I recommend that you take 10 minutes to watch this powerful new video, in which Peter Sinclair lays out the basic evidence - from many fields of research - that global warming is occurring and is primarily caused by human choices to burn coal, oil, and natural gas.
Efforts are afoot in Washington, DC - particularly in the U.S. Senate - that would dramatically impair national work under the Clean Air Act to reduce global warming pollution from cars and trucks and industry. Here's what's at stake: on April 2, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court found that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. In December 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued findings that the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming constitute a danger to public health and welfare here in the United States. Some of those human health impacts include mortality from more frequent and intense heat waves and degraded air quality that negatively impacts people with respiratory diseases and asthma. The worst of the health impacts are likely to be felt by the very young and older Americans - children and senior citizens - particularly in urban areas and among low income populations. The EPA findings are a crucial step in work to require reductions in global warming pollution.
Americans support clean energy development and they want action to reduce global warming pollution. The latest nationwide poll demonstrating majority support for these policies was conducted by pollsters from the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communications.
Minnesota law (the Next Generation Energy Act passed in 2007 and signed by Governor Pawlenty) requires carbon dioxide reduction offsets for all new large energy facilities that burn coal. The Next Generation Energy Act establishes greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals for the state. In keeping with the intent to reduce emissions economy-wide, the law also requires that a company proposing a new coal-fired power plant, for example, must obtain Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approval for a carbon dioxide reduction project to offset the increased greenhouse gas emissions from the power plant. The electric utility Great River Energy (GRE), is building the coal-fired Spiritwood Station facility in North Dakota and intends to import some that power to supply into Minnesota to serve customers here. The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, working with Fresh Energy and the Izaak Walton League of America-Midwest Office, submitted joint comments on February 1 to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on legal issues in GRE's intended import of electricity to Minnesota from their Spiritwood, North Dakota coal-fired power plant.
In December, a bipartisan climate policy bill was quietly introduced in the U.S. Senate. Senators Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, and Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, introduced S. 2877, the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal (CLEAR) Act. The CLEAR bill has attracted increasing attention, including the lead editorial in today's Washington Post and a great commentary piece by Minnesota's own David Morris in the January 29 edition of the Star Tribune.
One of our nation's most valuable environmental laws is under attack by members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. Their target: the Clean Air Act. In 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined, based on an in-depth scientific evidence, that global warming pollutants endanger human health and welfare, including right here in the United States. Some of our federal elected officials are working to overturn that scientific finding and prevent policy that should help us protect public health into a toothless law on the crucial issue of lowering global warming pollution.
I was pleased to see the Star Tribune reprint of Robert Frank's commentary on the conservative roots of carbon capping legislation, originally published in the New York Times. For those who missed reading it, Frank is at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. His op-ed summarizes the writing of Ronald H. Coase, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago and the 1990 Nobel laureate in economics, on the topic of correcting market failure by internalizing environmental externalities.
Amid the generally abysmal reporting of public opinion on climate policy, the results of a December 2009 poll commissioned by the National Wildlife Federation offers some actual information. The poll found overwhelming public support for federal legislation that would set firm limits on greenhouse gas emissions, thus stimulating massive private investments in clean energy technologies. Sixty-seven percent of registered voters polled think global warming is happening. Eighty-two percent of voters polled support the U.S. government "increasing investment in clean energy sources" and 67 percent support the U.S. government "limiting carbon pollution and other gases that may cause global warming." The poll was conducted by the Benenson Strategy Group from December 12-15, 2009.
Our nation's Clean Air Act is under attack, putting our health at risk and jeopardizing action to jumpstart a clean energy economy and reduce our dependence on oil. Today Fresh Energy joined with 37 other local and national public interest organizations in sending a letter to the leadership of the U.S. Senate. Our message is that Congress must not stand in the way of progress, but should oppose Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski's effort to undermine the heart of the Clean Air Act. Instead, we need to use the Clean Air Act to reduce global warming pollutants. For ideas on how you can take action to make positive change, take a look at the resources on our Take Action page.
Excerpts from the EPA release December 7, 2009 with my emphasis added:
Fresh Energy Blog