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Allen, Kara[Kara.Allen@mail.house.gov]
Allen, Kara
Fri 6/27/2014 2:16:35 PM
SEEC Daily Clips 6.27.14

Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition

Top news stories:

On the one-year anniversary of launching his climate action plan, President Barack Obama derided
congressional opponents of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. In most communities across the U.S.,
Obama said, "it's pretty rare that you encounter people who say that carbon pollution is not a problem."
"Except," he said, "in Congress."

The new Pew "Political Typology" report shows huge majorities of all four Democratic-leaning groups
support the development of wind, solar and hydrogen alternatives to oil, coal and natural gas.

The families of a dozen of the 19 elite Arizona firefighters killed last year in the nation's worst wildfire in
eight decades have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit claiming the state was negligent in its efforts to battle
the massive blaze.

Producers, refiners and pipeline companies are questioning exactly how much the Obama
administration has relaxed its position on crude exports after the Commerce Department said June 24 it
had categorized some lightly processed oil as exportable. The U.S. has prohibited most crude exports for
four decades.

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil has been notable for more than hard-fought matches and stoppage time
goals; it's also the first time official water breaks have been called due to excessive heat and humidity.
And as climate change drives up not only average temperatures but extreme heat and humidity, experts
say outdoor events like the World Cup could pose a danger to the health of athletes.

Energy news:

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A new advertising campaign from a liberal group argues that violence in Iraq and the resulting effects on
the oil market expand the need for the government to increase the amount of renewable fuels mixed
with gasoline.

Gasoline's price will increase up to 9 percent, and diesel fuel will rise by up to 14 percent by 2017
because of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) if Congress does not repeal it, the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) said Thursday.

The Department of Energy (DOE) touted the carbon-capture technology it is funding Thursday, saying a
project at a hydrogen production facility in Port Arthur, Texas, has now captured more than 1 million
tons of carbon dioxide.

A California wind farm will become the first in the nation to avoid prosecution if eagles are injured or die
when they run into the giant turning blades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) continued to press for the administration to lift a decades-old ban on
crude oil exports Thursday, one day after a Commerce Department ruling allowed two companies to
export a form of ultralight crude.

Saying it's a side of the story "he won't hear from California billionaires," Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) is inviting President Obama to visit with coal families to see the impact of his climate
rule up close.

The United States is still growing older, but the trend is reversing in the Great Plains, thanks to a liberal
application of oil. The aging baby boom generation helped inch up the median age in the United States
last year from 37.5 years to 37.6 years, according to data released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

Norfolk Southern Corp. NSC +0.32% has become the first big American freight railroad to require its
customers to give the railroad legal protection against damages from fires, explosions or the release of
hazardous materials carried in tank cars that don't meet the rail industry's latest standards.

A federal appeals court yesterday for the second time rejected the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission's attempt to divvy up the cost of high-voltage power lines in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.

Pennsylvania environmental regulators are wading through more than 25,000 public comments on a
proposed overhaul of the state's oil and gas regulations.

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The sun is shining on the solar industry in Texas. Or at least that's the message from the newly formed
Texas Solar Power Association, which made its formal debut this week. Charlie Hemmeline, the
association's executive director, said solar energy is poised to build on recent momentum in the state.

A state-owned gas pipeline exploded and burst into flames Friday, killing at least 14 people, destroying
homes and forcing the evacuation of neighboring villages in the southern Indian state of Andhra
Pradesh, authorities said.

The Department of Energy & Climate Change's contracts with five offshore wind farms, two coal-tobiomass plants and a biomass heat and power plant may be needlessly generous to developers,
according to a report today from the NAO, which scrutinizes state spending on behalf of Parliament.

Analysts say the Chinese Machinery Engineering Corporation's (CMEC) struggle to repatriate roughly
1,300 employees highlights China's growing need to shift investment and energy deals away from
politically volatile countries. In the past, national enterprises in the developing world have served as a
major source of income for the People's Republic. But after the tumult of the Arab Spring, the costs
have sometimes outweighed the benefits.

German lawmakers should back the government's revised EEG clean-energy law when they vote on the
bill in parliament today because current subsidies are "excessive," according to Economy Minister
Sigmar Gabriel.

Germany is headed for its biggest electricity glut since 2011 as new coal-fired plants start and
generation of wind and solar energy increases, weighing on power prices that have already dropped for
three years.

Climate news:

"We're not going to be able to burn it all." With those 10 words, Barack Obama uttered one of the most
stunning, far-reaching statements ever made by a U.S. president. He also completely contradicted his
own energy policy. Yet no one seemed to notice.

Natural gas fields globally may be leaking enough methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to make the fuel
as polluting as coal for the climate over the next few decades, according to a pair of studies published
last week.

Several western lawmakers remain optimistic they can change the way the federal government pays for
fighting wildfires even as the number of legislative days left before the midterm elections dwindles. "I'm
pulling out all the stops on it. We've spent a decent chunk of time on it this past week," Sen. Ron

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Wyden, D-Ore., said Tuesday.

NASA has released some encouraging images showing a marked decline in air pollution over much of the
eastern U.S., including Washington, D.C. and the 1-95 corridor since 2005. The images show the change
in concentration of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant linked to adverse effects on the respiratory system.

There's a strong chance an El Nino weather event will reappear before the end of the year and shake up
climate patterns worldwide, the U.N. weather agency said Thursday. The El Nino, a flow of unusually
warm surface waters from the Pacific Ocean toward and along the western coast of South America,
changes rain and temperature patterns around the world and usually raises global temperatures.

Here are five charts and maps from the technical report that didn't quite grab headlines, but certainly
spotlight the myriad ways climate change will be a drag on the nation's economy. Each one of them
examines the impacts of climate change under a high emissions scenario.

At the first of three public hearings on the proposed changes Wednesday night, representatives of some
of the state's leading environmental groups said the new rules - the first changes to coastal
development policy since the devastating October 2012 storm - miss a golden opportunity to better
protect the coast.

Deep in coal country, the candidates waging one of the nation's most closely watched House races are
competing to show who is the most outraged by President Barack Obama's environmental policies.

The Senate is engaged in a fruitless battle over a pair of ill-fated energy bills. Again. Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is calling on Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to hold a vote on a bill
that would force approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

Canada should establish a price for carbon emissions to show it's addressing climate change and to give
President Barack Obama political "cover" to approve TransCanada Corp. (TRP)'s $5.4 billion project,
Trudeau, leader of Canada's Liberal Party said yesterday in an interview in Fort McMurray, Alberta. He
said he was "agnostic" about how the price should be set.

o it turns out, hope is important. Did we know that already? We sort of knew that already. But according to a new study put together by Yale's Climate Change Communication Project - hope is
particularly critical as a motivator in the very doom-heavy world of climate change activism.

In Colorado, home to some of the most destructive floods and wildfires of recent years, Republican
climate change deniers had a big night at the polls as GOP primary voters selected nominees for
governor, the U.S. House, and a host of other offices.

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Europe could coax utilities to shift from burning coal to cleaner natural gas by quadrupling the price that
financial markets place on carbon dioxide emissions, the head of Spain's biggest power generator said.

It starts with Al Gore. When it comes time to teach his high school sophomores about global warming,
Wyoming science teacher Jim Stith shows An Inconvenient Truth. The green documentary delivers an
unambiguous message: Human activity is driving dangerous climate change.

A dramatic night of storms in Toronto on Wednesday flooded subway stations, turned a major freeway
into a river and knocked out power to thousands of people. On Wednesday, Environment Canada issued
a special weather warning for heavy rain in Toronto Wednesday evening. Some parts of the city received
nearly three inches of rain in just three hours.

Norway's commitment of $1 billion in 2010 is just the beginning of what is needed in Indonesia, ranked
as the world's third-largest emitter because of its shrinking forests, said Heru Prasetyo, head of the
agency for Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation, known as REDD+.

Environment & Health news:

You probably don't want to dip your toes in these dirty waters. According to the 24th annual report
released by the Natural Resources Defense Council, one in 10 U.S. beaches are dangerously polluted -so polluted, in fact, that they have been deemed unsafe for swimmers.

Levels of particulate matter spike at night inside homes near gas wells in Southwest Pennsylvania, the
director of an environmental health monitoring project said Wednesday.

The UN responded after a coalition of activist groups submitted a report to its Human Rights Office of
the High Commissioner last week, detailing water shutoffs and extreme consequences for families in the
city who can't afford to pay their bills and have had to go without water.

The final plan and accompanying environmental impact statement for the $627 million, 44-project
Phase Ill BP oil spill early restoration plan were made available to the public on federal and state
websites Wednesday (June 25).

A plan by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the agency building a new Tappan Zee Bridge to borrow a halfbillion dollars provided under the federal Clean Water Act has come under fire from nine environmental
and transportation groups that argue the money would be improperly spent on basic construction, not
enhancing water quality.

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The by-catch problem in the U.S. isn't just hurting our oceans, but our pockets too, according to a new
report by Oceana. The environmental group estimates the U.S. fishing industry loses at least $1 billion
annually from the staggering amount of seafood that is unintentionally caught (and then discarded) by
fishermen.

On a beautiful summer afternoon recently, a handful of people across America decided it was high time
to make their feelings known about the Obama administration's most significant response yet to climate
change - the EPA's Clean Power Plan. Here is what they wrote.

Among more than 2,500 doctors consulted for the survey, nearly all of them reported counseling
patients on factors such as diet, exercise and cigarette smoking. However, only about 20 percent said
they addressed environmental exposures. They pegged their hesitation to a number of factors, from the
fear of overwhelming patients with anxiety-inducing worries to limited appointment time to a lack of
environmental health education.

Residents worried about the spate of earthquakes that have plagued parts of Oklahoma likely got little
satisfaction Thursday night at a town hall on the subject, as experts said there is no way to know their
cause.

Scientists say the aquarium fishery off the Big Island is among the best managed in the world, but it has
nevertheless become the focus of a fight over whether it's ever appropriate to remove fish from reefs
for people to look at and enjoy.

The memorandum will spur the creation, within the next 180 days, of a National Pollinator Health
Strategy that will lay out ways for the U.S. to better study and better tackle the problems facing
pollinators, both wild and managed. While the plight of bees has gotten deserved attention of late,
many species of pollinators face the same threats: habitat destruction, climate-induced changes in
flowering and weather patterns, and in some cases, pesticides.

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