Tag: climate legislation
Environmental Groups, Bipartisan EPA Leaders Hail Biden’s Climate Bill

Environmental Groups, Bipartisan EPA Leaders Hail Biden’s Climate Bill

Environmental groups are hailing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a desperately needed step to address catastrophic climate change. On Friday, three former Environmental Protection Agency administrators who served under Republican and Democratic presidents put out a joint statement in support of the bill.

The bill would cut greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030, according to environmental advocacy groups. That figure comes close to the Biden administration's goal of cutting greenhouse gases 50 percent by 2030.

The act would "be a huge step forward in the fight to preserve a livable planet and is one we need to take while we have the chance," according to the environmental law organization Earthjustice.

"We urge the Senate to move swiftly to pass the climate measures in the Inflation Reduction Act — and for the House to follow soon after — so we can keep building toward a more sustainable future," Kris Kuzdas of the Water for Arizona Coalition said in a press release on Wednesday.

The $739 billion legislation is the result of an unexpected agreement between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). On Thursday, the last Democratic holdout, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), said she would support the bill, allowing it to move forward with the votes of every Senate Democrat and no Senate Republicans.

The bill contains key climate provisions. These include multiple investments geared towards decarbonization. In the electric sector, the bill includes some $30 billion in the form of grants and loans for states and utilities to invest in renewables and clean energy.

The bill would also provide tax credits through 2033 for residential solar and geothermal heat pumps, solar investment, wind production, and offshore wind farms.

In transportation, the bill provides up to $4,000 in consumer tax credits for low- and middle-income individuals to purchase used electric vehicles and up to $7,500 for new electric vehicles.

The bill allocates $4.5 billion in rebates for home electrification for low- and middle-income households and allocates a further $4 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development for affordable housing.

Further provisions address cleaning up legacy pollution, some $30 billion in environmental and climate justice block grants to disadvantaged communities, a $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and resources for public lands and waters.

This winter, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its most dire warning to the planet:

To avoid mounting loss of life, biodiversity and infrastructure, ambitious, accelerated action is required to adapt to climate change, at the same time as making rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. So far, progress on adaptation is uneven and there are increasing gaps between action taken and what is needed to deal with the increasing risks.

This summer may be the hottest in United States history, according to one metric. The Southwest is struggling with the worst "megadrought" in 1,200 years. Texas is on track for the hottest summer it has ever recorded, threatening to break the 2011 record with more than 90 days above 100 degrees. Last week, dozens of people in St. Louis and Eastern Kentucky were killed as the region saw not one but two 1-in-1,000-year floods.

Arizona is already experiencing dramatically higher temperatures and more humidity. Phoenix was ranked by one study as the second fastest-warming city in the U.S. By 2050, the likelihood of severe summer droughts is expected to triple, and electricity bills will likely increase significantly as residents struggle to stay cool.

Some environmental groups say the Inflation Reduction Act doesn't go far enough to fight the devastating effects of climate change, citing the bill's provisions for new oil and gas leases.

"The deal is indeed a compromise," Earthjustice says in its press release, "that includes objectionable handouts to the fossil fuel industry."

However, on balance, the group says that the bill "would lower barriers to solar access, create good paying jobs, invest in underserved and overburdened communities, and put the country closer to achieving our climate targets."

Sandy Bahr, director of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club, said the bill is flawed but still necessary.

"We need the tools in this bill to better ensure resiliency in frontline communities, to help clean up our air, and to provide jobs with these clean energy investments," Bahr told the American Independent Foundation. "This is not a perfect bill. There are some significant negative aspects including the harmful oil and gas leasing provisions. On balance, we think it is important that the good in this bill move forward."

The bill, while appearing to have total support from the Senate Democrats, still faces hurdles in the budget reconciliation process — a strategy for avoiding the filibuster. Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD) said Republicans planned to vote on amendments that would make the bill less appealing to Democrats.

"This bill shouldn't pass and become law," Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said. "It's going to cause a lot of pain for the American people."

More than 1,000 amendments were filed the last time the Senate passed legislation like this through reconciliation, according to Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO).

Schumer has said that the Senate will likely start voting on the bill on Saturday, with a House vote expected next week.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Oregon Senate Republicans Literally Hiding From Climate Bill Vote

Oregon Senate Republicans Literally Hiding From Climate Bill Vote

Republican lawmakers in Oregon face a $500 per day fine beginning Friday if they don’t return to the state capitol and do their jobs. Additionally, one of them threatened to murder police officers sent to round them up.

Earlier this week, every Republican state senator fled the state capitol to avoid having to take a vote on climate change legislation. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, ordered the state police to round up the fugitive lawmakers and return them to the capitol.

“The Senate Republicans have decided to abandon their duty to serve their constituents and walk out,” Brown said in a statement. “It is absolutely unacceptable that the Senate Republicans would turn their back on their constituents who they are honor-bound to represent here in this building. They need to return and do the jobs they were elected to do.”

State Sen. Ginny Burdick (D-Portland) chimed in, saying, “The taxpayers are paying them to do a job for their constituents and they are not doing that job.”

In the state Senate, Democrats hold an 18-12 majority. However, under Oregon law, 20 senators must be present for a quorum, meaning no votes can take place unless at least two Republicans join all the Democrats. By fleeing, Republicans have obstructed all legislation from moving forward.

One lawmaker, state Sen. Brian Boquist (R-Dallas), threatened to murder police officers if any attempted to apprehend him and take him back to Salem to vote.

“Send bachelors and come heavily armed,” Boquist told KGW, a local news team. “I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.”

Boquist has threatened to murder cops to avoid voting on a bill to limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. The Oregon Republican Party seems to be just fine with that, endorsing Boquist’s approach in a tweet.

The $500 per day fines begin Friday and will be taken from lawmakers’ salary and per diem accounts until enough Republicans show up to make a quorum. Hopefully, that will happen without any bloodshed.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

IMAGE: Oregon Governor Kate Brown, photo by Josh Goldberg via Wikipedia Commons.

California Moves To Extend Climate Program Despite Weak Auction Results

California Moves To Extend Climate Program Despite Weak Auction Results

By Rory Carroll

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The California Assembly on Tuesday passed a bill to extend the state’s ambitious program to fight climate change beyond 2020, but minutes later it posted disappointing results from an auction of carbon permits that is key to the plan.

California’s program to cap emissions and trade carbon permits is a crucial component of a broader effort to reduce the state’s output of heat-trapping greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the end of the decade.

But it has come under fire from critics who have said the program suffers from a glut of permits, reducing the incentive for businesses to cut emissions and curtailing revenue from a program that funds key low-carbon initiatives such as the state’s high-speed rail project.

The Assembly voted 42 to 29 on the bill, known as SB 32, which goes back to the Senate for an up-or-down concurrence vote by the end of August.

California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday said he was ready to sign the legislation into law, which would require the state to slash its emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

“Today, the Assembly speaker, most Democrats and one brave Republican passed SB 32, rejecting the brazen deception of the oil lobby and their Trump-inspired allies who deny science and fight every reasonable effort to curb global warming,” Brown said in a statement.

California sold just a fraction of the carbon permits offered to cover emissions this year, receiving the minimum price at an auction last week, regulators said on Tuesday.

Carbon market participants said the weak auction results were an indication that the program is oversupplied with permits and that businesses are uncertain about the program’s future, but added that passage of legislation to extend it should raise demand.

The California Air Resources Board, which regulates the program, has said unsold allowances and low prices are an indication that emissions reductions are occurring beyond the program’s annual targets.

But critics cited the results as an indication that the program is not working.

“Today’s failed results are yet another reminder that this government program is inherently troubled and should be abandoned,” Senate Republican Leader Jean Fuller said in an email.

The state on Tuesday said it failed to sell any permits offered to cover carbon emissions in 2016 and sold just 660,560 of the 10 million permits it offered to cover emissions in 2019, at the auction floor price of $12.73 a ton.

That money will go into the state’s greenhouse gas reduction fund, which funds low-carbon projects.

The majority of the allowances the state sold at the August auction were permits consigned to the state by electric utility companies and do not provide revenue for the state fund.

The cap and trade program has raised $4 billion through its quarterly auctions since launch in 2013.

Last week, Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon unveiled a plan for $1.2 billion in unspent cap-and-trade revenue that gives priority to improving air quality in low-income communities in Los Angeles and the Central Valley.

(Reporting by Rory Carroll; editing by Bill Rigby, G Crosse)

Photo: California Governor Jerry Brown speaks in Los Angeles, California, United States, April 4, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson//File Photo