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Allen, Kara[Kara.Allen@mail.house.gov]
Allen, Kara
Mon 6/16/2014 1 :56:10 PM
SEEC Daily Clips 6.16.14

Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition

Top news stories:

The arcane but powerful Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will once again spark political
conflagration this week as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee casts its vote on
Norman Bay, President Obama's second contentious pick in recent months to lead the agency.

Four in 10 new oil and gas wells near national forests and fragile watersheds or otherwise identified as
higher pollution risks escape federal inspection, unchecked by an agency struggling to keep pace with
America's drilling boom, according to an Associated Press review that shows wide state-by-state
disparities in safety checks.

The Shirley Fire, which broke out late Friday and has so far burned through about 2,000 acres of land,
was only about 10 percent contained as of Sunday. The fire is burning in and around Sequoia National
Forest, which is home to 34 groves of giant sequoias.

The Interior Department on Friday announced the first step in planning new offshore oil and gas
auctions. The lease sales would be for oil and gas exploration in U.S. waters from 2017-2022.

U.N. climate negotiations made tentative progress on Saturday towards a text for a 2015 deal to bind all
nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Coal dominated world energy markets last year by supplying the biggest share of demand since 1970,
making it the fastest growing fossil fuel, according to an annual review by BP Pie.

The 2014 Word Cup kicked off in Brazil this week and while there has been ample criticism over the

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massive cost of hosting the event, estimated to reach as much as $11.5 billion, a bright spot in the
construction is the integration of renewable energy.

Energy news:

Petroleum companies will get a breather from latest round of renewable fuel standard, as the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is once again delaying the deadline for compliance with the
2013 standards.

Brent crude was projected by Wall Street analysts to average as much as $116 a barrel by the end of the
year. Now, with violence escalating in Iraq, how far the price will rise has become anyone's guess.

Ukraine said Russia cut natural gas supplies after demanding fuel payments be made in advance, the
first time shipments have been affected in this year's crisis in relations between the two countries.

The impending promotion to House majority leader for Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican
with a moderate reputation on energy policy who represents one of the windiest districts in the country,
would at first seem like good news for clean energy supporters hoping to extend a key renewable
electricity tax break at the end of this year.

In an apparent attempt to ease health and safety concerns over CSX Corp.'s plan to reconstruct a freight
train tunnel in Southeast D.C., the U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday said the company would
offer money to the residents most harmed by the project.

The moves by New Hampshire and Minnesota reflect a desire for more control over in-state hazards, as
well as mounting frustration over gaps in federal law involving oil pipelines and oil trains, superficial
federal reviews and the secrecy surrounding spill response plans submitted to U.S. regulators.

A DeSmogBlog review of OIRA meeting logs confirms that in recent weeks, OIRA has held at least ten
meetings with officials from both industries on oil-by-rail regulations. On the flip side, it held no
meetings with public interest groups.

The average coal plant in the United States is 42 years old, but the oldest - and least efficient - date
from the 1940s and early 1950s. Many of them also lack the most modern pollution controls and
contribute to poor air quality.

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Renewable energy developers and wind industry groups yesterday voiced their support for a proposed
$2 billion, 700-mile transmission line project in a series of letters to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

Scientists in the U.S. claim they have developed a simple, one-step process that turns plant tissue into
biofuel. A genetically-engineered bacterium can convert switchgrass into ethanol directly, without any
expensive pre-treatment with enzymes to break down the cellulose fibers into something suitable for
fermentation

Climate news:

President Obama took aim Saturday at the trend of Republicans citing their absence of scientific
credentials as a reason to avoid questions about global warming. Obama even compared them
unfavorably to the many other Republicans who reject the overwhelming verdict of scientists that
human-induced climate change is real.
Australia's chief trade-deals negotiator has labeled the bid by President Barack Obama to cut U.S. powerplant emissions as lacking substance. "There's no action associated with it," Trade Minister Andrew
Robb said in a Sky News interview from Houston, Texas, where he was accompanying Australian Prime
Minister Tony Abbott.

According to scientists at Arizona State University, the air conditioning system is now having a
measurable effect. During the days, the systems emit waste heat, but because the days are hot anyway,
the difference is negligible. At night, heat from air conditioning systems now raises some urban
temperatures by more than 1C (about 2F), they report in the Journal of Geophysical Research
Atmospheres.

President Barack Oba ma's new pollution limits for power plants have set off an avalanche of information
about what the rules will cost, how they will affect your health and how far they will go toward curbing
climate change. There's just one problem: Almost none of it is based in reality.

Billions of dollars in revenues from California's carbon cap-and-trade auctions will help fund
development of the state's high-speed rail line and pay for public transit, affordable housing and
communities located near jobs and transportation under a deal struck yesterday.

The billionaire Koch brothers and their political network are planning to spend almost $300 million
during the 2014 election cycle, some of which will go toward a renewed effort to combat
unprecedented carbon regulations unveiled by the Obama administration last month.

While many US lawmakers are pulling out their hair over the White House's newly proposed limits on

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state carbon emissions, the Brazilian state of Acre sees a green opportunity.

Environment & Health news:

Scientists have found evidence of a huge underground reservoir containing up to three times as much
water as on the entirety of the earth's surface and theorized to be the source for all the world's oceans.

Pew asked whether respondents would rather live in an area where "the houses are larger and farther
apart, but schools, stores and restaurants are several miles away," versus one where "the houses are
smaller and closer to each other, but schools, stores and restaurants are within walking distance."

For the better part of two decades, BASF Plant Science, Dow AgroSciences, Du Pont Pioneer, and
Syngenta have been drenching their test crops near the small town of Waimea on the southwest coast
of Kauai with some of the most dangerous synthetic pesticides in use in agriculture today, at an intensity
that far surpasses the norm at most other American farms, an analysis of government pesticide
databases shows.

President Obama was honored by Native American tribal singers and dancers on Friday afternoon, but
on his first presidential visit to Indian country he also heard from activists who want him to reject the
Keystone pipeline project that could pass nearby.

The report, published by the National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources Council of Maine,
outlines the risks Canadian tar sands development poses to migratory birds. More than 292 species of
protected birds rely on the boreal forest for breeding habitat, including the endangered whooping
crane, and at least 130 of those are threatened by tar sands development.

The flat, glistening, white expanse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, stretching out across hundreds of
thousands of square miles, appears placid, unchanging ... boring even. But this tranquil surface belies
the turmoil taking place below, at the base of the ice sheet.

Satao was an elephant famous for having tusks so long that they nearly reached the ground, and so
distinct, that he could be easily identified from the air as he roamed Kenya's vast Tsavo East National
Park. Now, Satao is dead, slain by ivory poachers who used poison arrows to bring the great elephant
down.

More than 20,000 elephants were poached last year in Africa where large seizures of smuggled ivory
eclipsed those in Asia for the first time, international wildlife regulators said Friday.

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The country's Rural Development Ministry on Friday announced a new afforestation plan to plant 2
billion trees along the nation's highways in an effort to tackle youth unemployment. The country's Road
Transport, Highways, Shipping and Rural Development Minister Nitin Jairam Gadkari said in a meeting in
New Delhi that the new initiative would also help preserve the environment.

Five years ago, this reserve was a cattle farm. Its ponds were clogged with animal waste. Its oak trees
were squat from years of pruning. But signs of change are easy to notice, from the waist-high bushes
sprouting everywhere to the abundant frogs in the pond, which are so loud at times that conversation is
virtually impossible.

It's often difficult to visualize how our daily consumption habits play out on a grander scale, how every
water bottle we discard contributes to a growing, worldwide problem. A group of activists known as
Luzinterruptus is providing one memorable visual in the form of a "Labyrinth of Plastic Waste."

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