Tag: environmental protection
Trump’s EPA Keeps Trashing The Planet

Trump’s EPA Keeps Trashing The Planet

In the face of any serious and growing problem, three options are available: You can do more to solve it. You could do the same things you’ve been doing. Or you could do things to make it worse.

When it comes to combating climate change, the Trump administration cannot be accused of foot-dragging. The problem is that it is marching briskly in the worst possible direction.

Methane is rocket fuel for global warming. It amounts to only 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, but in its first 20 years in the atmosphere, it traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide. There’s an upside: Cutting methane emissions yields quicker benefits in slowing climate change. But Donald Trump cares nothing for that project.

This is the same EPA that Donald Trump turned over to Scott Pruitt, a darling of Charles and David Koch — fossil fuel billionaires. After scandals forced Pruitt’s departure, Trump replaced him with Andrew Wheeler, a lobbyist for the coal industry. In their minds, the “p” in EPA stands for “persecution.”

The oil and gas industry is the biggest single source of methane emissions. Barack Obama’s EPA issued regulations to reduce methane leaks from new wells, pipelines and processing facilities — emissions that come not from energy that is used but energy that is wasted. The change also forced companies to take measures to stop discharges from old equipment.

The rule proposed by Trump’s EPA would undo this whole effort, sparing companies the tedious obligation of frequent inspections and monitoring to detect methane leaks. Its proposal comes even though a study last year in the journal Science found that this leakage was 60 percent higher than Obama’s EPA thought.

The administration also ignores the evidence from Colorado. Since the state mandated more frequent inspections, leaks have been cut in half — while oil and gas production has set records.

It’s clearly possible to be more vigilant about pointless, damaging emissions without hindering the production, transportation or use of natural gas. Don’t take my word for it: ExxonMobil, Shell and BP, among the nation’s biggest gas producers, all oppose the reversal.

“ExxonMobil strongly encourages the agency to continue regulating methane emissions at new and modified sources, and to expand methane regulation to existing sources,” Matt Kolesar, regulatory manager at its XTO Energy, said in March. “With the experience we have gathered across our operations, we know how to reduce our methane emissions in a cost-effective manner.”

Some of its competitors, however, claim that being forced to cut down on leaks would be ruinously expensive. Reported The New York Times: “Lee Fuller, executive vice president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said the smaller operators … that his group represents could not absorb the costs that Exxon or Shell could, particularly when it came to inspecting and repairing older wells.”

Maybe it is cheaper for these companies to save money by letting methane escape. But so what? Their prosperity should not come from causing unnecessary damage to the environment and humanity in general. If they can’t afford costs that Exxon and Shell can, they are welcome to sell out to Exxon and Shell so the job can be done right.

Even the EPA doesn’t pretend the change would be financially significant. It estimates the net savings at no more than $19 million a year. That’s the equivalent of zero in the oil and gas industry, whose 2017 revenue totaled more than $135 billion.

If barring companies from indiscriminate spewing put some of them out of business, the effect on consumers would be invisible. Natural gas output in the U.S. has been so high that pipelines can’t handle it all.

The EPA sees no need for the Obama-era rules because, it says, companies will police leaks on their own. Said assistant EPA administrator Anne Idsal, “There’s every incentive for industry to minimize any type of fugitive methane emissions, capture it, use it and sell it down the road.”

She should tell the operators in West Texas that have been burning off $1 million worth of excess gas every day just to get rid of it. Oil companies in North Dakota have been flaring some 20 percent of the natural gas they bring up.

If you to protect the planet from needless harm, a policy of ignoring methane leakage and accelerating climate change is hard to understand. If you don’t care about that mission, of course, it makes perfect sense.

Trump Golf Course Illegally Cut Down Protected Trees

Trump Golf Course Illegally Cut Down Protected Trees

Late last month, the Trump Organization decided to clear-cut a bunch of large trees at Trump National DC, its golf course in Loudoun County, Virginia. Then, they just threw all the trees in the Potomac River.

However, it turns out that it was a protected area, and therefore removing the trees — not to mention throwing them in the river — was completely illegal.

First there’s the part where tossing the trees in the river is a safety hazard. Then there’s the fact that regulations require permits to cut down trees on that part of the river because it is designated as being prone to flood. Next, this was no small removal operation; Loudoun County officials said that the golf course cleared nearly three-quarters of an acre of land. Finally, removing the trees leads to increased sediment in the water and ends up, eventually, polluting the Chesapeake Bay.

But, apparently, Trump believes his golf courses should not be beholden to any laws, environmental or otherwise. His clubs, for example,  employ massive amounts of undocumented immigrants even as Trump viciously rails against the immigrants who enter at our southern border. Trump also battled the government of Scotland for years because he believed the presence of wind turbines to be an abomination. And at his Bedminster golf course in New Jersey, he was cited by that state’s Department of Environmental Protection when he cut down trees and disturbed wetlands.

This isn’t even the first time that this particular golf course was in the news for clearing trees. Back in 2011, the Washington Post reported that the Trump Organization had mowed down over 400 trees along the Potomac River, all so that the people paying $100,000 to join and another $700 per month to be members could have a better view of the water.

In a thoroughly Trumpian move, they replaced some of those trees with a giant American flag, and in the process they created an environmental nightmare, leaving migratory birds and bald eagles with nowhere to go.

Not much, it seems, has changed since 2011 at the golf course, which Trump has visited over 40 times since becoming president.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Trump Golf Course Illegally Cut Down Protected Trees

Trump Golf Course Illegally Cut Down Protected Trees

Late last month, the Trump Organization decided to clear-cut a bunch of large trees at Trump National DC, its golf course in Loudoun County, Virginia. Then, they just threw all the trees in the Potomac River.

However, it turns out that it was a protected area, and therefore removing the trees — not to mention throwing them in the river — was completely illegal.

First there’s the part where tossing the trees in the river is a safety hazard. Then there’s the fact that regulations require permits to cut down trees on that part of the river because it is designated as being prone to flood. Next, this was no small removal operation; Loudoun County officials said that the golf course cleared nearly three-quarters of an acre of land. Finally, removing the trees leads to increased sediment in the water and ends up, eventually, polluting the Chesapeake Bay.

But, apparently, Trump believes his golf courses should not be beholden to any laws, environmental or otherwise. His clubs, for example,  employ massive amounts of undocumented immigrants even as Trump viciously rails against the immigrants who enter at our southern border. Trump also battled the government of Scotland for years because he believed the presence of wind turbines to be an abomination. And at his Bedminster golf course in New Jersey, he was cited by that state’s Department of Environmental Protection when he cut down trees and disturbed wetlands.

This isn’t even the first time that this particular golf course was in the news for clearing trees. Back in 2011, the Washington Post reported that the Trump Organization had mowed down over 400 trees along the Potomac River, all so that the people paying $100,000 to join and another $700 per month to be members could have a better view of the water.

In a thoroughly Trumpian move, they replaced some of those trees with a giant American flag, and in the process they created an environmental nightmare, leaving migratory birds and bald eagles with nowhere to go.

Not much, it seems, has changed since 2011 at the golf course, which Trump has visited over 40 times since becoming president.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

Study: Reducing Carbon Emissions Actually Saves Money, Has Health Benefits

Study: Reducing Carbon Emissions Actually Saves Money, Has Health Benefits

Opponents of carbon-reduction policies always argue that they’re too expensive. But a new study published in Nature Climate Change shows that popular proposals to cut carbon dioxide emissions not only help the environment, but can drastically lower health care costs. The savings in some scenarios are more than 10 times the cost of implementing the policies.

“If cost-benefit analyses of climate policies don’t include the significant health benefits from healthier air, they dramatically underestimate the benefits of these policies,” the study’s lead author, Tammy Thompson, told PHYS.org.

MIT researchers compared the health care and the economic costs of three different climate policies: a clean-energy standard, a transportation policy, and a cap-and-trade program. The clean-energy standard they used is similar to the carbon dioxide emissions reductions proposed in the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which the agency proposed in June. The plan enforces tighter emission guidelines for power plants. As the EPA points out, “for every dollar invested through the Clean Power Plan, American families will see up to $7 in health benefits.”

The MIT researchers calculated the health care savings by looking at avoided medical care and sick days. They also noted how changes in emissions levels reduce air pollution, which can cause asthma attacks and lead to heart and lung disease. In 2011, 231 U.S. counties had ozone pollution levels that were higher than the EPA’s standards. And in 2012, air pollution caused around 7 million global deaths, making it the world’s largest environmental health risk, according to the World Health Organization.

The researchers found that savings from reduced health problems due to lower pollution levels can reach 10.5 times the cost of implementing the policy. The health care savings were about the same for each of the policies, but the total savings depended on how much the policies themselves cost. The transportation policy, which would regulate the miles-per-gallon that consumers could use, was the most expensive policy; reduced health care expenditures mitigated only 26 percent of its cost. But savings from health benefits were up to 10.5 times the price of implementing a cap-and-trade program. Savings from a clean energy standard were also more than the cost of creating that program, with $247 billion saved versus its $208 billion price tag.

But health isn’t the only reason that the EPA has emphasized that the United States needs a strong emissions reduction plan. Global temperatures continue to rise, which will make extreme weather even worse. The costs of dealing with these natural disasters will also continue to rise.

Congress has not taken any action in reducing carbon emissions, which isn’t too surprising, as many politicians still don’t think Americans should be worried about global warming.

But more than half of Americans support the EPA’s carbon reduction proposal.

AFP Photo/Patrik Stollarz

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