2084. Obama Should Issue an Executive Order Ending Future Leases for Fossil Fuels on Federal Land

By Lydia Millet, The New York Times, November 11, 2015

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline last week had the ring of a great victory for the environment. But even as he declared the United States a “global leader” in the transition to cleaner energy, he revealed a challenge that neither he nor his administration has confronted: “If we’re going to prevent large parts of this earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes,” the president said, “we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground, rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky.”

The logic is clear. If we don’t extract them, we can’t burn them. Even better, this is a change the president can actually make, without the approval of Congress. With the climate summit meeting in Paris near, and the Keystone decision fresh, the United States can truly take the lead on these fuels by stemming their production, not just their consumption.

Most climate debates have focused on cutting the use of fossil fuels. But besides a few high-profile scuffles over fuel extraction in vulnerable wild places like the offshore Arctic, political leaders have ignored fossil fuel production as a necessary piece of climate strategy.

In fact, under President Obama, oil and gas production in the United States has increased substantially. And that increase has been a major bragging point for the administration. “America is No. 1 in oil and gas,” the president boasted in his 2015 State of the Union address.

Globally, we will have to use far less of our already proven reserves of oil, gas and coal in the next 35 years if we are to even have a shot at avoiding the most disastrous warming effects. Some say we need to keep a third of the earth’s oil reserves, half its gas and 80 percent of its coal unused. We need to lock up those fuels that would push us past the tipping point. And the most logical place for the United States to start is on our public lands.

About half of all potential future global warming emissions from United States fossil fuels lie in oil, gas and coal buried beneath our public lands, controlled by the federal government and owned by the American people — and not yet leased to private industry for fuel extraction.

This amount — about 450 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent — represents one-quarter of the total amount of carbon emissions that can be released in the coming decades if the world is to even have a chance of keeping global warming down to 2 degrees Celsius — a temperature increase that will itself result in extreme, dire consequences for people and natural systems worldwide.

Most of our fuel-bearing federal lands are either beneath the ocean along our coasts or in the interior West, and are largely controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies. This means the White House has the power to end public-lands extraction of fossil fuels. It wouldn’t take an act of Congress — though a bill to do just that, albeit one that won’t get through a Republican-controlled Senate, was recently introduced by Senators Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont. Mr. Obama has the authority, under federal laws like the Mineral Leasing Act and Federal Land Policy and Management Act, to delay and ultimately stop new leasing of fossil fuels on public lands.

Secretary Jewell’s circular argument won’t get us anywhere we need to go. No one in the “Keep It in the Ground” movement was suggesting the immediate cessation of fossil fuel extraction — merely an end to new leases on federal public lands. Existing leases, stretching decades into the future in some cases, already cover some 67 million acres of public land and ocean — 55 times bigger than Grand Canyon National Park — whose fuels contain the potential for up to the equivalent of 43 billion tons of carbon dioxide pollution.

Meanwhile, our grandest public lands are being torn apart by fossil fuel extraction. Oil drilling and coal mining are killing endangered wildlife, polluting rivers, creating smog over wilderness areas and blocking wildlife corridors in America’s most treasured landscapes. Wyoming, home to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons, is also the country’s largest coal producer and one of its largest gas drillers. Two-thirds of the state’s gas-drilling rigs are on public lands in the increasingly industrialized Greater Green River Basin. Its once-magnificent Powder River Basin has been called a “national sacrifice area” by hunting and outdoor advocates because of the scarring impacts of coal, oil and natural gas extraction.

The story is the same on Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, in the canyon lands of Utah, the deserts of New Mexico and the coastal plains in Alaska: Public lands belonging to us all are being trashed for industry profits, while out of the other side of its mouth the government calls for reducing fossil fuel burning.

Mr. Obama now has more of a chance than he’s ever had to live up to his long-ago campaign pledge to tackle the crisis of climate change head-on. His administration’s signature achievement in that arena, the Clean Power Plan, will cut up to 870 million tons of pollution annually, when it takes full effect in 2030; a halt to new public fuel leases would take up to 450 billion tons of that pollution off the table immediately. The president can, and should, take this crucial step to both preserve our heritage lands and get us on the path to a safer climate future.

Lydia Millet is the author, most recently, of the novel “Mermaids in Paradise,” and a contributing opinion writer.

1437. In Some States, Emissions Cuts Defy Skeptics

By Justin Gillis and Michael Wines, The New York Times, June 6, 2014

A power plant in Massachusetts, one of at least 10 states that have already met President Obama’s goal of cutting emissions from the electricity industry by at least 30 percent by 2030. Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters

The cries of protest have been fierce, warning that President Obama’s plan to cut greenhouse gases from power plants will bring soaring electricity bills and even plunge the nation into blackouts. By the time the administration is finished, one prominent critic said, “millions of Americans will be freezing in the dark.”

Yet cuts on the scale Mr. Obama is calling for — a 30 percent reduction in emissions from the nation’s electricity industry by 2030 — have already been accomplished in parts of the country.

At least 10 states cut their emissions by that amount or more between 2005 and 2012, and several other states were well on their way, almost two decades before Mr. Obama’s clock for the nation runs out.

That does not mean these states are off the hook under the Obama plan unveiled this week — they will probably be expected to cut more to help achieve the overall national goal — but their strides so far have not brought economic ruin. In New England, a region that has made some of the biggest cuts in emissions, residential electricity bills fell 7 percent from 2005 to 2012, adjusted for inflation. And economic growth in the region ran slightly ahead of the national average.

“This is not going to be the Armageddon that some people think,” said Teresa Marks, director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.

In fact, with years left to reach Mr. Obama’s goal, and many states already heading in that direction, some of the loudest attacks on the plan are coming from those who contend it is not ambitious enough.

“I think it’s properly ambitious — for the first term of the Bill Clinton administration,” said Bill McKibben, the president and co-founder of 350.org, a group pushing for climate action. “Given the melting Antarctic, we obviously should be doing far, far more, but at least we’re finally started, and that’s to Obama’s credit.”

The Obama administration’s plan is not expected to become final until next year. Once it does, intense political and legal opposition is likely to follow, especially from the coal industry and from states run by Republican governors and legislators.

But even in states that have made big cuts, the Obama plan is provoking some wariness, with officials there pointing out that the plan would saddle them with stringent targets requiring them to go further.

Yet many of the states that are most dependent on coal — and have made the least effort to cut greenhouse gases — were given only moderate targets.

“Just because we’ve led in this effort doesn’t mean we should have to do as much or even more than states that haven’t even started,” said Larry Wolk, executive director of the Department of Public Health and Environment in Colorado.

The administration argues that some of the most coal-dependent states have fewer options, especially a shortage of power plants that use natural gas and can help displace coal.

As for the states that have already made headway, “we were asking states to continue doing what they were already doing,” said Joseph Goffman, senior counsel in the Office of Air and Radiation at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Willingness aside, some states are simply unsure how they will meet Mr. Obama’s targets.

South Carolina, for instance, was assigned a steep carbon-reduction goal. But officials of Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility that is South Carolina’s largest power supplier, say the options to meet it are limited. Natural gas supplies are constrained by a dearth of pipelines, and the wind turbines that are rapidly sprouting elsewhere are not practical because of the state’s placid weather, said Mollie Gore, the utility’s spokeswoman.

“This will hurt South Carolina because it will drive up power costs and send industries packing — it’ll cost jobs,” she said.

Opponents attacked Mr. Obama’s plan in vociferous terms this week, with the claim about Americans “freezing in the dark” coming from Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, a Chicago organization that is skeptical of climate change.

But more optimistic assessments of the plan came from utility executives and many state officers who would have to carry it out. Some independent energy experts said that electricity prices may rise by a few percentage points in some states, but even that is not a foregone conclusion.

“I predict this will be far easier and far faster and far cheaper than most people realize,” said Hal Harvey, chief executive of Energy Innovation, a research group.

Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York cut their power-sector emissions more than 40 percent from 2005 to 2012, according to the Georgetown Climate Center, with Maryland close behind at 39 percent. The states are part of a nine-state project called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and, like much of the country, have benefited from the recent abundance of cheap natural gas.

That has allowed them to dial down coal-burning power plants and dial up gas-fired plants, which emit roughly half as much carbon dioxide as coal plants, per unit of electricity produced.

Through a program called cap and trade, the Northeastern states also impose a small price on emissions of carbon dioxide from power generation, and plow the proceeds back into energy-efficiency programs, such as retrofitting homes and businesses, lowering electricity bills. And the states have encouraged the growth of emissions-free renewable power and more judicious use of energy.

David W. Cash, the Massachusetts commissioner of environmental protection, said he saw a direct link between the state’s above-average economic performance in recent years and lower energy bills for businesses and consumers.

“Every dollar they’re not spending on coal that comes from Colombia or natural gas that comes from Pennsylvania is a dollar that stays here in Massachusetts,” Mr. Cash said.

Beyond the complaints about fairness, experts said the Obama plan posed both economic and environmental risks.

It is likely to lock in a growing dependence on natural gas to generate electricity. In the past, gas prices have been more volatile than coal prices, and in theory, a supply shortage in the future could send prices of gas and of electricity soaring.

But some people in the natural gas industry are skeptical about major price increases for gas in the future, because of the recent spread of hydraulic fracturing technology, or fracking, which has made vast new supplies of gas accessible across the country.

“We have supply waiting in the wings for any kind of incremental demand,” said Chris Faulkner, chief executive of Breitling Energy Corporation, a Texas oil and gas company.

Because it depends on a continued abundance of gas, the Obama plan effectively puts the administration on the side of increased fracking, which has provoked intense debate in many communities affected by the stepped-up drilling. But the larger environmental risk with the Obama plan, some argue, is that it simply will not do much to slow global warming.

Climate scientists say that emissions in the developed countries need to fall 80 percent or more by 2050 if global warming is to be held to tolerable levels. Mr. Obama’s draft plan does not put the United States on a trajectory that would make such a huge cut likely to be achieved.

“I’m glad the president is sending a signal that climate action is important,” said Craig S. Altemose, executive director of the Better Future Project, a climate advocacy group in Cambridge, Mass. “But if you measure his plan against what the science says we need to do, then we are failing.”