Ten years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi River Delta, home to one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, a vital fishing industry and a booming port complex. Even before the storm, the Delta’s vast wetlands had been vanishing for decades. But there is hope for the future.

Learn more about the winners of the Changing Course competition, which challenged the world’s top experts to create innovative plans for rebuilding the Delta’s wetlands. Hear how EDF is working with local partners to turn these visions into reality.

Featuring:
David Festa, VP, EDF West Coast & Ecosystems
Steve Cochran, Director, EDF Mississippi River Delta Restoration
Denise Reed, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, The Water Institute of the Gulf

This Webinar was recorded on September 25, 2015

Watch the webinar

Today, a bipartisan majority in the U. S. Senate voted down Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) dirty air resolution, which would have allowed upwind states to dump air pollution on their neighbors.

The vote was 41 to 56 against the resolution.

Thanks to this vote, the Environmental Protection Agency will keep its authority to enforce the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSPAR), which will save up to 34,000 lives each year.

Here’s what EDF’s Fred Krupp had to say:

Today, the U.S. Senate did the right thing and defeated a measure that would have put American lives and health at risk. We appreciate the stand taken by those Senators who voted against S.J. Res. 27.

Sen. Rand Paul’s resolution would have blocked the long-overdue Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which protects American families from the smokestack pollution that drifts across state lines and causes thousands of premature deaths each year. Sen. Paul’s effort to undermine our clean air laws was misguided and dangerous.

Unfortunately, the attacks against our clean air laws continue in spite of today’s victory. In fact, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Dan Coats (R-IN) have already introduced other legislation to undermine the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and another critical protection, the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule for power plants.

We need our Senators to continue to fight for clean air and public health, and defeat any and all legislation that would leave us vulnerable to mercury emissions and other dangerous air pollution.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will take his “Bad Neighbor” bill to the Senate floor tomorrow morning.

Sen. Paul’s bill (S.J. Res. 27) would undo the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule – also known as the “Good Neighbor” rule.

The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSPAR) would protect downwind states from getting their neighbors’ air pollution dumped on them. It could save up to 34,000 lives a year – if it’s not stopped by Sen. Paul’s bill.

EDF President Fred Krupp said this about Sen. Paul’s decision to push his anti-clean-air measure in the Senate:

Senator Paul’s attempt to block the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule takes anti-government ideology to an extreme.  His bill would stop a long-overdue rule to protect American families from smokestack pollution that drifts across state lines — and causes thousands of premature deaths each year.  If polluters are allowed to continue dumping their pollution in neighboring states, we will all be in serious trouble.

Of course, EDF is not the only group that’s opposed to Sen. Paul’s measure. A group of more than a dozen of America’s leading health organizations sent a letter to the Senate urging them to support CSPAR.

We’ve posted about CSPAR — and Rand Paul’s misguided attempts to undo it – before, but if you want to know more about the issue, check out our fact sheet.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), in an attempt to forward his own narrow agenda, is attacking clean air and public health safeguards.

Sen. Paul has his sights set on the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, also called the "Good Neighbor" rule.  Undoing this rule would mean that one state can continue to dump its pollution into another state, sickening its neighbors. It would mean undoing downwind states’ ability to meet public health standards for their own citizens.

The current rule, the one that Sen. Paul seeks to stop, builds on progress made under the Bush Administration to rein in power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx). This soot and smog pollution not only impacts the people living in the shadows of smokestacks, but also travels across the country — causing deaths in downwind states, as well as other serious adverse health impacts like heart attacks and severe asthma episodes.

The impacts from upwind air pollution fall hardest on children and the elderly, but they can affect everyone, including otherwise healthy adults.

This is part of the reason why the Bush Administration initiated the federal Clean Air Interstate Program (CAIR) in 2005. Although the Bush Administration approach was deemed inadequate by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, it at least made progress cleaning up the air while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) crafted a replacement.

In the summer of 2010, EPA proposed its replacement rule to address the Court’s concerns. Now, over a year later, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) is set to take effect in January.

In 2014, CSAPR will

• save up to 34,000 lives
• prevent 400,000 asthma attacks
• avoid 15,000 heart attacks
• improve air quality for over 240 million Americans.

The monetized value of the benefits from this rule is up to $280 billion per year, which greatly outweighs the costs of about $2.4 billion.

But Sen. Paul is trying to unravel this crucial public health safeguard. Paul’s Congressional Review Act (CRA) bill would throw out CSAPR and bar EPA from producing a substantially similar rule.

Some claim that the Bush-era CAIR rule would be left in place, but that assumption makes no sense and gambles with public health. CAIR has been deemed unlawful (indeed, fatally flawed) by the federal court of appeals, so you can bet that there will be no shortage of power company attorneys that seek to block any efforts to restore CAIR. Plus, whatever the ultimate legal outcome, American families need the new, better “Good Neighbor” rule to protect their health from out-of-state pollution.

Instead, the end result of Sen. Paul's anti-clean air legislation will very likely be that we have no clean air protections in place across the eastern United States to limit the smokestack pollution that drifts across borders — and directly interferes with states' power to restore healthy air for their citizens. Indeed, if Sen. Paul’s bill passes, some companies could decide to turn off already installed pollution control equipment, leading to an increase in emissions.

Sen. Paul’s action fails to consider some very important economic facts:

• Many power plants already have pollution control technologies installed, or plans to install them.
• This rule will provide up to $280 billion in benefits every year once in effect.
• Undoing this rule will harm the many businesses that made investments in clean air technologies and cleaner generating sources.
• Several companies are working hard to defend the “Good Neighbor” rule against legal attacks — most of which are being made by interests that have simply refused to make the sensible, long-term investments that the rule would require.

Sen. Paul’s colleagues in the Senate should also consider the job creation potential from CSAPR. Construction of a single wet scrubber to control SO2 emissions provides about 775 full-time jobs over the life of the project —  and Alstom, a global corporate leader in providing and transporting power, estimates that there will be around 100 such projects that result from CSAPR and the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule for power plants. This is not surprising given that implementing just the first phase of the earlier CAIR program led to an estimated 200,000 jobs in the air pollution control and measurement industry [PDF].

Incredibly, Sen. Paul’s own state would suffer the consequences of his bill. In addition to thousands of lives across the U.S., Sen. Paul’s bill would risk up to 1,404 Kentucky lives each year.

It’s clear that it is in the best interest of our health and the economy — both in Kentucky and across the eastern United States — to let CSAPR proceed as planned. The Senate should not yield to Sen. Paul’s extreme bill that puts polluters’ profit ahead of people’s health.

The U.S. House of Representatives is continuing its assault on public health by denying funding for the enforcement of longstanding protections against toxic air pollution. The funding bill and several amendments set to pass the House later today would effectively take the public health cops off the beat.

Under this bill, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state air pollution agencies would no longer be able to enforce critical programs that protect the public.

Some of the more egregious examples include:

• No funding for enforcement of limits on mercury pollution from cement kilns. Mercury pollution causes brain damage in young children.
• An outright ban on any EPA regulation of methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, carbon dioxide or perfluorocarbons from stationary sources for whatever reason, including their impact on public health and ozone.
• A sweeping prohibition on all work by the EPA to address carbon pollution, including a critical public right to know program that was set to give communities their first practical tools for identifying the biggest polluters.

This wholesale stripping away of EPA’s power to implement and enforce the Clean Air Act with respect to the most significant environmental challenge is unprecedented and underhanded. Recognizing that the public would reject an open repeal of core Clean Air Act provisions, and would not allow Congress to adopt a statute that told EPA "stop doing anything about climate change," Congress is trying to do the same thing via language buried in a spending bill.

In language sweeping in scope and effect, Section 1746 of the appropriations bill would tie EPA's hands and legally bar it from spending any money to do anything "due to concerns about possible climate change." Think of it. What if Congress passed a law barring the Securities and Exchange Commission from regulating securities? Or required the Food and Drug Administration to approve unsafe drugs. Or kept USDA from inspecting meat?

These would be outrageous laws, but no more outrageous than this attempt, in an appropriations bill, to obstruct EPA from carrying out its statutory obligation to protect human health and the environment.

A closer look at Section 1746 reveals that it would:

• Punch a gaping loophole into vital clean air protections that took effect in January, putting a hiatus on the requirement for new large emitters to incorporate cost-effective greenhouse pollution reduction measures into their construction blueprints.
• Undermine the public's right to know by precluding EPA from requiring the nation's largest emitters to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas pollution, including establishing a prohibition on EPA enforcement of long-standing program adopted as part of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments requiring the public disclosure of greenhouse gas pollution from the nation's fossil fuel fired power plants.
• Put in place a stop work order on EPA's consumer-based ENERGY STAR line of together with an array of effective voluntary partnerships to cut dangerous pollution such as the Natural Gas STAR program, the Methane to Markets program, and the coal-bed methane outreach program.
• Place a gag order on all EPA activities "relating to" greenhouse gas pollution including scientific research, press releases, public statements, web site, work to advance new technologies, collaborative stakeholder processes to find common sense solutions, etc.
• Put the brakes on EPA's national emission standards being developed now for proposal in July that would be designed to deploy cost-effective, proven technologies to reduce greenhouse gas pollution from the nation's largest polluters — fossil fuel power plants and refineries.

In addition, Sections 1742 and 1743 appear to be a major assault on state and tribal grant funding to carry out these vital clean air protections.

This bill is an all-out assault on the Clean Air Act and the longstanding public health protections it has provided for 40 years.

The Clean Air Act is under siege. Powerful voices claim that we cannot afford both clean air and a strong economy.   

There they go again.   

These are the same arguments that EPA opponents have been making since 1970. Even the most successful EPA clean air programs have been subject to these same attacks when they were first proposed — in court challenges and in repeated attempts to roll back public health protections over the years.  

"Sky is falling" claims from leaded gas proponents could have derailed protections for children's health   

Few regulatory programs in history match the success of EPA's removal of lead from gasoline. Yet even this effort faced the same type of pessimism and obstructionism that EPA faces today. From the beginning of the fight to take lead out of gasoline, the oil industry and the lead additive producers said it could not be done, and even that there was no need for it to be done. 

As the first of the energy shocks of the 1970s stretched gas lines around city blocks, oil industry representatives testified to EPA that the lead phase-down would cause them to lose profits, prevent them from funding future oil exploration, and make gasoline unaffordable. One lead additive manufacturer ran an ad in major newspapers claiming the lead phase-down would waste one million barrels of oil a day (the Washington Post ran an article about it on December 3, 1973.) Phillips Petroleum estimated that producing unleaded gasoline would consume between 300,000 and 600,000 barrels of additional crude oil a day and require from $8 to $15 billion in refinery capital investment (that's from a Los Angeles Times story about a possible "Gas Octane War," printed on December 30, 1974.)   

The oil and additive industries vigorously attacked both the sufficiency and validity of scientific studies that linked lead additives to harmful public health impacts. And they kept up these attacks until leaded gasoline was finally and definitively banned by regulations issued in the 1980s.   

In 1978, in 1982 and again in 1985 the industries that profited by selling tetraethyl lead tried to reverse the progress of the lead phase-down. Public health won out, but only after 15 years of defending against attacks by the companies who profited from lead pollution.   

What really fell? The amount of toxic lead in children's blood   

We have all reaped striking benefits from EPA's removal of lead from gasoline, as the level of toxic lead in the blood of American children dropped along with lead emissions to the air. EPA reports that between 1980 and 2009, lead levels in America's air fell by 93 percent, largely as a result of EPA's requirement to remove lead additives from gasoline.   

As the levels of lead measured in America's air plummeted, so too did the level of lead measured in the blood of American children. In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control reported that blood lead levels had fallen 98 percent since it originally collected data from American children in 1976 through 1980. In that earlier period, more than eighty eight percent of children sampled had harmful blood lead levels. Public health experts attribute most of this stunning decline to the successful removal of lead from gasoline.   

Percentage of children 1–5 years old in the U.S. population with elevated blood lead levels   

EDF's The Clean Air Act at 35 [pdf], page 6, data from CDC   

Lead is a neurotoxin that particularly harms children's cognitive development and behavioral skills and also contributes to hypertension in adults and premature death. Avoiding these negative health effects has yielded tremendous economic benefits.   

In its exhaustive peer-reviewed study of the costs and benefits of the Clean Air Act between the years 1970 and 1990, EPA estimated that the single year 1990 mean monetized benefit resulting from the reduction of lead air pollution was more than $150 billion.   

Yet the lead additive industry valued its profits more than these health benefits. It took courage for EPA to face down the predictions of doom about taking lead out of gasoline. Our children are breathing healthier air today because EPA did its job and protected public health.  

Today, we need your help to prevent a new wave of attacks on vital clean air protections for our, and our children's, health. Read more about how the same "sky is falling" claims are now being made about other types of toxic air pollution — like mercury. 

You might also want to read:  

Debunking Clean Air Scare Tactics: Part One, Acid Rain  

There They Go Again, Part Two: Mercury Controls on Power Plants  

Featuring:
Dan Grossman Regional Director, EDF Rocky Mountain Office
Steve Cochran Vice President, EDF Climate & Air
Vickie Patton EDF General Counsel

It's been a year of dramatic ups and downs. The U.S. Senate's failure to pass climate and energy legislation was a serious setback. But Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and our coalition partners successfully defended California's landmark climate law against Big Oil's ballot initiative attack this fall.

Another bright spot to celebrate is the 40th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, a bipartisan triumph that continues to deliver cleaner, healthier air. We're gearing up to protect and toughen the Clean Air Act with new regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollution.

What are the biggest opportunities to make progress on climate at the state, national and international levels? Listen to the discussion to find out.

Download mp3 | Subscribe in iTunes

"And they said it couldn't be done …"

When it comes to cleaning up pollution, never underestimate the power of innovation.

Five years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faced a court deadline to regulate mercury pollution from power plants. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that harms brain development in fetuses and growing children. But some in the utility industry argued that the technology was not available to achieve rigorous pollution reductions.

In 2005, EPA accepted those claims and issued a weak rule — one that was later thrown out by a federal appeals court.

EPA will take up the issue of the toxic pollution discharged from power plants soon — this coming March. Hopefully, they will keep in mind that industry pessimists who said it could not be done were wrong.  Fast-moving innovation is delivering cost-effective mercury reductions right now, while growing America's clean air technology industry. So this time around, EPA should not listen to the "sky is falling" claims — and should move ahead with rules that will protect Americans'  health. 

Here's more about the 2005 mercury rules:

Coal industry claims ACI technology isn't feasible

Coal-fired power plants are the largest human-made source of mercury emissions in the United States. In 2004 and 2005, EPA considered several means to reduce power plant mercury emissions. The protective solution to implement the Clean Air Act would have required each coal-fired power plant to reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent through Activated Carbon Injection (ACI), a control technology that had been used in the waste-to-energy industry for many years and was already being successfully used by coal-fired power plants by the early 2000s.

But some members of  the coal-fired utility industry claimed that ACI technology was many more years away from full-scale deployment, and projected that it would be 2018 before ACI could be feasibly installed at most power plants:

• A spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council urged EPA to use "realistic assumptions about the current state of mercury control technology." (Nesmith, Jeff, Rules on Mercury to Be Fine-Tuned, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 30, 2004, p. A6.)
• An official with Indianapolis Power & Light Company stated "If we can get a man to the moon, I'm sure we can get to 90 percent [mercury reduction] over time, just not now." (Webber, Tammy, EPA Orders Industry to Cut Mercury by 70%, Indianapolis Star, March 16, 2005, p. A1.)
• EPA's final rule mirrored industry claims:  "Although EPA is optimistic that such controls may be available for use on some scale prior to 2018, it does not believe that such controls can be installed and operated on a national scale before that date."

ACI technology proven feasible and cost-effective

Utility industry pessimists were wrong about the feasibility, scalability and cost of using ACI to reduce mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants. After EPA issued its weak rule (the one that was thrown out in court), many state and local governments stepped up to the plate and required power plants to protect public health from mercury pollution. Responding to the demand created by these state and local controls, companies have delivered cost-effective mercury control technology that is performing even better than hoped for.

As of June 2010, a large number of coal-fired power plants have ordered or installed mercury control technology — so many that, combined, they generate more than 62,000 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to serve more than 60 million American homes. Here's a list of all those plants. Overwhelmingly, they have chosen to install ACI technology — the same kind that Clean Air Act pessimists dismissed five short years ago as unrealistic and impractical.

The Government Accountability Office reports that ACI systems have become even more effective at removing mercury from flue gas as they have been deployed in the electric utility industry. The GAO says, "Data from power plants shows that these boilers have achieved, on average, reductions in mercury emissions of about 90 percent” — and that applies to a variety of coal types burned in different boiler configurations. The GAO also says that this magnitude of reduction can be expected from the boiler configurations used at nearly three-fourths of the coal-fired utility boilers in the U.S.

Costs and benefits of ACI technology

ACI technology has turned out to be an efficient and affordable pollution control, and the cost of capturing mercury from power plants has dropped dramatically.

According to the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory, the 2008 cost to capture a pound of mercury was 1/6 the 1999 price. Advancements in the sorbents used to remove mercury have allowed ACI to be used for a wider range of coal qualities than was expected in 2005 (read more in this GAO report [PDF].) ACI systems now cost a fraction of other air pollution control devices.

"But there they go again …"

In spite of all the powerful evidence that mercury controls are available and highly cost-effective in protecting human health, some industry voices continue to argue against requiring them.

For instance, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — ignoring the facts — still claims that mercury control solutions are not available.

Some in the utility industry persuaded EPA to bet against mercury control innovation the last time around, and as a consequence, EPA set policies that recklessly failed to protect human health. But state action and a nimble U.S. clean air technology industry has proven, yet again, that America can innovate to deliver the pollution reductions we need to protect our health and the health of future generations.

Now we need EPA to carry out the law to ensure all Americans are protected by clean air standards addressing toxic mercury from power plants.

There they go again. Economic meltdown. Higher consumer costs. Massive job losses. These are among the predictions of doom surrounding EPA's current and forthcoming round of clean air protections. If they sound familiar, they should. Time and again, from the enactment of the Clean Air Act in 1970 to today, prophets of doom have predicted that disastrous consequences would flow from cleaning the air we all breathe. And time and again, those dire predictions have been wrong. The Clean Air Act has protected American health and our environment for decades while our economy has grown. It is a legislative success story that continues today.

This series will examine what the naysayers have said about Clean Air Act protections and how those wild predictions compare to the statute's actual record of protecting Americans from toxic air pollution and its devastating effects on human health and the environment. We start with the acid rain program in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.

Part One: The Acid Rain Program

These maps compare annual wet sulfate deposition at the time of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments and today's deposition levels, depicting the extraordinary progress that has been made. Source: NADP data.

Predictions of Doom

Twenty years ago, and twenty years after enacting the modern Clean Air Act, Congress took up the matter of acid rain, which was devastating ecosystems across the East and Northeast. Acid rain is caused by air pollution including sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. For the first time ever, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 used the groundbreaking tool of a market-based cap and trade system to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions.

Industry fought the acid rain program with scare tactics throughout the legislative debate, warning that it would wreak havoc on the economy:

• The Edison Electric Institute predicted the Clean Air Act Amendments would cost the electric utility industry up to $4.5 billion a year.
• The Business Roundtable projected the total economic cost would be $104 billion a year.
• American Electric Power Company warned of "the potential destruction of the Midwest economy."
• In an editorial that dismissed the scientific case for reducing acid rain, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution warned that "Americans can expect their power bills to skyrocket for nothing."

Protecting our Health and Environment

Twenty years later, peer-reviewed EPA studies required by the Clean Air Act show that sweeping public health benefits have resulted from the reductions in air pollution achieved under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. While the legislative debate about acid rain focused on environmental harm, public health reaped great benefits because sulfur dioxide pollution from power plants forms not only acid rain, but also particulate pollution that is particularly dangerous to breathe.

EPA estimates that the pollution reductions achieved under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments will in this year alone:

• Save 160,000 lives,
• Avoid 130,000 cases of acute bronchitis and 130,000 heart attacks,
• Prevent 86,000 emergency room visits,
• Keep children in school and prevent 3,200,000 lost school days and
• Keep workers on the job and prevent 13,000,000 lost work days.

These profound public health benefits are paired with dramatic reductions in sulfate deposition, and damaged environments have begun to recover from the ill effects of decades of acid rain.

Costs and Benefits

Not surprisingly, the cost of achieving the tremendous public health and environmental benefits of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 were a fraction of industry forecasts, and significantly below EPA's own projections. In 1990, power companies predicted that reducing sulfur dioxide pollution would cost $1000-$1500 per ton and electricity prices would increase up to 10% in many states (Factsheet, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Industry Claims About the Costs of the Clean Air Act [PDF], June 16, 2009). In fact, the actual pollution reduction cost has been between $100 and $200 per ton for most of the program, and electricity prices fell in most states. Acid rain has been dramatically reduced and the limits on sulfur dioxide pollution were met faster and at a strikingly lower price than anyone expected in 1990.

The benefits to public health and the environment outweigh these costs many times over. EPA's analysis of the costs and benefits of the Clean Air Act projects that in 2020 the benefits of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments will exceed the costs of compliance by a factor of 30 to 1. Studies by the Office of Management and Budget and private researchers support these conclusions as well.

The predictions of doom in 1990 overlooked the power of American innovation unleashed by the goals of the Clean Air Act Amendments and the market-based system Congress established to achieve them. Unlike previous programs that specified what pollution controls must be used, the acid rain program set enforceable and descending limits on total pollution, but let industry experiment, innovate and find the most cost-effective means to lower pollution. These results are a striking rebuke to the critics who said it could not be done.

Featuring:
Fred Krupp, President
Steve Cochran, Director, National Climate Campaign
Wade Crowfoot, Political Director, West Coast

In the largest referendum on climate and clean energy this country has seen, California voters sent a loud and clear message to elected leaders across the country that the public supports action on climate change.

California voters said yes to the clean energy economy this month when they defeated Proposition 23 by a wide margin.  Supporters of the ballot measure, financed primarily by two Texas oil companies,  tried to suspend California’s historic clean energy and air pollution standards by claiming that they would harm the economy — but Californians didn’t buy it.  They know that we can have a healthy environment and a healthy economy at the same time.

Listen to this discussion:

Download mp3 | Subscribe in iTunes

Featuring:
Fred Krupp, President
Steve Cochran, Director, National Climate Campaign

Will the oil disaster in the Gulf help or hinder the passage of an historic climate and energy bill? What are the prospects for winning bipartisan support? What can we expect to hear from the bill’s opponents?

Listen to this discussion:

Download mp3 | Subscribe in iTunes

Featuring:
Fred Krupp, President
Steve Cochran, Director, National Climate Campaign

Getting Climate through the Senate

Following our victory in June, when the U.S. House of Representatives passed the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act, we are now fully engaged in the push to reach sixty votes in the Senate.  We’re up against opponents who are tougher, more partisan, and better funded than ever.

With that in mind, Environmental Defense Fund partnered with others to create Clean Energy Works, an unprecedented coalition of more than 60 environmental, civil rights, faith, labor, and veterans organizations working together to pass climate legislation.

Listen to this discussion:

Download mp3 | Subscribe in iTunes

Thomas Donahue, president and CEO of the Chamber, issued a statement today in response to heavy public criticism of the Chamber’s position on climate change.

His attempts to tap dance out of a public relations disaster, like the Chamber's defense of the status quo, will do nothing to address the serious questions of American energy independence, climate change, and the development of a domestic clean energy industry.

Donahue says it is ‘dead wrong’ that the Chamber is opposed to efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. But just a month ago, his senior vice president, William Kovacs, publicly demanded that the Environmental Protection Agency hold a hearing to put the ‘science of climate change on trial.’ Kovacs also told the media the hearing would be ‘the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century … It would be evolution versus creationism.’ There could not be a clearer repudiation of Donahue’s claims than that.

Donahue also blames environmentalists for his predicament when he says, ‘Some in the environmental movement claim that, because of our opposition to a specific bill or approach, we must be opposed to all efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, or that we deny the existence of any problem.’ But it’s not the environmental movement that’s opposing Donahue – it’s his own membership.

In the wake of Kovacs’ statement, the Chamber has lost three prominent members — Chicago-based Exelon, California’s Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM).  Johnson & Johnson and Nike have also publicly criticized the Chamber's stance on climate change. These companies have made it clear that the Chamber is not representing their best interests when it opposes legislation that will create both jobs and profits in the lucrative new clean energy economic sector.

In a public letter to Donahue, PG&E chairman and CEO Peter Darbee wrote, ‘Extreme rhetoric and obstructionist tactics seem to increasingly mark the Chamber’s public stance on this issue … an intellectually honest argument over the best policy response to the challenges of climate change is one thing; disingenuous attempts to diminish or distort the reality of these challenges are quite another. Unfortunately, it is difficult to read the Chamber’s latest maneuvers on this issue as anything but the latter … I fear it has forfeited an incredible chance to play a constructive leadership role on one of the most important issues our country may ever face.’

That should disprove Donahue’s statement that the Chamber’s views are shared by ‘the business community.’

Donahue also says the Chamber is leading the fight to clear the roadblocks that are delaying renewable energy development. But right now, the biggest roadblock to renewable energy development is the Chamber of Commerce itself, and its relentless attempts to undermine every good faith effort to create a new American energy policy.

If Donahue wants us to take his claims seriously, he should start by talking to his own membership about why so many businesses think a clean energy bill is a good idea. Then he needs to make sure the Chamber’s policies reflect the views of those businesses. Visionary American companies will undoubtedly be international leaders in the 21st century clean energy economy; the question is whether the Chamber will lead with them, or become a business relic like the phonograph or the pony express.

Steve Cochran is the director of EDF's national climate campaign.

Featuring:
Fred Krupp, President, Environmental Defense Fund
Steve Cochran, Director, National Climate Campaign

With your help, we passed climate legislation through the House. Just one more hurdle in the Senate and the bill will be on the President's desk. But it's a steep hurdle.

We are up against formidable forces: industry opponents who already have hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank; an economy that makes everyone anxious and pushes the environment down the agenda; and right-wing media demagogues who are using climate legislation to gin up ugly populist anger.

We must win this fight. We have a window of opportunity, but the window will not stay open much longer. That is why the environmental community has agreed to come together in an unprecedented effort, reorganizing and mobilizing ourselves into one streamlined, turbo-charged campaign with only one goal: to get climate legislation passed.

Listen to our discussion on the challenges and opportunities we face in the coming weeks.

Download mp3 | Subscribe in iTunes

Date: Monday, April 20th, 2009, 4:00 p.m. EST

Featuring:
David Yarnold, Executive Director
Steve Cochran, Director, National Climate Campaign

Congress has fired the starting gun on the most important legislative fight of our lives. Just last week, Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D- MA) released a draft climate and energy bill that could unleash America’s green energy future and combat global warming.

Listen to this up-to-the-minute discussion on the challenges and opportunities we face in the next seven weeks.

Download mp3 | Subscribe in iTunes

"The days of Washington dragging its heels are over"
– President Obama, Jan. 26, 2009

David Yarnold, EDF's executive director, just sent this message out to our supporters, reflecting on President Obama's actions this morning:

I just witnessed history in the making.

This morning, President Barack Obama signed two executive orders that could be remembered as the critical turning point toward achieving real energy independence and stopping global warming.

President Obama directed the EPA to review the Bush administration's denial of a waiver request by California to cut global warming pollution from automobiles. The president also ordered the Transportation Department to enact short-term rules on how automakers can improve the fuel efficiency of their new models.

Politically, what President Obama said was at least as important as what he signed.

The President's powerful statement affirming his commitment to moving aggressively to cut global warming emissions and unleash America's clean energy future laid out clear goals for action in the coming weeks and months.

The President's plan—including the next step of a cap on carbon pollution—means more new jobs, a rebirth for the American auto industry, and less global warming pollution.

If today's announcement is the start of a comprehensive policy like that, I'd say that's pretty darn good for the first week in office.

I was deeply honored to be among those who attended the White House ceremony and witness history in the making. And, I couldn't help but think that this is what change looks like.

For more on today's news, here's a good article from the Washington Post.

We'll keep you posted as we continue our efforts to support President Obama's goal of capping and reducing America's global warming pollution.

Steve Cochran is the director of Environmental Defense Fund's national climate campaign.

President-elect Obama is committed to taking action on Climate Change, but there are many competing priorities on the agenda. It will be a heavy lift, but at Environmental Defense Fund, we see an opportunity of a lifetime to address global warming in ways that will benefit the environment AND the economy.

Date: Friday, Nov. 14, 2008, 1:00 p.m. EST

Featuring:
Fred Krupp, President
Steve Cochran, Director, National Climate Campaign

Featuring:

David Yarnold, Executive Director
Steve Cochran, National Climate Campaign Director

Despite promises from both sides of the aisle and support of all remaining presidential candidates, there are still formidable barriers.

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This post is by Steve Cochran, director of the national climate campaign at Environmental Defense Fund.

Ohio Senator George Voinovich today proposed to address the rapidly escalating threat of climate change by delaying meaningful federal action to control greenhouse gas emissions, obstructing existing state programs, and allowing U.S. global warming pollution to increase for decades to come.

This proposal can be summed up in one word: bankrupt. It's a detailed prescription for doing nothing. If you think climate change is a hoax, this is your bill.

The Voinovich Plan

The plan outlined by Senator Voinovich postpones meaningful action on greenhouse gas emissions for at least twenty years, calling for weak, non-binding emissions reduction goals, and taxpayer-funded subsidies for favored technologies.

If the subsidies failed to achieve their goal, the Environmental Protection Agency could establish a cap-and-trade system to reduce emissions, but it could be suspended at the whim of the federal government, and it would come with an absurdly low $5 per ton "safety valve" (an artificial price control on emissions reductions).

Not only that, the proposal would take away state authority – confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA – to control global warming pollution. This would negate the efforts of dozens of states across the country that have set ambitious emissions reduction targets to address climate change now.

What We Really Need

The Voinovich plan's emissions reduction targets are current levels in 2020 and 1990 levels in 2030. Widespread scientific consensus holds that the U.S. needs to reduce emissions to roughly 80 percent below current levels by 2050 to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, and the Voinovich plan doesn't come close.

Ambitious cuts are doable. If we start now, we can meet the science-based target with a manageable two percent cut in emissions per year. Every year of delay will require steeper emissions cuts at a higher cost to the
economy.

The Senate is expected to begin debate in early June on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191), a bipartisan bill that puts an enforceable limit on global warming pollution, and puts the U.S. on a path to meet science-based emissions reduction targets without harm to the economy.

Senators looking for an environmentally effective and economically sound climate policy need to look no further than the Climate Security Act. The Energy Information Administration reported earlier this week that the bill's mandatory cap-and-trade system would effectively reduce emissions without impacting strong long-term economic growth in the U.S.

Senator Voinovich's proposal is just an escape route from credible action, and leads to the same old expensive and ineffective policies that have already failed to curb emissions. It's an attempt to block real action, and will only raise the price of fixing this problem down the road.

Steve Cochran updates EDF members on the prospects of passing global warming legislation this year, outlines what activists can do to help, and answers questions. On this first activist conference call, more than 100 people participated. Sam Parry, Manager of Online Membership and Activism, moderates.

This call was held on Friday, March 28, 2008 at 2:00 PM Eastern.

Featuring

• Steve Cochran, National Climate Campaign Director

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