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Utilities Blowing Smoke on Coal-Plant Retirements

By Climate Guest Blogger on Feb 23, 2012 at 10:52 am

The EPA can’t be used as a scapegoat for plant closures that have been informed by many different economic drivers.

by Dan Bakal, reposted from Ceres

When the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its Mercury and Air Toxics Rule (MATS) in December, a handful of utility companies that rely heavily on coal-fired power plants claimed the rule would lead to power plant retirements.  Yesterday’s publication of the final rule in the Federal Register has set off a new round of criticism as the clock starts ticking on any last-minute legal or legislative actions to undermine the rule.

Take, for instance, FirstEnergy’s recent announcements that it will retire nine of its older coal-fired power plants by September 1, 2012.  In its statements, FirstEnergy blamed the EPA’s Mercury rule for forcing the retirements. Not only is the company blaming the EPA for the retirements, it is also placing potential layoffs and grid reliability issues at the EPA’s door. This decision poses an important question:  if these retirements are because of the EPA rule, why is FirstEnergy retiring the nine plants which are located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland in 2012, rather than waiting until 2014, when these older plants would actually have to come into compliance?

In their news release, FirstEnergy states:

“We recently completed a comprehensive review of our coal-fired generating plants and determined that additional investments to implement MATS and other environmental rules would make these older plants even less likely to be dispatched under market rules. As a result, it was necessary to retire the plants rather than continue operations.”

Upon closer inspection, however, it’s fairly easy to see that this decision wasn’t based primarily on EPA rules; it was based on current economics, including the following:

  • These Eisenhower-era plants are on average 58 years old and have rarely been used since 2010. (They have an average capacity factor of 36.5%.)
  • A slower economy, energy-efficiency programs and mild weather have reduced demand for power.
  • Today’s historically low natural gas prices, which are not expected to increase much any time soon, mean it is more expensive to produce power using coal-fired plants than natural gas plants. (The process of converting a coal plant to natural gas is complex, but is also a project that is fully achievable within the EPA’s timelines.)

So when a plant is already over half a century old, underutilized and inefficient during those occasions when it is used – it probably makes better business sense to retire it rather than making the investments to convert it to natural gas or retrofit it with pollution controls to comply with EPA clean air rules.  Sure, the MATS rule may have played some role in the decision-making process, but these plants were on a clear path toward retirement in the near future.

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NEWS FLASH

West Virginia Republicans Hesitant To Vote For Anti-Discrimination Bill During Election Year | A bill prohibiting “landlords and companies with more than a dozen employees from discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation” has enough support from House and Senate leaders in the West Virginia legislature, but probably won’t come to a vote in this election year because Republicans do not feel comfortable supporting the measure during an election year. “I think members were concerned about this issue in an election year,” Frank Hartman, a lobbyist for Fairness West Virginia told the Charleston Daily Mail. Hartman says he has received “assurances” from lawmakers that “the bill will be taken up next year.”

Security

Tucker Carlson Backpedals From His ‘Annihilate’ Iran Claim: ‘I Misrepresented My Own Views’

By Eli Clifton on Feb 23, 2012 at 10:37 am

The Daily Caller editor in chief Tucker Carlson faced an onslaught of criticism yesterday for telling Fox News “Red Eye” viewers that “Iran deserves to be annihilated.” Carlson’s comments, first reported on ThinkProgress, led The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to observe, “This is the sort of rhetoric that leads to war. I have no doubt this clip will be played over and over again in Tehran by a regime eager to prove that America wants to — to borrow a phrase — wipe Iran off the map.” In emails to Glenn Greenwald, Carlson largely walked back his statement, saying, “I think attacking could be a disaster for the US and am worried that Obama will do it, for fear of seeming weak before an election.”

Appearing on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning, Carlson tried to walk back his comments:

I was actually trying to make the opposite point but I was doing it in a very inarticulate way. [...] I was actually urging caution. I’m not particularly hawkish to be totally honest with you.

Later in the show, facing a question from a call-in guest about his statement calling for the annihilation of Iran, Carlson responded, “I misrepresented my own views,” and attempted to clarify his position:

The point I was actually making on that show on Tuesday night was, which I’m sure you didn’t see, while Iran’s government clearly is evil and I would like to see Iran’s government crushed, I think there probably are consequences to bombing Iran and going to war with Iran that might hurt us. Specifically, what would it do to the cost of energy?

The two C-Span segments in which Carlson addresses his “Red Eye” comments are combined below:

Indeed, gas prices would, no doubt, skyrocket if the U.S. began another war in the Middle East. But that’s just one of many consequences. The U.S. Navy’s fifth fleet based in Bahrain, U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and Iraq’s stability could all be put in danger and Hezbollah could stage terrorist attacks on Israeli and/or U.S. targets. All of that aside, the large number of U.S. and Iranian casualties that would result from any attempt to “annihilate” Iran or overthrow the government with outside military force is well worth considering before casually discussing launching a third U.S. war in the Middle East.

While the IAEA has said it has concerns about military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. officials have said that its unclear whether the Islamic Republic has decided on building a bomb, an attack would give reason for Iran to weaponize its program.

Tucker Carlson’s efforts to walk back his incendiary statements are appreciated but there are other reasons, apart from rising gas prices, to be reticent to “annihilate” a country of 74 million people.

Economy

Rick Santorum Ignores Jobs During Arizona GOP Debate

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Feb 23, 2012 at 10:35 am

As Rick Santorum has risen in the polls in the GOP presidential race, his campaign has been unsuccessful in its attempt to “turn the political conversation away from the social and cultural issues that have dominated his quest for the Republican presidential nomination so far and focus instead on the economy.” The former Pennsylvania senator continues to bring religion into the campaign, saying that President Obama’s theology is not “based on the Bible” and voicing his opposition to prenatal testing.

Last week, Santorum said to voters in Idaho, “Are economics important? You bet? Are jobs important? You bet.” In last night’s GOP presidential debate, Santorum had a chance to show voters that he really did care about the economy. Instead, he failed to even say the word jobs once:

In total, the four GOP contenders mentioned the word “jobs” only 10 times over the span of two hours — and former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) uttered the word a grand total of zero times. [...] Santorum had entered Wednesday night’s debate riding on a wave of support in the polls and among conservative voters in key primary states. His debate performance — during which he struggled to answer questions about his record in Congress — could serve to blunt that momentum heading into next week’s contests in Michigan and Arizona.

Santorum also never mentioned the unemployed, though he did repeat “spending” and “conservative” over and over. According to Gallup, 31 percent of Americans say the economy is the biggest issue facing the U.S. Thirty-one percent say it’s unemployment and jobs.

NEWS FLASH

GAS PRICES FACT: Republican Politicians Oppose Ending Taxpayer Handouts To Big Oil | Every Republican presidential contender and nearly every Republican member of the House and Senate has signed a pledge to oppose ending taxpayer handouts to Big Oil — handouts that will add up to more than $40 billion over the next ten years. In addition, Republicans have repeatedly voted in lockstep to block efforts to repeal the tax giveaways to Big Oil. President Obama, however, remains undaunted and has once again included repeal of these wasteful giveaways in his budget for 2013.

This fact was first featured in the ThinkProgress Progress Report: “Five Facts About Gas Prices.”

Related Posts

NEWS FLASH

POLL: Most Republicans Say Employers Should Provide Birth Control Coverage | A Quinnipiac Poll released today found that 71 percent of respondents, including 72 percent of independents and 50 percent of Republicans, said that health insurance plans should cover birth control as preventive care. Seventy-seven percent of Republicans said that it was not wrong for people to use contraception, compared to 16 percent who felt it was. Fifty-four percent of Americans also backed the Obama administration’s rule extending birth control to employees of religiously-affiliated institutions without additional co-pays, with 38 percent opposed. Fifty-six percent of women and independent voters approve of the rule, which now requires insurers to cover birth control if employers are opposed on religious grounds.

– Zachary Bernstein

By Guest Blogger on Feb 23, 2012 at 10:15 am

Alyssa

Chris Brown, CM Punk, and Moving the Conversation on Domestic Violence Forward

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 23, 2012 at 9:51 am

When Chris Brown, who in 2009 beat his then-girlfriend Rihanna on the way to a Grammys pre-party, got two performing slots at this year’s awards show, objecting to his presence there was relatively uncomplicated. His crime was relatively recent, and Brown seemed to have little sense that he’d done something wrong, throwing temper tantrums when asked about his assault in interviews and acting as if his Grammy win was a rebuke to the people who were unfairly judging him. And suggesting that he shouldn’t be given a high-profile spot, much less two, at the Grammys was a way of rooting for, or siding with, Rihanna. But in the time since, events have guaranteed that the state of their relationship will be a continued story—and suggested how complicated it’s going to be to find a way to talk about it productively.

First, the news broke that Rihanna had asked Brown to her birthday party. Then, she released a remix of her latest song, “Birthday Cake,” featuring Brown. If the pair aren’t dating again, it’s clear that Brown is back in Rihanna’s life. Which puts those of us who would rather not see folks in his industry bestowing their most advantageous opportunities on Brown rather than someone who didn’t beat a fellow artist so badly she couldn’t perform when she was allotted one of those slots, in a position of not being on the same page as the woman we’d really like to be supporting.

This is not an uncommon dynamic, of course. As Jaclyn Friedman points out, women who are trying to leave their abusers tend to go back, a lot, before they finally decide to either stay or leave for good. The dilemma between wanting to respect a woman as an independent agent while also being worried for her is not one that’s unique to celebrities. And it’s not a problem that anyone’s come up with a fool-proof solution for, or we’d be a lot better at helping women leave the men who abuse them, be they famous or simply our friends.

One sure way not to move the conversation in anything like a productive direction, though, is to challenge Chris Brown to a fight. Which is what C.M. Punk, a professional wrestler, decided it would be a productive thing to do. There’s really no circumstance in which a white man talking about curb stomping a black man is an elevating threat. And whatever Chris Brown needs, it’s emphatically not a beating. Punk could take a note from retired pro wrestler Mick Foley, who’s become an amazing advocate for victims of sexual assault. This isn’t about completing a cycle of retribution. And it’s not about teaching people about who it is or isn’t honorable to fight.

Justice

Santorum Cites Racist Author To Defend His Views On ‘The Dangers Of Contraception’

By Ian Millhiser on Feb 23, 2012 at 9:50 am

At last night’s GOP presidential candidates debate, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) was asked why he’s promised to address “the dangers of contraception in this country” if elected president. In response, he cited a particularly unfortunate author:

What I was talking about is, we have a society — Charles Murray just wrote a book about this and it’s on the front page of the New York Times two days ago — which is the increasing number of children being born out of wedlock in America, teens who are sexually active. What we’re seeing is a problem in our culture with respect the children being raised by children, children being raised out of wedlock, and the impact on society economically, the impact on society with respect to drug use and a host of other things, when children have children. And so, yes, I was talking about these very serious issues. and, in fact, as I mentioned before, two days ago on the front page of the New York Times, they’re talking about the same thing.

Watch it:

First of all, Santorum’s decision to justify his skepticism of contraception by citing the problem of unwed mothers is like something out of the Bizarro Planet. Here in the actual world, contraception is the solution to the problem of unplanned pregnancies, not the cause.

Likewise, Santourm’s decision to rely on Charles Murray is no less distressing. Murray co-authored The Bell Curve, which argues that black people score lower on IQ tests because they are genetically inferior to whites. To reach this conclusion, Murray relied on studies backed by the Pioneer Fund, whose original mission was to pursue “race betterment” for people “deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution.”

Murray’s latest book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, is a similarly rigorous work of scholarship. In the words of former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, Murray’s latest opus proves that the racially-challenged author is unwilling “to submit his politics to the check of uncongenial evidence” and instead would “prefer[] to avoid encountering the evidence that might shake his politics.” Sadly, this description also applies to Santorum.

LGBT

Romney Tries To Align Himself With Santorum On Gay Adoption Issues

By Igor Volsky on Feb 23, 2012 at 9:45 am

Mitt Romney channeled the social conservative positions of Rick Santorum during last night’s GOP presidential debate in Arizona, arguing that religious organizations should be allowed to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples in the adoption process and claiming that children deserve a home “with a mother and a father”:

ROMNEY: And when we have programs that say we’re going to teach abstinence in schools, the liberals go crazy and try and stop us from doing that. We have to have a president who’s willing to say that the best opportunity an individual can give to their unborn child is an opportunity to be born in a home with a mother and a father. [...]

We battled, for instance, to help the Catholic Church stay in the adoption business. The amazing thing was that while the Catholic Church was responsible for half the adoptions in my state — half the adoptions — they had to get out of that business because the legislature wouldn’t support me and give them an exemption from having to place children in homes where there was a mom and a dad on a preferential basis.

Watch it:

In 2006, however, Romney seemed to accept the idea that same-sex couples can adopt a child. “They are able to adopt children…And I’m not going to change that,” he said, noting that same-sex couples have “a legitimate interest” in adoption. “Obviously, that’s their right,” he explained in 2007.

But in aiming to secure the GOP presidential nomination for 2012, the former Massachusetts governor has walked back his support for gay and lesbian families and has adopted a more nuanced position on same-sex adoption. During an August GOP debate, Romney pledged to institute a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as a between a man and a woman “because I believe the ideal place to raise a child is in a home with a mom and dad.” He doubled down on that position during a town hall in New Hampshire in October, arguing that while he would support “partnership agreements” for same-sex couples, “the ideal setting to raise a child for a society like ours is where there is a man and a woman.”

Ultimately, the Romney campaign maintains that same-sex adoption “should be assessed on a state-by-state basis,” a point the candidate himself failed to make in trying to close the gap between himself and Santorum at Wednesday night’s debate.

Climate Progress

Infographic: The Solyndra Witch-Hunt One Year Later

By Rebecca Leber on Feb 23, 2012 at 9:41 am

Marking the one-year anniversary of the Solyndra investigation, the Republican National Committee released an infographic on President Obama’s supposed “insider deals.”

But after 187,000 documents, 10 hearings, and multiple independent media investigations concluding there was no evidence of political “pressure” to approve the loan guarantee, Republicans show no signs of ending the political games around Solyndra. In response to the RNC, Climate Progress created its own infographic that puts the politics-infused investigation into perspective:


And if you hadn’t seen it, here’s the RNC’s version:

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