EPA, that's their business."

Update Aug. 2: Energy and Commerce chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) -- no softie on EPA -- is also ready to let the deal go forward through the regulatory process. He told Politico: “We've not decided to take that [Issa investigation] course ... We've had some discussions with the auto companies. They believe. They signed the letters of intent. And we'll see how it plays out."

Congressman Issa, please step away from the car deal.

What the Latest Clean Car Peace Treaty Shows About Governing Today's America

2011-07-29T10:30:00Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

Today President Obama will announce a third historic agreement to bring us cleaner cars and trucks, dramatically cutting carbon pollution and raising fuel economy for new cars, SUVs, minivans, and pick-ups built between 2017 and 2025. The latest Clean Car Peace Treaty builds on a 2009 agreement for 2012-16 vehicles, and a 2010 pact to clean up heavy-duty trucks and buses.

The standards issued under the first agreement will cut carbon pollution from 2016 model vehicles by 30 percent and raise their fuel economy to 35.5 miles per gallon. NRDC’s vehicle experts Roland Hwang and Luke Tonachel show how the latest standards will ratchet carbon pollution down to just over half the level of current vehicles, and will crank up fuel efficiency standards to 54.5 mpg by 2025. (Go to Roland's and Luke’s posts for the nitty-gritty on grams per mile of CO2 and miles per gallon for cars and light trucks.)

This is a huge reduction in the heat-trapping pollution that drives global warming, and it means huge savings for consumers. We’ll spend $80 billion per year less at the pump, and those billions will keep working in our economy instead of Iran’s, Saudi Arabia’s, and Venezuela’s. And we’ll create as many as 150,000 good new American jobs.

But maybe the most important result of the newest clean car agreement is what it shows about governing in today’s America. What a contrast between this and the rancor and dysfunction on Capitol Hill over the nation’s debt limit. While Congress is paralyzed in ideological gridlock, toying with sending the nation's economy over the cliff, the president, the auto companies, states, and environmentalists have, once again, shown what it means to govern and what can be accomplished by constructive compromise.

In the last half-century, it would be tough to find more implacable enemies than the car companies and advocates for cleaner air and higher mileage. We fought for decades over the Clean Air Act and Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE). Over the last 10 years, California took the lead by setting its own carbon pollution standards under the Clean Air Act, with other states following suit. And a coalition of environmental organizations and states battled all the way to the Supreme Court, winning not one but two landmark rulings that it’s EPA’s job under the Clean Air Act to curb the pollution that causes global warming.

In a microcosm of the current debt ceiling stalemate, by late in the last decade some of the biggest firms in the auto industry had ground themselves into bankruptcy, while environmentalists found that their legal victories still had not translated into cleaner cars. The time was right for win-win solutions that cut pollution, cut oil dependence, saved consumers billions at the pump, and helped the car companies back to profitability in the new world of higher gas prices.

But it took leadership, partnership, and compromise.

In 2009 the Obama administration hammered out an agreement – backed by every car company, the United Auto Workers, states, and environmental organizations – on a consistent set of carbon pollution and fuel economy standards for 2012-16. The standards are jointly implemented by EPA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and the California Air Resources Board, acting under both the Clean Air Act and the Energy Independence and Security Act. In 2010, the administration forged a similar pact for highway trucks and other heavy vehicles. And now in 2011, the president’s team has reached a third agreement, which will do even more to cut pollution, cut our oil dependence, save consumers money, and create jobs than the first two historic pacts.

It’s more than ironic that the House of Representatives is voting this week on a funding bill with more than three dozen anti-health and anti-environmental “riders,” including one designed to block these very clean car agreements. It’s as though the House leadership, unable to compromise on even the nation’s most vital business, is bound and determined to reach out and block anyone else from governing and compromising to solve real national problems.

Yet even most ardent EPA-bashers may be starting to get it that this is not a winner for them. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) told Politico Pro (subscription required): "If these automobile manufacturers want to reach agreements with EPA, that's their business."

Let’s hope so.

National Weather Service: "Heat Stroke Is an Emergency -- Call 911."

2011-07-22T20:48:03Z

David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate and Clean Air Program, Washington, D.C.

It’s in 102° in the Nation’s Capital this afternoon. At 2PM the heat index in Washington was 119°. (Update: heat index at hit 121° at 3PM at Washington Reagan National Airport.) And it ain’t just Washington: 132 million people in 29 states and Washington, D.C. are under heat advisories or excessive heat warnings today. The National Weather Service reports:

oppressive heat and humidity remain in place for parts of the central and southern Plains and Ohio Valley and are intensifying across much of the eastern U.S. Excessive Heat Warnings and/or Heat Advisories remain in effect from Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and extreme northern Texas eastward into Ohio and Kentucky, as well as along the East Coast from Georgia to Maine. Heat index values will range from 105-115+ today from Boston to New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Richmond, affecting millions of people along the I-95 corridor.

The Weather Service’s excessive heat warnings for Washington continue through today and tomorrow:

...EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM EDT THIS EVENING...

...EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM TO 8 PM EDT SATURDAY...

* TEMPERATURE...HIGH TEMPERATURES THIS AFTERNOON IN THE LOWER 100S. HIGH TEMPERATURES SATURDAY AROUND 100.

* HEAT INDEX VALUES...115 TO 120.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING MEANS THAT A PROLONGED PERIOD OF DANGEROUSLY HOT TEMPERATURES WILL OCCUR. THE COMBINATION OF HOT TEMPERATURES AND HIGH HUMIDITY WILL CREATE A DANGEROUS SITUATION IN WHICH HEAT ILLNESSES ARE LIKELY. DRINK PLENTY OF WATER...STAY IN AN AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM...STAY OUT OF THE SUN...AND CHECK ON RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS.

TAKE EXTRA PRECAUTIONS IF YOU WORK OR SPEND TIME OUTSIDE. WHEN POSSIBLE...RESCHEDULE STRENUOUS ACTIVITIES TO EARLY MORNING OR EVENING. KNOW THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF HEAT EXHAUSTION AND HEAT STROKE. WEAR LIGHTWEIGHT AND LOOSE-FITTING CLOTHING.

TO REDUCE RISK DURING OUTDOOR WORK...THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION RECOMMENDS SCHEDULING FREQUENT REST BREAKS IN SHADED OR AIR-CONDITIONED ENVIRONMENTS. ANYONE OVERCOME BY HEAT SHOULD BE MOVED TO A COOL AND SHADED LOCATION. HEAT STROKE IS AN EMERGENCY - CALL 9 1 1.

This is just the latest stroke in a terrible year of weather disasters – floods, storms, drought, and now heat waves – that together have cost hundreds of lives this year alone in this country alone. People are dying from the heat today. This is about our health and safety, right here, right now.

Update from NWS: Record all time maximum temperature has been set at Washington Dulles Airport Virginia...105 degrees f at 352 PM EDT this Friday afternoon.

In another day, in another world, you’d expect our Congress to be busy strengthening the Clean Air Act to better curb the carbon pollution that’s driving these dangerous climate changes. Just last month, for the second time in four years, the Supreme Court affirmed that it is EPA’s job to curb dangerous carbon pollution from our power plants and vehicles, and EPA is in fact hard at work on these standards.

But in our Bizarro World, the Republicans who control the House of Representatives are busy trying to repeal the Clean Air Act, overturn the Supreme Court decisions, and block EPA from doing its job. The House is set to vote next week on a funding bill with more than three dozen anti-health and anti-environmental policy riders.

The bill would block EPA from using the Clean Air Act to curb carbon pollution from power plants, cars, trucks, oil refineries, or any other source.

The House Republicans don’t seem to care that real people are suffering out in the sun and the heat. About the real Americans who are sick and dying.

Maybe it’s because they work in office buildings kept at meat-locker temperatures. They need to get out more.

Call 911.