The Trump Administration’s Budget Would Make our Climate Crisis Even Worse

5 years 5 months ago
Scientists around the world are telling us, in no uncertain terms, that we – as in humankind — have little time left to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Those include: widespread coastal and riverine inundation, stronger storms and wildfires; new disease vectors; agricultural and other economic disruption. That is the reality and scope […]
Keith Zukowski

The Trump Administration’s Budget Would Make our Climate Crisis Even Worse

5 years 5 months ago
Scientists around the world are telling us, in no uncertain terms, that we – as in humankind — have little time left to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Those include: widespread coastal and riverine inundation, stronger storms and wildfires; new disease vectors; agricultural and other economic disruption. That is the reality and scope […]
Keith Zukowski

A Bailout is a Bailout

5 years 5 months ago
96 A Bailout is a Bailout p{ margin:10px 0; padding:0; } table{ border-collapse:collapse; } h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6{ display:block; margin:0; padding:0; } img,a img{ border:0; height:auto; outline:none; text-decoration:none; } body,#bodyTable,#bodyCell{ height:100%; margin:0; padding:0; width:100%; } .mcnPreviewText{ display:none !important; } #outlook a{ padding:0; } img{ -ms-interpolation-mode:bicubic; } table{ mso-table-lspace:0pt; mso-table-rspace:0pt; } .ReadMsgBody{ width:100%; } .ExternalClass{ width:100%; } p,a,li,td,blockquote{ mso-line-height-rule:exactly; } a[href^=tel],a[href^=sms]{ color:inherit; cursor:default; text-decoration:none; } p,a,li,td,body,table,blockquote{ -ms-text-size-adjust:100%; -webkit-text-size-adjust:100%; } .ExternalClass,.ExternalClass p,.ExternalClass td,.ExternalClass div,.ExternalClass span,.ExternalClass font{ line-height:100%; } a[x-apple-data-detectors]{ color:inherit !important; text-decoration:none !important; font-size:inherit !important; font-family:inherit !important; 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} } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .mcnTextContent,.mcnBoxedTextContentColumn{ padding-right:18px !important; padding-left:18px !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .mcnImageCardLeftImageContent,.mcnImageCardRightImageContent{ padding-right:18px !important; padding-bottom:0 !important; padding-left:18px !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .mcpreview-image-uploader{ display:none !important; width:100% !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ h1{ font-size:30px !important; line-height:125% !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ h2{ font-size:26px !important; line-height:125% !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ h3{ font-size:20px !important; line-height:150% !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ h4{ font-size:18px !important; line-height:150% !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .mcnTextContent,.mcnBoxedTextContentContainer .mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important; line-height:150% !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .headerContainer .mcnTextContent,.headerContainer .mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important; line-height:150% !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .bodyContainer .mcnTextContent,.bodyContainer .mcnTextContent p{ font-size:16px !important; line-height:150% !important; } } @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .footerContainer .mcnTextContent,.footerContainer .mcnTextContent p{ font-size:14px !important; line-height:150% !important; } } FirstEnergy’s latest attempt to prop up ailing coal and nuclear is "cronyism on full display; in other words, a bailout.” Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - Edition #65

As noted in our last newsletter, Ohio lawmakers introduced the Orwellianly named “clean air resource bill,” which bails out uneconomic nuclear reactors, subsidizes dirty coal plants, and eliminates Ohio’s energy efficiency and renewable energy portfolio standards that have saved utility customers billions of dollars and created thousands of jobs.  A wide array of stakeholders recently testified against the bill (HB 6) – EDF and other environmental advocates, residential and manufacturing consumer groups, wind and solar developers, energy efficiency advocates, local governments, independent power producers and conservative think tanks.  

Perhaps the most blistering testimony came from the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, which laid out how the bill’s real purpose is to bail out FirstEnergy’s flagging coal and nuclear plants. Speaking to so-called conservative lawmakers, the conservative group also labeled the bill “corporate welfare, it is cronyism on full display; in other words, a bailout” that erodes the public’s faith in their elected officials.  You can read all the testimony here.

The bill’s proponents should take heed of the broad and well-reasoned opposition to this deceptively titled bill.  You can help them by asking your representative to embrace the new and innovative rather than subsidize the old and uneconomic.

--> FirstEnergy Isn’t Worried About Clean-up Costs Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman and the “What, Me Worry?” tagline  may have been the world’s first meme (if things from the 70s can be memes). Today, FirstEnergy’s chairman, Chuck Jones, is channeling Neuman when it comes to paying to clean up poisonous coal-ash ponds and radioactive reactors that it’s transferring to FirstEnergy Solutions (FES).

The judge overseeing the FES bankruptcy rejected FirstEnergy’s initial attempt to evade its environmental responsibilities. Trying to appease skeptical investors, FirstEnergy now argues there’s zero risk that it will ever be called upon to pay these cleanup costs. Really? Then why did the utility giant fight so hard in the first place to get releases from future liability?

Mr. Jones’ claims rests on a few wild assumptions. Ohio and Pennsylvania would both need to pass expensive nuclear-bailout laws to keep the plants running.  Projections of the plants’ future earnings for the next 40 years would need to be accurate (unlike FirstEnergy’s past assumptions on this point– that’s why the nuclear unit is in bankruptcy).  When the plants are closed 40 years from now, moreover, the nuclear waste will be held in place for another 60 years, and the estimates for the cleanup costs a hundred years from now will need to be on the mark.

Where’s the Math?

Bailout proponents claim that without HB 6’s massive subsidies 1,300 people will lose their jobs at the two uneconomic reactors along the shores of Lake Erie. Ignored are the employees that would for years be busy decommissioning those plants. And according to Americans for Prosperity, the bailout “does not guarantee that the plants are ultimately a fit for the strategy of a new corporation or group of investors.” In other words, the bailout may initially enrich FES’s hedge-fund vultures but be “a long-term financial loss for Ohioans.”

Compare those 1,300 nuclear jobs to the 81,000 people employed in Ohio’s energy efficiency industry, who would stand to lose their jobs if HB 6 passes and the Energy Efficiency Resource Standard is eliminated.

The “bailouters” claiming theirs is a “jobs bill” may want to take an arithmetic refresher. 

Isn’t This Getting Old?

HB 6 would be the fifth time Ohioans have paid for FirstEnergy’s uneconomic power plants:
(1) when the plants were built
(2) when the retail electricity market was restructured under SB 3 in 1999 and the utilities received billions of dollars in “stranded costs” payments
(3) when utilities were allowed to add the plants back into their electricity supply plans under SB 221 in 2008
(4) under PUCO-approved bailout rulings, which EDF is currently appealing to the Ohio Supreme Court

And here we are again, with HB 6. 

When will it be time to say – enough is enough? How about now?
  --> --> Copyright © 2019 Environmental Defense Fund |Energy, All rights reserved.


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With all the snow and rain this year, California could face an even worse fire season. Here's why.

5 years 5 months ago
With all the snow and rain this year, California could face an even worse fire season. Here's why.

 After a winter with 20% more rain and 56% more snow than we get on average, you'd think Californians would finally feel relieved. The seven-year drought now officially over, our valleys and forests across the state are full of colorful wildflowers and new growth.

And that's exactly what has forest experts concerned as we enter the 2019 wildfire season.

The rain and snow created perfect growing conditions for shrubs, grasses and young trees — highly flammable material that, along with dead wood from previous years, becomes a tinderbox during the dry summer season. A few months from now, we could have a major problem on our hands.

The precipitation we needed so urgently to replenish reservoirs and support our farming industry are, these days, also a recipe for more intense wildfires in California and some other parts of the West.

More rain once meant less fire risk. Not anymore.

Fire has always been a fact of life in the West, but the length and severity of fire season are increasing because of decades of fire suppression that caused fuel to build up on the forest floor, and ever-rising temperatures that are drying out our wildlands.

Historically, a wet winter in California meant a smaller risk of fire the next summer. This is no longer true. A recent study shows that since around 1977, around the same time climate change entered the public discourse, wet winters have done nothing to temper fire seasons here.

They may, in fact, make them worse.

Meanwhile, in arid Arizona, heavier-than-normal rains since last fall recently prompted fire officials to issue warnings to people in or near wildland areas prone to fire. Western Washington, also deemed to be at risk this year after heavy snow packs and rains, has already logged an unusual number of fires.

EDF Action: Tell Congress to act on climate now Lives and property at stake

After the devastating Western wildfires in 2017 and 2018, keeping people and property safe from fire has become a top priority for state officials.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a pre-emptive state of emergency for the next 12 months, and state lawmakers are considering stricter rules for housing near the wildland-urban interface.

Congress, meanwhile, passed a $1.3 trillion, bipartisan spending package that frees up money for the U.S. Forest Service to focus more on proactive forest management to reduce fire risk in California and beyond. All woodland areas in the West are increasingly at risk for fires, as are large swaths of land in eastern United States.

As we implement these programs, we must put a premium on increasing community resilience and preparedness in high-risk areas — by clearing small trees and fuel and building literal fire breaks to keep people and property safer. We must also do a better job with prescribed burns to clear out fuel, and balance such controlled fires with air quality needs.

What you can do to help

As we prepare as best as we can for what could become another intense fire season, we must also keep our pressure on Congress to tackle climate change.

Today's wildfire season is 2.5 months longer than in 1970, and the areas burned in the U.S. are expected to double over the next quarter century. We need to quickly draw down emissions to avoid more catastrophic impacts, and to prioritize measures that reduce our vulnerability to the fires that will continue to occur.

EDF Action: Tell Congress to act on climate now krives April 29, 2019 - 12:50
krives

With all the snow and rain this year, California could face an even worse fire season. Here's why.

5 years 5 months ago
With all the snow and rain this year, California could face an even worse fire season. Here's why.

 After a winter with 20% more rain and 56% more snow than we get on average, you'd think Californians would finally feel relieved. The seven-year drought now officially over, our valleys and forests across the state are full of colorful wildflowers and new growth.

And that's exactly what has forest experts concerned as we enter the 2019 wildfire season.

The rain and snow created perfect growing conditions for shrubs, grasses and young trees — highly flammable material that, along with dead wood from previous years, becomes a tinderbox during the dry summer season. A few months from now, we could have a major problem on our hands.

The precipitation we needed so urgently to replenish reservoirs and support our farming industry are, these days, also a recipe for more intense wildfires in California and some other parts of the West.

More rain once meant less fire risk. Not anymore.

Fire has always been a fact of life in the West, but the length and severity of fire season are increasing because of decades of fire suppression that caused fuel to build up on the forest floor, and ever-rising temperatures that are drying out our wildlands.

Historically, a wet winter in California meant a smaller risk of fire the next summer. This is no longer true. A recent study shows that since around 1977, around the same time climate change entered the public discourse, wet winters have done nothing to temper fire seasons here.

They may, in fact, make them worse.

Meanwhile, in arid Arizona, heavier-than-normal rains since last fall recently prompted fire officials to issue warnings to people in or near wildland areas prone to fire. Western Washington, also deemed to be at risk this year after heavy snow packs and rains, has already logged an unusual number of fires.

EDF Action: Tell Congress to act on climate now Lives and property at stake

After the devastating Western wildfires in 2017 and 2018, keeping people and property safe from fire has become a top priority for state officials.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a pre-emptive state of emergency for the next 12 months, and state lawmakers are considering stricter rules for housing near the wildland-urban interface.

Congress, meanwhile, passed a $1.3 trillion, bipartisan spending package that frees up money for the U.S. Forest Service to focus more on proactive forest management to reduce fire risk in California and beyond. All woodland areas in the West are increasingly at risk for fires, as are large swaths of land in eastern United States.

As we implement these programs, we must put a premium on increasing community resilience and preparedness in high-risk areas — by clearing small trees and fuel and building literal fire breaks to keep people and property safer. We must also do a better job with prescribed burns to clear out fuel, and balance such controlled fires with air quality needs.

What you can do to help

As we prepare as best as we can for what could become another intense fire season, we must also keep our pressure on Congress to tackle climate change.

Today's wildfire season is 2.5 months longer than in 1970, and the areas burned in the U.S. are expected to double over the next quarter century. We need to quickly draw down emissions to avoid more catastrophic impacts, and to prioritize measures that reduce our vulnerability to the fires that will continue to occur.

EDF Action: Tell Congress to act on climate now krives April 29, 2019 - 12:50
krives

FirstEnergy’s next desperate idea: $300 million a year from Ohio taxpayers

5 years 5 months ago

For years, FirstEnergy has been looking for a get-out-of-bad-debt card to save it from its failing coal and nuclear plants. First, it tried for a $3 billion bailout from the Ohio Public Utility Commission (PUCO) and failed. Then it went begging in Washington for a federal bailout and failed. It won a $600 million bailout […]

The post FirstEnergy’s next desperate idea: $300 million a year from Ohio taxpayers appeared first on Energy Exchange.

John Finnigan

FirstEnergy’s next desperate idea: $300 million a year from Ohio taxpayers

5 years 5 months ago

For years, FirstEnergy has been looking for a get-out-of-bad-debt card to save it from its failing coal and nuclear plants. First, it tried for a $3 billion bailout from the Ohio Public Utility Commission (PUCO) and failed. Then it went begging in Washington for a federal bailout and failed. It won a $600 million bailout […]

The post FirstEnergy’s next desperate idea: $300 million a year from Ohio taxpayers appeared first on Energy Exchange.

John Finnigan

FirstEnergy’s next desperate idea: $300 million a year from Ohio taxpayers

5 years 5 months ago
For years, FirstEnergy has been looking for a get-out-of-bad-debt card to save it from its failing coal and nuclear plants. First, it tried for a $3 billion bailout from the Ohio Public Utility Commission (PUCO) and failed. Then it went begging in Washington for a federal bailout and failed. It won a $600 million bailout […]
John Finnigan

Employees Of The Month: Amazon’s Climate Activists

5 years 5 months ago
The contrast between how the two largest retailers – Amazon and Walmart – engage on sustainability is on full display right now. Every April, Walmart convenes hundreds of suppliers, associates and partners at an annual meeting to evaluate progress against the company’s aspirational sustainability goals. A major focus this year was celebrating progress on Project Gigaton: in […]
Tom Murray

Employees Of The Month: Amazon’s Climate Activists

5 years 5 months ago
The contrast between how the two largest retailers Amazon and Walmart engage on sustainability is on full display right now. Every April, Walmart convenes hundreds of suppliers, associates and partners at an annual meeting to evaluate progress against the company’s aspirational sustainability goals. A major focus this year was celebrating progress on Project Gigaton: in […]
Tom Murray