Politics Trumps Science at the Environmental Protection Agency

Summary.  The Environmental Protection Agency cancelled presentations by three EPA scientists at a conference about the effects of climate change on Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island.  Their work focused on the effects of climate change on the ecology of the Bay.  EPA gave no reason.  It has been supporting this research for decades, but in its draft budget for the coming year the agency has zeroed out support for all 28 of its estuary projects.

Administrator Pruitt has publicly rejected the role of humans in causing climate change, suggesting there remains some disagreement over the issue.  In fact, 99.99% of climate scientists affirm the reality that humans cause global warming.  Scientists the world over agree fossil fuel use emits excess carbon dioxide which retains extra heat in the earth system, leading to warming and its harmful consequences.

Politicization of science harms the public because political considerations supersede scientific reality in developing policy.  Here EPA suppressed research findings characterizing effects of worsening climate change.  A professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island considers the muffling of his colleagues a deliberate act of scientific censorship.  We must all resist further efforts at stifling research.  We must reinstate bona fide science as the guide for our policies.

 

EPA Scientists Prevented from Speaking.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) abruptly cancelled the speaking presentations of three EPA scientists at a conference about the effects of climate change on Narragansett Bay, in Rhode Island, held on Oct. 23, 2017.   One of them, a research ecologist at the EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory Atlantic Ecology Division in Rhode Island was to give the keynote address.  The other two, a postdoctoral researcher at the same EPA facility and a scientific contractor for EPA, were to be on a panel addressing the topic “The Present and Future Biological Implications of Climate Change.”  EPA’s decision was relayed to the meeting organizers just one business day before the conference.  No substantive reason was provided for the prohibition. 

The NBE Program was the host for the conference.  It issued a 500-page Technical Report, entitled “The State of Narragansett Bay and Its Watershed”, on the day of the conference.  Of three effects stressing the condition of the bay, climate change was identified as one.  This in turn was broken down to effects of temperature change, precipitation intensity and frequency, and sea level rise.

The Narragansett Bay Estuary Program (NBE Program), long supported by EPA, has been studying the ecological health of the bay since 1985.  The NBE was recognized as an “estuary of national significance” by the EPA’s National Estuary Program in 1988.  For reasons such as these colleagues were surprised at the EPA’s prohibition.

Research support of US$26 million for all the 28 Estuary Programs, including the NBE Program, has been dropped from EPA’s proposed budget for 2018. 

Politicization of science harms the public because political considerations supersede scientific reality in developing policy.  Here EPA suppressed research findings characterizing effects of worsening climate change.  EPA’s interference with its NBE Program employees stifles scientific study related to climate change. “It’s definitely a blatant example of the scientific censorship we all suspected was going to start being enforced at EPA,” said John King, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, the head of the science advisory committee of the NBE Program. He continued “[t]hey don’t believe in climate change, so I think what they’re trying to do is stifle discussions of the impacts of climate change.”

Adminstrator Pruitt rejects human-caused climate change.  The NBE Program case is but one of the agency’s many political actions.  In March 2017 the Administrator, Scott Pruitt, said “…there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact [of ‘human activity on the climate’], so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see”.  Pruitt’s assertion conflicts directly with EPA’s own statement, reported by The Guardian on March 9, 2017, “carbon dioxide is the ‘primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change’”. (This statement could not be accessed on Oct. 26, 2017 using the Guardian’s link to the EPA page.)   Pruitt’s statement is also contradicted by James Lawrence Powell’s journal article (Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 1–4, 2016; DOI:10.1177/0270467616634958).  He found that during 2013 and 2014 only 4 of 69,406 (0.0058%) authors of peer-reviewed journal articles dealing with climate change rejected the reality of man-made global warming.  That is, there is no disagreement on impact of human activity on the climate.

EPA is cleansing its sites of references to climate change.  EPA has purged most content dealing with climate change from its web pages related to helping state and local governments deal with climate change.  The site, previously called “Climate and Energy Resources for State, Local and Tribal Governments” is now titled “Energy Resources for State, Local and Tribal Governments,” dropping the lead word “Climate”.  The original 375 web pages now are reduced to 175, with changes in content that an outside group terms “substantial”.  Looking to the future, a draft outline of EPA’s plans for the next four years omits mention of climate change.

EPA is undertaking a review of automobile Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards that were intended to increase efficiency and reduce fuel use by about half by 2025, the Portland Press Herald reports.  “Administrator Scott Pruitt is intent on subverting that agency’s mission. At the behest of automakers, he is now reconsidering vehicular emission standards that help protect public health, save consumers money, and guard against further climate disruption”, the newspaper writes.  It reports that William D. Ruckelshaus, former EPA director under two Republican presidents, says that Pruitt’s approach appears more like “taking a meat ax to the protections of public health and the environment and then hiding [the ax].” 

EPA recently announced a draft rule overturning the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the Obama administration’s detailed program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from large electric generating plants.  While Scott Pruitt was Attorney General of Oklahoma he helped lead more than 24 states in suing to overturn the CPP.  Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator under President Obama, said the proposal “is a wholesale retreat from EPA’s legal, scientific and moral obligation to address the threats of climate change.”

Discussion

Carbon dioxide was identified as a greenhouse gas in the middle of the nineteenth century.  A warning that the gas would contribute to warming of the atmosphere was first made in 1896.  More recently the work of hundreds of climate scientists from countries all around the world have been researching this field for decades.  As noted above, essentially all agree: Man-made emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, and other greenhouse gases, are warming the earth system at geologically unprecedented speed.  The effects of fossil fuel use lead to weather extremes, wildfires, sea level rise and changing habitats of pests and disease carriers.  Toxins released from fossil fuels cause illnesses among the public.  The costs of future mitigation of, and adaptation to, global warming keep rising, as the threats become more severe. 

The United States is the only country of the more than 190 nations that joined the Paris Agreement to withdraw from it.  Of the other nations, only Syria never acceded to the Agreement.  (In October 2017 the only other holdout, Nicaragua, joined the Agreement.)  It is unconscionable that a nation as respected as the United States has consistently refused to join the other nations of the world in recognizing the irrefutable scientific evidence, and acted accordingly.  The present U. S. administration, instead of mitigating emission rates of greenhouse gases, is consciously reversing previously enacted policies.  The result can only be accelerated emissions of greenhouse gases, with the consequent worsening of all the effects of warming.  This will be a legacy for all our children and further progeny, one our leaders cannot be proud of.

For these reasons we here in the U.S. must act to restrain Pruitt’s EPA policies and the framework envisioned by the Trump administration.  We must reinstate bona fide science as the guide for our actions.

© 2017 Henry Auer

"Trump is Global Warming Danger": Letter to the Hartford Courant

This writer submitted the following Letter to the Editor of the Hartford (CT) Courant, which was published November 16, 2016.  The text is shown below, followed by a screen shot of the letter from the Courant’s website.

 
                             =============================

 Letters  Trump is Global Warming Danger

 

NOVEMBER 16, 2016

 

President-elect Donald Trump has tweeted that "global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive". He has appointed a global warming denier, Myron Ebell, to lead the transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency, where he will oversee dismantling federal policies directed toward reducing emission rates.

 

Undoing America's leadership role in the world's 2015 agreement to battle global warming would not only unleash further U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, but also unravel the worldwide agreement.

 

Scientists around the globe have clearly shown that human burning of fossil fuels causes increased carbon dioxide emissions, and that the added carbon dioxide causes warming of the planet and its resulting environmental harms. Continued unconstrained emissions will wreak worsening environmental damage, leaving our children to contend with the consequences.

 
I spoke about the science of global warming to high school students two days after the election. They thanked me profusely. It's clear they understood the dangers that continued warming would present for their future.  Especially for their sakes, we should oppose Trump's policies.
 

Henry E. Auer, New Haven

 
The writer, who holds a Ph.D. in physical biochemistry, has published the Global Warming Blog at warmgloblog.blogspot.com since 2010.
 

                             =============================

 

                  Screen shot of writer's letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant, accessed  
               November 17, 2016.

 

 

© 2016 Hartford Courant and Henry Auer

The EPA Program to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing Power Plants

Summary.  The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a Proposed Rule - Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units, in June 2014.  It establishes a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing electricity generating plants by 30% nationwide by 2030.  In order to accomplish this with a great degree of flexibility, state-by-state limits were established, which each state is to achieve after submitting a detailed plan to EPA for review, approval, and verification as the plan is implemented.

EPA foresees significant reductions in emission of carbon dioxide, as well as other detrimental pollutants that affect human health from the proposed rule.  The costs expected to be incurred in implementing the plans are recovered by the beneficial impacts of the lowered emissions, both climatically (carbon dioxide) and health related.

The proposed rule constitutes an important step in achieving President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.  It also has the significant effect of solidifying the credibility of the U. S. as international negotiations proceed toward a new worldwide treaty to constrain global warming. 

 

Introduction.  President Obama released the U. S. Climate Action Plan on June 25, 2013.  It includes several specific measures to reduce emission of carbon dioxide (CO₂), an important greenhouse gas (GHG) in the U. S. in order to minimize the worsening of global warming.  Warming arises because CO₂ and other GHGs, when emitted into the earth’s atmosphere, trap some heat radiation that would otherwise escape into space.  The trapped heat remains in the atmosphere and warms the earth system, both land and oceanic, more that would happen otherwise. 

The principal source of the excess CO₂ entering the atmosphere is humanity’s burning of fossil fuels for energy that has powered the industrial revolution around the world.  President Obama’s Climate Action Plan seeks to change America’s energy economy by reducing GHG emissions.

As a component of the Plan, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Proposed Rule - Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units (the Guidelines) on July 18, 2014.  EPA points out that it has authority to formulate a rule governing emissions under the Clean Air Act as interpreted by the U. S. Supreme Court in 2007.  (As part of the process for finalizing the rule, the EPA is accepting formal comments from the public at this link until October 16, 2014.  After accepting and reviewing comments from the public the Guidelines will be issued as a rule in June 2015.)

The Guidelines are summarized in this post. 

About one-third of all CO₂ emissions in the U. S. come from electricity-generating power plants.  The table below shows the time course of these emissions over a recent 22-year period, broken down into contributions from the three main fossil fuels.

 

Table 4—U.S. GHG Emissions from Generation of Electricity from Combustion of Fossil Fuels in Tg CO₂ (Tg, teragram. 1 Tg = 1 teragram or 10¹² grams, equal to 1 million metric tonnes)

GHG emissions	1990	2005	2012
Total CO2 from fossil fuel combustion EGUs	1,820.8	2,402.1	2,022.7
—from coal	1,547.6	1,983.8	1,511.2
—from natural gas	175.3	318.8	492.2
—from petroleum	97.5	99.2	18.8

EGU, electricity generating unit

Source: Federal Register: 79 FR 34829 -34958; https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/06/18/2014-13726/carbon-pollution-emission-guidelines-for-existing-stationary-sources-electric-utility-generating#t-2

 

It is seen that burning coal has provided the vast majority of the CO₂ emitted, peaking in 2005.  Use of natural gas has expanded dramatically in the time shown, due at least partly to new domestic sources for this fuel in the U. S., from hydraulic fracturing wells.  The following table shows relative values of the amount of CO₂ emitted per unit of heat obtained, compared to natural gas, from burning the three fossil fuels mentioned in Table 4 above, in other words a higher relative number characterizes the relative inefficiency of the fuels.

Fuel	CO2 released per unit of heat obtained, relative to natural gas
Natural gas	1.00
Petroleum (fuel oil, gasoline)	1.37-1.48
Coal	1.75-1.94

The table shows that in producing the same amount of heat, for example to drive a steam turbine for generating electricity, almost twice as much CO₂ is emitted by burning coal than by burning natural gas.  This difference between fuels suggests that any effort to minimize CO₂ emissions from electricity generation will affect coal-burning power plants preferentially. 

 

Reduced Emission of CO₂ and Other Pollutants.  The Guidelines have been formulated to reduce CO₂ emissions from electricity generation by 30% below the levels emitted in 2005 by the year 2030, with interim goals established for the decade leading up to that year.  It equates this reduction to the amount of CO₂ that would have been produced to provide electricity for more than half the homes in the U. S. for one year. 

 

Additionally, since the gains intended by this goal will likely result in lower utilization of coal in electricity generation, a “co-benefit” is at least 25% lower pollution from trace products of burning coal: small-size particulates (thought to contribute to or aggravate asthma), sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides (which contribute to smog formation). 

 

State-based Goals for Reduced Emission of CO₂.  The Guidelines are based on a strategy of granting maximum flexibility in the ways envisioned to achieve their goals.  Principal among these is the recognition that each state (or, in some cases, regional groups of states) covered by the Guidelines has its own antecedent history that has led to its present electricity generating capabilities.  Accordingly, the Guidelines model the energy landscape for each state, and develop interim (2020-2029) and final (2030) goals for reductions in CO₂ emissions.  These are shown in Table 8 (see Details).

 

Four strategies for reducing CO₂ emissions are developed in the Guidelines.  These are

1. Upgrading coal-fired electricity generation with efficient natural gas-burning capability at the same facility.
2. Substituting electricity generation from inefficient power plants with generation taking place at other, more efficient facilities.
3. Substituting electricity generation from inefficient power plants with renewable energy-sourced generation facilities.  This can include upgrading and new construction of nuclear power plants.
4. Expanding the application of energy efficiency among end users of electricity.

It is envisioned that, in general, any combination of these strategies can be applied, including courses of action involving all four strategies.  (It is noteworthy that the Guidelines, after due consideration, have eliminated carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an economically feasible strategy for reducing emission of CO₂ from existing power plants at this time.  A report in the New York Times on July 22, 2014 describes the first major CCS upgrade project directly capturing CO₂ from a power plant, in Saskatchewan, Canada.  The technology, the report says, reduces the plant’s output of electricity, has not yet been shown to store CO₂ safely underground, and is very costly.)

 

Under the Guidelines, each state will submit a plan to achieve its emissions goal to EPA for review.  Once a plan is approved, the state will proceed to implement it.  Among other requirements, the plans must propose actual reductions in emissions that are measurable, verifiable and enforceable.  EPA devised this procedure in order to provide the greatest degree of flexibility to each state in meeting its specific target.

 

Costs and Benefits of the Guidelines.  The Guidelines assess the compliance cost, and various energy and economic benefits arising from implementing the emissions reductions proposed.

 

Compliance costs are estimated, in terms of the value of the U. S. dollar in 2011, at between US$5.5 and US$7.5 billion in 2020 and between US$7.3and US$8.8 billion in 2030, annually.

 

Electricity prices are projected to increase 3% by 2030.  46 to 50 GW of coal-fired generating capacity may become uneconomical to operate and removed from service by then.

 

The Guidelines recognize that the required efficiencies will likely lead to job losses in directly-affected energy industry employment.  But it also projects that new opportunities brought on by the need for energy improvements will create jobs in the energy industry, estimated at 25,900 to 28,000 in 2020.   The demand for consumer-based energy efficiency is projected to create 78,700 jobs in 2020.

 

The health benefits from this reduction include an estimate of US$91 billion in enhanced economic value arising from as many as 6,600 fewer deaths, up to 150,000 fewer cases of asthma in children, and up to 490,000 fewer missed days in school.  Other aspects of the Guidelines envision a reduction of about 8% in electricity bills arising from efficiencies introduced in the energy economy.  Numerical examples of expected benefits are presented in the Details section at the end of this post in Table 2 introduced from the Guidelines.

 

Reductions in emission of CO₂ and health-related substances are shown in Details, Table 10.  The value of climate improvements due to lowered CO₂ emissions and health-related co-benefits arising from reductions in sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter are estimated to be US$35 to US $57 billion in 2020 and US$57 to US$93 billion in 2030 (2011 dollars at a 3-percent discount rate).

 

Analysis

 

The Guidelines represent a highly significant step in achieving important reductions in CO₂, the principal greenhouse gas, by the United States at the national level.  Previous actions by the Obama Administration have been directed at increasing the efficiency of motor vehicles and electricity generation by newly-constructed power plants. 

 

The present Guidelines, however, must be considered only a first step in reaching a high level of “decarbonization” of our energy economy by 2050, for which a commonly mentioned goal is a reduction in annual GHG emission rates of 80%.  This level of abatement is thought to be needed to keep the increase in the long-term global average temperature at less than 2ºC (3.6ºF) as envisioned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

 

The recent actions by the United States, and other aspects in President Obama’s National Climate Plan, have the beneficial effect of placing the U. S. in a position of undertaking concrete initiatives toward mitigating emissions.  This should enhance its role in the worldwide negotiations, conducted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, intended to formulate an agreement by 2015 and to having the agreement enter into force by 2020.

 

The EPA’s Guidelines were devised to create a high degree of flexibility in attaining the goal of reducing emissions from existing power plants.  Goals for reductions were established on a state-by-state basis.  Within detailed requirements presented by EPA, states are given the freedom to establish their own specific programs to attain these goals as best as they see fit.  The corollary, made apparent in great detail in the Guidelines, is that EPA will need to establish a completely new bureaucratic structure to evaluate each state’s plan, monitor its progress, and enforce the achievement of the emissions goals.  Assessing the documents from all 50 states and enforcing their implementation will be a very burdensome and potentially costly undertaking within the agency. 

 

An alternative and far more efficient process would be imposition of a tax on fossil fuels, levied at the point of extraction from the earth.  This plan would have a minimal bureaucratic burden, but would require legislative action by the U. S. Congress.  Given the present political environment, however, this is essentially out of the realm of possibility.   

 

Nevertheless, both the Guidelines and a carbon tax impose an expense on the consuming public.  But as the detailed climate and economic modeling presented in the Guidelines (which is restricted only to existing electricity generating power plants) shows, ultimate climatic, health-related and economic benefits result that far outweigh the costs incurred; comparable results may be expected across the entire energy economy from a carbon tax.

In summary, the Guidelines represent an important step at the national level in mitigating the emission of GHGs by the U. S.

 

Details

 

Table 2—Summary of the Monetized Benefits, Compliance Costs, and Net Benefits for the Proposed Guidelines in 2030 for State-by-State Compliance.

 

	2011-valued US$, billions
Climate benefits	$31
Air pollution health co-benefits	$27 to $62
Total Compliance Costs	-$8.8
Net Monetized Benefits	$49 to $84
Non-monetized Benefits	Reduced exposure to sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Eliminate 2.1 tons of mercury and 590 tons of hydrochloric acid emission. Ecosystem effects. Visibility impairment.

Net Monetized Benefits is obtained by combining Climate Benefits and Air pollution health co-benefits and subtracting Total Compliance Costs.

Adapted from the complete Table 2 in Federal Register: 79 FR 34829 -34958; https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/06/18/2014-13726/carbon-pollution-emission-guidelines-for-existing-stationary-sources-electric-utility-generating#t-2

 

 

Table 8—Proposed State-by-State  Goals for CO₂ Emission Rates (Adjusted output-weighted-average pounds of CO ₂ per net MWh from all affected fossil fuel-fired electric generating units).

State	Interim goal (2020-2029)	Final goal (2030)
Alabama	1,147	1,059
Alaska	1,097	1,003
Arizona *	735	702
Arkansas	968	910
California	556	537
Colorado	1,159	1,108
Connecticut	597	540
Delaware	913	841
Florida	794	740
Georgia	891	834
Hawaii	1,378	1,306
Idaho	244	228
Illinois	1,366	1,271
Indiana	1,607	1,531
Iowa	1,341	1,301
Kansas	1,578	1,499
Kentucky	1,844	1,763
Louisiana	948	883
Maine	393	378
Maryland	1,347	1,187
Massachusetts	655	576
Michigan	1,227	1,161
Minnesota	911	873
Mississippi	732	692
Missouri	1,621	1,544
Montana	1,882	1,771
Nebraska	1,596	1,479
Nevada	697	647
New Hampshire	546	486
New Jersey	647	531
New Mexico *	1,107	1,048
New York	635	549
North Carolina	1,077	992
North Dakota	1,817	1,783
Ohio	1,452	1,338
Oklahoma	931	895
Oregon	407	372
Pennsylvania	1,179	1,052
Rhode Island	822	782
South Carolina	840	772
South Dakota	800	741
Tennessee	1,254	1,163
Texas	853	791
Utah *	1,378	1,322
Virginia	884	810
Washington	264	215
West Virginia	1,748	1,620
Wisconsin	1,281	1,203
Wyoming	1,808	1,714

 

MWh, megawatt-hour

Source: Federal Register: 79 FR 34829 -34958; https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/06/18/2014-13726/carbon-pollution-emission-guidelines-for-existing-stationary-sources-electric-utility-generating#t-2

 

 

Table 10—Summary of CO ₂ and Other Air Pollutant Emission Reductions Expected from State-by-State Compliance.

 

	CO2 (million metric tons)	SO2 (thousands of tons)	NOX (thousands of tons)	PM2.5 (thousands of tons)
Base Case Proposed	2,256	1,530	1,537	198
Guidelines:	1,701	1,059	1,109	142
Emission Reductions	555	471	428	56

 

EPA Source: Integrated Planning Model, 2014.

SO₂: Sulfur dioxide; NO_x: Nitrogen oxides; PM_2.5: Particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size.

Base Case Proposed: results projected in the absence of limits from the Guidelines.

Emission Reductions: Net reduction obtained by subtracting the Guidelines value from the Base Case Proposed Value.  Arithmetic accuracy may not be exact due to rounding.

Source: Extracted from the complete Table 10 in Federal Register: 79 FR 34829 -34958; https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/06/18/2014-13726/carbon-pollution-emission-guidelines-for-existing-stationary-sources-electric-utility-generating#t-2.

 

 

© 2014 Henry Auer