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Secretary LaHood and Shifting the Way we Build

2009-06-20T15:30:27Z

President Obama reached across the political aisle when he selected Representative Ray LaHood, a Republican from Illinois, as his Transportation Secretary. The appointment was met by some skepticism: LaHood's resume on transportation issues was decried as very thin.

But Secretary LaHood earned special praise earlier this week when he joined the leaders of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development in a new Partnership for Sustainable Communities, a landmark effort in recognizing the vital and logical but not always well understood relationship between housing, transportation and the environment.

The ambitious, collaborative approach these three agencies are taking will have a positive impact on the lives of millions of Americans and represents a shift in the way we build our country and protect our environment.

Considering that housing and transportation account for two of the largest slices of our emissions pie, the Partnership and its forthcoming work will be essential to America's continued prosperity in the 21st century.

In testimony before a Senate committee, Secretary LaHood noted the urgent need to reduce emissions, the health benefits of well-designed efficient communities and the savings associated with public transit. As my colleague Kaid Benfield noted in his blog, Secretary LaHood's testimony painted a clear picture for the future of transportation:

"Transportation can play an enhanced role in creating safer, healthier communities with the strong economies needed to support our families," he said.

"Integrating transportation planning with community development and expanding transportation options will not only improve connectivity and influence how people choose to travel, but also lower transportation costs, reduce dependence on foreign oil and decrease emissions," LaHood continued. "All segments of the population must have access to safe and convenient transportation options to get to work, housing, medical services, schools, shopping and other essential activities including recreation."

As EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson succinctly put it in her own testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, "where you live affects how you get around, and how you get around often affects where you live. Both decisions affect our environment."

Secretary LaHood's statement, which highlighted the economic and environmental importance of developing a new transportation network (and ethos) in the United States, showed strong vision in thinking outside the highway box. And the Partnership for Sustainable Communities is poised to do just that.

Making Smart Choices for America's Clean Energy Future

2009-06-18T21:36:25Z

According to an assessment by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the world is going to invest more than $16 trillion in energy by 2030.

There are two ways that we can invest this money: a smart way and a dumb way. If we invest wisely, we will move America to a new clean energy future that makes us a leader for the 21 century. But if we stumble and invest in an unwise way - focusing on old, dirty technologies and fossil fuels - we will end up being left behind.

As two new reports released today show, America can benefit greatly from significant energy investments in clean energy-if we are smart. If we are smart, we will create millions of new jobs, increase our energy independence, and protect the planet from global warming pollution. And these will be opportunities for people across all income and education levels - with even more opportunities for advancement.

If we are smart, we will use this investment to increase our energy efficiency - through weatherization and retrofits. This will save consumers on their utility bills.

If we are smart, we will increase people's access to public transportation thereby lowering people's living expenses.

For too long, we've looked at economic opportunity and protecting the environment as being in conflict with each other. But, this view is at odds with the growing body of evidence that demonstrates we can strengthen our economy and fight global warming. We can shift to clean energy, protect the planet and create new opportunities for families - and we can do this all at the same time.

Today, NRDC is helping to release two major reports from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (PERI). One is co-authored by NRDC and Green For All. The other is a complementary report by PERI and the Center for American Progress (CAP).

The NRDC/Green For All report, called "Green Prosperity: How Clean-Energy Policies Can Fight Poverty and Raise Living Standards in the United States," shows that shifting from traditional fossil fuel to clean energy will improve the standard of living for millions of Americans across all skill and education levels, especially among lower-income families. Nearly half of the 1.7 million new jobs created by a $150 billion clean energy investment will be accessible to workers with relatively low levels of formal education. Of these, nearly 75 percent will have high potential for advancement. Plus, there will be additional opportunities to lower monthly energy and transportation costs.

The other report, "The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy" presents a broader view - showing how the combination of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) could serve as the foundation for bringing total clean-energy investments in the United States to approximately $150 billion per year, creating 1.7 million jobs. That kind of growth would create nearly a 1 percent drop in the national unemployment rate.

And what about the concerns that we sometimes hear that low-income Americans would be left behind if our nation addresses climate change?

It turns out that's just not true. The NRDC/Green For All report concludes that half of the net new jobs created by clean-energy investment will be accessible to workers with relatively low levels of formal education. (You can learn more about clean energy jobs at http://www.nrdc.org/energy/greenjobs/ .)

What's particularly significant about the types of jobs created by clean energy is that compared to fossil-fuel energy jobs there is a much greater opportunity for upward advancement. Three out of every four clean-energy jobs are accessible to people with just a high-school education are upwardly mobile jobs, meaning they provide the opportunity for advancement and higher income, giving people the power to lift themselves out of poverty.

Consider these additional findings:

Major investments in clean energy will mean significant improvements in energy efficiency in buildings and homes, lowering overall energy costs for consumers, especially for lower-income households. These savings could be as high as 4 percent of household incomes for some families.

New investments in clean energy will also boost public transportation, especially in urban areas with disproportionately-large populations of lower-income families. Increased investment in public transportation could lead to an average reduction in living costs of 1 to 4 percent per family.

Now we just have to sure to make the right choices to make those green jobs and other benefits for lower-income Americans happen. And America may soon have this opportunity with the clean energy and climate legislation currently moving trough Congress.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), that is moving through the House, is likely to be an extremely important driver of the clean energy investments that American needs. While the bill is not perfect, we need to move forward with this legislation to ensure that we can shift to clean energy future that will deliver millions of new jobs, cut global warming pollution and create new opportunities.

Now is the time for leaders in Congress to move America in a new direction. Now is the time for leaders to make smart choices for all Americans.

A Heart of Green

2009-04-24T22:58:40Z

Last night, Hearst's green lifestyle website The Daily Green held its 2009 Heart of Green Awards, honoring those people, organizations and companies that take the green message to the mainstream -- to the "heart" of the American people. The award recipients ranged from Hollywood stars to an inspiring Ohio teacher who transformed a marketing class into a crash course on sustainability -- and transformed his students into eco-warriors.

And receiving the lifetime achievement award was none other than NRDC's President, Frances Beinecke. Anyone who works at NRDC understands the drive, passion and perseverance that makes Frances such an effective leader, but it's always nice when others from the larger green community recognize this as well. Frances is an inspirational leader as well as an extraordinary boss who is great to work with.

Here's what Dan Shapley from The Daily Green had to say:

She's a blogger, a government watchdog, a community organizer and a policy wonk - in the best sense of the word. She fights for the preservation of polar bears and our offshore environment, for the protection of children's health, for the restoration of our economy as a sustainable green machine - and for the protection of the earth's ecosystem in the face of rising temperatures.

She's an innovator, a visionary, an inspiration. As president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the nation's most influential environmental groups, Frances Beinecke is all these things and more.

Born in Summit, N.J., Beinecke was inspired during camping trips by the "magical landscapes" of Grand Teton National Park. The majesty of those landscapes left her with a resolve to protect wild places.

She graduated in the first Yale University class to accept women, experienced the first Earth Day in 1970 and graduated with a master's degree from the Yale School of Forestry. It was while in graduate school, during this pivotal time in the nation's history, that Beinecke first joined forces with the Natural Resources Defense Council, as an intern working in the Catskill Mountains, the source of New York City's drinking water.

For three decades counting, it's a relationship that has strengthened not only the woman and the organization but the environment.

She started the group's Water & Coastal Program, designed in part to fight offshore drilling, before taking a hiatus to raise her three children. She returned in 1990 to aid in a strategic reorganization. By 1998 she was named executive director, and in 2006 she became NRDC's second president.

Still staffed with some of the nation's leading legal, scientific and policy experts, NRDC under her leadership now also boasts 1.2 million members --- real people who have been inspired to take action to protect the environment. Beinecke, who serves on the boards of numerous other environmental and academic institutions, promotes the idea that "the environment is everywhere" -- and that activism benefits not just untouched wilderness and endangered species, but our homes and our health.

During her tenure, NRDC has reached out to Spanish-speaking citizens, empowered citizen journalists, and launched both an influential blog and a Web site devoted to "Simple Steps" that help the environment. And under her leadership, NRDC argues hard for laws that fight global warming and revive our economy by investing in green jobs, clean energy and sustainable communities.

"With the right policies in place," she wrote recently, "many American companies are poised to bring clean energy technology into the mainstream -- along with the thousands of jobs, reduced oil dependence, and cleaner air that come with it."

In the face of staggering challenges, she has a vision that is clear, positive and empowering.

"To be in this business," she has said, "you have to be an optimist. You have to believe that change is possible and that you're part of the solution to getting that change in place."

She is The Daily Green's 2009 Heart of Green Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

Getting on Track: The President Lays Out a High-Speed Rail Plan

2009-04-16T19:17:25Z

Standing in front of an audience of members of the transportation industry, policymakers local and state officials as well as NRDC staff (including Deron Lovaas, our transportation specialist, and me as representatives of the environmental community), President Obama this morning fleshed out his plans for launching the construction of a new high-speed rail system connection metropolitan regions across the country.

The new three-part program -- projects to remove bottlenecks in existing rail systems, building new high-speed corridors, and making drawing up even bigger rail plans - is being launched right away thanks to the unprecedented $13 billion downpayment from the recovery bill and his budget proposal. And I do mean right away: The Administration intends to announce the first round of projects, after a competitive process that will include analysis of greenhouse gas reductions of different projects (I asked), in September. So this is high-speed delivery of the first links in a new system.

To be at the White House at 8 am, I had to fly down from New York City this morning. I hope soon to be able to train down for an 8 am meeting. (I'm writing this on the train as I return; on the train I can participate in a conference call and don't need to arrive at the airport 45 minutes early.)

The President's speech was fantastic, and I encourage you to check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu4aQTexL-U or below:

The most moving passages were at the beginning:

"We have to build a new foundation for our future growth. Highways are clogged, airports are choked with traffic and we pump too many greenhouse gases into the air. What we need then is a smart transportation system equal to the needs of the 21st century. A system that reduces travel times and increases mobility. A system that reduces congestion and boosts productivity. A system that reduces destructive emissions and creates jobs. What we're talking about is a vision for high-speed rail in America."

And then, as he does so well, President Obama put each and every American into the picture:

"Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city. No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking of your shoes. [laughter] Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 mph, walking only a few steps to public transportation and ending up just blocks from your destination."

Having had to travel out to the airport early today, take off my jacket and shoes, and stand in several lines, these words struck a particular chord with me.

He then talked about the fact that other countries have lapped us, several times, in the drive toward a high-speed rail system, concluding that: "[I]t's being done, it's just not being done here. There's no reason we can't do this. This is America! There's no reason why the future of travel should lie somewhere else beyond our borders." Again, having recently returned from NRDC's office in Beijing, where I took a high speed rail to Hebei that was faster, quieter and smoother than the Acela I'm now on, these words seemed perfectly pitched to me.

He also quantified some of the benefits, including reducing need for foreign oil by millions of by and reducing CO2 by six billion pounds annually, which he pointed out is equal to removing one million cars from our roads.

Finally the President addressed those who think this should wait because we have too much on our plate. President Obama invoked Lincoln, who was pushing to connect east and west with rail while north fought south. The project brought everyone together, and the two lines heading to one another met in the middle with the "blow of hammer." A newspaper of the time editorialized: "We are the youngest of peoples but we are teaching the world to march forward."

He then called on all of us in the room and across the country, to support this effort since it will require sustained generational commitment. This is just the first step, but it's a great start, as Bill Millar of the American Public Transportation Association told me afterward. One of the key Members of Congress, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar, who will be instrumental to the whole endeavor, talked with me about the importance of the project as well. He seems to agree with the President, who quoted fellow Chicagoan Daniel Burnham's assertion that we should make no small plans since they don't have the power to stir men's souls. I hope so, because we will need him to champion this relentlessly in Congress.

I know NRDC is committed to pitching in. Kaid Benfield and Deron Lovaas on my staff have blogged about this on these pages and elsewhere, and my whole transportation team looks forward to working with the President, Vice President Biden, Secretary LaHood and their staff to get the job done.

As for me, I can't wait to travel to more destinations without having to remove my shoes at security!

My Week With the Whales

2009-02-27T17:27:42Z

Gray whales love to spyhop. That’s one of the primary lessons of my week in Laguana San Ignacio, one of NRDC’s premier BioGems. On the west coast of Mexico’s Baja California, the lagoon is the last pristine breeding and gathering area for gray whales. I believe it is actually the last pristine spot in the world for any whale.

Laguana San Ignacio is pristine in a way no other place I've seen. As I sat on a small bluff on a chair, I could see only water, the untouched far side (now federally protected thanks to NRDC's advocacy) and whales.

Many many whales. At any one moment, I could see 10 to 15 whale spouts, the backs of one or two whales passing nearby and perhaps one whale "spyhopping."

The whales rise vertically out of the water, entirely silently. They pause with 3, 4, maybe 5 feet out of the water. Hanging completely still. "Doing what," we asked our guide incessantly. The answer: "We don't know … perhaps to get their eyes out of the water to look around."

After popping up, the whales may slide straight back into the water, also silently, or may flop around a bit, but still gently. Only then do they arch their back and spout. Once or twice the whale opened its mouth. (I'd say smiled, but that implies we know why they open their mouths and we don't.) It was when they opened their mouths that we could see the baleen, the gill-like sieves they use to catch the small animals they eat. Hard to imagine such huge beings survive entirely on mud-dwelling critters smaller than my thumb.

While spyhopping is silent, breaching is not. And the gray whales breach a lot. We saw one breach 8 times in a row. Our “panguero” (or boat driver) said the most he's seen was 23 breaches in a row. They raise most of their 40 tons out of the water and come crashing down. The splashes can be seen for miles. We don't know why they breach; perhaps it's like scratching their backs.

But what amazed me most about my week with the whales is that many are friendly. Really friendly. They are curious and come right up to the small boat. They take a look. They push the boat. They sometimes stay just inches out of reach of our hands. But at times they would come close and we could stroke them (not pat them, we were told).

They'd stick around as if they were having fun. One put its snout up right by me and I was able to kiss it (the pangueros say that's the thing to do). Kissing a whale? It's clear that doesn't happen unless they want that. (Their body control is exquisite -- they can put their huge body, flipper or tail exactly as close or as far from us as they want.)

I know the thrill and deep sense of wonder that I got from touching a whale. I wonder what they get from the interaction.

Green Jobs to Meet America's Economic, Energy and Environmental Challenges

2009-02-06T18:09:37Z

I had the pleasure of speaking at the national Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference in Washington, D.C. yesterday. This was a truly remarkable event that brought together thousands of people -- from steelworkers to business leaders to students to environmentalists.

The green jobs movement seeks jobs that can both provide a dignified life and a decent wage and protect our health and climate. This effort is the most recent of those inspiring moments when ordinary people, with extraordinary commitments to making the world a better place, succeeded. These movements of ordinary people drove the affirmation and expansion of civil rights; the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively; and the cleanup of dangerous pollution in our neighborhoods.

One feature of these pivotal moments is that they brought together many different people who nonetheless share common goals, common challenges, and common opportunities. This moment, as the earlier ones, also is in part sparked by a crisis. Today a new President and a new Congress face an economy in crisis, a planet in peril, and an outdated energy infrastructure that cannot meet the demand for the future.

These challenges also bring us an opportunity. The opportunity to come together and make a reality of our vision of an economy powered by clean efficient energy, mobilized by clean efficient transportation systems, and employing tens of millions of people with good-paying jobs.

The economic system and the world eco-system are linked. What happens in and to our system deeply affects the other. Both are sending us strong signals that we cannot delay action to save our planet.

While almost everyone agrees that global warming is real and man-made, there are still those who are fighting to stop action on the environment. These are groups who say that climate policy is too costly for business or that the economic downturn means that we cannot take on a climate bill at this time.

But, we say this is our time and we cannot afford to delay.

The last eight years have been about delays and now it is time for action. A comprehensive federal climate policy that is fair, flexible and far-sighted is essential to meeting these goals.

Dollar for dollar, investing in clean energy creates more jobs than investing in traditional energy like oil and gas. In fact, investing in clean energy would create four times as many jobs as would result from spending the same amount of money within the oil industry.

Investing in public transportation projects and highway repairs will also maximize job creation and avoid wasting taxpayer dollars. For every $1.25 billion invested in public transportation projects, 51,300 people are employed. Investments in public transportation create 19% more jobs per dollar than building new roads or bridges. Investments in road and bridge repair create 9% more jobs than building new roads or bridges.

There is a lot of work ahead to build the political will needed to generate the momentum for this vision. We believe that by working together- with our partners in government, labor, business, and environmentalists-we can rebuild America and transform our nation with a new clean energy future. Americans have the ingenuity, skills and determination to make this future a reality -- and we can do it together by starting today.

We cannot get to these solutions piecemeal. We need a comprehensive global warming policy. That's why we need to work together to create the political will to move forward on broad climate change legislation this year.

Describing the Devastation of Mountaintop Mining

2009-01-29T14:00:55Z

As a lawyer, I've written about environmental harms quite often. Yet as I recently flew over several of the larger mountaintop mines in eastern Kentucky, I struggled to find the words to describe the devastation. The scars where trees, topsoil and many feet of unwanted rock have been ripped off, leaving barren rubble behind. The dams at the head of the valleys (known locally as "hollows") that fill the steep valleys with the rubble and other fill. Unnaturally colored ponds sitting behind the dams.

I visited eastern Kentucky at the invitation of Marianne, a friend from school, and her husband Jim. While there, we met many people engaged in fighting mountaintop removal and took an air tour of the mining sites. Appropriately enough, after our tour, we landed at Wendell Ford airport, the site of a former mountaintop mine now turned into a flat table where a steep mountain had once been. Greeting us at the airport were posters claiming that "coal is the future," with photos that can only be described as Orwellian:

Before: a mountain, looking barren and useless.
During: big trucks and bulldozers, implying jobs.
After: animals and grasses and specific claims that reclamation of mined areas "improves" the land.

The lie represented by those photos was seen clearly from the air where all we could see for miles was barren rock, not fertile productive farms. Rick, who has lived in the area his entire life, told us that there are no animals in mined areas. Animals, he explained, need nuts to last through the winter. Nuts obviously come from trees and the biggest piece missing from these lands are trees.

Truman, another life long resident of the area, put it simply: "Trees don't grow in rock rubble."

Another area resident showed us where coal companies, rushing to mine before the end of the Bush Administration, pushed over all the trees, further devastating the landscape without any regard for logging income and jobs that would be lost.

I asked our companions why so few people complain about the mines destroying their water supplies, covering their houses with toxic dust and cracking their foundations with blasting?

Carl, a third-generation miner now retired, says he's speaking out and many people tell him privately that they agree, but can't speak publicly because a family member has a job with a mine and would lose it if they did. "It's the only way to support their families now; that's why we need some wind farms and other energy sources around here," he said.

Yes, indeed. Renewable energy is part of the answer. So is energy efficiency - I did not see one compact fluorescent bulb in or on any of the houses or buildings in the hollows. We also need to cap carbon and make coal pay its true price so that clean energy can compete with it. NRDC will be working on all of that.

Oh, and we found out that the coal ash that caused the big spill in Tennessee at the TVA Kingston plant came from the very hollow - Montgomery Creek - that we visited. The coal destroyed one community when it was dug up and another when it was dumped.

Seems so last 18th century. I know that a 21st century technology and policy can do better. Working with the new Administration in Washington and the local communities that are literally being blown away, we will.

The photographs that accompany this post were taken by NRDC member J. Henry Fair. They were both taken at Kayford Mountain in Southern West Virginia in late 2005. Additional photographs by Henry can be found at http://www.jhenryfair.com and http://www.industrialscars.com

Taking a Break to Plant a Tree

2009-01-28T15:50:54Z

TURRIALBA, Costa Rica -- There is a reason they call them rainforests. It was pouring as I put the first tree into the ground here in a new forest that NRDC is planting with the support of our members. The one good thing about all that rain: it made it easier to dig the hole.

We’re planting the rainforest in Costa Rica in an area that long ago was a rainforest, but for the last 50 or 100 years has been a cattle farm. Nearby are other existing forests as well as some other acreage that we hope will also get replanted as forest. The seedling I planted, a native species called Vochysia, was about 10 inches high. I had just stood by a Vochysia tree that was about 30 feet high and only 5-6 years old. Trees and other plants grow so quickly here that it is very exciting to think that birds will be perching in the tree I planted within a couple of years.

Jose Joaquin Campos, the director of CATIE – the Center for Tropical Agriculture, Investigation, and Education – showed me the area and also planted a tree. Campos works with students from more than 20 countries in Latin America, teaching them all sustainable farming and other practices.

In the area of the new rainforest, they have carefully studied the watershed. The area feeds one of Costa Rica’s largest rivers but it has a lot of small towns with few sewage facilities and farms that cause a great deal of erosion. So they are working hard to restore the area and to teach farmers how to conserve their soil.Many of the trees in NRDC’s forest will be planted by local school children or by local farmers learning about tree planting so they can plant native trees on some of their land.

It’s quite something to drive around this part of Costa Rica. It rains a lot so it’s very lush. But much of the lush greenness is pasture for dairy cows. Some call it the Switzerland of Latin America. But those lush fields are almost all former rainforests so to understand lushness is only possible when you go into the rainforest itself.

In the forest, the vegetation is so think it’s impossible to go anywhere not on a path. I counted about 15 types of ferns in a few minutes (and I’m no expert). Trees of all sizes and shapes. I could hear lots of birds, but see few of them in the foliage. Even the air smells and feels vibrant. Of course, with all this tree cover, the land retains its soil moisture better and there is far less erosion and runoff so the nearby streams are richer as well.

Indeed, not so long ago, I walked up a stream to see a big waterfall nearby the new forest. There was no path and the only way was to go up the stream itself, walking in the water. The rainforest – also a second growth forest that is now legally protected – came right down to water’s edge. Blue morpho butterflies and many others I don’t know the name of flitted by. Small waterfalls brought little rivulets into the stream. It was clear that stream and rainforest were one joint ecosystem.

The NRDC forest-to-be will connect several of Costa Rica’s parks, allowing animals to freely roam amidst the rivers and streams crossing the area like arteries. It’s nice to be able to take a break from law books and memos to see our work literally take root.

Summing Up the Bush Legacy

2009-01-19T16:00:00Z

Last week, Diane Rehm of NPR asked me to be on her show discussing the Bush environmental legacy. As I prepared for the show, I wondered how to sum up the last eight years, particularly since there was so much to cover?

One possible angle: the rollbacks of our environmental protections went from start to finish. On President Bush's second day in office, he tried to reverse standards to make air conditioners -- which use about 30 percent to 50 percent of our peak electricity -- more efficient. NRDC and others had to sue him to get this move reversed; today better machines save us money and reduce pollution. And now, with only days before he leaves office, eight years later, President Bush tries to strip protections from wolves (for the third time). In between the two, a relentless litany. He was nothing if not persistent.

Another possible angle: He was catholic in his anti-health and environment efforts (small "c" of course). He tried to gut air pollution rules making power plants and factories clean up (NRDC and states sued him to stop him). He reduced water protections from sewage and coal mining waste (we hope the new Administration will reverse those messes). Of course, he ignored his own campaign pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and even refused to do what the Supreme Court ordered his EPA to do -- lower global warming pollution from vehicles. He opened lands all around the country to coal, oil and gas, delayed the Everglades cleanup, and gave away the public's lands for subsidized logging. And he continued to allow high levels of toxics in our air and food. Clearly he did not play favorites.

Maybe instead I should focus on the misrepresentations? He claimed to preserve 5 million acres of wetlands but did not mention the 20 million acres of wetlands from which he stripped protection. He claimed his "Clear Skies" law would reduce air pollution when its purpose was to gut one of the most effective air pollution reduction programs. He claimed there was "uncertainty" about global warming when he was twisting the scientific discussion beyond recognition. (After all, there is uncertainty exactly where the economy is going, but we know it's down and we better act, so "uncertainty" about details of future temperature, even though we know it's going up, should not delay action.) Healthy Forests? That means logging. Even to the end, the Bush team kept this up. On the same Diane Rehm show, Jim Connaughton, head of Bush's Council on Environmental Quality, said the Administration's climate efforts led to a new spirit of international cooperation. I need not comment on that.

But in the end, of course, I just answered the questions Diane asked us. It probably went better that way.

Note: My NRDC colleague Michael Oko also blogged about the Diane Rehm show here. You can listen to the segment here.

True Leadership Coming to EPA, Part III

2009-01-17T17:00:40Z

This is the final part of my three-part open letter to the new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, regarding the changes that are needed to help us tackle urgent environmental problems more effectively.

Yesterday, I wrote about how we can better implement our environmental laws by using the precautionary principle that is already written into the nation's environmental laws.

Another critical improvement would be to change how we shape our laws and their relation to the market. For too long, environmental protections have had to swim against the current of private profit. We impose pollution mandates, but fail to address the market in which polluters act. Fines are supposed to address profit margins, but, as I noted, they are not fully enforced or implemented and thus do not change the overall bias against protection. With minor exceptions, pollution controls cost money and thus run against private profit.

We need to flip that so that our laws and private interest are aligned as much as possible. And the main way to do that is to put a price on all pollution. A price would encourage private actors to reduce pollution. I'm not suggesting, as some do, that we replace the current Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and other laws but rather that we use a wide array of economic tools to bolster our legal mandates. In addition to specific pollution limits, as we now have in many statutes, we need market incentives.

If we were to require better and more truthful information about the true costs of wasted energy, for example, energy efficiency standards would be more easily adopted, implemented and followed.

Another example: Put a price on pollution by beefing up the natural resource damages provisions so they apply more generally and, in almost all cases, you'll probably find less violation of permits. Put a price on all the types of pollution and make the polluter pay for every bit that is discharged, even pollution within permit limits, and the dialogue over permit limits will change dramatically. Every pound of heavy metal pollution discharges to our streams, every ton of NOx emitted to our air, every pound of pollution from farm runoff -- put a price on all of it. Again, the answer is both, not either alone.

With reference to climate change, there are both price and non-price barriers to clean and efficient energy. Thus, we must put a price on carbon through a cap-and-invest system. But we must also develop efficiency and renewable energy standards, provide financial incentives from auction revenues for clean and efficient energy and transportation, and take other steps.

This approach to climate security legislation draws on lessons from the past. And we can revisit rules under existing laws to create systems where prices and roundtable safeguards mutually support each other. Put a pollution fee on every ton of SO2 or NOX emitted, put a fee on every pound of biochemical oxygen demand or metal discharged and make that fee large enough to provide funds to restore the damage.

In the last 25 years I've spent practicing environmental law, I've come to think that real change requires at least two or three laws mandating the change. Polluters too easily ignore or find ways around any one law. To achieve our environmental goals, the reality of the last decade shows that we need more information and disclosure, more facility specific pollution limits, more ambient environmental targets, and more positive market support. It's not either/or, but both/and.

I urge the new EPA to use all existing laws and regulations to their fullest potential. Once all the existing power is leveraged, it should also go before Congress and seek stronger, more effective measures. These dual efforts should also be complemented by support from the Department of Justice, so that those who harm the environment feel the full force of government - from the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The nature of the crises we face calls for this type of historic, unified effort. We have serious environmental challenges ahead of us and we have a lot of work to do.

True Leadership Coming to EPA, Part II

2009-01-16T23:13:41Z

This is part two of my three-part series on the ways the new administration, guided by a revitalized EPA, can strengthen environmental protections, and steer America away from the threats of climate change, toxic pollution and other environmental disasters. Yesterday, I wrote about how we can better enforce our existing laws.

In addition to enforcing the laws, we need to change how we implement them, moving from what could be called the "pollution principle" to the "precautionary principle."

Let me give you an example. Under the Clean Water Act, water pollution permit hearings can drag on for months or more. Yet even with such lengthy proceedings, regulated utilities or businesses are able to push back against regulators who seek to set pollution permits at protective levels by insisting on extensive analyses that overburden available resources.

This has created a process so time consuming and expensive for governments that permitting bodies have learned to err in favor of the polluter in the hopes of avoiding litigation. So when there is doubt as to the amount of stress a system can take -- pollution in a stream, grazing or timbering on land, or the like -- the default ends up being to allow as much pollution as doubt allows. That gets the permits out faster and is more likely to avoid litigation by regulated businesses.

I've seen this personally many times. Good people are pressured to reduce public protections more than they believe appropriate. Polluters have so intimidated those who set effluent or emission standards that now there is effectively a right to pollute unless proven otherwise.

This is backwards. To solve it, we need to change the burden of proof when it comes to pollution and environmental harm. The default in case of uncertainty should be toward less, not more pollution. The burden of proof at every stage should be on the polluter, not the public; the presumption should be public health.

Here's another instance. In the judicial realm, when an agency action -- a regulation for example -- is challenged, the standard of review courts must follow is established by the Supreme Court's decision in Chevron v. NRDC (467 U.S. 837 (1984) available at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=467&page=837 ). That standard is entirely procedural and devoid of substantive direction. But the standard of review should not ignore substance particularly when Congress acted. The congressional preference expressed in most environmental statues is not neutral; environmental laws favor public health protection over private profit. And the intent of the statue should affect the deference courts give agencies.

For example, when EPA issues a rule under the Clean Air Act, a statute Congress enacted to improve air quality, there should be more leeway given to the agency if someone challenges the rule as being overly protective, but little leeway given if the claim is the rule is not protective enough. Similarly, any uncertainty or ambiguity in a Clean Water Act permit decision that imposed more stringent discharge limits to protect water purity should be reviewed with greater deference than one that allowed higher pollution levels because greater deference would give more meaning to the Act's goals that all waters should be clean enough for drinking, fishing and swimming.

In most statutes, Congress has indicated the position to which we should default. Congress wants us to err on the side of caution. The Clean Air Act talks about setting healthy levels with "margins of safety." The Clean Water Act has different systems overlaying each other to ensure full protection. CERCLA, the statue that set up the "Superfund" for pollution remediation, is intended to be read broadly. The National Environmental Policy Act does more than just require agencies to write environmental impact statements; it establishes a "national policy" to consider environmental impacts in all decision making and "to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man." The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ensures that hazardous wastes cannot be buried out of sight and out of mind; its mandate applies without regard to site-specific demonstration of harm. The Endangered Species Act has a zero extinction policy.

When we look at the intent of our environmental statutes, we find clear meaning to protect the land, air and water. But when regulators or the courts treat each case separately, we fail to see the forest for the trees.

In July 1869, the great naturalist John Muir wrote, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." Just as those opposing environmental protections have been able to infuse the entire system to bias private profit, non-governmental organizations and their allies must seek to change the systemic bias of our laws, our public laws, to one of public benefit and inter-connectedness.

Tomorrow, I'll post my third and final part of this series on how we must change our environmental laws to meet the challenges ahead.

True Leadership Coming to the EPA

2009-01-14T16:00:59Z

My colleagues and I at NRDC were pleased at President-elect Obama's recent announcement that Lisa Jackson will head the Environmental Protection Agency. Lisa has been a strong, honest and knowledgeable voice for the environment as Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Her vigorous advocacy for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) showed true leadership. It is thus exciting news that the EPA will have her at the helm.

Jackson will have a tough job reversing many years of rollbacks and making up for lost time. In this blog post and the following two, I offer a few thoughts on some larger scale themes that might help a re-invigorated EPA. Others should also think hard and offer helpful suggestions as the task will require the support of all of us. (These ideas are taken from recent presentations I made at New York University Law School and Pace Law School.)

Right from the beginning, EPA needs to bring back the culture of enforcement, of making sure the laws on paper make a difference in the real world. Real enforcement has three components.

First we must be able to bring the cases. For years, access to the courts has been eroded by an ever-more constrained view of what is known as "standing," the shorthand term for who is entitled under law to bring cases to the courts. We must reexamine and find a way to restructure our understanding of public interest standing, so issues of broad concern, like many environmental matters, can be more easily heard by the courts. EPA should be sure to acknowledge the broad benefits of its actions so that such benefits can form the basis of their own and citizen enforcement actions. Also, the Department of Justice should re-visit and revise its policy of when to raise standing challenges in cases brought by public interest plaintiffs. (DOJ has often revised its policy on this issue in the past.)

Second we must actually bring the cases. Right now, frankly, most violations are ignored. In part, there just are not enough enforcement resources. For example, the Clean Air Act New Source Review (NSR) program mandates that upgraded power plants, refineries, and factories install state-of-the art pollution controls. These controls would avoid over 20,000 premature deaths each year and reduce hundreds of thousands of hospital visits every year. (Those are the EPA's numbers, not mine.) But the NSR program for years had been ignored or underutilized by the federal and state governments. Indeed, non-enforcement was such the norm that when the government at the end of the Clinton administration began enforcing the NSR program against power plants, industry squealed, even persuading the media and the incoming President Bush to take seriously the notion that aggressive law enforcement is unfair. When non-enforcement becomes a right, we have a sad state of affairs.

Third, we must insist making polluters pay the full penalties the law provides. Right now penalties are almost always cheaper than cleanup so it's almost always cheaper to wait to until caught. When scofflaws do this, the good companies that actually comply with the law have to compete in the market against the violators who have lower costs. That's not fair to those who follow the law.

Take another NSR example. After a decade-long battle, NRDC, EPA, New York and several other states and environmental organizations agreed to settle a lawsuit over American Electric Power's violations of NSR requirements. In the settlement, AEP agreed to install almost $4.5 billion of pollution controls that should have been installed a decade ago, to pay $15 million dollars in civil penalties, and to pay $60 million dollars in environmental mitigation projects. That's $75 million and that sounds like a lot. However, in the same year, AEP's revenues exceeded $13 billion. That's nearly 200 times the penalties and projects. More important however, AEP's violations allowed it to delay the installation of $4.5 billion of controls for a decade. That delay was worth hundreds of millions of dollars to AEP. Indeed, the penalty of $15 million is less than the time-value of that $4.5 billion for four weeks. (I'm not criticizing the lawyers who reached this settlement; over the years I've also been involved in many cases with penalties less than what they in theory should be. I was involved in the early stages of this AEP case. We cannot make the change we need in one case, but only through articulated policies and consistent practices supported from the top.)

Imposing real penalties -- that even when discounted by the risk of actually getting caught -- would exceed the benefits of polluting and would create financial incentives for compliance. It would shift the advantage to those who comply, creating a real "market-based" approach in the process.

Tomorrow I'll post the second part of this series on the changes we need in environmental law to ensure that the EPA, as well as independent advocacy groups like NRDC, can seek the levels of protection that are truly needed.

Independent Voices and Environmental Law

2008-12-23T22:45:37Z

The holiday season is typically a time when we all reflect on the people and groups who do good, and how we can all -- in our own small way -- make a difference. In the environmental sector, nonprofits like NRDC and our allies have historically played a significant role in creating such positive change. Over the past year, we've all witnessed how powerful the very concept of "change" has become.

Today, we're about a month away from the inauguration of a new Administration in Washington, an inauguration that is likely to bring far greater official interest in environmental well-being than we've seen in years. Many believe that the importance of independent environmental organizations will decrease in the upcoming administration. But, counterintuitive though it may seem, the work for nongovernmental organizations remains as critical -- perhaps even more so -- in steering and assisting what we hope will be an eager and willing administration toward the best decisions through our advocacy.

Imagine how different things would be right now if over the last eight years, we'd had independent organizations watch-dogging the government's oversight of financial markets. Imagine if we had had voices who pushed back at what has become an almost religious faith in unregulated markets; voices who asked loudly and persuasively whether some of the claims being made were not factually baseless, voices who were part of the negotiations when rules were being established to ensure there was transparency, fairness and accountability.

Unfortunately no organization with enough power in the financial arena has existed.

For environmental protection, however, we've had this type of oversight in the role of "public defenders" since the early 1970s. These nongovernmental organizations, as we're called around the world, played significant roles in crafting legislation like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Take this story from the last 48 hours before Congress adopted the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. Three NRDC lawyers were keeping a close eye on the draft legislation as negotiations continued. It was 10 o'clock on a Friday night when the other side dropped what they called "technical amendments."

At first glance the amendments seemed to be highly-detailed and inconsequential editorial corrections. But David Hawkins, at the time NRDC's Director of Air and Energy, caught a new semi-colon that would have changed the meaning of a critical paragraph and expanded the ability of power plants to delay compliance with the new law. He called congressional allies and the new semi-colon disappeared. Imagine the level of commitment and understanding it takes to catch the importance of a seemingly innocuous semi-colon late on a Friday night.

Nongovernmental organizations like NRDC also give life to the words in laws by being some of their most aggressive defenders and enforcers. Almost 40 years ago, for example, a local group challenged the decision of the federal Department of Transportation to build a freeway through a public park in Memphis, arguing that Congress had intended to prohibit the government from putting the road through the park unless all other options were truly infeasible. The government brushed off this feasibility analysis. In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court reversed the government's decision and said that Congress meant what it said.

The following year, the Sierra Club challenged the Department of Interior's plans to build a ski resort in the Sierras. In another landmark Supreme Court ruling, Justice William O. Douglas noted the importance of independent voices: "[B]efore these priceless bits of Americana are forever lost ... the voice of the existing beneficiaries of these environmental wonders should be heard."

Similarly, when utilities figured out how to get around the regulations of the original Clean Air Act -- by building their smokestacks higher, thereby pushing the pollutants higher into the atmosphere and dispersing them but also creating acid rain -- it was nongovernmental organizations, not the EPA, that pushed back.

At one point, NRDC alone had more Clean Water Act enforcement cases than the entire Department of Justice. If you look at environmental case law history, almost all the cases have been brought by groups like NRDC and our allies.

Undoubtedly, even in this new phase of history we are about to enter, nongovernmental organizations with such a significant legacy of environmental law reform will remain strong and crucial voices.

NRDC and Utilities Agree: Efficiency Works

2008-12-20T16:05:17Z

On Friday, I took the train to DC to join a panel discussion on energy efficiency at the National Press Club. NRDC is working with a broad coalition of energy groups that are calling on Congress to use part of the $700 billion stimulus package to promote energy efficiency in our homes, schools, offices and businesses.

Our coalition includes NRDC, the Edison Electric Institute, representing investor-owned utilities, which comprise 70 percent of the U.S. electric power industry, and two energy advocacy organizations, the Alliance to Save Energy and the Energy Future Coalition. Together, we urged that Congress direct about $33 billion toward increasing the energy efficiency of America.

NRDC has long held that energy efficiency is the fastest, most cost-effective and cleanest energy resource, which will save consumers millions, cut global warming pollution, and reduce our dependence on old, dirty fossil fuels.

Yet commercial and residential buildings today account for approximately 40 percent of national energy consumption, 70 percent of electricity consumption, and the largest portion of global warming pollution in the United States.

Most of this energy is wasted -- our houses leak warmth, our lights emit more heat than light, and our appliances drain energy even when they are "off." It's like we have a hole in our pocket, and our money just keeps falling out.

But we have the opportunity to change this direction. We can move our country to a new more efficient approach to energy, an approach where we save energy, instead of wasting it. This will help to immediately create jobs, reduce consumer bills, cut carbon pollution and create the foundation for long-term improvements in all of these areas.

By making our buildings, homes and schools more efficient, we can create a half million green permanent jobs, reduce global warming emission by between 700 and 900 million tons of CO2 (according to a McKinsey analysis), and cut electricity demand enough to reduce the need for about 50 average-sized power plants.

Here's the kicker: by moving in this direction, consumers would save tremendous amounts of money.

The proposal we put together would invest approximately $33 billion for greater energy efficiency. This one-time investment would trigger private sector investments and government minimum efficiency standards that would ultimately save about the same amount -- more than $30 billion -- each year within a decade or two.

One of our primary recommendations is to make grants available to states and local governments giving them a huge incentive to increase efficiency. Under this program, states would provide funding under the grants program to entities such as utilities, cooperatives, energy service companies and school districts. The grants would fall into the following broad categories:

Home Energy Efficiency Retrofits. $3 billion for a home retrofit program with the goal of retrofitting 1.5 million homes within two years.

Retrofits of Public Buildings. $3 billion for energy audits, advanced metering and the co-funding of comprehensive energy efficiency retrofits for state and local government buildings, including buildings and facilities of state government agencies, public universities, municipalities, counties and vocational districts.

Commercial Building Efficiency Retrofits. $3 billion for a program that would provide an incentive to commercial building owners for efficiency improvements based on demonstrated energy savings.

Efficiency Programs Matching Fund. $3.5 billion for a federal match of state approved energy efficiency programs that are monitored and verified to ensure that energy efficiency measures are being implemented and are saving energy on a cost-effective basis.

Having worked in state and local governments for 17 years, I can attest to this approach being a very effective way to mobilize action on this front.

One of the key objectives of this plan is to increase retrofitting for buildings -- private, public and commercial. Retrofitting homes is a good example of how energy efficiency can help us to save money, cut global warming pollution and create new jobs.

According to our analysis, home retrofits will within 10 years :

Save consumers some $25 billion annually in utility and oil bills.

Cut carbon dioxide emissions by 140 million tones annually.

Create about 500,000 jobs, about half in the building construction trades and the rest from spending the money saved on utility bills on other goods and services.

Commercial retrofits will within 10 years:

Save businesses at about $13 billion annually and reduce everyone's bill by another $10 billion annually.

Cut carbon dioxide emissions by 90 million tonnes annually.

Create about 150,000 permanent jobs.

There were many other important issues that we discussed -- like the importance of decoupling our utility services, meaning that states begin regulatory reforms that include breaking the link between utility sales and revenue (this is critical to promoting efficiency because efficiency reduces utility sales), and improving building codes. All of which are vital to saving money and greening our planet.

But here's the take away: We know that efficiency works. We know that utility regulatory reforms to promote efficiency work. We know that Americans have the ingenuity and skills to get working with new, green jobs. By making these investments in energy efficiency, we can cut our waste and build the foundation for a new clean energy future.

Accountability and the Law

2008-12-16T16:39:00Z

NRDC recently won a case in federal court that held accountable a major utility that tried to snooker the American public. This decision upheld a core purpose of much of NRDC's litigation, vindicating, in turn, a core principle of our organization: Polluters should be held strictly to the limits imposed by law.

Before NRDC and the Southern Environmental Law Center sued, Duke Energy was ignoring a key Clean Air Act provision that protects the public against excess emissions of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury. Duke argued that the law's stringent limits -- requiring that emissions be no higher than the best of control technology allows -- did not apply because it received its construction permit -- and put the first shovel into the ground -- 10 days before a federal appeals court struck down the rule on which Duke was relying for its legal argument.

Duke knew or should have known all along that the rule on which it relied was invalid. The judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals indicated clearly a month before Duke received its permit that they would invalidate the rule. Duke's attorneys were in the courtroom and heard the same indications we did. So it would appear that Duke was trying to beat what it knew was going to be an adverse ruling and in doing so completely disregarded the public interest and the purpose as well as the letter of the Clean Air Act.

Through this litigation, we've also been able to hold accountable the state of North Carolina and its environmental officials who have been particularly weak in their watchdog role over Duke. The state officials should never have granted the construction permit without first requiring the stringent limits required by the Clean Air Act. They too knew the DC appeals court was about to nullify the rule on which Duke relied.

Duke now will be subject to the strict pollution control requirements required by law. We do not yet know what that will mean in terms of emission reductions because that depends, in part, on how North Carolina responds to the Court's decision. But it is at least possible, and maybe likely, that Duke's permit will soon contain much, much tighter emissions limits on extremely hazardous pollutants.

There are maybe a dozen other power plants that started construction before the federal appeals court overturned the EPA action. All of them will now be subject to the tighter requirements. And we hope that after January 20th, the Obama administration will notify all those plants that it intends to tighten emission limits. So through our litigation, pollution reductions will be magnified.

Justice is being served. A federal judge has said that neither Duke nor North Carolina is immune from the Clean Air Act. This was the first decision from a federal judge after the appeals court ruling. We're confident it will not be the last.