Discussion on Kerry Lieberman and EPA with William Brent
Here is a Q&A I did with William Brent, the head of Weber Shandwick’s cleantech practice and blogger at www.mrcleantech.com:
WB: I asked my friend Graham Noyes of law firm Stoel Rives who focuses his practice on bioenergy projects, federal energy incentives and carbon monetization for his thoughts on the Kerry Lieberman bill.
Q (WB): What was your main takeaway from the bill?
A (GN): Some context first. There’s a massive potential hammer out there on GHG emitters in terms of the risk of regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA) by the EPA, which has already issued an endangerment finding that found GHGs to be a danger to public health and welfare, thereby making the EPA obligated to regulate GHG's under the CAA. So the wheels are turning forward at the EPA to regulate GHG. That’s what the EPA will do if nothing else happens. So it’s really surprising that Kerry Lieberman imposes what I think to be much stricter limitations on the EPA than the status quo.
In that sense the bill is very favorable to those industries that have the most to lose from GHG regulation, because it essentially weakens the regulatory landscape for GHG intensive industry when compared to what the EPA is likely to do. That’s why we have the strong industry support lined up for the bill. What’s odd is that we have universal Republication opposition (from a party known for its pro-business stance), and near universal Democratic support (from a party known to support more environmental protections). That is a fundamental disconnect.
The 800 lb gorilla in the room is the EPA's ability to utilize the CAA if the Kerry-Lieberman bill stalls. That’s a really interesting regulatory and political landscape for this thing to play out.
Q: Can you be more specific on how Kerry Lieberman is easier on emitters?
A: We don’t know what the EPA will do precisely in order to get its targets in the endangerment finding. Emissions levels, cost implications for regulated industries – we don’t know. But it’s easy to imagine a scenario in which the EPA ratchets down harder and harder on these emissions to get the problem under control, specifically the PPM concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.. By contrast, Kerry Lieberman has a slow front-end phase-in (with only some industries included in the first years), price collars and very substantial offset programs to lower the economic impact, none of which the EPA would necessarily do. Most people expect the EPA would be more onerous than Kerry Lieberman.
Q: Is legislation or regulation better at the end of the day?
A: The Clean Air Act was not designed for GHGs, but for what we usually think of as pollutants- emissions that are directly unhealthy. CO2 is not something people worry about breathing, it’s the indirect risk of global warming caused by the escalating CO2 levels that triggerred the finding. CO2 is also more ubiquitous than other pollutants hence the tailoring rule actually reduces scope of CAA enforcement.
The EPA would regulate by mandate, not by consensus. If we can’t get legislation passed and the EPA begins enforcement, there will be a lot of criticism about over-reaching and strangling industry. EPA would take a lot of heat for this.
Q: Some argue that EPA will take much longer to regulate than legislation.
A: I don’t necessarily think so. This legislation requires extensive rule-making that will take a long time to happen, consider the RFS2 delay. And the EPA won’t build in phase-in limits like Kerry Lieberman. If EPA moves ahead on its present course, I think it would have a faster impact on emissions than the bill.
Ultimately, I think this landscape will spur a deal with a surprising alliance.
What are the top three ramifications on business from this bill?
The bill would establish a long-term value to CO2e reductions. This will benefit all renewable energy projects and support US offset projects in methane capture, agriculture and forestry that make good GHG sense.
EPA Announces "Endangerment" and "Cause or Contribute" Findings
Stoel Rives partner Tom Wood reports:
Minutes ago EPA announced its long awaited “endangerment” and “cause or contribute” findings in relation to six key greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. While technically this announcement is of limited significance (applying only to motor vehicle emissions), the policy import of these determinations is tremendous.
In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court held that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act in the Massachusetts v. EPA decision. This case arose in relation to EPA’s choice not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new motor vehicles. The Court held that EPA must determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare, or whether the science is too uncertain to make a reasoned decision.
Earlier this year EPA proposed to issue the two part finding required to commence regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles. This required first a finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare and a second finding that emissions from new motor vehicle engines cause or contribute to greenhouse gas air pollution. The comment period for these proposed findings ended June 23, 2009 and EPA received over 380,000 public comments. Today, Lisa Jackson (EPA Administrator) signed final findings that greenhouse gases endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations and that the combined emissions of these greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the greenhouse gas air pollution that endangers public health and welfare.
As a legal matter, today’s findings relate only to vehicle emissions. However, the precedent that they create will almost certainly result in substantial regulation for other source categories. It is no coincidence that this finding was announced on the first day of the Copenhagen talks on climate change. The Obama administration both wanted to show that some progress was being made in the U.S. and it wants to leverage this progress into further statutory or regulatory requirements.
Towards this goal, one of the more interesting things to come out of the determinations is the formal establishment of the new pollutant: “Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gases.” This term is now officially entered into EPA’s regulatory lexicon as a pollutant to be regulated. Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gases consists of the 6 Kyoto gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride) but introduces the grouping now as a regulatory unit. It is noteworthy that vehicles are not material sources of all of these greenhouse gases and so the use of this term should be seen as setting the stage for future regulation.
Also of interest is an EPA restatement in a footnote that at this time it does not consider greenhouse gases to be a regulated air pollutant. This is of tremendous significance to stationary sources of greenhouse gases as the moment that greenhouse gases become regulated, there is the potential argument that they are subject to Title V and major new source review permitting. At the risk of understating the issue, that would be a mess of biblical proportions.
For those wishing to read all 284 pages of the findings document, it can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/downloads/FinalFindings.pdf
The findings are not valid until 30 days after they are published in the Federal Register. Expect publication to occur later this month.
Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Carbon Dioxide Nuisance Suit Against Utilities
My partner Tom Wood recently composed and circulated this email alert about the return of the "Global Warming" case against several electric utilities:
Five years ago eight states and New York City made headlines when they sued several electric utilities alleging that their carbon dioxide emissions constituted a federal common law nuisance. The plaintiffs wanted to force the companies to cap and reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. The federal trial court dismissed the case, holding that the issue was a political question that had to be addressed through the political branches of government and not through the courts. Earlier today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the trial court. This enables the plaintiffs to resume their nuisance lawsuit against the generating companies, but does not guarantee them victory as they will have significant evidentiary challenges to address. In reinstating the suit, the Second Circuit touted the judiciary’s ability to handle complex cases of this type and said that doing so would not interfere with the business of the other branches of government. However, the court noted in several places that the judiciary would be preempted in the future from addressing carbon dioxide through nuisance law if either Congress (i.e., the legislative branch) amends the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide or the executive branch, through EPA, moves to regulate carbon dioxide under existing authority.
Today’s decision will potentially have significant impacts on future climate change litigation. One of the areas heavily debated in the case was who has the ability to bring a federal nuisance claim such as that alleged here. The defendant companies recognized that states have the ability to bring federal common law nuisance claims, but argued that the potential contribution of carbon dioxide emissions to climate change was not the sort of issue for which a federal nuisance suit is available because, among other reasons, the impacts could not be traced to particular emission sources. The Second Circuit rejected this argument, setting the stage for the state suits to continue. The court also rejected arguments that private parties cannot bring federal nuisance suits related to climate change. The court recognized that the Supreme Court had never addressed this question, but concluded that private parties should be able to proceed with federal nuisance claims related to climate change when they invoke an overriding federal interest or federalism concerns. By holding that private parties can bring federal nuisance suits and by recognizing that climate change is of overriding federal interest, the court potentially cleared the way for federal lawsuits against all types of companies that emit material levels of greenhouse gases.
The decision will create significant new pressure on EPA and Congress to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The court noted that it was reasonable to assume that EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if it first determines that they “cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare” (referred to as an “endangerment finding”). However, as the court noted, EPA has only proposed to make such a finding and only in relation to mobile sources—not stationary sources such as factories and power plants. When/if EPA makes such findings, it must then develop a regulatory program. Until such time that a program is developed, the court held that the field is left open for federal common law nuisance suits. This holding will undoubtedly create increased support for taking the regulation of greenhouse gases out of the courts and back into the legislative or executive branches.
EPA is poised to issue several rules that will commence the regulation of greenhouse gases for mobile and stationary sources. These rules were not considered by the court as they had not been finalized. As these rules become finalized in the weeks and months ahead, the plaintiff’s victory may prove short-lived. However, there is no question that the decision is likely to have a tremendous impact on the debate regarding whether to proceed with greenhouse gas regulations.
