Court Upholds Soot Standards

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University

A federal court of appeals on Friday unanimously found that the Clean Air Act gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) substantial discretion in setting air quality standards. The ruling upheld the EPA’s tightened limits on soot, or fine particulate matter from coal plants, refineries, factories and vehicles. In the challenge brought by industry groups, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) pointed to scientific studies and lack of public comment on revised rules.

“Under the arbitrary and capricious standard, we exercise great deference when we evaluate claims about competing bodies of scientific research,” the court wrote. “Petitioners simply have not identified any way in which the EPA jumped the rails of reasonableness in examining the science.”

The stricter air quality standards, set in 2012, limited the annual level of outdoor ambient exposure to soot by 20 percent. EPA had justified the change by pointing to a number of studies that linked exposure to soot particles to a variety of cardiovascular illnesses.

“We’re disappointed in today’s ruling that only further adds to thousands of regulations facing manufacturers,” said NAM’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel Linda Kelly. “The court’s decision also underscores the difficulty manufacturers face in pushing back against a powerful and often overreaching EPA.”

Last month, a Supreme Court ruling reinstated the agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which regulates pollution from coal-fired power plants that drift across state lines. In June—the same month proposed rules for existing coal-fired power plants will be issued—a Supreme Court decision is expected on whether the EPA’s regulation of stationary source emissions through permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act was “a sensible accommodation or an impermissible exercise of executive authority.”

Studies Look at Climate Change Risk

A report authored by 16 generals and admirals on the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) Corporation’s Military Advisory Board finds that climate change poses a severe risk to U.S. national security and acts as a catalyst for global political conflict.

“Political posturing and budgetary woes cannot be allowed to inhibit discussion and debate over what so many believe to be a salient national security concern for our nation,” they wrote. “…Time and tide wait for no one.”

The report, which follows up a 2007 study, suggests an increase in catastrophic weather events around the world will raise demand for American troops. It also suggests that rising seas and extreme weather could threaten U.S. military bases and naval ports. These findings, The New York Times reports, would influence American foreign policy.

The CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board found that climate change impacts are already speeding instability in regions such as the Arctic.

“We think things are accelerating in the Arctic faster than we had looked at seven years ago,” said Gen. Paul Kern, the board chairman. “As the Arctic becomes less of ice-contaminated area it represents a lot of opportunities for Russia.” He noted that the situation has the potential to “spark conflict there.”

Another study published in Nature indicates climate change caused by humans could be responsible for as little as half the melting of sea ice in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland. The other half is traced to changes in temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean—that is, to natural climate variability, not greenhouse gases.

“We find that 20 to 50 percent of warming is due to anthropogenic [man-made] warming, and another 50 percent is natural,” said lead study author Qinghua Ding. “We know that global warming due to human impacts can’t explain why it got warm so fast.”

The area north of Greenland and the Canadian archipelago has seen temperature increases nearly twice as large as the Arctic average.

“We find that the most prominent annual mean surface and tropospheric warming in the Arctic since 1979 has occurred in northeastern Canada and Greenland,” the authors wrote. “In this region, much of the year-to-year temperature variability is associated with the leading mode of large-scale circulation variability in the North Atlantic, namely, the North Atlantic Oscillation.”

In the Antarctica, a combination of warm ocean currents and geographic peculiarities has begun a glacial retreat that “appears unstoppable.” Two studies—one to be published in Geophysical Research Letters and the other out in Science—find there’s little to nothing that can be done physically to slow the thaw of these glaciers. In fact, melting is expected to push up sea levels in the region by four feet or more. This melt will occur over a longer period of time—centuries not decades.

“This retreat will have major consequences for sea level rise worldwide,” said University of California-Irvine Professor Eric Rignot and author of the Geophysical Research Letters study. It will raise sea levels by 1.2m, or 4ft, but its retreat will also influence adjacent sectors of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which could triple this contribution to sea level.”

Energy Efficiency Bill Fails, While Research Tax Credit Wins Vote

On Monday, a bill to promote U.S. energy conservation by tightening efficiency guidelines for new federal buildings and providing tax incentives to make homes and commercial buildings more efficient fell short.

The bill co-sponsored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) was just 5 votes shy of the 60 needed to move forward. Its demise also derailed a promised vote on the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Friday prior, the House voted to make permanent a tax credit that rewards businesses for investing in research and development. Although the bill would give businesses a tax break of 20 percent for qualifying research, it faces an uphill battle in the Senate amid criticism that no new tax credit offsets its estimated 10-year, $156 billion cost to U.S. taxpayers.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.