NGO Reaction to "One Agreement, Two Steps" Framework for Copenhagen

No real surprises: Greenpeace hollers, and NRDC and EDF say its the right move, considering. Politico reports on this here. (Earlier post on the framework, decided over the weekend, here.)

World Leaders Downgrade Copenhagen to Dress Rehearsal

As hope faded that the U.S. Senate will have even a solid framework for a climate bill before negotiations are scheduled to start on the next international climate treaty in Copenhagen in three weeks, President Obama and other world leaders huddled in Singapore over the weekend to try and salvage the importance of the summit. According to this Politico article, the Danish Prime Minister flew out to Singapore to join President Obama and other world leaders in a last-minute breakfast huddle about the upcoming climate talks over the weekend. There, they decided to come up with a "one agreement, two steps" framework (obviously influenced in spirit by the sort of numerical nomenclature used in Chinese policy discussions) in which Copenhagen will, in essence, be just the first act of climate negotiations that will reconvene a year from now, as well.

Update: Politico also reports that Senator Reid was meeting with various committee chairmen to figure out how to push things along, here.

The New York Times is also reporting on the development, explaining that "this weekend in Singapore, Mr. Obama was forced to acknowledge that a comprehensive climate deal was beyond reach this year. Instead, he and other world leaders agreed that they would work toward a more modest interim agreement with a promise to renew work toward a binding treaty next year."

Tick tock, Senators, tick tock.

A Modicum of Activity on Senate Climate Bill

Yesterday, Senators from various sides of the climate debate had a few opportunities to voice their positions on an eventual bill. As the Washington Independent reported, Senator Baucus (seen as a key indicator of moderate, coal-state Democratic sentiment on a climate bill) opened a Senate Finance Committee Hearing yesterday on the jobs impact of potential climate legislation with the following statement:

Today, we will consider whether climate legislation will create jobs in the energy sector. We’ll examine
further this Committee’s role in climate legislation. And we’ll discuss what we can do both to create
jobs and to ease the transition to an economy that accounts for the cost of carbon dioxide. I am committed to passing meaningful, balanced climate-change legislation.

I am committed to legislation that will protect our land and those whose livelihood depends on it. I want our children and grandchildren to be able to enjoy the outdoors the way that we can today. So I’m going to work to pass climate-change legislation that is both meaningful and that can muster enough votes to become law.

Today we’ll hear predictions — some optimistic, some otherwise — about the effects that climate legislation will have on American jobs and the American economy. We need to consider these predictions. But we also need to consider the consequences of failing to act. We can already see some of these consequences in my home state of Montana. We can see the consequences in forests near my hometown of Helena, destroyed by pine beetles that thrive in warmer temperatures. We can see the consequences in sustained drought and more frequent wildfires. And we can see the consequences in decreased snowpack and lower stream flows, reducing water for irrigated agriculture and starving our blue‐ribbon trout streams of cold water.

These are serious consequences. And I believe that we can mitigate their effects in a way that does not
harm the economy. . . . [W]e should recognize that in the case of acid rain [provisions included in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, which Baucus helped author], the negative consequences were far less than projected. We should keep this in mind when similar claims are made about the effects of legislation to address climate change.

So although Senator Baucus voted against the Kerry-Boxer bill in committee, and was seen as a doubting voice, he--at least at first blush--seems to be somewhat to the left of, say, Senator Graham, who is working with Kerry and Lieberman to come up with a version of the climate bill that endorses nuclear, "clean coal," and more offshore drilling. Senator Baucus's full statement can be viewed here. Archived footage of the hearing can be viewed here.

Meanwhile, as several outlets are reporting, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to urge them to push forward with climate change legislation in advance of next month's negotiations in Copenhagen. McClatchy reports the story here, and the Wall Street Journal here. Senator Lieberman (I, CT) told Secretary Ban that he was confident that he and Senator Kerry ahd come up with the framework that would eventually become the Senate climate bill, as Bloomberg reports here. Senator Richard Lugar (R, IN) begged to differ, telling Secretary Ban that "I don't see any climate bill on the table right now that I can support," and that "[w]e really have to start from scratch again." The Washington Post article detailing this exchange can be read here.

GHG Endangerment Finding Sent to White House

Apparently, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Reuters today that she had sent the final version of EPA's endangerment finding for greenhouse gases to the White House on Friday. The Reuters article can be read here. (The proposed version of the finding, released last April, can be read here.)

Other news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, are reporting the story. But the current version of the finding and the accompanying letter are not yet available on the EPA or White House web sites.

The endangerment finding was made under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act, part of its mobile source (vehicle) provisions, and is the ultimate result of the Supreme Court's 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. This pertains only to mobile sources, and, by its terms (as proposed in April) will not immediately be followed by regulations governing vehicle emissions of GHGs.

That said, a final endangerment finding will give environmentalists a strong legal case that the EPA must now issue regulations governing vehicle emissions of GHGs. EPA has also signaled that it would have to make a similar endangerment finding and issue regulations for emissions of GHGs from stationary sources, including power plants. Some (though not all) in the environmental community are eager to see EPA action via the PSD provisions of the Act, though industry supporters have warned that such a finding for stationary sources would virtually shut down the economy.

If EPA issues regulations governing vehicle emissions of GHGs, environmental litigators will be able to make a slam-dunk argument that GHG's are regulated by the Clean Air Act, and thus subject to the Act's "best available control technology" (BACT) provisions. (This is an argument they have been advancing for some time in their battle against coal-fired power plants, but is weakened by the fact that no actual regulations of GHGs have been issued under the Act. Three weeks ago, the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) issued an order, In the Matter of BP Products North America (EAB, October 16, 2009) in which it explained that "at this time EPA continues to construe" BACT to cover only those pollutants "subject to either a provision in the Clean Air Act or a regulation adopted by EPA under the Clean Air Act that requires actual control of emissions of that pollutant.")

The White House has 90 days to act, but Administrator Jackson told Reuters that she expects an expedited review. This move will put additional pressure on the Senate to continue to move forward with climate change legislation, and may also help show the world, in advance of next month's climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, that the U.S. is moving forward to regulate greenhouse gases.

More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Update: The Washington Post is reporting the story now, and confirms that the finding has not been released publicly. They obtained a statement from the National Association of Manufacturers that they are concerned that EPA is moving forward before Congress has a chance to pass its own bill (confirming that this may well be designed to place pressure on Congress, since you can be assured that NAM is calling on its connections in the Senate right now.) And they obtained a statement from environmentalists that they think that the Administration is doing this to avoid going to Copenhagen "empty handed." The full article, which reflects some great last-minute reporting by Juliet Eilperin, can be read here.

The Denver Science News Examiner is reporting the story here (and its being reprinted in the Washington D.C. Examiner, so being read for free by D.C. Metro commuters on their way to work this morning.) And BNET is reporting the story, describing the move as "Climate Bill Stimulus."

Still Trying to Work

Senator Boxer and the Dems showed up again this morning, but the Republicans played hooky.

This morning, Senator Boxer reconvened a full business meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, so that the Republicans who boycotted yesterday's meeting would have an opportunity to participate in the committee mark up. But the Republicans still didn't show.