Executive News Scan

A Weekly News Summary
Week of March 8, 2010

WHAT'S HOT

Grouse listing warranted but precluded
Associated Press
The Interior Department announced Friday that it won't list sage grouse as endangered or threatened but will classify the bird among species that are candidates for federal protection.

Business leaders applaud effort to require disclosure of taxpayer subsidies to lawyers who sue government
Western Business Roundtable
Wealthy activist groups that sue the government and then force taxpayers to pick up the tab for their attorneys' fees would now have those taxpayer subsidies disclosed to the public under legislation jointly introduced by Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House.

Lawmakers offer bills to suspend EPA rules
Wall Street Journal
President Barack Obama's energy strategy came under attack on at least three fronts Thursday, highlighting the conflict that has hobbled one of the administration's top domestic priorities.

EPA piecing together regulatory framework for greenhouse gas rules
New York Times/Greenwire
U.S. EPA has submitted the first piece of its suite of greenhouse gas rules to the White House for review, a signal that the agency is on schedule to finalize its first regulations to curb the heat-trapping emissions.

Senate trio hopes to hit pay dirt with carbon 'fee' on fuels
New York Times/ClimateWire
Key senators are weighing a request from oil companies to levy a carbon fee on the industry rather than wrap it into a sweeping cap-and-trade system that covers most of the U.S. economy.

Peabody seeks reversal of U.S.’s carbon finding
BusinessWeek
Peabody Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. coal company, said the Obama administration relied on flawed climate change science when it decided last year to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and should reverse course.

Why the EPA struggles with water regulation
Newsweek
The pursuit of clean water has risen lately on the EPA’s docket. The agency has kept tabs on pollutants from individual and industrial sources since the Clean Water Act was signed in 1972, but The New York Times is out with another installment of its water series, this time explaining how recent challenges to the act have led to lax regulation on the nation’s waterways.

CLIMATE NEWS

State's latest approach to climate change? It's complicated.
Washington Policy Blog
News out of Sacramento from an obscure California administrative office didn’t earn much attention here in Washington. Maybe it should have.

Clash over 'global warming' ratcheted up another degree
WorldNetDaily
The clash over "global warming" has been ratcheted up another degree this week, with one member of Congress demanding U.S. taxpayer funding for the research be halted and scientists who have been accused of slipshod and deceptive work planning a campaign of retaliation against their critics.

Climate science debate? Emotions too superheated
Salt Lake Tribune
Gov. Gary Herbert is temporarily putting plans for a climate science forum on ice.

Al Gore's climate groups unite as he sees 'massive' opposition
USA TODAY
Two groups aimed at fighting global warming are uniting as their founder, former vice president Al Gore, sees massive opposition.

Abrupt climate change could be brought about by leaking methane
AZoCleantech
Significant amounts of methane found to be leaking from permafrost in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf could push the world closer to the tipping points for abrupt climate changes.

South African tourism minister nominated for top UN climate job
The Guardian
Marthinus van Schalkwyk is a candidate to take over from United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer, who announced his resignation last month. 

CEOs seek firm signal on U.S. climate change policy
Reuters
Global leaders in the energy business say they want some certainty in U.S. climate policy to encourage development of new technologies and other investment, but they do not expect federal legislation to pass this year.

Utah Legislature: State Senate committee urges EPA to cease regulating greenhouse gases
Deseret News
A controversial climate change resolution urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cease its regulation of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas emission advanced after a packed committee hearing.  

Texas takes legal steps to stop EPA from regulating GHGs under CAA
Oil & Gas Journal
Saying the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wrongly outsourced scientific review to a United Nations commission, Texas government leaders said that the state will legally challenge EPA efforts to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

MINERAL SECURITY

Lawmakers from coal states seek to delay emission limits
New York Times
Coal-country lawmakers have moved to impose a two-year moratorium on potential federal regulation of carbon dioxide and other climate-altering gases.

Shortage of rare earth elements could thwart innovation
Yahoo! News
Rare earth elements hold the key to hybrid cars, wind turbines and crystal-clear TV displays - that is, if a looming supply shortage doesn't stop innovation in its tracks.   


ENERGY SECURITY

Plentiful Great Plains power blows in opponents from all corners
New York Times/ClimateWire
Not many years ago, there wasn't enough wind power coming from the Great Plains to worry about. Now there is, and lots of people are worrying.

In Utah, a move to seize federal land
Los Angeles Times
The state House passes a bill allowing the use of eminent domain to take protected land from the federal government. Utah wants to develop a stretch outside Arches National Park and other areas.

Battle lines harden over new transmission policy for renewables
New York Times/ClimateWire
A group of Pacific Northwest and California power companies has joined utilities from the Southeast and other regions to oppose widespread cost-sharing for transmission expansion to carry wind and solar power to distant markets.  

America’s wind energy potential triples in new estimate
Wired
The amount of wind power that theoretically could be generated in the United States tripled in the newest assessment of the nation’s wind resources. 

DOE disputes Senators' claims of stimulus grants flowing overseas
New York Times/Greenwire
The Energy Department official overseeing DOE stimulus spending said today that suspending renewable energy grants as urged by Senate Democrats would hurt domestic job creation.

EPA official: State regulators doing fine on hydrofracking
FOX Business
State regulators are doing a good job overseeing a key natural gas production technique called hydrofracking and there's no evidence the process causes water contamination, a senior federal environment official said.

Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy launched
The Earth Times
A diverse group of electric utilities launched the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy (CFTP). The group will support legislative and regulatory policies within comprehensive energy legislation that will lead to the most efficient development of the nation's electric transmission systems and clean generation resources. 

U.S. agency says Google can be power marketer
Reuters
Google Inc won approval from U.S. energy regulators to act as a power marketer, which will make it easier for the Internet search giant to obtain renewable energy to run its huge data centers.

In western Wyoming, gas industry faces crossroads
Las Vegas Sun/AP
The future of the natural gas industry in the Pinedale, Wyo., area — scene of a decade of intense drilling into two of the nation's richest gas fields — has become less certain because of the recession and the Obama administration's intention to make some unspecified changes to Bush-era drilling policies.

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Carbon dioxide injection under way in Alabama EOR pilot project
Oil & Gas Journal
A project team has begun to inject carbon dioxide into Alabama’s Citronelle field as part of a $7.9 million pilot project to determine whether the field is ideal for simultaneous enhanced oil recovery and CO2 storage, the DOE said on Mar. 1.  

Solar power project in Mojave Desert gets $1.4 billion boost from stimulus funds
Washington Post
The Energy Department announced a "conditional" $1.4 billion loan guarantee for a solar thermal power complex in the Mojave Desert that would ultimately produce as much as 392 megawatts of electricity.

Injecting tiny proteins into the hunt for clean coal
New York Times/ClimateWire
Working with some of the tiniest things in nature, scientists are engineering proteins found in living things to trap carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. 

A reactor that burns depleted fuel emerges as a potential 'game changer'
New York Times/ClimateWire
After years in a status closer to science fiction than reality, the traveling wave nuclear reactor is emerging as a potential "game changer," according to a U.S. Department of Energy official.   

Algae-based biofuels could get attention from Congress
ThomasNet News
The Biotechnology Industry Organization has urged Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) to extend tax code parity to algae-based biofuels as soon as possible. Algae producers are at a disadvantage in attracting investment because these biofuels are not currently recognized in the tax code as advanced biofuels.

Breakthrough in energy storage: Isentropic Energy
Greentech Media
Isentropic Energy’s pumped-heat electrical energy storage could disrupt the large-scale electrical energy storage market. 

New DNA-like crystals capture carbon 400% more effectively
GOOD
UCLA chemists have created a synthetic "gene" that traps carbon dioxide emissions, according to research in the Feb 12. issue of the journal Science.  

Bloom Box generates buzz, skepticism
Christian Science Monitor
K.R. Sridhar, founder of the Silicon Valley clean tech start-up Bloom Energy, says he’d like to see his company’s Bloom Box fuel cell technology lighting up most American households within the next 10 years. 

Biofuel options expand as science taps new sources
EERE
Scientists are making progress in developing biofuels with a range of methods and an assortment of feedstocks. 

CO2 capture and storage gains a growing foothold
Yale Environment 360
The drive to extract and store CO2 from coal-fired power plants is gaining momentum. Two questions loom: Will carbon capture and storage be affordable? And will it be safe?   

APS gets Corporation Commission approval for solar, energy-efficiency programs
Phoenix Business Journal
Arizona Public Service Co. received approval for a program to roll out utility-scale photovoltaic systems, and for a program designed to make new homes more energy-efficient.

OPINION

Opinion: The New York Times fights back against the climate-gate scandal
FOX News
The Grey Lady finally notices that the climate change establishment knows its under fire.

What to say to a global warming alarmist
The Orange County Register
It has been tough to keep up with all the bad news for global warming alarmists. We're on the edge of our chair, waiting for the next shoe to drop. This has been an Imelda Marcos kind of season for shoe-dropping about global warming.  

NEWS FROM THE STATES

Ariz. lawmaker pulls solar-industry reg bill
BusinessWeek/AP
Industry groups, conservative think tanks, lawmakers and three states filed 16 court challenges to U.S. EPA's "endangerment" finding for greenhouse gases before the deadline, setting the stage for a legal battle over federal climate policies.  

California: ATA challenges state's low carbon fuel reg
MTD
The American Trucking Associations (ATA) has challenged California's recently enacted low carbon fuel standard, which requires annual reductions in the "carbon intensity" of gas and diesel over the next 10 years.   

Colorado: Raytheon wins $886M GPS contract; most work to be done in state
Denver Business Journal
Raytheon Co. has won an $886 million U.S. Air Force contract for work on a major upgrade of the Global Positioning System (GPS), with a major part of the work to be done at the company's Colorado facilities. The contract could grow to $1.5 billion.

Colorado: Vestas secures order for 33 new wind turbines
Denver Post
Vestas Wind Systems has secured an order to help produce 33 new turbines for a New Hampshire wind farm, a contract that experts say should help sustain work at its Windsor plant.   

Colorado: Xcel says it has no nuclear plans for state
Colorado Independent
A spokesman for Xcel Energy says that the company has not proposed a nuclear power plant for Colorado.   

Nevada: Mining, gaming possible veins for state revenue
Las Vegas Review-Journal
On the eve of a legislative special session, Democratic and key Republican lawmakers focused on the mining industry as the biggest potential source of new revenue, up to $100 million. 

New Mexico: Carbon capture, storage bill runs out of time
BusinessWeek/AP
The bill would have established ownership rights for empty spaces deep underground. Supporters of the measure say the so-called pore space will be valuable as technology advances to capture and store emissions from fossil-fuel power plants and other industries. 

Oregon warns permit for natural gas port unlikely
KGW.com/AP
Oregon environmental regulators have told the Texas developers of the Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas terminal on the Columbia River that a crucial water quality permit will likely be denied.  

Utah: Agriculture packs big financial punch
Salt Lake Tribune
Farming is a key player in Utah's economy, more so than previous studies have shown. 

Utah: Hatch, Bennett seek to block more Utah national monuments
Deseret News
Upset Utahns in Congress are attempting something that hasn't been done in 60 years: Exempt a state — this time Utah — from a president's power to create or expand national monuments there.   

Utah: Herbert told that feds won't do land grab in state
Salt Lake Tribune
Gov. Gary Herbert said he is assured for now that the Obama administration is not moving forward on any plans to designate national monuments in Utah or the West.  

Wyoming wind tax, rules move through Legislature
Denver Post/AP
The Wyoming Senate voted to impose the nation's first state excise tax on wind energy production, and committees in both legislative chambers advanced new regulations on the state's fledgling wind industry.
 

KUDO OF THE WEEK

Lummis, Herseth Sandlin, Bishop lead bipartisan effort to shine light on lawsuit payments
U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop
A bipartisan trio of western members of Congress, U.S. Representatives Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., and Rob Bishop, R-Utah, have teamed up to introduce the “Open EAJA Act of 2010.” The bill seeks to reinstate critical oversight and transparency measures for payments made to organizations through the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA).

OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK

White House land grab
Washington Times
A secret administration memo has surfaced revealing plans for the federal government to seize more than 10 million acres from Montana to New Mexico, halting job- creating activities like ranching, forestry, mining and energy development.