Complete list of press releases

(WASHINGTON) Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources is considering H.R. 6771, a bill introduced yesterday by Congressman Garret Graves (R-La.), which amends the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA) to increase the share of offshore oil and gas revenues that flow to Gulf states impacted by the industry.

Restore the Mississippi River Delta – a coalition of national and local conservation organizations committed to coastal Louisiana restoration including Environmental Defense Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation – issued the following statement in response:

“We thank Congressman Graves for his commitment to the critical restoration needs of coastal Louisiana. Our nation’s public lands, waters, and wildlife urgently need improved stewardship and additional funding support. It is important that coastal producing states are also well-equipped to ensure the sustainability of coastal communities and ecosystems.

“Land loss in Louisiana is a truly existential crisis for the communities and wildlife that rely on this vital coastal ecosystem. With a comprehensive coastal restoration plan in place and projects underway, Louisiana needs the resources to address this crisis for the generations to come. We appreciate the focus Congressman Graves has brought to this issue, and his leadership in working for the future of Louisiana’s coast.”

With Hurricane Florence threatening the Southeastern U.S., Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today calls on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to act on the lessons learned from Hurricane Harvey in Texas.

Predictable failures during Harvey, particularly in the arena of pollution monitoring, exacerbated the impact of the storm and needlessly exposed local residents to toxic chemicals and other health threats. 

“Hurricane Harvey put into stark relief the toxic disaster these types of storms can leave in their wake.” said EDF scientist Elena Craft. “EPA must act quickly to protect the health of families in the path of Hurricane Florence. To do so requires providing people with a real-time understanding of exposure to toxics unleashed by the storm.”

To make sure that residents have access to the best information about how to keep their families safe, EDF calls on EPA to:

• Coordinate with industry about possible shutdowns and spills to minimize the impacts of pollution on the public.
• Deploy personnel and equipment in advance of the storm to minimize gaps in data collection on potential sources of pollution that present a risk to public health and safety.
• Develop a plan for active air quality monitoring and surveillance, with the expectation that the agency deploys mobile sampling equipment during disasters and times of limited coverage from stationary monitors.
• Share as much information as it can about environmental sampling in real time – even if data is still under review for quality assurance – because the public should know about any pollution hazard. Also, refrain from making statements about impacts to public health – or absence of impacts – unless data fully supports them.
• Immediately implement the Chemical Disaster Rule, which protects citizens and first responders and has been sidelined by the Trump administration.

The decrease in EPA’s overall capacity – it has shrunk by more than 1,000 experts and staff during the Trump administration, and suffered long term funding declines – cannot be remedied immediately. But aggressive action by Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler can help protect the health of families across the Carolinas and other states in the path of the storm.

Washington, D.C. - Following on the heels of proposals to undo power plant pollution standards and to roll back progress on clean cars, acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler today proposed to gut essential provisions of the agency’s rules to reduce methane and other air pollution from oil and gas facilities.

The proposal comes just a few months after a comprehensive study in Science found methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas industry are 60 percent higher than EPA reports – 13 million metric tons a year. This amount nearly doubles the near-term climate impact of natural gas and represents the waste of enough natural gas to serve 10 million American homes every year. 

“It’s unfortunate that the Trump Administration is once again ignoring facts and common sense only to put the interests of the nation’s worst-run oil and gas companies ahead of the health and welfare of all Americans,” said Matt Watson, Associate Vice President, Energy, Environmental Defense Fund.The proposal would severely weaken protections that have been in effect for a year, diminishing vital safeguards that would otherwise prevent 300,000 short tons of methane pollution, 150,000 short tons of smog-forming pollutants, and 1,900 short tons of toxic pollutants per year by 2020, with further reductions by 2025.

EPA itself acknowledges that its proposal will allow additional methane emissions of at least 380,000 additional tons of methane between 2019 and 2025, and that “EPA expects that the forgone [volatile organic compound] emission reductions may also degrade air quality and adversely affect health and welfare…”

The Trump Administration proposal stands in stark contrast to recent actions from oil and gas companies that recognize their long-term viability depends on reducing emissions. BP and ExxonMobil recently set methane reduction targets for their global operations; and Chevron, Equinor, and Shell joined them in committing to principles to address methane, including working with governments and NGO’s to support methane policies and regulations. Last week, ExxonMobil asserted the position that “there should be a cost-effective federal regulatory standard to manage methane emissions for both new and existing source oil and gas facilities”

“To compete in today’s energy landscape you have to be both cheap and clean.” Watson said. “The question now is whether leading companies are going to stand up against this misguided effort or let the Trump Administration take the entire industry backward.” 

Today’s proposal is the first step in an apparent two-part strategy to eliminate regulation of oil and gas methane emissions entirely. If the Administration and its backers are successful, the result will be a hobbled federal framework that would likely reduce oil and gas methane emissions by no more than about three percent by 2025 according to EDF’s initial analysis. 

Analysis from the International Energy Agency indicates global oil and gas methane emissions could be reduced by up to 75 percent using technologies available today and could be reduced by 50 percent at zero net cost to companies. The oil and gas sector is the largest industrial source of methane emissions in the U.S., with methane being responsible for about a quarter of the climate warming we’re experiencing today.
 

Intermittently flooded rice farms can emit 45 times more nitrous oxide as compared to the maximum from continuously flooded farms that predominantly emit methane, according to a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This raises the prospect that rice farming across the world could be responsible for up to twice the level of climate impact relative to what was previously estimated.

According to an accompanying global analysis released by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), methane and nitrous oxide emissions from rice farms could have the same long-term warming impact as about 600 coal plants (1,900 MMT per year CO₂e₁₀₀). In the short-term, this warming impact could be as much as 1,200 average-sized coal power plants (3,600 MMT per year CO₂e₂₀) because nitrous oxide lasts many more decades in the atmosphere than methane.

The short-term vs long-term climate tradeoff
The authors also found an inverse correlation between methane and nitrous oxide emissions from rice farming: water and organic matter management techniques that reduce methane emissions can increase nitrous oxide emissions. This is crucial because nitrous oxide is a long-lived greenhouse gas that traps several times more heat in the atmosphere than methane over both 20 and 100-year time frames.
 
“The full climate impact of rice farming has been significantly underestimated because up to this point, nitrous dioxide emissions from intermittently flooded farms have not been included,” said Kritee, Ph.D., senior scientist at EDF and the lead author of the paper. “Increasing pressure on limited water resources under a changing climate could make additional rice farming regions look to intermittent flooding to address water limitations and concerns about methane emissions. Water management on rice farms needs to be calibrated to balance water use concerns with the climate impacts of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions.”

To monitor and mitigate rice farming’s nitrous oxide impact, the authors call on 1) scientists to map flooding regimes and measure nitrous oxide emissions at a diversity of rice farms across the world; 2) countries to report these emissions; and 3) rice producers to optimize water, nitrogen and organic matter use to reduce emissions of these two important greenhouse gases.

“It is essential for scientists to measure both nitrous oxide and methane emissions from rice fields in order to develop policies effective at meeting food demand while mitigating rice farming’s climate impacts,” said Kritee.

Rice is a critical source of nutrition for the world’s rapidly growing population, providing more calories to humans than any other food. But growing rice is also resource-intensive: rice cultivation covers 11% of the earth’s arable land, consumes one-third of irrigation water.

Focus on methane leaves nitrous oxide underestimated 
Most studies on the climate impacts of rice have measured methane emissions from continuously flooded rice farms. In addition, current climate mitigation strategies for rice production focus on reducing methane emissions by alternate wetting and drying, or intermittent flooding. Most rice producing countries – including the United States and the world’s biggest producers of rice (China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh) – assume continuous flooding and/or do not clearly report emission factors associated nitrous oxide emissions from rice production as part of their national greenhouse gas inventories submitted to the United Nations.

The findings of today’s study suggest that under intermittent flooding nitrous oxide emissions from rice farms across the world might be 30 to 45 times the maximum of current estimates, equivalent to annual climate pollution from 200 coal power plants to our atmosphere without accounting for methane emissions.

With the help of local partners, the authors investigated greenhouse gas emissions from rice farms across southern India and found that nitrous oxide emissions from rice can contribute up to 99% of the total climate impact of rice cultivation at a variety of intermittently flooded farms.   These emissions contributed substantially to global warming pollution – far more than the estimate of 10% previously suggested by multiple global rice research organizations.

Solutions to reduce methane and nitrous oxide
The authors found that carefully chosen farming techniques at individual farms reduced net greenhouse gas emissions from rice cultivation by as much as 90 percent by integrating shallow (mild-intermittent) flooding with co-management of nitrogen and organic matter. If all irrigated rice farmers only used the proposed shallow flooding instead of continuous or intense forms of intermittent flooding, estimates in the accompanying analysis shows that the rice farms with irrigation have the potential to reduce their global climate impact by 60 percent (450-550 MMT CO₂e₁₀₀ years).

“We now know nitrous oxide emissions from rice farming can be large and impactful,” said Richie Ahuja, a co-author of this study. “We now also know how to manage the problem. Major rice producing nations in Asia are investing to improve the agriculture sector and could benefit from the suggested dual mitigation strategies that lead to water savings, better yields, and less climate pollution.”

For additional resources, including a global risk map of rice nitrous oxide emissions, visit edf.org/riceN2O.

(DES MOINES, IA) Conservation can deliver measurable economic value to farmers and their financial partners, according to a report released today by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and K·Coe Isom AgKnowledge.

The report, Farm finance and conservation: How stewardship generates value for farmers, lenders, insurers and landowners, includes detailed financial reviews of family farm budgets for a range of producers across the Midwest. Overall, the report case studies showed that conservation practices delivered positive returns on investment for farmers and created value far beyond the field.

“The conclusion is clear: conservation can boost profitability. Farmers in our study reported cost savings, diversified income streams and increased yield resilience, and this allowed conservation practices to pencil out even in lean economic years,” said Maggie Monast, senior manager for economic incentives and agricultural sustainability at EDF.

Three corn, soy and wheat farmers – Scott Henry of Iowa, Justin Knopf of Kansas and Josh Yoder of Ohio – opened their books to provide real-world case studies of how they made cover crops, crop rotation, conservation tillage and precision fertilizer management economically viable in the face of a volatile farm economy and changing climate.

“Sustainability brings together environmentally friendly practices with the economic realities of running a business,” said Scott Henry, a fourth-generation farmer and business development manager at LongView Farms. “Cover crops challenged us to find this balance. They provide real long-term value, but they’re expensive. To make the economics work, we measure returns across multiple years and reduce seeding and application costs as much as possible.”

The report also includes a comparative analysis of ten additional Midwestern farms and describes the financial value that conservation can generate for farmers’ financial partners.

“From working with farmers in this report and other farmer clients, we’ve seen that producers who adopt conservation practices generally reduce risk and increase profits and asset values. Because of this, they tend to be more reliable business partners to agricultural lenders, crop insurers, landowners and farmland management companies,” said Alan Grafton, director of K·Coe Isom AgKnowledge.

“The farm financial system doesn’t currently recognize or reward farmers for the value they generate through conservation. We need additional efforts to build a robust financial case for the value of conservation from the farm field to global commodity markets,” Monast said.

Other key findings from the report include:

• The value of conservation often becomes more apparent when analyzing budgets at the farm enterprise scale. While conservation practices bring cost increases in several budget categories, cost savings in other categories create a net positive return.
• It takes time to find the right mix of practices and management adjustments to make conservation work for each unique operation, but after some trial and error, the benefits can be substantial.
• Lease terms, land appraisal practices and crop insurance policies can be adjusted to provide conservation incentives to farmers, and ultimately to generate more financial value and risk reduction for agricultural business partners.

Learn more at edf.org/farm-finance.

California laid the groundwork today to leverage the state’s ambitious climate program to help protect tropical forests around the world. A draft standard proposed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) sets out comprehensive requirements for credits from large-scale reductions in emissions from tropical deforestation to be considered for inclusion in California’s cap-and-trade program. Tropical deforestation adds as much carbon pollution to the atmosphere every year as all the cars and trucks in the world combined, and stopping it is a critical step to avoiding dangerous global warming and meeting the goals of the Paris climate accord. Adoption of the standard by the Board would be a pivotal first step toward California becoming the first compliance carbon market in the world to recognize such credits.

The proposed California Tropical Forest Standard specifies that rainforest credits would be allowed in California’s market only if they meet requirements for safeguarding the rights of indigenous and other forest communities, as well as additional oversight, enforcement, and transparency requirements. The use of these and any other international credits will be limited to 2% of an entity’s annual compliance obligation. The public has the opportunity to offer comments before CARB considers the standard at a public meeting scheduled for November.

“California has an opportunity to help save forests around the world by setting the bar for programs that want to sell rainforest credits into its carbon market, creating an economic incentive that will make forests worth more alive than dead.

“The most significant climate action California can take for the planet today, building on all that the state has already done, is to support the protection of tropical forests. California’s ambitious climate target is a significant contribution to the global fight against climate change. Yet even as California succeeds in cutting its own emissions, the state can’t solve global warming on its own. Addressing tropical deforestation is key to avoiding catastrophic climate change and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement – and California is now positioned to make an enormous impact.

“California has proposed a high bar for the rainforest credits it would allow in its carbon market. The state is doing this right by ensuring these credits will meet strict environmental criteria and requiring the direct engagement of groups that are the best protectors of the forests, indigenous people and other forest communities, who should also benefit socially and economically. The California Tropical Forest Standard will solidify the state’s role as a global climate leader, setting the gold standard for cap-and-trade programs to reduce tropical deforestation and providing a model that others can replicate.”

• Nathaniel Keohane, Senior Vice President, Climate

(Washington, D.C. – September 5, 2018) The Trump Administration has removed the vast majority of information about climate change from its proposal to scrap the Clean Power Plan and replace it with a vastly weaker program that would substantially increase climate pollution – including information that “emission reduction choices made today matter in determining impacts … in the coming centuries and millennia” and that recent scientific studies strengthen the case that climate pollution endangers public health and welfare.

“These changes raise serious questions about why EPA removed fundamental information about climate science from a proposed rule that deals specifically with climate pollution,” said EDF Director of Regulatory Policy and Lead Attorney Tomás Carbonell. “This administration has a long history of attempting to censor the science underpinning our most important health and environmental protections, and this seems to be an egregious example of that. Climate change is a clear and present danger to all Americans and ignoring it is not an option.”

The missing language is in the Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) of the Trump Administration’s proposed Affordable Clean Energy Rule (ACE). RIA’s are required statements of costs and benefits that accompany every major agency rule.

ACE was designed to replace the Clean Power Plan – which established America’s only nationwide limits on climate pollution from power plants. ACE, by contrast, is a weak rule that will increase health-harming pollution from power plants and, by EPA’s own estimates, could result in more than one thousand additional deaths per year by 2030 compared to the Clean Power Plan.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced ACE on August 21.

Last Friday, August 31, EPA released an earlier draft of the RIA for ACE that had been sent to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review on July 23. That earlier draft contained language describing the growing evidence that climate change is having severe impacts on the health and well-being of Americans, and pointing out that a failure to reduce climate pollution now would have significant long-term impacts. The language was deleted in the version of the proposed rule that was released to the public.

Here’s the missing language from the July 23 RIA:

            1.2.2 Health and Welfare Impacts from Climate Change

“According to the National Research Council, ‘Emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels have ushered in a new epoch where human activities will largely determine the evolution of Earth’s climate. Because CO2 in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe. Therefore, emission reduction choices made today matter in determining impacts experienced not just over the next few decades, but in the coming centuries and millennia.’”

“In 2009, EPA Administrator issued the Endangerment Finding under CAA section 202(a)(1).8 In the Endangerment Finding, the Administrator found that the current, elevated concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare of current and future generations in the United States.

“Since the administrative record concerning the Endangerment Finding closed following EPA’s 2010 Reconsideration Denial, the climate has continued to change, with new records being set for a number of climate indicators such as global average surface temperatures, Arctic sea ice retreat, CO2 concentrations, and sea level rise. Additionally, a number of major scientific assessments have been released that improve understanding of the climate system and strengthen the case that GHGs endanger public health and welfare both for current and future generations. These assessments are from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), and the National Research Council (NRC).”

The above language was marked for deletion in an August 13 redline version that also appears in the docket, and none of this text appears in the final RIA.

This is the language that remains in the RIA released to the public on August 21:

             4.2 Climate Change Impacts

“In 2009, EPA Administrator found that elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated both to endanger public health and to endanger public welfare. It is these adverse impacts that necessitate EPA regulation of GHGs from EGU sources. Since 2009, other science assessments suggest accelerating trends.”

It is not clear who requested the change.

(SACRAMENTO, CA – Aug. 31, 2018) The California legislature failed to establish clean energy leadership today by rejecting Assembly Bill (AB) 813 (Holden). The bill would have expanded California’s electric grid and integrated it with the transmission systems of neighboring states, such as Oregon, Arizona and Nevada. This would have allowed California to increase its investment in clean energy resources and reduce costs to customers by trading excess energy with participating states.

“AB 813 was a missed opportunity for western states to modernize the grid and promote new clean energy investments,” said Lauren Navarro, Senior Policy Manager for California Clean Energy, Environmental Defense Fund.

“While we are disappointed AB 813 didn’t pass, we remain committed to supporting the state’s efforts to integrate more renewables and removing barriers to regional energy trading,” continued Navarro. “The world looks to California for clean energy leadership and we remain dedicated to encouraging the state to lead by example.”

Though a regional grid would help all participants integrate more clean energy, it would have been particularly helpful in California, where excess clean energy could have been sold instead of turned off or given away to nearby states for free. 

“Approximately 60 percent of the clean energy curtailed in California is due to excess generation,” added Navarro. “The state already generates more clean electricity than the grid can absorb. At some point, not being able to sell this electricity is going to slow investment in new solar projects, hurting California companies and jobs.”

The failure of AB 813 comes just two days after the legislature passed Senate Bill (SB) 100, which mandates California obtain 100 percent of its electricity from clean sources by 2045 and requires electric providers to generate 60 percent of their electricity from clean sources by 2030. 

“A regional grid would have been a great boon for the effectiveness of all this new clean energy on California’s grid,” said Navarro. “Time will tell how this decision affects the ability of California to meet the goals of SB 100, build a thriving energy economy and a healthier environment.” 
 

(Washington, D.C. – August 30, 2018) EDF and its allies are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to take a close look at actions underpinning the proposed roll back of America’s Clean Car Standards.  

The Clean Car Standards are one of our nation’s biggest environmental success stories. They reduce climate pollution, spur fuel efficiency gains, and save families money at the gas pump.

In April, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a Final Determination concluding that that these win-win standards should be rolled back — a decision which committed the agency to weakening these protections.

Pruitt’s determination was based almost entirely on auto industry statements, without any independent analysis. It directly quotes the auto industry 14 times and cites them 63 times – while never once citing any EPA analyses to support his harmful decision. Pruitt’s Final Determination also never once mentions the words “health,” “air pollution,” or “climate.”

In May, EDF and the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen, Inc., Sierra Club, and Union for Concerned Scientists asked the D.C. Circuit to review and set aside that Final Determination.

The Trump administration formally proposed to roll back the Clean Car Standards this month. The administration also asked the D.C. Circuit to dismiss the lawsuit on the Final Determination as untimely.

EDF and its allies filed a brief with the court yesterday opposing efforts from EPA and automaker trade associations to dismiss the lawsuit. A coalition of 18 states and an industry coalition including major power companies and two auto manufacturers also filed briefs in opposition yesterday.

“Pruitt’s fact-free Final Determination rejected the extensive evidence showing that Clean Car Standards are achievable, dramatically reduce pollution, and save Americans’ hard-earned money at the gas pump – and it commits EPA to roll back the standards” said EDF attorney Alice Henderson. “It’s vital that the court review this flawed decision.”

You can read more about the Clean Car Standards, including all legal briefs, on EDF’s website.

(Washington, D.C. – August 29, 2018) The Trump Administration continued its efforts to unravel America’s public health and environmental protections today when news reports confirmed its planned attack on the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards have been a proven success in protecting American families from some of the most dangerous types of air pollution – including mercury, which causes brain damage in babies; arsenic; lead; chromium and nickel, which cause cancer; and acid gases, which cause serious lung disease. Everyone from industry leaders to Members of Congress, from both parties, have asked the Trump administration to leave them in place, but the administration is reportedly trying to destroy them anyway.

“Of all the wantonly destructive things the Trump Administration has done to our environmental protections, this could turn out to be the worst,” said Mandy Warner, EDF’s Senior Manager of Climate and Air Policy. “The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards are already in place protecting our families from deadly pollution. Power plants have already installed cost-effective pollution controls. But the Trump administration is considering gutting these established and successful protections, for no particular reason, and putting the lives and health of babies at risk.”

EPA confirmed to two news agencies today that it will begin consideration of whether the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards are “appropriate and necessary.” The standards, which were finalized in 2012, set the first-ever national limits on hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired power plants, which used to be the single largest source of such pollution in the U.S.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards ensure 90 percent of the mercury in coal burned in power plants is not released into our air.

Hundreds of thousands of American newborns still face the risk of learning disabilities due to prenatal exposure to mercury, and pregnant women are still routinely warned not to eat certain kinds of fish because of the high levels of mercury in our waters, but we are starting to see progress. According to a recent study, mercury levels in Atlantic Bluefin tuna are now rapidly declining due to a shift away from coal.

EPA estimates the standards save up to 11,000 lives each year and prevent thousands of heart attacks, asthma and bronchitis attacks, hospital and emergency room visits.

Since the standards were adopted, power companies across the nation have significantly reduced their toxic emissions at a fraction of the expected cost. Virtually all power plants in the nation now meet the standards. The economic benefits of the standards are as high as $90 billion annually, outweighing the costs by up to a margin of 9 to 1.

In July, a group of industry leaders – including the Edison Electric Institute, the American Public Power Association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers – sent a letter asking EPA to leave the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards “in place and effective.”

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards also have bipartisan Congressional support. Just last week, Senators Tom Carper (D-DE) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) sent a letter to EPA asking the agency not to change the standards.

The Trump administration is still trying to undermine them, for reasons of its own.

(Washington, D.C. – August 29, 2018) A new bipartisan Congressional bill would be a big step towards keeping our children safe from mercury, according to Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

EDF praised Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tom Carper (D-DE) for introducing the Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act, which will help scientists gather more data on mercury pollution and the damage it causes to human health and the environment.

“Mercury is an exceptionally toxic type of pollution that causes brain damage in babies,” said Mandy Warner, EDF’s Senior Manager of Climate and Air Policy. “We need to protect our families from mercury, and in order to do that we need the best possible data. This bipartisan bill is a good step toward reaching that goal.”

The Comprehensive National Mercury Monitoring Act would require federal agencies – including EPA, NOAA and the Fish and Wildlife Service – to measure and keep track of mercury levels in our air, water and soil. That would help identify how mercury is getting into our environment and where levels of the pollutant are highest.

The bipartisan bill was introduced just as the Trump administration announced that it may rollback our national protections against mercury and other toxic pollution – measures that are already in place protecting American children.

(Columbus, OH – Aug. 29 2018) The Ohio Public Utilities Commission today released PowerForward: A Roadmap to Ohio’s Electricity Future, part of its initiative to examine technology and regulatory innovations that can modernize Ohio’s electric grid and improve the customer experience by providing more access to energy-use data and incentivizing utilities to engage in rate design. The Commission prepared this report through a year-and-a-half long collaborative process with stakeholders, and by consulting with outside experts and conducting workshops.

“The Public Utilities Commission’s open, transparent and thoughtful approach in producing the PowerForward report is a terrific first step on the path to modernize Ohio’s electric grid. As the initiative moves ahead, we look forward to working with stakeholders to incorporate more clean energy into the system.”

• Dick Munson, Director, Midwest Clean Energy, Environmental Defense Fund

(WASHINGTON – August 29, 2018) A new study by EDF and leading scientists shows that tackling sustainable fisheries management and climate change together can result in significant increases of food, fish and economic activity, but nations need to act quickly to realize these gains.

The study details how the world’s oceans have the potential to be significantly more plentiful than today even with climate change, provided good management practices are put in place and warming is held to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, according to the first-of-its kind study published today in the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences’ (AAAS) journal, Science Advances.

The study shows that compared to today, estimated future global outcomes include a $14 billion USD increase in profits, 25 billion additional servings of seafood and 217 million more metric tons of fish in the sea—nearly a third more fish than exist today—, if we can meet the imperative of the Paris Climate Accord and ensure global temperatures don’t rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius. The study cautions, however, that these results depend on implementing fisheries management that addresses climate-driven changes in species productivity and geographical range distribution as well as limiting warming from emissions to that level. Inaction on fisheries management and climate change will mean net losses of fish as the planet’s population grows.

A dozen leading scientists from institutions including the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and Hokkaido University conducted the research. It is the first study to examine future fishery outcomes under both climate change projections and alternative management approaches, and demonstrates that our oceans can be highly productive for decades to come if we act now to put effective management practices in place.

“The results from this study are surprisingly positive—if we can adopt sustainable fishing policies and keep global warming at no more than 2 degrees Celsius, we can still realize significant benefits to fisheries across the globe,” said Merrick Burden, Senior Economist, EDF Oceans program and an author of the paper. “But these benefits require action and this study serves as a wakeup call to governments that they must change the way that fishing takes place or risk losing a crucial opportunity to secure our food supply for generations to come.”

This study examines potential future outcomes for 915 fish stocks across the world under alternative management and climate scenarios. The authors model climate change’s impact on fishery productivity and geographical range distribution, which affects how many fish are available and where they can be caught, under four climate projections. These range from a global temperature rise of 1 degree Celsius (strong climate mitigation) to a rise of 4 degrees Celsius by 2100 (business-as-usual). For each of these climate scenarios, the authors examine future biomass, harvest and profit under alternative management approaches using a bio-economic modeling approach.

The new research shows that roughly 50% of species examined will shift across national boundaries and nearly all are expected to experience changes in productivity in response to rising ocean temperatures. These changes will present new challenges for fishing nations. The study found that implementation of management practices that account for changes in productivity and geographic range distribution can lead to global gains in profits, harvest and biomass compared to today. These practices include flexible management strategies, including the creation and improvement of existing governance institutions to deal with fish distribution such as multilateral fishery agreements, and responsible harvest policies that account for changing stock productivity.

While improved management may lead to improved global outcomes, the outcomes will vary regionally. The results indicate that future fishery profits are expected to decline in tropical latitudes even with management that fully adapts to the climate challenges. This means equatorial nations, many of which have developing economies and are highly dependent on seafood as a source of food and income, will be hardest hit. And how much planetary warming occurs will make a significant difference on the abundance, harvest and profit from fisheries.

“Even with the right management changes, there will be winners and losers and we have to tackle this head on,” said Steve Gaines, the study’s lead author and Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science at UCSB.  “Success will require not only emissions reductions but also multilateral cooperation and real changes in fisheries management. With our growing global population and the increasing needs for healthy sources of protein, these changes will be critical for meeting the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.”

The impacts of inaction are also clear. Billions of people rely on fish as an important source of protein, and right now 845 million people face serious malnutrition worldwide, in part due to poorly managed fisheries. If nothing changes, 80 percent of the world’s fisheries will be in serious trouble by 2030. Most fishing nations are not responding fast enough to create change and successful transboundary management programs are relatively rare. But action doesn’t take long to have an impact on some species. Studies have demonstrated that many fisheries can bounce back from overfishing in as little as 10 years’ time under the right policies.

“Climate change is expected to hit hardest in many of the places where fisheries are already poorly managed - things are likely to get a lot worse if we don’t act,” said Christopher Costello, an author of the paper and a professor of environmental and resource economics at UCSB. “We can expect inaction to bring increased conflict and potential overfishing as fish move into new waters along with threats to food security in some of the world’s most vulnerable places.”

“Fishermen will be among the most affected by climate change, and this research confirms what they are already seeing on the water,” said Katie McGinty, Senior Vice President, EDF Oceans program. “The window is narrow, but we have the tools and a clear roadmap to build a future with more fish, more food and more prosperity — if we act now.”

The study did not examine other potential threats from climate change such as ocean acidification, and new ways that species might interact. These threats require further study beyond the scope of this paper.

(Austin, TX – August 28, 2018) Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today slammed the state of Texas for its “irresponsible and dangerous” decision to sue over vital smog protections instead of cleaning up its air.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its determination – based on air quality monitoring data collected over multiple years – that smog pollution in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, violates the nation’s health-based standard. They filed the suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit today.

“It’s outrageous that our state’s response to hearing that pollution is at unhealthy levels in San Antonio is to sue the people who said so,” said EDF’s Colin Leyden. “Bexar County families deserve to be protected from smog and the serious health problems it causes. It’s irresponsible and dangerous for Texas to waste taxpayer money on this lawsuit instead of spending that money to clean up our air.”

In March, after months of delay, a different court ordered Scott Pruitt’s EPA to start implementing the health-based 2015 Ozone Standard (EDF was a party to that case). Ground-level ozone is the main component of smog. It is a dangerous pollutant that is linked to asthma attacks, long-term lung damage and premature death.

The first step toward implementing the Ozone Health Standard is to determine those areas of the country that have pollution levels that exceed the standard. That action is fundamental in telling all who live and work in the area whether their air is safe to breathe, and it begins the community-based effort to restore healthy air. Those areas with unhealthy ozone levels are said to be in nonattainment.

EPA found that Bexar County was in nonattainment. Implementing the smog standard could prevent numerous deaths and thousands of hospitalizations each year in Bexar County. The state government could work with EPA to reduce the elevated levels of pollution in Bexar County – but instead, it is suing EPA to overturn the designation.

(Denver, CO – August 27, 2018) The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) today approved a plan to reduce dangerous air pollution and create a groundbreaking clean energy future for the state, all while saving customers and ratepayers money.  

The PUC approved a plan by Xcel Energy, the state’s main electricity provider, to replace two old, dirty coal units with more renewable energy.

“The Colorado Energy Plan has huge benefits for everyone in Colorado. It will slash emissions of carbon and other unhealthy pollution, create jobs in Pueblo County and across the state, and lower electric bills for Colorado families,” said EDF Senior Attorney Graham McCahan. “At a time when the Trump administration is undermining our national clean air protections, it’s especially meaningful to see Pueblo, Xcel, and the State of Colorado working together to secure clean energy solutions that will create healthier communities and shared economic prosperity.”

Xcel’s plan will retire two aging and high-emitting coal units in Pueblo, which will sharply reduce dangerous pollution – including mercury and the pollution that causes smog and soot. The plan will lead to a 60 percent reduction in the carbon pollution that causes climate change.

Xcel will invest $2.5 billion in clean energy for Pueblo and rural Colorado, including investments in new wind and solar energy, battery storage, and transmission upgrades. The plan will also help facilitate a major on-site solar power project that will help keep a major steel mill, and its extensive manufacturing jobs, in Pueblo.

Xcel’s plan is expected to save Colorado customers $213 million from the lower costs of renewable power and savings on maintenance for the two retiring coal units.

A University of Colorado study commissioned by Xcel found that the plan would add 549 jobs statewide, and 133 jobs in Pueblo County, compared to continuing to use the coal units.

EDF is supporting the plan, along with other environmental and energy groups and some local labor groups. Supporters include local organizations such as Pueblo’s Energy Future, statewide and regional organizations such as Western Resource Advocates, clean energy organizations such as Vote Solar, and local governments such as Pueblo County.

You can read more about the issue here.