By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Today the House’s subcommittee on Energy and Power held a hearing on expediting the decision to permit the Keystone XL pipeline. In early November, under intense pressure from landowners in the path of the pipeline, environmentalists, and others, the president and the State Department delayed a decision on the pipeline until early 2013 while alternate routes are studied. As Politico’s Morning Energy reported, today’s hearing was “the first chance Republicans have gotten to vent in an official setting over the pipeline’s review being delayed by the administration.”

At the hearing, subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) said the president’s decision to delay the the pipeline had “nothing to do” with the state of Nebraska:

Why does the administration insist on waiting another minimum of 12-15 months to make a decision on this project? But even without their answers, I think it’s very safe to assume this latest delay has nothing to do with pipeline safety, oil sands production, or even the state of Nebraska. Instead, it has everything to do with appeasing a small, vocal group of opponents of this project.

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Actually, the decision was very much in response to public concerns, and expressly those in Nebraska. After the delay was announced, State Department spokeswoman Kerri-Ann Jones told reporters that the

…message about the Nebraska Sand Hills has been coming strong and with increasing intensity.

And that:

The review we are doing is to specifically look at alternative routes through Nebraska. We won’t go more broadly than that.

Indeed, in late October Republican Gov. Dave Heineman (NE) called a special session of the state legislature to address his citizens’ concerns posed by the pipeline, and soon after the Republican-controlled legislature voted to reroute the pipeline so as to avoid the Sand Hills region and the Ogallala Aquifer. It is interesting to note that although TransCanada originally was strongly resistant to alternate routes for the pipeline, after the Nebraska vote the company is already working to find a new one.

Jane Kleeb, who testified today on behalf of BOLD Nebraska, further explained the position of Nebraska landowners in her testimony:

While the permit process may seem like it is taking too long, we still have no proposed route in Nebraska and no study on how tar sands affects our land, water and health. Additionally, if this oil is meant for the United States, then please make an agreement stating as much. Pass a bill saying the oil is for US consumption. It is hard to rationalize how a pipeline carrying oil across our nation to an unknown final destination can be in our national interest. We all know TransCanada and other tar sands companies need to get their oil to various ports in order to sell it to the highest bidder. In the end, we assume all the risks and none of the rewards.

One of the biggest issues discussed in the hearing was jobs. Republican members of Congress, the American Petroleum Institute, and TransCanada have all recently claimed that the Keystone XL pipeline would create upwards of 20,000 jobs. However, the State Department put the number of jobs created at 5,000-6,000, which in itself is criticized as an overestimate. In today’s hearing, both subcommittee Ranking Member Bobby Rush (D-IL) and Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) pointed out that even though they profess to wanting to create jobs, House Republicans have refused to bring President Obama’s American Jobs Act to a vote.

This is not the first time Republicans have tried to interfere with the Obama administration’s process. In July, the House passed Rep. Lee Terry’s (R-NE) North American-Made Energy Security Act, which would have required the president to make a decision on the pipeline’s approval by November 1, 2011. The Senate did not take up the bill. And, Senator Dick Lugar introduced a bill last week that would require the president to make a decision on the pipeline 60 days after his bill has passed, unless the pipeline was determined to not be in the national interest.

Terry, who will soon be introducing another bill to expedite the pipeline’s approval, announced before the hearing that House Speaker John Boehner has agreed to attach the new Keystone delay bill to legislation addressing unemployment insurance and payroll tax cuts.

Back in September, Reuters reported:

More Americans than last year believe the world is warming and the change is likely influenced by the Republican presidential debates, a Reuters/Ipsos poll said on Thursday.

The percentage of Americans who believe the Earth has been warming rose to 83 percent from 75 percent last year in the poll conducted Sept 8-12.

Now a new Pew poll provides further support for that finding.

From 2009 to 2011, the percentage of moderate or liberal Republicans who say there is “solid evidence” the earth is warming jumped 22 percentage points, from 41% to 63% — 15 percentage points just since last year (from 48 to 63).

It is only the extremists aligned with the Tea Party crowd who are in extreme denial and haven’t budged in their views.  No doubt that is because they get so much of their news from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other media outlets that spread the disinformation developed and pushed by the Koch brothers and their fellow pollutocrats.

From 2009 to 2011, the percentage of independents who say there is “solid evidence” the earth is warming jumped 10 percentage points, from 56% to 63% (7 points in the last year).

Pew reports, “A majority of Americans (65%) say that global warming is either a very serious (38%) or somewhat serious (27%) problem.” Interestingly, that 38%  figure is quite close to the Pew’s June 2006 poll, which found 41% of  Americans say global warming is a very serious problem.

Since last year’s Pew poll, the percentage of independents who say global warming is a “very serious problem” jumped 9 points — from 30% to 39%.

As Climate Progress has noted, on the “solid evidence” question, Pew has questionable wording (see “Experts Debunk Polls that Claim Sharp Drop in Number of Americans Who Believe in Global Warming“).  The specific question Pew asks is:

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Experts in Government and Industry Call Their Bluff

Natural gas plants have considerable capacity to increase generation to offset the loss of coal capacity.  Efficiency can offset even more at lower cost.  Even so some utilities and coal companies want to water down new mercury emissions reductions.

By Daniel J. Weiss, Jackie Weidman

The December 16 deadline approaches for the Environmental Protection Agency to issue its final rule to reduce airborne toxic chemicals from coal-fired power plants. Mercury and Air Toxics Standards would require the first reductions of dangerous emissions of mercury lead, arsenic, and acid gases. The EPA notes these safeguards will prevent 17,000 premature deaths annually, as well as avoid 12,000 hospital visits and 120,000 cases of aggravated asthma every year. The economic benefits could outweigh the costs by up to $14-to-$1.

Even though plants would have until 2015 before the rule is enforced, some vocal utilities and coal companies—coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury pollution in the United States—want the Obama administration to delay and weaken these health safeguards before they are finalized. These companies erroneously claim that the safeguards as written will affect the reliability of the electricity supply, particularly during peak demand periods. But clean air defenders have analysis on their side, as we see over and over again in government and independent studies.

Reliability of our electricity supply is vital to our economy and security, and we must not take it for granted. But while reliability is a serious issue, ample evidence proves that the EPA’s air toxics rule will not affect it. On the contrary, many reliability problems are caused by falling trees, extreme weather, human error, and other such events. Any reliability issues that do arise over plant closures due to the rules will be offset by increased capacity in coal and natural gas plants over the next few years.

All this is on top of the fact that many utilities will be able to comply with the rules without much hardship. The small number of vocal utilities and coal companies that are complaining about the rules are proven wrong by a number of sources, including a firm statement from a December 2011 Department of Energy study.

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The latest EPA rule reducing the level of mercury, lead and other pollutants emitted by industry boilers only applies to 1 percent of the industry, the EPA announced today. Still, industry has heavily opposed the relatively minor burden with vast health benefits, and House GOP have already voted to delay and weaken new standards.

The EPA’s revised rule applies to a small fraction of the polluters, exempting the vast majority from any significant investment to meet the new air quality standards:

Gina McCarthy, head of the E.P.A.’s office of air and radiation, said Friday that the new rules for boilers and incinerators were written to minimize costs and maximize benefits … She noted that 99 percent of the 1.5 million boilers in the United States would be exempt from the new rules or could meet them simply by performing routine maintenance and tune-ups. Only a fraction of the 14,000 boilers that are major sources of mercury, soot and other pollutants will be required to install abatement equipment, she said.

The EPA claims the health benefits are the same under the new rule, which would prevent 8,100 deaths, 5,100 heart attacks and 52,000 asthma attacks annually. The health benefits of cleaner air, estimated to save $27 billion to $67 billion, overwhelm the $2 billion cost of the industry’s compliance.

As Republican lawmakers rush headlong to open up land to fracking, their constituents should heed the cautionary tale told by the town of Dimock, Pennsylvania. The small town of 1,400 people agreed to let Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Company employ hydraulic fracturing on local land to obtain natural gas in 2008. The result: 18 water wells contaminated with methane.

Dimock residents’ water “started turning brown and making them sick, on woman’s water well spontaneously combusted, and horses and pets mysteriously began to lose their hair.” What’s more, the value of the land the residents lived on plummeted. The situation deteriorated so badly that by 2010, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) fined Cabot, shut down several of the wells, and required the company to permanently provide drinking water to 11 families in Dimock.

But this Wednesday, Cabot told Dimock residents that they’re officially on their own. Cabot ended daily deliveries of clean water this week, asserting that “Dimock’s water is safe to drink.” DEP gave Cabot permission last month to stop paying for the water, and a judge, who sits on the state’s Environmental Hearing Board, “declined to issue an emergency order compelling Cabot to continue the deliveries.” Now, Dimock families are left in a lurch, many unable to afford the provisions that run as high as $100 a day:

The decision left residents who don’t think their water is safe scrambling to find alternate sources.

“We are in desperate need here,” said Scott Ely, 42, who is married with three young children at home.

Ely, a former Cabot employee, said no option was appealing. A creek runs through his property, but the water hasn’t been tested and his wife doesn’t want it piped into their brand-new home. The Cabot contractor who had been supplying their water quoted him a price of $100 a day, he said.

“We’re sitting here with no answers, and I cannot believe Cabot got away with this,” he said.

Like those in Dimock, many Americans “signed millions of leases allowing companies allowing companies to drill for oil and natural gas on their land in recent years.” But as a New York Times review notes, “fewer than half the leases require companies to compensate landowners for water contamination after drilling begins;” “most leases grant gas companies broad rights to decide where they can cut down tress, store chemicals, build roads and drill;” the drilling companies “Rarely describe to landowners the potential environmental and other risks that federal laws require them to disclose” in leases; and the majority of leases “allow extensions without additional approval from landowners” so if landowners feel differently about the situation, “they may be out of luck.”

The Dimock situation should certainly serve as a warning to its neighboring states. In Ohio, GOP Gov. John Kasich is trying to open up Ohio’s state and federal parks to fracking. While it’s banned high-volume fracking, New York is currently considering some companies being fracking, a move that could potentially jeopardize the drinking-water supply for 9 million people in New York City and Syracuse. Hearings on the proposed regulations on the drilling drew 6,000 people to four public hearings and have spurred more than 10,600 public comments out of concern for the future of their water supply.

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The inability of mainstream economists to grapple with the consequences of unrestrained global warming has been a recurring theme at ThinkProgress Green. However, the gold medal for sociopathic insouciance about a world of unimaginable biodiversity collapse, global desertification, the death of the oceans, and the inevitable wars and chaos that would bring would have to go to Karl Smith, one of the bloggers at the influential economics blog Modeled Behavior. In his post “In Praise of Dirty Energy: There Are Worse Things Than Pollution and We Have Them,” the assistant professor of public economics and government at the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill argues that despite the risks, “we should pursue the development of fossil fuels as rapidly as possible including looking for ways to streamline regulation in North American regarding fossil fuel production.”

Smith claims to accept the science of climate change, but waves off the threat of rapid, accelerating global warming caused by a deliberate increase in fossil fuel pollution with a strain of blind techno-optimism that would make Dr. Pangloss blush. In what might be his most telling “solution” to unchecked global warming, Smith says that the billions of people living in parts of the world which will become marginally habitable or uninhabitable can just migrate to Siberia, which by that time will have turned into a dark, fetid swamp, releasing billions of tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that will accelerate climate change in a reinforcing feedback loop.

Honestly, it’s too psychologically disturbing to go through Smith’s post and discuss in detail why a world in which most existing species go extinct isn’t going to be one where billions of people are lifted out of poverty through free trade, and progressive leaders in Canada and Russia welcome the newly prosperous climate migrants with open arms, and our weather machines will cheaply fix any “intolerable” damage. So I’m just going to quote it in full:
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Our guest blogger is Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.

I don’t take pleasure in saying “I told you so.”

In this case, I am especially pained to say my predictions about President Obama’s “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein have borne out.

You may recall the background: in 2009, President Obama nominated his old friend, Harvard Law School Professor Sunstein, to run the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an office little known outside the Beltway but one with enormous power. It is, in effect, the gatekeeper over all major rules issued by agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency

In his prior life as an academic, Sunstein had raised serious questions about environmental requirements. He had urged, for example, changing the Clean Air Act to require that national clean air standards pass a cost-benefit test – a change in the law long sought by big corporate polluters who understood this meant a weakening of the law in the real world. (National clean air standards today are supposed to be based only on science so the public can know if the air is actually safe to breathe.)

I noted that had a Republican president nominated someone with similar views, public interest groups (and Democrats) would be screaming. But progressives and most Democrats basically gave Sunstein a pass.

His nomination was approved on a 57-40 vote. Once approved, Sunstein has generally worked in the office’s typical obscurity. Following his advice, the president issued an executive order demanding that agencies review existing regulations. This was generally viewed as a political concession to anti-governments groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In perhaps his best-publicized activity, as the New York Times recently reported, Sunstein joined forces with then-White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley to torpedo the EPA’s attempt to update national clean air standards for smog. Sunstein basically imposed his own illegal cost-benefit ideology on the decision. As a result, many millions of Americans will be breathing dirty air longer. To compound a bad decision, he then lied about it, claiming politics was not a factor.

If anyone thought this was an isolated incident, I suggest you read a provocative new report by the Center for Progressive Reform. It is the most thorough analysis I have ever seen of Sunstein’s office, and the results are pretty appalling. It documents in great detail how big business groups are using Sunstein as a tool to weaken health and safety standards. It has also become a tool of the administration’s foolish political efforts to mollify the business lobbies.

During a six-month period, Sunstein’s office literally met with nearly 6,000 lobbyists, 65 percent of whom represented industry, compared to only 12 percent representing public interest groups. In a shocking discovery, the analysis found that Sunstein’s office changed more rules than it did under the prior Bush administration!

The analysis notes that EPA rules were singled out for special review and change and that Sunstein’s office frequently ignores public disclosure requirements.

The report ends with a call for reform that it not likely to happen anytime soon. Indeed, even as I write, Sunstein’s office has become the conduit for meetings with dirty electric power companies who are seeking to weaken and include new loopholes in upcoming EPA standards aimed at cutting mercury and other life-shortening toxics from coal-fired power plants.

Will Sunstein strike again, as he did in the ozone decision?

by Cole Mellino

As the climate talks unfold in Durban, South Africa, farmers all over the world are feeling the impact of extreme weather exacerbated by a warming planet.

Changing weather patterns, especially rainfall, are having disastrous affects on global crops. Last year in the Caribbean, banana and vegetable crops were hit hard by months of drought followed by torrential rains that resulted in flooding. The story is the same in Southern Africa. Droughts and erratic rainfall in the South African desert are destroying the Redbush tea plant, known by its Afrikaner name Rooibos. In other areas of the world, a range of agricultural products like coffee, chocolate, peanuts, and pumpkins are all being harmed by extreme weather.

But farmers in Africa — a continent that would be worst hit by climate change — are not idly sitting by. Protesting outside the Durban climate talks, members of the Southern African Rural Women’s Assembly are expressing their frustration with international inaction on climate:

“We’ve come to join other rural women farmers from the southern African region,” said Thandiure Chidararume, a member of ActionAid, an international organization that helped bring together this meeting of the Southern African Rural Women’s Assembly. “We have come as one voice from Africa, we are saying no to damning deals, Africa is not for sale, we want this air pollution that is causing climate change to stop now.”

The assembly unites women’s farming and agricultural unions and movements from around the world.

Women from all across Africa, some as far north as Kenya, came out to the rally at a Kawaulu-Natal University in Durban, several kilometers from the downtown convention center where the more subdued, official meetings on climate change are taking place.

The protesters, who also have the support of women’s movements in Latin America, do not believe that government negotiators represent their interests.

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Driven by strong demand in the United States, the North American solar PV market is set to grow by over 100% this year, according to a report released by the analysis firm NPD SolarBuzz.

Due to the success of the Treasury Grant Program, the U.S. will account for 85% of installations in the North American market. American installations could potentially reach 1.9 GW by the end of December — again doubling year-over-year installations.

Much of the activity in the last two quarters has been spurred by companies rushing to qualify for the Grant Program, an incentive through the Treasury that provides a cash payment worth 30% of a project’s cost. The program, which was created as part of the Stimulus package and is set to expire at the end of December, has been a resounding success.

The solar industry still has an investment tax credit in place through 2016. However, with many financiers unable to take full advantage of tax credits, some analysts expect the market to shrink. In an effort to keep the momentum strong, a coalition of 763 companies and organizations in the solar industry issued a letter to Congress yesterday urging political leaders not to let this crucial program expire. According to the coalition, available finance would be more than 50% less than it is today under the grant:

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Other stories below: In Durban, Progress Expected on Green Fund for Developing Countries; Games can wake people up to climate change

Britain To ‘Exceed’ Target To Slash Carbon Emissions

The UK is on track to exceed targets to slash emissions by a third by 2020 – and would have met the goal even without the recession, the Government has said.

The “carbon plan”, detailing progress on and future plans for reducing greenhouse gases, suggests that even without the economy contracting, green policies would be delivering a 34% emissions cut by the end of the decade.

Speaking before he travels to South Africa for the latest UN climate talks, Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne said the plan showed the UK was “walking the walk” on global warming, and tackling the issue was “achievable and affordable.”

… Mr Huhne insisted the Chancellor backed efforts to tackle climate change.”He is absolutely committed to dealing with the problem of climate change, precisely because he is convinced of the science,” Mr Huhne said.

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I’ll be in Durban next week with two members of the international climate team at the Center for America Progress, closely covering the progress of negotiations. Along with reading our coverage, you’ll be able to watch a live presentation put together by our team on Tuesday, December 6th.

Andrew Light, CAP’s coordinator of international climate policy, will discuss American public attitudes on climate change during the 2012 election season. Rebecca Lefton, an international climate policy analyst will discuss the American reaction to international carbon-pricing systems. And I will be discussing the post-Solyndra political landscape for clean energy.

We hope you’ll join us next Tuesday at 10 am EST.

All the information is below:

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