Oil from the offshore spill in the Gulf of Mexico has washed ashore including in ecologically rich areas of Louisiana. About 5,000 barrels or 210,000 gallons a day of oil are estimated to be flowing from the well, and it could take up to 90 days to stop the spill. The total amount of oil from the spill could exceed the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.
The spill followed an explosion on April 20th at an offshore drilling rig that killed 11 workers. Residents along the Gulf are preparing for disruption, including shrimp and oyster fisheries, and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has declared a state of emergency. Jindal listed at least 10 wildlife refuges in Louisiana and Mississippi in the path of the oil that are likely to be impacted, warning that billions of dollars in coastal restoration could be wasted.
The President meanwhile has said he will use “every single available resource at our disposal” to contain and address the spill. The Navy has been called in to help with containment. Making it difficult is that the oil is arising from approx. 5,000 ft. below the ocean surface, and currents break apart the oil, spreading the slick out. It is now estimated to be over 100 miles wide on the ocean surface. With weekend storms in the Gulf expected, more oil will reach coastlines along Gulf Coast states.
Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, which hired the rig owned and operated by Transocean Ltd., said today: “We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that.”
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said he would introduce legislation to block the Interior Department from acting on the administration’s recently announced proposal to expand offshore drilling. He also called for a halt to test wells and other exploratory operations in coastal waters. Two House panels, including the Committee on Energy and Commerce, plan to investigate or hold hearings on the accident.
The oil spill is also affecting the proposed Senate bill on energy and climate. In garnering votes, backers of the proposed bill included provisions for expanding offshore oil exploration and drilling. The provisions have now come under increased scrutiny and should require Congress to rethink whether they should be part of a bill to increase domestic energy production while addressing environmental impacts of energy including climate change.
Images Courtesy of Reuters, AP
A major hurdle for potential climate change legislation has been cleared: comprehensive health care legislation has passed the House and will soon become law. While the battle to ensure that more Americans will have access to affordable health care has no direct impact on climate change, the battle over the details of the bill has consumed the attention of Congress and America for more than a year now. With the health care debate essentially over for this session, Congress may be free to take on other reforms – specifically that of climate change.
Recognizing this opportunity to act, Democratic Senators sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid asking for climate change legislation in 2010. The letter was signed by 22 Democrats, including important swing votes like Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Roland Burris of Illinois, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, Al Franken of Minnesota, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Jon Tester of Montana, and Mark Warner of Virginia.
Climate change legislation passed in the House last year, but legislation in the Senate has been stalled ever since. Currently, the best hope for legislation may come from Sens. Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman, who are drafting legislation that may achieve bipartisan support. It is widely believed that in order to pass a bill of this nature through the Senate, a super-majority of 60 will be necessary.
The advantages of comprehensive climate change legislation are many. Well constructed legislation would:
- Reduce carbon emissions according to science-based targets;
- Provide clarity for US businesses and promote investment in clean technologies;
- Create new ‘green jobs’ and help the US maintain competitiveness in an increasingly green global economy;
- Remove the need for the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant – a particularly contentious issue for some;
- Establish the US as a leader in the clean energy future;
- Reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil.
Hope remains high that Congress will pass climate change legislation, and the future looks a little brighter now that health care legislation has passed. It will be interesting to see how these next few weeks pan out, because if Democrats are serious about passing a bill in 2010 then they are going to have to refocus their efforts very soon. If the fight to save our climate is anything like the fight to reform our health care, then we are in store for another interesting battle in Washington.
The US Senate is expected to reengage with proposed climate legislation this week in an attempt to create domestic solutions that reduce our carbon emissions. While the hope for progress is great, the growing feeling is that the final bill that comes out of the Senate will be less ambitious than the one the House passed last year.
According to Reuters news service, Senators John Kerry, Joesph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham are weighing options that will allow the Senate to move forward with legislation. But the issue that is facing this group is only partially related to policy; politics will play a big role in if, when and how a bill may be passed in the Senate.
Options in Broad Strokes
There are many options for potential Senate climate legislation. This may include a comprehensive cap on carbon emissions that covers nearly the entire economy, or a bill that only covers part of the economy such as power plants and/or other areas of the economy. The latter seems more viable in the short run to some, in order to build a broad base of support. One very distinct piecemeal approach may be to cap the electricity sector of energy, representing about 40% of US emissions. This could make a significant dent in carbon emissions now without necessarily affecting other carbon intensive industries like cement and steel, and may also be administratively easier to monitor. However– critics view the piecemeal approach as inherently lacking, in that climate change should involve a comprehensive approach to emissions cuts.
The Politics
With elections coming up in November, it would be foolish to think that there will not be a fair amount of political jockeying between now and then. So trying to pass a bill in the middle of campaign season like this may be difficult, but not impossible. If the Senate is to pass a global warming bill, it will likely need to happen in the next couple months, before members of Congress focus on their districts and states and other issues that Congress is trying to clear this session.
Bloomberg’s Jim Efstathiou Jr. reports that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has prepared a “discussion draft” requiring deeper reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than the levels approved by the House.
The draft, which will be released on Wednesday, calls on U.S. companies to reduce their impact 20 percent by the year 2020, rather than 17 percent that was approved by the House. U.S. power plants, factories and refineries may need free government-issued emission permits in order to continue to do business. This topic was hotly debated in the House, and was not addressed in the draft of the Senate bill.
The Senate bill would cap greenhouse gas emissions and allow companies to trade permits similar to the cap-and-trade plan approved by the House. According to the New York Times, Senator John Kerry made a special effort to move away from the language of cap-and-trade since it can be confusing to the public and tried to re-frame the conversation in the more concrete concept of reducing pollution. “I don’t know what ‘cap and trade’ means. I don’t think the average American does,” Kerry told reporters. “This is not a cap-and-trade bill, it’s a pollution reduction bill.”
