| News on Climate Action, page 2 | ||
Arizona may enact emissions rules similar to California's, Associated Press, May 7, 2008. Meanwhile, in Arizona the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council finds that rules proposed by the Department of Environmental Quality to adopt the California clean car standards are within the agency’s legal authority and have undergone sufficient analysis and public review. Governor Janet Napolitano is expected to veto a bill that would require legislative approval of executive-branch climate change actions such as adoption of the California clean car standards and participation in the Western Climate Initiative’s cap and trade system now under development. The City of Boulder is likely to miss its Kyoto Protocol goals, (Boulder Daily Camera, April 3, 2008), but is working to get as close as possible. One key new step is an agreement with Xcel Energy on a $100 million program to outfit 100,000 homes with “smart meters” to encourage people to use less power during peak periods. Smart metering was recommended by our Climate Action Panel. Details: Adding smarts to the power grid, Denver Post, May 5, 2008. Kansas lawmakers fail to override coal plant veto, Kansas City Star, May 1, 2008. When the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) denied an air quality permit for a $3.6 billion, 1400 megawatt power plant addition jointly proposed by Colorado-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Sunflower Electric Corp. on the basis of pollution from carbon dioxide emissions, it set off an intensely-debated controversy. In KDHE Secretary Roderick Bremby’s October 2007 news release announcing the denial he cited the April 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. The Kansas Legislature failed to override Governor Kathleen Sibelius’s veto of two bills that stripped the KDHE Secretary’s authority to deny the permit on those grounds and that allowed the project to proceed. Kansas Supreme Court puts coal-plant cases on hold, Hays (Kansas) Daily News, April 25, 2008. When legislators took their case to the state’s highest court, it put on hold its review of the case until legal challenges to the decision are considered first in district court and in KDHE administrative hearings. Bush fuel economy rules swipe at California, San Francisco Chronicle, April 23, 2008. When the Bush administration announced proposed interim regulations to raise fuel economy standards for cars and trucks to 31.6 miles per gallon by 2015, it included a proposed declaration that limits on tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases from new cars and trucks that have been adopted by California and 17 other states are preempted by federal fuel-efficiency standards. This strikes RMCO’s one resident (albeit inactive) lawyer as odd, since the Supreme Court declared in Massachusetts v. EPA : “ But that 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. “ State laws drive power producers to renewable resources, Washington Post, April 22, 2008. Wind power accounted for 30 percent of all new U.S. generating capacity last year, according to the American Wind Energy Association. According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, state renewable-electricity standards will lead to the addition of 60 gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2025, equal to 4.7 percent of projected U.S. electricity generation. Group seeks E.P.A. rules on emissions from vehicles, New York Times, April 3, 2008. The states and their allies file a District Court of Appeals petition, asking the court to order the EPA to publish within 60 days its analysis that found that such emissions endanger humans as well as contribute to climate change. The appeal claims the EPA analysis was submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget in early December 2007. Xcel Energy leads U.S. in wind power, Rocky Mountain News, April 2, 2008. Xcel Energy’s 2,635 megawatts of wind power in 2007 puts it ahead of any other investor- owned utility in the United States. Nationwide, the construction of new conventional coal power plants faces an increasingly uncertain future:
Wind and solar energy developments:
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