Environmental News For The Week Ending 26July 2019

Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666

This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI (but can be posted at other times).

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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:

• 26 Jul 2020 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 25July 2020

• 26 Jul 2020 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 25July 2020

Summary: A record number of new cases were reported last Thursday, but new cases on 5 days of the past week were lower than the same day of the week before – so the week-over-week change was statistically insignificant. However, the number of new cases are still at a pace that would add another million cases in two week’s time. The US virus deaths have been rising and were north of 1,100 four days last week for the first time since May. And to add to the bad news, there has also been an acceleration in new cases globally.

Here is the rest of this week’s environmental and energy news:

Lyme disease cases rise in parts of Michigan – Lyme disease hasn’t been in West Michigan for long, but it is on the rise. “It actually started in 2002, that was the first case,” says Marisa Faraldo, an expert on environmental health and safety for the Kent County Health Department. “We’ve seen a decent number of cases here in the last ten years.” In Northern Michigan, the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department has already reported 12 cases since June 1. By comparison, the department only reported 16 total over the last five years combined. Faraldo says this can likely be attributed to a larger number of deer ticks that spread the disease. “It was a mild winter as far as Michigan goes,” explains Faraldo. “So it didn’t really freeze that hard. We think that a lot of ticks survived the winter that don’t typically.” Faraldo says in Kent County, there were 17 confirmed cases in 2019 and expects the number to be similar this year. Lyme disease usually causes symptoms such as a rash, fever, headache and fatigue. “And it gets more severe if left untreated,” warns Faraldo. “It would be more like facial palsy, half of your face going numb, stiffness, arthritis, that kind of stuff.”

Pa. sees 1st West Nile case of the year in Potter County–Pennsylvania recorded its first probable human case of West Nile Virus this year, according to state health officials. A resident of Potter County was tested for the virus, with samples sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for confirmation. The state recorded seven cases of West Nile in 2019, according to the CDC. None were fatal. “While we encourage Pennsylvanians to enjoy the outdoors, especially during the covid-19 pandemic, we also want them to take proper precautions from mosquitoes while outside,” Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine said. “With the first human case of West Nile Virus detected, we want people to protect themselves. Several simple steps can help protect yourself and loved ones from mosquito-related diseases.” Although mosquitoes can bite at any time of the day or night, the mosquitoes that transmit West Nile are most active at dawn and dusk. DEP officials monitor mosquito populations across the state for the presence of West Nile. Only one in 150 people infected with West Nile will develop severe illness, health officials said. Associated symptoms include disorientation, convulsions, headache, high fever, muscle weakness, blindness, numbness, coma, paralysis and tremors. Roughly 80% of infected people will not show any symptoms, according to health officials. West Nile was traditionally only seen in Africa, West Asia and the Middle East throughout most of the 20th century. In the summer of 1999, it was detected in New York City and, over the next four years, spread throughout North America. Since 2004, West Nile epidemics flare up in summer and fall as infected mosquitoes spread the virus from birds to horses, humans and other animals.

An Ickier Outbreak: Trench Fever Spread by Lice Is Found in Denver – Dr. Michelle Barron, medical director of infection prevention and control at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, received an unusual call last month from the microbiology lab: confirmation of the third case this year of trench fever, a rare condition transmitted by body lice that plagued soldiers during World War I. Barron’s epidemiological training kicked in. “Two is always an outbreak, and then when we found a third – OK, we clearly have something going on,” Barron recalled thinking. Barron, who said she’d never before seen a case in her 20 years here, contacted state public health officials, who issued an advisory Thursday and said a fourth person with a suspected case had been identified. They asked physicians to be on the lookout for additional cases. Trench fever is characterized by relapsing fever, bone pain (particularly in the shins), headache, nausea, vomiting and malaise. Some of those infected can develop skin lesions or a life-threatening infection of their heart valves.The condition is caused by the bacterium Bartonella quintana, a close relative of the bug that causes cat scratch fever. Colonies of it live in the digestive systems of body lice and are excreted in their feces. The bugs can enter the body through a scratch in the skin or through the eyes or nose. Dried lice feces can be infectious for up to 12 months. Trench fever is most commonly diagnosed among people experiencing homelessness or living in conditions where good hygiene is difficult. Those with compromised immune systems are particularly at risk. Public health officials are trying to find a common thread among the four cases identified so far in Colorado. They occurred months apart, and the patients appear to have no connection other than having been homeless in the Denver area. Other cases of the disease may have been overlooked. Patients often have other health problems that could explain their symptoms, and doctors will try to rule out the more common causes before considering a rare one.

Swarm of flying ants so large that it can be seen from space arrives in Ireland – Satellite images from the United Kingdom’s Met Office have revealed that Ireland can expect plenty of flying ants over the coming days. The swarm, which was moving from west to east on Friday, was originally mistaken for rain on the Met Office’s radar. But now the meteorological service has confirmed that it’s actually winged ants. Because it’s not like we had enough to be dealing with already. In a tweet, the Met Office wrote: “During the summer ants can take to the skies in a mass emergence usually on warm, humid and windless days.” We’re also pretty sure that Satan has something to do with it. There is a misconception that flying ants show up just one day a year, but we should be so lucky. Flying ants tend to show up in the kind of weather conditions that we’re currently experiencing, so we could be looking at several flying ant days over the coming weeks. Enjoy.

FDA recalls more hand sanitizers due to toxic chemical – The Food and Drug Administration has expanded the list of hand sanitizers – some sold at Walmart, Costco and other national chains – being recalled to at least 75 recently, saying toxic levels of wood alcohol in them can cause injury or death.The FDA said that there has been an increase in hand sanitizers that are labeled to contain ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, but have tested positive for methanol, or wood alcohol. If methanol is absorbed through the skin, it can cause blindness and hospitalizations, or death if ingested.Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, health officials have continuously urged Americans to wash their hands for 20 seconds at a time or to use hand sanitizer to protect against exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the respiratory disease. The demand for hand sanitizer has surged and questionable new brands have made their way to store shelves across the United States, most imported from Mexico. Ten deaths and dozens of hospitalizations in Arizona and New Mexico are believed to be linked to methanol in hand sanitizers. The cases are also associated with alcohol use disorder.

Bacteria that eats metal accidentally discovered by scientists in the US – Scientists have discovered a type of bacteria that eats and gets its calories from metal, after suspecting they exist for more than a hundred years but never proving it. Microbiologists from the California Institute of Technology (or Caltech) accidentally discovered the bacteria after performing unrelated experiments using a chalk-like type of manganese, a commonly found chemical element. Dr Jared Leadbetter, professor of environmental microbiology at Caltech in Pasadena, left a glass jar covered with manganese to soak in tap water in his office sink. The vessel was left for several months when he went to work off-campus. When he returned, Leadbetter found the jar coated with a dark material. “I thought, ‘What is that?’ “I started to wonder if long-sought-after microbes might be responsible, so we systematically performed tests to figure that out.” Researchers discovered that the black coating found on the jar was oxidized manganese, generated by newly discovered bacteria most likely found in the tap water. “There is evidence that relatives of these creatures reside in groundwater, and a portion of Pasadena’s drinking water is pumped from local aquifers,” he said. In new research published in Nature journal on Tuesday, scientists note that these are the first bacteria to use manganese as an energy source.

AIR POLLUTION: Study of emissions and virus deaths implicates EPA policy — [http://www.eenews.net%20-%20a/]- A new study offers fresh evidence of a connection between dirty air and COVID-19 deaths, while suggesting that a 4-month-old EPA civil enforcement freeze has made the situation worse. The working paper by American University researchers found concentrations of soot and ozone rose in counties with more industrial facilities that report emissions to an EPA pollution database since the agency relaxed enforcement in late March.Overall, those counties had a 19% increase in daily death rates from COVID-19 from late March through most of May, compared to counties with fewer such facilities, the paper says. That increase was accompanied by an almost 39% jump in total cases of the disease caused by the coronavirus, with stronger results in areas with larger numbers of Black and unemployed residents, according to the research.”Not only was there an increase in pollution, but this increase in pollution contributed to a worsening of the pandemic,” Claudia Persico, the study’s lead author and an assistant public policy professor at American University, said during a Wednesday webinar.What the findings suggest, Persico added, “is that polluters respond to the absence of regulatory enforcement by potentially increasing their pollution on average.” For the counties in question, ozone concentrations climbed 5%, while levels of soot, also known as fine particles or PM2.5, rose 13%. Both pollutants are associated with an array of respiratory ailments. The paper is now undergoing the independent assessment known as peer review prior to publication in a journal, Persico said in a follow-up email.More controversial was Wheeler opting to keep the status quo for fine particle standards, overruling the conclusions of agency career staff that the existing thresholds need strengthening to prevent thousands of premature deaths each year.In response to a question, he again criticized a Harvard University study that linked a slight increase in long-term fine particle exposure to a higher death rate from COVID-19. That study, released in early April, still has not been peer-reviewed, Wheeler said, adding that it was “politicized” because the authors also took aim at the enforcement freeze. As Wheeler also noted, the researchers later revised their findings to lower the increased death rate from 15% to 8%, citing more data (E&E News PM, April 28).

Rich Americans spew more carbon pollution at home than poor -Rich Americans produce nearly 25% more heat-trapping gases than poorer people at home, according to a comprehensive study of U.S. residential carbon footprints. Scientists studied 93 million housing units in the nation to analyze how much greenhouse gases are being spewed in different locations and by income, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Residential carbon emissions comprise close to one-fifth of global warming gases emitted by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.Using federal definitions of income level, the study found that energy use by the average higher income person’s home puts out 6,482 pounds of greenhouse gases a year. For a person in the lower income level, the amount is 5,225 pounds, the study calculated.“The numbers don’t lie. They show that (with) people who are wealthier generally, there’s a tendency for their houses to be bigger and their greenhouse gas emissions tend to be higher,” said study lead author Benjamin Goldstein, an environmental scientist at the University of Michigan. “There seems to be a small group of people that are inflicting most of the damage to be honest.” In Beverly Hills, the average person puts four times as much heat-trapping gases into the air as someone living in South Central Los Angeles, where incomes are only a small fraction as much. Similarly, in Massachusetts, the average person in wealthy Sudbury spews 9,700 pounds of greenhouse gases into the air each year, while the average person in the much poorer Dorchester neighborhood in Boston puts out 2,227 pounds a year.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: ‘America is still segregated, and so is pollution’ — Monday, July 20, 2020 — Major landowners, the Meahers leased tracts to their former slaves, but the family over generations found it more profitable to lease to businesses. In 1928, a major paper mill was built on what was once Meaher land on the edge of Africatown. Joe Womack, executive director of the advocacy group Africatown-CHESS, said paper production filled air, waterways and people’s lungs with “ash.” A retired Marine Corps officer who traces his lineage in Africatown back to 1880 but is unsure whether his forebears came over on the Clotilda, Womack said his father worked for the mills. “Nobody ever told him that the stuff that they were using was harmful to your health,” he said. “Nobody mentioned that to anybody.” As a child, Womack said, the thrice-daily ash dumps were a “nuisance.” He remembers running home to help his mother pull laundry off clotheslines before it got dirty. But the pollution took its toll on Africatown, Womack said. Residents born after 1945, when the mills expanded, have tended to die younger, he said. Cancer cases were common, and pollution and industrialization led to the community’s decline, he said. The paper companies pulled up stakes in Africatown in the 1990s, around the time federal environmental laws began to take effect. In 2017, a group of 1,200 residents sued the now-shuttered paper mill’s owner, International Paper Co., claiming its operations had damaged their health. A spokesman for International Paper said, “Neither plaintiffs nor their lawyers have produced any evidence to support their claims.” Africatown is unique for its founding story, and the fact that African languages were spoken there until the mid-20th century. But the town’s struggle with pollution is not unusual. “I imagine that’s probably the same thing in a lot of areas where Blacks live,” Womack said. “Others don’t want these businesses located in their areas near their homes, bringing down the values and polluting the air. So they move to the place of least resistance. And a lot of times, that’s in the Black neighborhoods.”

BREAKING: Dominion Energy Leaks Poison Into Pennsylvania Water Supplies – Dominion Energy Transmission is providing water to at least five households after leaking ethylene glycol from an underground pipeline into drinking water wells in Genesee Township, Potter County, Pennsylvania. The leak was first noticed by residents and reported to Dominion Energy in June 2020. Ethylene glycol is used as a coolant at one of Dominion Energy’s compressor stations in Genesee Township, and is poisonous if swallowed.* It’s commonly found in products such as antifreeze. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), “Ethylene glycol has a sweet taste and is often accidentally or intentionally ingested.” After rapidly being absorbed in the stomach, the CDC states “80% or more of ethylene glycol is chemically converted by the body into toxic compounds. It and its toxic byproducts first affect the central nervous system (CNS), then the heart, and finally the kidneys. Ingestion of sufficient amounts [approximately 4 fluid ounces] can be fatal.” On June 9th, the fish in a local pond off French/Rooney Road turned up dead prompting locals to immediately report the incident to the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission (PAFBC). Captain Alan Robinson of the PAFBC Bureau of Law Enforcement told Public Herald that the Commission “has initiated an active investigation of criminal activity” involving a “substantial fish kill.” Residents stated 251 fish were killed and that a spring on the same property is also contaminated. Currently, the tainted springwater is being diverted into a “frack tank” by Dominion for offsite disposal.

Monsoon floods in India, Nepal displace 4 million – About 4 million people have been displaced in South Asia due to flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains. At least 189 people have died and dozens are missing in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, officials said. In the northeastern Indian state of Assam, over 2.75 million people have been displaced by three waves of floods since May, according to a state government official. “The flood situation remains critical with most of the rivers flowing menacingly above the danger mark,” Assam water resources Minister Keshab Mahanta told Reuters. Some 79 people have died in the state. Authorities said the floods have also killed more than 100 animals in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, home to an estimated 2,500 rare one-horned rhinos. Heavy rainfall has flooded roads and left low-lying areas under waterIn Bangladesh, at least 2.6 million people have been affected by overflowing rivers, with at least 67 people killed over the last two weeks. Authorities said up to 40% of the low-lying country could be inundated.Nepal has reported nearly 110 deaths since June from landslides and flash floods, which are affecting 26 of the country’s 77 districts. A government official said the death toll is expected to rise as 48 people are still missing in the Himalayan nation.Authorities in both Bangladesh and Nepal have cautioned that rising waters could lead to further flooding.The annual monsoon season between June and September often triggers flooding and landslides,causing hundreds of deaths in the region each year.

Flooding in Assam and Nepal kills hundreds and displaces millions – Severe flooding in India’s tea-growing state of Assam and neighbouring Nepal has killed at least 200 people and displaced millions, severely hampering efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus. In Assam, heavy monsoon rains burst the banks of the Brahmaputra River, causing more than 2,000 villages to be enveloped in floods and mudslides and displacing 2.75 million people in the past two weeks. There have been 85 deaths reported in the state. Keshab Mahanta, Assam’s water resources minister, said: “The flood situation remains critical with most of the rivers flowing menacingly above the danger mark.” Officials voiced concern that the flooding and hurried evacuation of millions of Assam residents would cause a significant rise in cases of coronavirus in the north-eastern state, known for its tea plantations. At the moment, 50,000 people are sheltered in cramped relief camps but because of the scale and urgency of the evacuations, officials admitted that no physical distancing measures were being enforced. Sanghamitra Sanyal, a member of Assam’s flood management force, told Reuters: “It’s hard to enforce social distancing when people are being ordered to move away from the rising waters. “We’re urging people to at least cover their mouth and nose with a piece of clean cloth.” The number of Covid-19 cases is still increasing rapidly in Assam, with more than 1,000 new infections reported daily, pushing the state’s total to almost 25,000 cases. Last week the total cases in India surpassed a million, making it the third worst affected country in the world. Officials from the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) urged authorities to deal with complaints that mismanaged and contaminated coronavirus waste, including used masks and other personal protective equipment, was washing up in the floodwaters in areas of Guwahati, the largest city in Assam. Authorities confirmed that hundreds of animals had drowned in the flooding, including nine endangered rhinos living in Kaziranga national park, a Unesco world heritage site. Kaziranga national park and tiger reserve, which is home to 2,400 of the one-horned rhinos – the largest concentration of them in the world – has been severely affected by the flooding, with 85% of the 407 sq mile (1,055 sq km) park underwater. Officials said that 59 of the 223 anti-poaching camps had been inundated and as well as the rhinos, among the dead animals were deer, porcupines and Asiatic water buffalo.

China blasts dam to release floodwaters as death toll rises – Authorities in central China blasted a dam Sunday to release surging waters behind it amid widespread flooding across the country that has claimed scores of lives. State broadcaster CCTV reported the dam on the Chuhe River in Anhui province was destroyed with explosives early Sunday morning, after which the water level was expected to drop by 70 centimeters (more than 2 feet). Water levels on many rivers, including the mighty Yangtze, have been unusually high this year because of torrential rains. Blasting dams and embankments to discharge water was an extreme response employed during China’s worst floods in recent years in 1998, when more than 2,000 people died and almost 3 million homes were destroyed. Last week, the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze opened three floodgates as the water level behind the massive dam rose more than 15 meters (50 feet) above flood level. Another flood crest is expected to arrive at the dam on Tuesday. Elsewhere, soldiers and workers have been testing the strength of embankments and shoring them up with sandbags and rocks. On Saturday, firefighters and others finished filling in a 188-meter (620-foot) break on Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, that had caused widespread flooding across 15 villages and agricultural fields in Jiangxi province. More than 14,000 people were evacuated. Seasonal flooding strikes large parts of China annually, especially in its central and southern regions, but has been especially severe this summer. More than 150 people have died or are missing in flooding and landslides brought on by the torrential rains – 23 of them since Thursday alone. About 1.8 million people have been evacuated and direct losses attributed to flooding are estimated at more than 49 billion yuan ($7 billion), according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

Red alerts in China as floods maroon equipment to fight coronavirus – (Reuters) – Large parts of China were reeling on Friday from the worst floods in decades, as disruption mounted for supply chains, including for personal protective equipment (PPE), vital in the fight against the novel coronavirus. The central city of Wuhan and the provinces of Anhui, Jiangxi and Zhejiang declared red alerts as heavy rain swelled rivers and lakes. Wuhan, on the banks of the Yangtze river where the novel coronavirus emerged late last year, warned residents to take precautions as water levels fast approached their maximum guaranteed safety level. The summer rainy season brings floods to China almost every year but the impact of the disruption they cause is being felt further afield as Chinese goods become more important in global supply chains for various items, including PPE. “It’s just creating another major roadblock here in terms of PPE getting into the United States – it is the worst of times for it to happen but that’s what we’re dealing with right now,” said Michael Einhorn, president of Dealmed, a U.S. medical supply distributor, which sources disposable lab coats and other products from Wuhan and nearby regions. “We cannot get product out for over a week, which is a very long time in our business,” he said, adding that the delays could last up to three weeks. Xiantao, just west of Wuhan, is China’s biggest manufacturer of nonwoven fabrics used in PPE production. A third of China’s total exports of nonwoven fabric products are from the city. With the relentless rain, more misery seems inevitable. The giant Three Gorges reservoir, which has been holding back more water to try to ease downstream flood risks, is more than 10 metres higher than its warning level, with inflows now at more than 50,000 cubic metres a second. The Poyang lake in Jiangxi province, which is formed from the overspill of the Yangtze, is 2.5 metres higher than its warning level. It has expanded by more than 2,000 square kilometres during thus flood season, and parts of the surrounding town have been inundated.Further east, the Tai lake near Shanghai has also declared a red alert after its water level rose to nearly a metre higher than its safe level.

Three Gorges Dam deformed but safe, say operators – In a rare revelation, Beijing has admitted that its 2.4-kilometer Three Gorges Dam spanning the Yangtze River in Hubei province “deformed slightly” after record flooding. The official Xinhua News Agency quoted the operator of the the world’s largest hydroelectric gravity dam as saying that some nonstructural, peripheral parts of the dam had buckled. The dam was a pet project of the late Premier Li Peng and a monumental pride of the nation when it blocked and diverted Asia’s largest river in 1997. The deformation occurred last Saturday when the flood from western provinces including Sichuan and Chongqing along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River peaked at a record-setting 61,000 cubic meters per second, according to China Three Gorges Corporation, a state-owned enterprise that manages the dam and the sprawling power plant underneath it. The company noted that parts of the dam had “deformed slightly,” displacing some external structures, and seepage into the main outlet walls had also been reported throughout the 18 hours on Saturday and Sunday when water was discharged though its outlets.But the problem of water seeping out did not last long, as the dam reportedly deployed floodgates to hold as much water as possible in its 39.3 billion-cubic-meter reservoir to shield the cities downstream from the biggest Yangtze deluge so far this year. It is believed that the dam’s operator must protect the central megacity of Wuhan, whose 10 million residents are still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic that erupted there in December.

Largest Floods in Chinese History Wiped Out the Country’s Food & Grain Supply (video news report)

China’s Mighty Yangtze Is Heaving From Rain and the Three Gorges Dam Will Be Tested – Heavy rain has battered central and southern China over the past few weeks, causing widespread flooding – the worst in decades.China has a long history of deadly floods, including one in 1931 that killed two million people and another in 1998, when, according to government estimates, one-fifth of the country’s population was affected, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 people and causing economic damage of more than $20 billion. Since the beginning of June this year, the floods have impacted more than 45 million people in 27 of China’s provinces, exacting an economic cost of more than 116 billion yuan ($16.5 billion). According to the Ministry of Emergency Management, 142 people were dead or missing and 35,000 houses had collapsed as of July 23.In recent years, China has increased government spending on building up flood defense, creating a network of dams all over the country, especially on the Yangtze River, the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world. China has been pouring money into water conservation projects on major rivers and lakes, but for decades it has neglected smaller bodies of water. Roughly 96% of the 94,000 dams dotting China’s rivers are smaller dikes constructed in the 1950s and 1960s. Poor management of these small dams and streams weakens their ability to divert flood waters from the upper and middle reaches of their respective rivers, creating hidden dangers. China began building the controversial Three Gorges Dam in 1994, causing more than one million people to relocate and damaging the surrounding environment. The constant rain has also raised concerns about integrity of the dam, prompting officials in recent weeks to directly rebut assertions that the dam was in danger of collapsing. Heavy rains on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River are raising the water level there and sparking new flooding that is expected to hit the Three Gorges Dam soon. The giant reservoir is currently releasing water to set aside more space for the coming floodwaters, Yangtze River authorities said Friday.The giant dam is capable of handling inflows of as much as 22.1 million gallons (83.7 million liters) per second to protect the lower reaches. The last flood hit the dam with a peak inflow of 16 million gallons a second last week, raising concerns about the dam’s strength and safety.

Could Leaving ‘Room for the River’ Help Protect Communities from Floods? – Living near the Mississippi River means keeping an eye trained on the water level. Across the Midwest, river flooding is controlled primarily by dams and levees. But rainstorms in the region are growing more intense as the climate changes, while aging infrastructure is cracking and crumbling. That could require communities along the river banks to try new approaches to flood control – or even to relinquish it. Many dams and levees across the U.S. are outdated and at risk of failing. According to a 2017 infrastructure report card published by the American Society of Civil engineers, seven out of 10 dams will be older than 50 years by 2025. An estimated 30% of dams were found to have a hazard potential that was either “significant,” meaning there was a risk of damage, or “high” – a risk of loss of life. Many levees are privately owned, which makes their status more difficult to study. But according to the report card, of the 1,200 levees assessed by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, 20% were found to be moderate to high risk. Investment in updating aging and broken river flood control is limited. In its Infrastructure Report Card, the American Society of Civil Engineers reported that $45 billion is needed to rehabilitate the country’s dams but that only $5.4 billion in funding was available in 2017. Along Midwestern riverways, some infrastructure damaged by flooding in 2019 remains in disrepair. “High river levels persisted in some areas almost the entire year in 2019, preventing access to even evaluate what damage had been sustained, which is the first step in the repair process,” said John Osterhage, chief of emergency management for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ St. Louis District. But even if failing river infrastructure is repaired, climate change could soon undo that progress. Designing dams and levees for effective flood control is not an easy task, as precipitation and the consequent river flow can be unpredictable. In the U.S., the average lifetime expectancy of a dam is 50 years. But five decades from now, the climate may be quite different from how it has been, kicking unpredictability up a notch.Scientists expect that climate change will continue to increase the number and severity of heavy rainstorms in some U.S. regions, but they’re still uncertain about the specific details like how much and how often. According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, the amount of rain falling in the heaviest storms in the Midwest is expected to increase by 40% by 2070-2099 relative to recent decades. According to Don Duncan, chief of the hydraulics and hydrology branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ St. Louis District, for the past several years the Mississippi River has experienced higher stream flows during every season. “This primes the river to more easily rise to levels not commonly seen in the past, even with normal rainfall,” Duncan said. “Heavy storms will result in even more extreme flooding.”

Fires in Pantanal, South America, world’s largest tropical wetlands, ‘triple’ in 2020 – The number of forest fires in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands, has tripled in 2020 compared to last year, according to Brazil’s national space agency Inpe. Inpe identified 3,682 fires from 1 January to 23 July in the region, an increase of 201% compared to 2019. Thousands of species including jaguars, anteaters and migratory birds live in the 140,000-160,000 sq km area. Last month was the worst June for fires in the neighbouring Amazon in 13 years.The wetlands are located across Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia and are one of the most biodiverse areas in the world. Members of environmental network the Pantanal Observatory called the fires “a social danger since, in addition to the economic damage and the loss of biodiversity, fires cause respiratory problems, eye irritation and allergies,” according to Brazilian newspaper O Globo. The organisation said that in two days, around 7,000 hectares were burnt as the result of both “criminal activity” and “climactic factors”.

What’s Really Behind Dwindling Numbers of Woodland Caribou? – A logged forest is a changed forest, and for woodland caribou that could mean the difference between life and death.A recent study in the Journal of Wildlife Management tracked the survival rates and population growth of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) across two areas of northern Ontario, Canada. In one area about a third of the forest had been logged 30 to 50 years ago. In the other, the only disturbances were from natural events.The research found “substantial differences” in the survival of adult caribou between the two areas.The animals, it turned out, fared considerably worse in the previously logged landscape – so badly that the researchers, led by John Fryxell, a professor at the University of Guelph and executive director of theBiodiversity Institute of Ontario, concluded it would lead to a dwindling population. The unlogged habitat, however, they found “should be considerably more capable of sustaining caribou.”The high mortality rates for the caribou in the logged forest are mostly due to wolf predation, but human changes to the landscape help make that possible. Development has been a driving force behind declining caribou numbers throughout their range. As a result of these human disturbances, the caribou population in North America is in a precarious position. Woodland caribou once ranged across half of Canada and the northern reaches of the contiguous United States. But they’re now gone from their southern range. In Canada’s boreal forests, the animals are listed as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act, Canada’s version of the Endangered Species Act.

Louisiana officials complain National Parks bill ‘siphons money’ from Louisiana coast -Billions of dollars will flow to America’s national parks and forests under a bi-partisan plan congress has approved. However, passage of the Great American Outdoors Act came over the objections of members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation, who caution it will make coastal restoration dollars more difficult to obtain. The bill passed by the House and Senate will solid majorities now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk, where he is certain to sign it. See more of John Snell’s stories on coastal restoration here. For all their splendor, America’s national parks and forests could use some sprucing up, according to advocates. The bill sets $900 million in mandatory funding for some of America’s most pristine lands, a major victory for conservationists and Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner, the bill’s sponsor. “By fixing and repairing our public lands and national parks, we have the chance to improve the roads, hiking trails, campsites and visitor centers for generations to enjoy,” Gardner said in a statement after the House vote Wednesday.

Ocean Plastic Could Triple by 2040, Report Finds – One of the most detailed studies of the plastic pollution crisis was released Thursday, and the picture it paints is not pretty. There are currently about 11 million metric tons of plastic entering the world’s oceans every year, the report calculated. That’s higher than the often-cited eight million figure, The Guardian pointed out. But that number will nearly triple to 29 million metric tons a year by 2040 if nothing is done to stem the flow of plastic. What’s more, existing commitments from governments and businesses will only reduce that flow by seven percent by 2040.”The biggest takeaway from our work is that if we don’t do anything, the plastic pollution problem is going to become unmanageable. Doing nothing is not an option,” Dr. Winnie Lau, study coauthor and senior manager for Pew’s Preventing Ocean Plastics campaign, told CNN. The study is the result of a two-year research project led by the Pew Charitable Trusts and environmental think thank SYSTEMIQ, Ltd, as National Geographic reported. Its findings were released Thursday in both a peer-reviewed Science article and a report called “Breaking the Plastic Wave.” The findings are not all doom and gloom. The researchers created a first-of-its-kind model of the global plastic system in order to determine the most effective means of solving the crisis. They found that a combination of already existing strategies and technologies could cut the amount of plastic entering the ocean by almost 80 percent by 2040. One reason that current policies have done so little to reduce the overall amount of plastics entering the environment is that they tend to focus on single items, like straws or bags. Instead, the researchers recommended a set of solutions that target the entire plastics life cycle, from production to recycling. “All the initiatives to date make very little difference,” Pew Charitable Trusts international environment director Simon Reddy told The Guardian. “There is no silver bullet, there is no solution that can simply be applied – lots of policies are wanted. You need innovation and systems change.”

Sharks Are Vanishing From Many of the World’s Reefs — A landmark study by Global FinPrint reveals sharks are absent on many of the world’s coral reefs, indicating they are functionally extinct – too rare to fulfill their normal role in the ecosystem.Of the 371 reefs surveyed in 58 countries, sharks were not observed on nearly 20 percent, indicating a widespread decline that has gone undocumented on this scale until now. The Global FinPrint team, led by researchers at Florida International University (FIU), also identified conservation measures that could lead to recovery of these iconic predators.Essentially no sharks were detected on any of the reefs in the Dominican Republic, the French West Indies, Kenya, Vietnam, the Windward Dutch Antilles and Qatar. Among these, a total of only three sharks were observed during more than 800 survey hours, according to the study published today in Nature. “While Global FinPrint results exposed a tragic loss of sharks from many of the world’s reefs, it also shows us signs of hope,” said Jody Allen, co-founder and chair of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. “The data collected from the first-ever worldwide survey of sharks on coral reefs can guide meaningful, long-term conservation plans for protecting the reef sharks that remain.” This benchmark for the status of reef sharks around the world reveals an alarming global loss of these iconic species that are important food resources, tourism attractions, and top predators on coral reefs. Their loss is due in large part to overfishing of sharks, with the single largest contributor being destructive fishing practices, such as the use of longlines and gillnets.

Tropical Storm Gonzalo sets a record as it churns toward the Caribbean – Tropical Depression Seven strengthened into Tropical Storm Gonzalo on Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center. This is the earliest that a storm has received a name starting with the letter “G” since the United States began using a named-storm system in 1953. On average, the seventh named storm in a season is on September 16. The previous record for the earliest seventh named storm formation in the Atlantic was Gert on July 24 during the busiest hurricane season on record, 2005. “While 2020 may beat 2005 to the 7th named storm, 2005 had already had 3 hurricanes and 2 (of those were) major hurricanes (Dennis and Emily) by July 21. 2020 has yet to have a named storm reach hurricane strength,” tweeted Philip Klotzbach, a research scientist at Colorado State University.

Hurricane Hanna threatens coronavirus-stricken South Texas with surge and winds – (Reuters) – Storm Hanna, the first hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic season, was forecast to make landfall on the Texas coast on Saturday, threatening one of the nation’s COVID-19 hot spots with storm surge and flooding. Hanna was about 75 miles (120 km) east-northeast of Port Mansfield, Texas, packing maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Saturday morning. “Additional strengthening is forecast before Hanna makes landfall later today,” the Miami-based forecaster said, adding that the hurricane will rapidly weaken after it moves inland. Video footage on Twitter of Port Aransas in Nueces County, Texas showed gray skies and lashing waves that had already engulfed a beach ahead of the storm’s landfall. The storm was projected to hit the coast between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, a region that has struggled to contain outbreaks of COVID-19 in recent weeks. Cases along the state’s coast have soared into the tens of thousands, and more than 400 people in Corpus Christi’s city of 325,000 were hospitalized with the novel coronavirus on Friday, according to city data. On Friday, residents in several Texas communities in Kleberg County, south of Corpus Christi, were urged to evacuate their homes ahead of Hanna’s arrival. Corpus Christi Mayor Joe McComb warned residents who live in flood-prone areas to heed coronavirus precautions when deciding to evacuate, the Texas Tribune reported. “Take several masks with you because you might be there a couple days if you’re in a flood area,” McComb said, according to the Tribune. “We don’t want to expose anyone during this storm. … Even when you’re in the house, I recommend wearing a mask if you’re in crowded conditions.”

7.8 Earthquake Strikes off Alaska –Alaskans were rattled by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake Tuesday night that sent people fleeing for higher ground in case of a possible tsunami, before the warning was canceled.The quake struck offshore at 10:12 p.m. local time and was located around 500 miles southwest of Anchorage and around 60 miles southeast of Perryville, Alaska, CBS News reported.”This is a very significant earthquake in size,” Alaska Earthquake Center seismologist Michael West told theAnchorage Daily News.M 7.8 earthquake strikes 105 km SSE of Perryville, Alaska. Tsunami warning canceled. https://t.co/bUwKvi65Lg Le… https://t.co/DlORAa8a2I – USGS (@USGS)1595413807.0The earthquake initially triggered a tsunami warning for South Alaska, the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands, CBS News reported.”Based on the preliminary earthquake parameters… hazardous tsunami waves are possible for coasts located within 300 kilometers of the earthquake epicenter,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said, according to CBS News.The warning prompted evacuations in towns and cities including Kodiak, Sand Point, Unalaska and Homer, the Anchorage Daily News reported.”We were in a (city) council meeting and started feeling it rocking, and by the time I got home from the council meeting then the warnings were going and had to turn back around,” Unalaska City Manager Erin Reinders told the Anchorage Daily News.Meanwhile, in Kodiak, residents sheltered in Kodiak High School and the local Catholic school while also trying to protect themselves from the coronavirus. “We’ve got a high school full of people. I’ve been passing out masks since the first siren sounded,” Kodiak School District superintendent Larry LeDoux told the Anchorage Daily News. “Everything’s as calm as can be. We’ve got probably 300, 400 people all wearing masks.”

Animals Sense Earthquakes Before They Happen. Can They Help Us Predict Disasters? When the earthquake hit central Italy on Oct. 26, 2016, Martin Wikelski and his colleagues descended on the site in less than 24 hours. Wikelski, an ecologist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, wanted to test a hunch that has been around for millennia – that animals portend earthquakes. Wikelski and his colleagues rushed to a farmland in the affected area to tag farm animals, hoping to understand how the animals were reacting to the quake’s aftershocks. They tagged a number of animals – six cows, five sheep, two dogs, a couple of chickens, turkeys and a rabbit – with sensors that measured the animal’s movement in three-dimensional space, like a Fitbit. Two days later, another major earthquake struck, giving Wikelski’s team a rare chance to monitor animals before, during and after an earthquake. After this initial episode, the researchers returned to the farm in January 2017, to tag the same animals again for an extended period until April 2017. Equipped with a timeline of data on the behavior of cows, sheep and dogs from October 2016 and January-April 2017, the researchers compared the timeline of animal activity with a timeline of earthquakes that were occurring in the same period. Their results show a consistent pattern of animal behavior that occurs before each earthquake. The animals anticipated eight out of nine earthquakes with magnitudes higher than 4.0 that occurred between January and April 2017. However, the anticipatory behavior was only seen when the animals were housed in a stable, and not when they were free to roam on pastures. “We don’t know why,” says Wikelski. The team also found that the farther the animals were from the quake’s epicenter, the longer it took for their behavior to change, hinting at some slow diffusive signal that the animals detect.

Earth’s protective magnetic field may change direction 10 times faster than scientists previously thought, a new study shows – The Earth’s magnetic field, generated 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers) below our feet in the liquid iron core, is crucially important to life on our planet. It extends out into space, wrapping us in an electromagnetic blanket that shields the atmosphere and satellites from solar radiation.Yet the magnetic field is constantly changing in both its strength and direction and has undergone some dramatic shifts in the past. This includes enigmatic reversals of the magnetic poles, with the south pole becoming the north pole and vice versa.A long-standing question has been how fast the field can change. A new study, published in Nature Communications, has uncovered some answers. Rapid changes of the magnetic field are of great interest because they represent the most extreme behaviour of the ocean of molten iron in the liquid core. By tying the observed changes to core processes, we can learn important information about an otherwise inaccessible region of our planet.Historically, the fastest changes in Earth’s magnetic field have been associated with reversals, which occur at irregular intervals a few times every million years. But scientists discovered field changes that are much faster and more recent than any of the data associated with actual reversals.To track the ancient field, scientists analyze the magnetism recorded by sediments, lava flows, and human-made artifacts. That’s because these materials contain microscopic magnetic grains that record the signature of Earth’s field at the time they cooled (for lavas) or were added to the landmass (for sediments). Sediment records from central Italy around the time of the last polarity reversal almost 800,000 years ago suggest relatively rapid field changes reaching one degree per year.

Great American Outdoors Act Passes House With Bipartisan Support – It’s a rare bill that garners sweeping bipartisan support these days. Lawmakers, however, agree that one of the country’s treasures, the U.S. national parks, is worth preserving.On Wednesday, the House passed the Great American Outdoors Act, a sweeping and historic conservationand public lands bill that President Donald Trump has pledged to sign into law, as CNN reported.As EcoWatch reported, the Senate approved the bill in June in a 73-25 vote. The bill, which is being hailed as one of the most important environmental bills to pass in decades, secures permanent funding for the Land Water Conservation Fund (LCWF). It passed the house in a 310-107 vote and now moves to Trump’s desk.The Land Water Conservation Fund, which was established in the 1960s, is a little-known bill that produces substantial public benefit. It uses revenue from the oil and gas industry to finance national parks and federal historic sites. A major portion of the fund is also allocated to local and state parks and playgrounds, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).”This is a historic victory over 50 years in the making for communities across the country that benefit from the economic, cultural and recreational value of America’s public lands and close-to-home recreation,” said the LWCF coalition, an organization that advocates for the fund, in a statement, as OPB reported.The LWCF has been chronically underfunded, but the Great American Outdoors Act will require mandatory funding of $900 million annually, without using a penny of taxpayer dollars, as CNN reported. “It’s clear that national parks have united Americans of all kinds of backgrounds, not just those who are actively involved in the political process,” wrote Sen. Steven Daines (R-MT) and Benji Backer, founder of the American Conservation Coalition, in The Hill. “In 2018, a Pew poll demonstrated that 94 percent of Americans thought it was important to preserve historic buildings and landmarks. That’s why this bill is so unique. Not only is it a landmark piece of legislation, but the broad coalitions who support it are just as impressive.”

Democrats call for expedited hearing for Trump’s public lands nominee –A group of Democratic senators from Western states are pushing for an expedited hearing for a public lands nominee that they strongly oppose, saying that this will more quickly expose his record. The letter, spearheaded by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), urged leaders of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to examine William Perry Pendley’s nomination as soon as possible. President Trump nominated Pendley to formally lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) last month, though Pendley has already been at the agency’s helm in an acting capacity for about a year. His nomination was met with a torrent of opposition from conservationists, who argue that his past advocacy for selling all federal lands and significant ties to industry should disqualify him for the role. In the Tuesday letter, nine senators wrote to committee leaders asking them to “expedite a hearing and subsequent business meeting on the nomination of William Pendley.” “After nearly a year as Acting Director, Mr. Pendley’s formal nomination is long overdue, and the public deserves the opportunity to hold him accountable for his record of undermining our public lands, clean water, and jobs that rely on both,” they wrote. “ We respectfully ask that you work with Mr. Pendley to hold a hearing as soon as you receive his paperwork so his record can be vetted before the American public.” Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) disagreed, arguing there was no need to “rush” a hearing. “Why rush a hearing when we already have two non-controversial nominees from ENR – Lanny Erdos and Mark Menezes – being held up on the Senate floor?” Murkowski told The Hill in a statement. “As with all nominees, the committee will conduct its due diligence, ensure we have received and vetted all relevant paperwork, and allow time for member meetings to take place before deciding when to hold a hearing,” she said. The senator didn’t say when a hearing will take place, instead saying that committee members will be the first to know about the plans.

World’s Largest Iceberg Drifting Toward South America, Picking up Speed – Videos from The Weather Channel – A giant iceberg that broke off the Larsen C ice shelf in July 2017 is now 650 miles from its birthplace.

First active leak of sea-bed methane discovered in Antarctica – The first active leak of methane from the sea floor in Antarctica has been revealed by scientists. The researchers also found microbes that normally consume the potent greenhouse gas before it reaches the atmosphere had only arrived in small numbers after five years, allowing the gas to escape. Vast quantities of methane are thought to be stored under the sea floor around Antarctica. The gas could start to leak as the climate crisis warms the oceans, a prospect the researchers said was “incredibly concerning”. The reason for the emergence of the new seep remains a mystery, but it is probably not global heating, as the Ross Sea where it was found has yet to warm significantly. The research also has significance for climate models, which currently do not account for a delay in the microbial consumption of escaping methane. The active seep was first spotted by chance by divers in 2011, but it took scientists until 2016 to return to the site and study it in detail, before beginning laboratory work. “The delay [in methane consumption] is the most important finding,” said Andrew Thurber, from Oregon State University in the US, who led the research. “It is not good news. It took more than five years for the microbes to begin to show up and even then there was still methane rapidly escaping from the sea floor.” The release of methane from frozen underwater stores or permafrost regions is one of the key tipping points that scientists are concerned about, which occur when a particular impact of global heating becomes unstoppable. “The methane cycle is absolutely something that we as a society need to be concerned about,” said Thurber. “I find it incredibly concerning.”

Australia Wants to Build a Huge Concrete Runway in Antarctica. Here’s Why That’s a Bad Idea –Australia wants to build a 2.7-kilometre concrete runway in Antarctica, the world’s biggest natural reserve. The plan, if approved, would have the largest footprint of any project in the continent’s history. The runway is part of an aerodrome to be constructed near Davis Station, one of Australia’s three permanent bases in Antarctica. It would be the first concrete runway on the continent. The plan is subject to federal environmental approval. It coincides with new research published this week showing Antarctica’s wild places need better protection. Human activity across Antarctica has been extensive in the past 200 years – particularly in the coastal, ice-free areas where most biodiversity is found. The area around Davis Station is possibly Antarctica’s most significant coastal, ice-free area. It featuresunique lakes, fjords, fossil sites and wildlife. Australia has traditionally been considered an environmental leader in Antarctica. For example, Australia’s 20 Year Action Plan promotes “leadership in environmental stewardship in Antarctica”, pledging to “minimise the environmental impact of Australia’s activities”. But the aerodrome proposal appears at odds with that goal. It would cover 2.2 square kilometres, increasing the total “disturbance footprint” of all nations on the continent by 40%. It would also mean Australia has the biggest footprint of any nation, overtaking the United States. Within this footprint, environmental effects will also be intense. Construction will require more than three million cubic metres of earthworks – levelling 60 vertical metres of hills and valleys along the length of the runway. This will inevitably cause dust emissions – on the windiest continent on Earth – and the effect of this on plants and animals in Antarctica is poorly understood.Wilson’s storm petrels that nest at the site will be displaced. Native lichens, fungi and algae will be destroyed, and irreparable damage is expected at adjacent lakes.Weddell seals breed within 500 metres of the proposed runway site. Federal environment officials recognisethe dust from construction and subsequent noise from low flying aircraft have the potential to disturb these breeding colonies.The proposed area is also important breeding habitat for Adélie penguins. Eight breeding sites in the region are listed as “important bird areas”. Federal environment officials state the penguins are likely to be impacted by human disturbance, dust, and noise from construction of the runway, with particular concern for oil spills and aircraft operations.

Sierra Club Disowns John Muir Over Friendship With Eugenicists, ‘Perpetuating White Supremacy’ – He may have devoted most of his life to the preservation of America’s wilderness and had a direct hand in the establishment of Yosemite National Park, but legendary environmentalist John Muir was friends with eugenicists – and so, he must be canceled. The Sierra Club – which Muir founded and served as its first president – has condemned the iconic naturalist for his associations, along with racist comments in what Executive Director Michael Brune described as part of the organization’s “substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy.” In a Wednesday post on their website, Brune pointed to Muir’s close friendship with paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn and other eugenicists – whose movement sought to improve the genetic quality of the human race through selective breeding and sterilization of those deemed ‘unfit to reproduce.’ The list of ‘undesirables’ included those with mental or physical disabilities, low IQs, criminals, deviants, and various minority groups. The Sierra Club’s distancing from Muir comes just one day after Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced that they would remove the name of Margaret Sanger, the organization’s founder, from their Manhattan clinic in order to disavow her ties to the eugenics movement. However, it may come as a surprise that as recently as 2009 eugenics was OK – that’s when Hillary Clinton said she was “really in awe” of Sanger, whose work “in the United States and certainly across our globe is not done.” Muir was further denigrated in Wednesday’s Washington Post, which called him racist for having described native Americans ‘dirty’ – which Johnmuir.org points out was taken out of context. He also referred to African Americans as lazy “Sambos,” according to the Post, writing in A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf “One energetic white man, working with a will, would easily pick as much cotton as half a dozen Sambos and Sallies.”

Greta Thunberg wins 1 million euro prize, says she will donate it to environmental groups – Climate activist Greta Thunberg plans to donate a 1 million euro ($1.14 million) prize to organizations focused on the environment and climate change. The 17 year old Swede was named winner of the inaugural Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity on Monday. In a video, she described herself as being “incredibly honored and extremely grateful … this means a lot to me and I hope that it will help me do more good in the world.” “All the prize money will be donated through my foundation to different organizations and projects who are working to help people on the front lines affected by the climate crisis and ecological crisis, especially in the Global South,” she went on to say. She added that the money would also “help organizations and projects who are fighting for a sustainable world and who are fighting to defend nature and the natural world.” Breaking the initial donations down, Thunberg tweeted that 100,000 euros would be donated to the “SOS Amazonia Campaign led by Fridays For Future Brazil to tackle Covid-19 in the Amazon.” A further 100,000 euros will go to the Stop Ecocide Foundation. The Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity says it “aims to recognise people, groups of people and/or organisations from all over the world whose contributions to mitigation and adaptation to climate change stand out for its novelty, innovation and impact.” The Portugal-based Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was set up in the 1950s following the death of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist with interests in oil.

Major new climate study rules out less-severe global warming scenarios –The current pace of human-caused carbon emissions is increasingly likely to trigger irreversible damage to the planet, according to a comprehensive international study released Wednesday. Researchers studying one of the most important and vexing topics in climate science – how sensitive the Earth’s climate is to a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – found that warming is extremely unlikely to be on the low end of estimates. These scientists now say it is likely that if human activities – such as burning oil, gas and coal along with deforestation – push carbon dioxide to such levels, the Earth’s global average temperature will most likely increase between 4.1 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit (2.3 and 4.5 degrees Celsius). The previous and long-standing estimated range of climate sensitivity, as first laid out in a 1979 report, was 2.7 to 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 to 4.5 Celsius). If the warming reaches the midpoint of this new range, it would be extremely damaging, said Kate Marvel, a physicist at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies and Columbia University, who called it the equivalent of a “five-alarm fire” for the planet. The new range is narrower than previous studies, but shows at least a 95% chance that a doubling of carbon dioxide, which the world is on course to reach within the next five decades or so, would result in warming greater than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) relative to preindustrial temperatures. That is the threshold beyond which scientists say the Earth will suffer dangerous effects – disruptive sea level rise, intolerable heat waves and other extreme weather and permanent damage to ecosystems. Staying below that is still possible. If steep emissions cuts are made in the near-term, a doubling of carbon dioxide levels could be avoided. But if a doubling does occur, there would be a 6 to 18 percent chance of exceeding the upper bound defined by the study of 8.1 Fahrenheit (4.5 Celsius).

Large U.S. Homes Create Bigger Carbon Footprint, New Study Shows – Dreaming of a white-picket-fence home in an affluent suburb? Chances are your carbon footprint will be 15 times larger than your less-well-off neighbor.A new study finds that wealthy Americans living in spacious houses in upscale neighborhoods are responsible for 25% more emissions on average than those living in smaller houses in poorer areas.Rich people live in bigger houses and consume more energy, generating greater climate-warming emissions, according to the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”Although houses are becoming more energy-efficient, U.S. household energy use and related greenhouse gas emissions are not shrinking,” lead author Benjamin Goldstein, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, said in a statement, adding that “this lack of progress undermines the substantial emissions reductions needed to mitigate climate change.”The U.S. has the highest per capita emissions of any country and has historically pumped the largest amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. About a quarter of U.S. emissions are produced by households, which is more than Germany’s total emissions.Goldstein and his team tracked energy consumption patterns of nearly 100 million households by reviewing their 2015 tax records. They looked at incomes, building types, the climate, and the kind of power grid supplying homes to generate the first-ever national carbon emissions rankings of states down to the zip code.House acreage plays an outsized role in determining a household’s carbon footprint, and lower-income people generally live in smaller spaces. Carbon emissions linked to residences are a result of everything from the use of dishwashers and lights, to heating and cooling.

Inefficient Air Conditioning Drives Global Warming, UN Report Finds – Air conditioning systems are a significant contributor to global warming pollution that can and should be made more efficient, a new UN report shows.”If we deal with cooling wrong, we essentially cook ourselves,” Gabrielle Dreyfus, the cool efficiency program manager at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, said on a press call.As climate change drives up global temperatures, demand for air conditioning is expected to quadruple by 2050. To provide cooling units to everybody who needs them – not just those who can afford them – the world would need up to 14 billion units by 2050, according to the report.However, cheap, inefficient devices – especially when powered by coal- or gas-fired power plants – create a vicious cycle that further drives global warming, while improving cooling efficiency could bring multifold benefits.Completely banning hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs – a group of potent but short-lived greenhouse gases that are still used in many cooling devices – could trim global warming by up to 0.4°C by the end of the century.A switch to more efficient air conditioning units could cut global energy consumption by the equivalent of all the 2018 coal-fired generation in China and India combined.The report also calls for low-tech efficiency improvements, which will especially benefit low-income communities and communities of color.For a deeper dive: AP, Gizmodo, Thomson Reuters Foundation, The Guardian, CNBC

Morgan Stanley commits to tallying its climate impact – Morgan Stanley will become the first major U.S. bank to publicly disclose the how much its loans and investments contribute to climate change, the latest sign that Wall Street giants are beginning to reckon with their role in heating the planet.The move comes as financial regulators in many countries are considering whether to require greater disclosure from companies about the risks they face from climate change – and as a growing number of shareholders and investors worry about their exposure to fossil fuels that could suffer from future government policies to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.“This is a journey, and I think that this is an incredibly important piece of it, because as we all know it’s harder to make people respond to something when there’s no data, it’s hard to have data when you don’t have measurement,” Audrey Choi, chief sustainability officer for Morgan Stanley and CEO of its Institute for Sustainable Investing, told POLITICO. “This is an important step towards getting more clarity.” The bank is joining the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials, a global body with 66 financial company members managing $5.3 trillion of assets, that will count the greenhouse gas emissions from projects and investments that are financed by asset managers, banks and other institutions. Morgan Stanley will sit on the group’s steering committee to help deliver a final methodology for financial institutions to follow this fall.

Despite the talk, Shell and Total are still investing much more in fossil fuels than renewables – While Shell and Total are shifting towards renewable energy technologies, around 90% of their capital continues to be spent on fossil fuels, finds a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). To reach their own stated targets, IEEFA estimates that Shell and Total each needs to shift at least $10bn per annum (or 50% of total capital expenditure) from oil and gas exploration and invest into accelerating their renewable strategies. Ranking among the most significant contributors to the build-up of greenhouse gases, report author Clark Butler says both Shell and Total are well short of their publicised sustainable energy targets without a major shift of investment from fossil fuel assets to renewable energy. “Total is unlikely to meet its 2025 goal of 25 gigawatts of installed renewable energy on its current trajectory,” says Butler. “And Shell’s immediate plan to spend $6bn on renewable energy generation by the end of 2020 will also fail.” Total, the world’s fourth largest oil and gas company, has pledged to be net-zero in Europe (only) by 2050, and to reduce its carbon emissions intensity by 60% or more by 2050. Similarly, Shell plans to reduce its net carbon footprint by 65% by 2050. “It is difficult to see how either company will achieve the massive transformation in carbon intensity they aim for without a fundamental shift away from oil and gas investment,” says Butler. “Shell and Total together are responsible for more carbon emissions than Germany, the world’s sixth largest emitter. It is impossible for them to be net zero unless they invest more in zero emissions energy and less in fossil fuels.

Chevron Uses Solar Panels to Produce Oil More Cheaply – In California’s sun-drenched Kern Valley, Chevron Corp. has found a way to use one of the state’s clean-energy programs to cut the cost of pumping oil, to the chagrin of some environmentalists.Since April, solar panels have been powering oil pumps at Chevron’s Lost Hills 7,981 barrel-a-day oil field, according to the company. The 29-megawatt site, owned by Goldman Sachs Renewable Power Llc.-controlled Solar Star Lost Hills Llc., is designed to provide the field with 80% of its electricity, equal to taking more than 4,000 cars off the road. In exchange, Chevron will earn so-called low-carbon fuel standard credits worth about $4 million a year at current prices.“Electricity is one of Lost Hills field’s largest operating expenses, so having solar will be an important factor to help keep those costs down and maintain the planned oil field life,” Veronica Flores-Paniagua, a Chevron spokeswoman, said in an email.Renewable energy costs have fallen “substantially” over time, making its application to oil fields more economic, Telisa Toliver, Chevron Pipeline & Power’s general manager for renewable power, said in an interview. “We see this business model for us as something we hope to replicate,” she said. The Lost Hills project, Chevron’s largest solar-powered oil field, marks an unusual twist in the fate of the state’s decade-old Low Carbon Fuel Standard Program. The carbon-trading plan, designed to cut emissions 20% by 2030, has mostly been used to supplant gasoline and diesel with ethanol and biodiesel in vehicles. But it’s starting to benefit local oil companies as well, a development that environmentalists say may subvert the program’s intent of ushering in more renewable fuels.. The Chevron project is one of three oil-field solar projects approved for LCFS credits by the California Air Resources Board since early June. The companies, including Grade Water and Power LLC.,E&B Natural Resources Management Corp. andRotterdam Ventures Inc., are benefiting from a provision that was added to the program in its early years allowing oil drillers to qualify for credits through so-called “innovative crude oil production methods” such as solar or carbon-capture-and-storage.

Southwest Power Pool could add more than 5 GW of wind generation capacity by end-2020 – – Southwest Power Pool could add more than 5 GW of wind generation capacity by the end of 2020, on top of the nearly 650 MW already added to the grid this year, according to grid operator data. Wind-powered generation has been the lead fuel source for the last six months across the SPP footprint, after first surpassing coal-fired generation during two months in 2019 and consistently since January. SPP set a new wind peak record of 18.343 GW on July 17. The rise in wind generation as part of a national energy transition toward renewable sources has pulled down wholesale power prices. “The impact of high wind generation is quite clear in SPP where we see lot of congestion and negative power price clears,” said Manan Ahuja, S&P Global Platts Analytics North American power manager. SPP South Hub on-peak day-ahead locational marginal prices have averaged about $18.75/MWh for the first half of 2020, 34% lower than the average for the same period in 2015, according to SPP data. Likewise, North Hub on-peak day-ahead LMP averaged roughly $18.50/MWh for the first half of 2020, 21% below the 2015 average during the same months. The SPP generation interconnection report includes more than 5.7 GW of generation capacity from all fuel sources listed as “on schedule” with fully executed interconnection agreements and commercial operation dates in 2020 dates, according to the latest data S&P Global Platts pulled. The majority of new capacity, 2.5 GW, is expected to be added in Oklahoma, followed by 975 MW in Texas, 822 MW in Kansas, 522 MW in New Mexico and about 300 in each Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Missouri, according to SPP data. Of the 5.7 GW with 2020 dates, nearly 550 MW of generation have dates listed in the first half of the 2020 but are not yet operational, according to the report. Those include 486 MW of wind generation, 20 MW of solar, 20 MW of battery and 20 MW from combustion turbines. “This may mean the project is experiencing a delay in construction or is under evaluation for a generation modification,” SPP spokeswoman Meghan Sever said July 21. Of the nearly 5.2 GW listed as “on schedule” with commercial operation dates through the end of the year, all are wind generation with the exception of 17 MW of gas capacity, according to the report. In addition, a 370-MW wind project was expected to come online in December 2021, but is currently listed as operational, according to the report.

RENEWABLE ENERGY: N.Y. eyes Great Lakes offshore wind as foes blast ‘assault’ — Thursday, July 23, 2020 — New York may seek to resurrect a long-abandoned plan to build offshore wind turbines in the Great Lakes, even as critics call for state officials to stop an “assault” of renewable energy projects in rural areas.

Renewables topped fossil fuels in EU electricity generation for first time through June 2020 – Europe’s long goodbye to coal is speeding up, in a transition smoothed by the rise of wind and solar power and energy policy that has priced the fossil fuel out of many markets, according to data released on Wednesday. Renewable sources of power have taken over for the first time in 2020, generating 40% of European Union electricity, while fossil fuels generated 34%, independent think-tank Ember said in a half-yearly report. In Spain, coal generation fell 58% in the first six months of the year, even before half its remaining plants closed in June as they no longer complied with EU emissions rules. The pace of plant closures in Spain, with 69% of the entire fleet to be shuttered between 2020 and 2021, has no precedent, Global Energy Monitor program director Christine Shearer said. In Portugal, coal generation fell 95% in the first half of 2020, Ember said. Last week major utility EDP brought forward its Iberian plant closures to 2021, after writing down their value last year. The Netherlands, Austria and France all saw reductions of more than 50%. Sweden and Austria closed their last plants in March. In Germany coal generation fell 39%, taking it for the first time below Poland, which now generates as much electricity from coal as the EU’s remaining 25 countries put together.

NY utilities signal that they will consider electrification to offset gas demand – Future natural gas supply planning in New York will take into account the potential for building electrification and fossil fuel alternatives to displace gas distribution, state multi-utilities said. The utilities addressed the issue in their initial response to a statewide regulatory proceeding that seeks to align gas planning with New York climate policies (N.Y. PSC case 20-G-0131). These policies, along with barriers to new interstate gas pipelines, are having a “profound impact” on long-term gas system planning and creating a need to evolve, the utilities said in a July 17 filing. Moving forward, stakeholders should design the planning process to meet anticipated gas demand through “all viable supply-side and demand-side resources, such as electrification, energy efficiency, and demand response initiatives.” The utilities that jointly filed the report included Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp.; Consolidated Edison Inc. subsidiaries Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc. and Orange and Rockland Utilities Inc.; National Fuel Gas Distribution Corp.; Avangrid Inc. subsidiaries New York State Electric & Gas Corp. and Rochester Gas & Electric Corp.; and National Grid USA subsidiaries Brooklyn Union Gas Co., KeySpan Gas East Corp. and Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. The filing addressed a concern raised by the New York Public Service Commission, or PSC: the rising dependence on peaking services to meet gas demand. These include contracting for compressed natural gas, or CNG, delivered by truck to fill the supply gap left by a lack of firm gas transportation service. Underscoring the concerns was a recent decision by Williams Cos. Inc. to cancel a gas pipeline project into New York City after the state denied the developer a critical water permit. An earlier permit rejection prompted National Grid to implement a moratorium on new gas hookups in 2019, precipitating a months-long standoff with the state that ended in a $36 million settlement. During the dispute, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which codified New York’s goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

More than 60% of energy used for electricity generation is lost in conversion –In 2019, U.S. utility-scale generation facilities consumed 38 quadrillion British thermal units (quads) of energy to provide 14 quads of electricity. Most of the difference between these values was lost as an inherent result of the energy conversion process. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) U.S. electricity flow diagram visualizes U.S. electricity flow from energy sources consumed to generate electricity and electricity net imports to disposition (conversion and other losses, plant use, and end-use consumption). Electricity is a secondary energy source that is produced when primary energy sources (for example, natural gas, coal, wind) are converted into electric power. When energy is transformed from one form to another and moved from one place to another, some of the input energy is lost in the process. Some input energy is lost during electricity generation as well as other processes such as when vehicles burn gasoline.The technology and the type of fuel used to generate electricity affect the efficiency of power plants. For example, in 2019, of the 11.9 quads of natural gas consumed for electricity generation, natural gas plants converted 45% (5.4 quads) into net generation of electricity. By contrast, of the 10.2 quads of coal consumption, coal plants converted 32% (3.3 quads) into net generation.The difference in conversion rates is because coal-fired generation plants in the United States are often older andless efficient than many natural gas-fired plants. In U.S. power plants, generating a kilowatthour of electricity from coal requires on average about one-third more energy than producing a kilowatthour from natural gas. Although more electricity was generated by natural gas than by coal in 2016, it was not until 2019 that more natural gas was used to generate electricity than coal.In recent decades, the U.S. electric power grid’s fuel mix has shifted from mostly coal to a more diverse selection of fuels, including natural gas and renewable energy. In particular, the shift toward newer, more efficient natural gas-fired power plants with combined-cycle generators has resulted in an increase in the average efficiency of fossil fuel-fired electric power plants and in lower levels of overall conversion losses. EIA calculates total primary energy consumption for noncombustible renewable electricity sources, such as hydroelectricity, wind, and solar, by applying a fossil fuel equivalency factor. In terms of end use, nearly all (96%) of the 13.3 quads of electricity used in the United States during 2019 was delivered as retail sales to four end-use sectors (residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation). The remaining 4% was used directly by facilities in the commercial and industrial sectors. The residential and commercial sectors accounted for nearly 75% of electricity retail sales in 2019.

Grid operators agree on short-term gas benefits, but say it shouldn’t limit renewables growth – Five wholesale electric power market executives agreed that natural gas will continue to play an essential role on the electric power grid, though some caution against an overemphasis on blackstart capabilities amid efforts for higher renewable energy penetrations. “We have some very, very plentiful hydro assets, some good performing nuclear assets, but very frequently, natural gas is what’s on the margin and what is the balancing resource for most of the renewables that have been added over the system,” Richard Dewey, president and CEO of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), said Tuesday during the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ (NARUC) Summer Policy Summit. But despite the grid operators’ unanimous consensus on the resource’s short-term benefits, PJM Interconnection President and CEO Manu Asthana warned against prescribing too many issues to renewables so early in the game. “If we get to 100%, we’re gonna have to solve some of these really, really challenging problems, but I think that compared to where we are today, we shouldn’t let the great be the enemy of the good,” he said. For many regions of the U.S., the electric power grid has undergone a rapid transition from majority coal-fired power to majority natural gas. Meanwhile, states across the U.S. have begun to set increasingly ambitious clean energy goals for their power systems, sometimes coming into conflict with grid operator policies they see as a hindrance to bringing on high levels of renewable energy at once. And unlike the California and New York ISOs, some grid operators have more than one legislature to keep in mind, noted Asthana. Though policy directives in those states are “clear,” they’re not necessarily easy, he said. But for a grid operator like PJM that includes states with ambitious clean energy goals such as Maryland, New Jersey and Illinois, as well as states like West Virginia and Pennsylvania that have historically benefited from coal and natural gas, respectively. “We’re not trying to … favor particular fuel, but the policy discussions that we’re seeing are significantly trending in the direction of decarbonization … and so it’s interesting to think about what is the art of the possible?” Asthana said. For PJM, even with more piecemeal policy directives, ultimately it’s been the coal-to-gas transition that has led to significant emissions reductions within its market. “So imagine what is going to happen with increased renewable penetration over time,” he said. “I think gas will continue to be an important part of the mix, particularly in the near term, because the dispatchable generation is essential to ensure reliability. But in the longer term, you know, a lot of it depends on the penetration of renewables and the penetration of batteries.”

S&P: U.S. coal exports down 29% through May 2020 compared to 2019 – The U.S. coal sector is taking another beating as exports to two key markets, Asia and Europe, plunged in the first five months of this year.U.S. exports between January to May totaled 27.6 million tonnes, falling 29.0% from the amount shipped over the same months last year, S&P Global Market Intelligence data show. Of the total, the U.S. shipped 12.4 million tonnes to countries in Asia, down 11.5%, and 8.9 million tonnes to European countries, which also fell 36.3% from the prior year.About 80.2% of the coal exported for steelmaking from the U.S. during the first quarter went to countries in Asia and Europe, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows. However, global steel production has been down about 5% this year through May with steep declines in North America, the European Union and South America, Moody’s analysts add.Among the 20 largest destinations for U.S. coal exports year-to-date, 15 showed year-over-year declines. Shipments to India, where the U.S. shipped the most tonnes through May, fell by 14.0% from the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, other countries such as South Korea, China, Turkey, Singapore, and the Dominican Republic saw year-on-year increases.The downturn in U.S. coal exports could stretch through the end of 2020. In its most recent “Short-Term Energy Outlook” released in early July, the EIA projected that coal exports will fall 32% to 63 million tons this year before recovering and growing by 7% in 2021. U.S. metallurgical coal exports for the calendar year 2020, for instance, are expected to drop by about 10 million tonnes from 2019 levels, according to Jim Truman, Wood Mackenzie’s director for global metallurgical coal markets. “Reductions shouldn’t be too surprising, as the U.S. is the classic swing supplier to the seaborne metallurgical coal markets and overall trade is down, as well as prices,” Truman told S&P Global Market Intelligence in a July 14 email, adding that China and India will be “the most important drivers to the recovery of total seaborne trade.”

Coal is in crisis. Can Virginia’s pool bond system handle the collapse? – As the COVID-19 pandemic accelerates King Coal’s decline, Virginia could be on the hook for millions in cleanup costs if an anticipated wave of bankruptcies destabilizes its bond pool system for managing the risks of company failures. One of six states, all in or near the Appalachian basin, that allow coal companies to post partial assurances that they will cover the costs of reclamation if they cease operations, Virginia has known there are vulnerabilities in its system for almost a decade. “The program has sufficient resources to withstand the forfeiture of one or two smaller permits,” wrote actuaries in a 2012 report commissioned by Virginia’s Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. “The more significant risk to the Fund is from the exposure to companies with multiple permits and possibly from larger parent companies should they forfeit multiple permits simultaneously.” Eight years later, the situation has taken on an added urgency with the continued shrinkage of the coal industry. “Any state that has a bond pool is at enormous risk and is almost guaranteed to have to find other sources of funds to pay for the reclamation of abandoned coal mines,” said Peter Morgan, an attorney with the Sierra Club who has been tracking Virginia’s bonding program for more than a decade. Virginia’s DMME is “concerned” with the system’s stability given the ongoing industry contractions, said Division of Mine Land Reclamation Director Randy Casey in an email to the Mercury, pointing out that “major industry-wide forfeitures would strain any bonding system, not just those in Virginia.” Fixes, however, won’t be easy. In Virginia, any major alterations to the current system would need to be passed by the General Assembly, and many industry players disagree on the best way to proceed given the belief prevalent among regulators that if coal operators are pushed too far, they will walk away from their permits and leave the public to bear the burden of cleanup. Still, said Joe Pizarchik, who between 2009 and 2017 served as the longest-running director of the U.S. Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation, the longer state governments and regulators delay in grappling with the problem, “the more severe and dangerous it becomes.” “Eventually these bond pools are going to fail,” he said. “And when they fail, the state and federal government will probably be sued, and … then the state will have to come up with the money to complete reclamation.”

Coal operator Rhino Resource Partners files for bankruptcy protection – Rhino Resource Partners, one of the companies that purchased assets from bankrupt coal operator Blackjewel last year, has filed for bankruptcy protection. The company announced Wednesday that it, along with its subsidiaries, has filed for Chapter 11 and plans to sell all of its assets to a stalking horse bidder “in an effort to maximize value for all stakeholders and allow for the prospect of continued employment and business opportunities at its operating locations.” In court documents, company officials state they have around 547 employees at coal operations in several states, including Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. Rhino Resource Partners purchased several of Blackjewel’s Virginia assets amid its 2019 bankruptcy, including three underground coal mines, a preparation plant, and a rail loadout facility. Those facilities are under a subsidiary named Jewell Valley Mining. The Blackjewel bankruptcy grabbed national attention after miners blocked a coal train for weeks in protest of unpaid wages. In court documents, Rhino Resource Partners CEO Richard Boone said market forces have led to declining coal production and revenues within the company. The company temporarily idled many of its coal mining operations in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Fossil Fuel Companies, Bankruptcy Is a Bailout – Around this time last year, Jeff Hoops – CEO of Blackjewel LLC – filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, abruptly closing the company’s Bell Ayr and Eagle Butte mines in Wyoming and laying off 700 workers. Construction had by that point begun on a $30 million “first phase” of the new Grand Patrician Resort he was building in his hometown of Milton, West Virginia, set to include a 3,500-seat replica of the Roman Colosseum. Within days, hundreds of Blackjewel miners in the Powder River Basin and Appalachia reported money “disappearing” from their bank accounts after paychecks had been deposited. On July 3, a bankruptcy judge granted Blackjewel $5 million in relief funds in exchange for Hoops stepping down as CEO. Blackjewel workers filed a lawsuit over stolen wages shortly thereafter. In Harlan County, Kentucky, they held a two-month sit-in on train tracks to block coal from their former employer from getting to market. Eventually, a court ordered that Blackjewel cough up the back pay. Many say Blackjewel still owes them, and Hoops is under investigation. Similar stories could be coming soon to the notoriously overleveraged oil and gas industry, which has been struggling during the current pandemic but is already lavishing its executives with healthy payouts. In April, Diamond Offshore Drilling asked a bankruptcy judge to let it funnel $9.7 million in bonuses to its top executives, the same amount it had just gotten through a tax rebate created by the March stimulus package. Chesapeake Energy – the company that helped sell fracking to Wall Street – and California Natural Resources, the Golden State’s largest oil and gas company, have each filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy within the last month, amid the Covid-19-sparked downturn in demand and investors’ cooling attitude toward a sector that has always struggled to turn a profit;hundreds more could be coming, as investor patience continues to wane and debt obligations come due. As bankruptcy – often a new lease on life for struggling companies – becomes a ubiquitous feature of the fossil fuel industry, who’s looking out for the workers and pensions it’s leaving behind?

States try again to block coal sales that Trump revived (AP) – A coalition of states, environmentalists and American Indians on Monday renewed its push to stop the Trump administration from selling coal from public lands after a previous effort to halt the lease sales was dismissed by a federal judge. Joined by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and several environmental groups, Democratic attorneys general from California, New York, New Mexico and Washington state filed a lawsuit challenging the administration’s coal program in U.S. District Court in Montana. They alleged the administration acted illegally when it resumed coal sales that had been halted under Obama due to climate change and other concerns. The case is among scores of legal challenges that environmentalists and their political allies have launched to counter the Trump administration’s push for more domestic energy production and less stringent regulations. Interior Department spokesman Conner Swanson panned the lawsuit as a “laughable attempt” to revive an issue that the court already addressed. Under Trump, the Department of Interior lifted a 2016 moratorium on federal coal sales and concluded they have limited environmental impacts. “The Department is confident the court will agree that the analysis by our career experts is lawful and based on the best available science,” Swanson said. Attorneys for the states and other plaintiffs in the case argued that the administration’s environmental review was flawed, because it was based on just four leases that were sold under Trump and did not look at hundreds of existing leases and potential future sales. “The Trump administration has repeatedly thrown out the rule book in order to benefit super polluting coal companies. It’s not only immoral – it’s illegal, and we intend to prove it,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. Federal coal sales account for about 40% of U.S. coal production, primarily from large strip mines in western states including Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and Utah. Coal mining companies saw demand for the fuel drop dramatically over the past decade due to competition from natural gas and renewable fuel sources. Trump has sought to prop the industry back up, but that’s done little to slow its downward spiral and the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the decline.

U.S. Senator Duckworth floats plan to rescue coal country – (Reuters) – Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth on Thursday unveiled a plan to rehabilitate communities hurt by the decline of the U.S. coal industry – an appeal to a political constituency seen as important in the November election.The bill would direct investment to communities reeling from closures of mines and coal-fired power plants in recent years, to create new jobs and help them grapple with issues like opiod addiction and black lung disease here she said.“We can’t just tell these communities to let go of coal because there is nothing else,” said Duckworth, who is one of several women vetted as a possible running mate for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, in an interview.The bill would expand Medicare to laid-off coal workers, guarantee free higher education for miners and their families, provide federal homebuying assistance and create a redevelopment office. Cost estimates for the bill were not immediately available.United Mineworkers of America President Cecil Roberts called on senators from both parties to adopt the legislation.Coal has struggled to compete against cheap natural gas and renewable energy despite efforts by the Trump administration to prop it up by rolling back Obama-era climate regulation. U.S. coal-fired power plants shut down here at the second-fastest pace on record in 2019, according to a Reuters review of federal data.

Neighbors question future of Bull Run Steam Plant – Tennessee Valley Authority planned a public meeting on the future of the Bull Run Steam Plant in Anderson County. However, due to safety concerns during the coronavirus pandemic, TVA moved the open house online. While the future of the plant may be up for grabs, some neighbors have concrete demands: “Please clean up that coal ash. Get it out of here.” John Todd Waterman has lived in Clinton for 16 years and is one neighbor with concerns. TVA discussed possible plans for a park, bike paths, and solar panels, all of which Waterman was in favor of. “I would love to see all that,” he said. “But they want to leave tons of coal ash. That’s toxic stuff.” TVA said it has not made any final decision on the future of the coal ash stored at Bull Run. Representatives said they are working with the Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation to conduct an environmental investigation. From there, they will either cover up the ash on site or remove it. Some neighbors and public officials have also discussed putting an energy park in the area to drive in more business. TVA said it may develop another energy generation source.

EPA wants feedback on coal ash cleanup plan at former NIPSCO Bailly plant – Chicago Tribune — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants public feedback for a cleanup plan at the eastern part of the former NIPSCO Bailly Generating Station. It believes buried coal ash is seeping via groundwater into the Indiana Dunes National Park threatening surrounding plants and wildlife. The deadline for comments is Aug. 19. Once comments are in, the agency will issue a Final Decision on its cleanup plan. The Bailly Generating Station in Chesterton closed in 2018. During the 1960s and 1970s, NIPSCO buried coal ash there about 25 feet underground, a byproduct of coal-fired electricity, the agency said. “Current law does not allow this type of disposal, but it was not illegal at the time,” it said. Coal ash was buried on-site between 1962 and 1979, the EPA said. Eventually, the utility started “recycling” or storing it off-site. Coal ash is known to contain various toxic metals – boron is the primary contaminant of concern there, the EPA said. It is believed the ash is seeping into underground water, which is “carrying the underground contamination into the park.” “Studies show the boron is harming plants, but the levels are too low to harm people,” it said. The entire Indiana Dunes’ 15,000 acres is considered one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the U.S. with more than 1,200 plant species and around 400 wildlife species. Generally, parts of the Indiana Dunes border north and east of the Bailly site, documents state, including Cowles Bog Wetland Complex, located northeast, a popular forested hiking spot and “globally significant and ecologically sensitive feature”. The EPA split the “L-shaped” former Bailly site into Areas A, B, and C for designated environmental cleanup. Area C, is located east of the former coal plant, and includes a former wastewater treatment plant, landfills with buried coal ash and a portion of the Indiana Dunes National Park, it said. It also includes the Greenbelt, the Southeast Pond and the Eastern Wetlands. The biggest contamination source is a coal-ash fill called Solid Waste Management Unit 15, southeast of the Bailly plant, where coal-ash has gotten into groundwater flowing “off-site”, endangering nearby ecology, the EPA said.

U.S. uranium production fell to an all-time annual low in 2019 – Today in Energy – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) – The United States produced 174,000 pounds of uranium concentrate (U3O8) in 2019, 89% less than in 2018 and the lowest amount produced since the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) data series began in 1949. Domestic U3O8 production has declined since its peak of 43.7 million pounds in 1980. Other countries, such as Canada and Australia, have more accessible, high-quality uranium deposits, allowing them to produce U3O8 at a lower cost than the United States. Since 1990, purchased imports of U3O8 have exceeded domestic U3O8 production each year.Owners and operators of commercial nuclear power reactors buy uranium in the form of U3O8, uranium hexafluoride, or enriched uranium, or a combination of these forms. When the uranium is purchased earlier in the fuel cycle, such as in the form of U3O8, owners and operators pay for conversion, enrichment, and fabrication into fuel rods. In 2019, the fuel assemblies, or structured groups of fuel rods, loaded into U.S. commercial reactorscontained 43.2 million pounds of U3O8. About 9% of this amount was U.S.-origin, and 91% was foreign-origin.In 2019, U.S. commercial nuclear power reactor operators purchased a total of 48.3 million pounds of U3O8. Foreign imports of U3O8 supply the majority of fuel to U.S. commercial nuclear reactors, and 42.6 million pounds, or 88% of the total U3O8 purchased, were imported in 2019. Canada, which has large, high-quality uranium reserves, has historically been the largest source of U.S. uranium imports. In 2019, Canada remained the largest source of imports of uranium supplied to U.S. civilian nuclear power plants, followed by Kazakhstan, Australia, and Russia. Subsidies for uranium producers in Kazakhstan have led to increases in the country’s uranium exports, including those to the United States.

Judge approves Santee Cooper ratepayer settlement over failed VC Summer nuclear project – Santee Cooper on Monday received final approval for a $520 million legal settlement with its customers over its failure to complete an expansion of the V.C. Summer nuclear plant in Fairfield County.The deal, approved by former S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal, ends a standoff over how much customers must pay for that unfinished power plant, a project abandoned by Santee Cooper in July 2017 after years of escalating costs and construction delays.The settlement also greatly diminishes the chance Santee Cooper could be sold by lawmakers after the $9 billion nuclear debacle – one of the greatest business failures in state history. It puts refunds into the pockets of customers who have paid higher power bills for the V.C. Summer project, as well as substantial fees for the attorneys who argued the case against the project’s owners.Toal said it was the most complex litigation she has handled in 52 years of practicing law.“We managed to take an extremely complex set of circumstances and form a settlement that I have been told many times represents something quite astounding and unique,” Toal said. BUSINESSSantee Cooper plans $520M settlement of customer lawsuit over failed SC nuclear projectBy Avery G. Wilks and Andrew Brown [email protected] [email protected] deal requires Santee Cooper freeze its electric rates for four years and pay $200 million to its ratepayers, including members of South Carolina’s 20 electric cooperatives who purchase the utility’s power indirectly.The rate freeze, the plaintiff attorneys argued, could be worth up to $510 million to Santee Cooper’s customers on its own. Another $320 million would be supplied by Dominion Energy, the Virginia-based company that last year purchased S.C. Electric & Gas – Santee Cooper’s partner on the nuclear project.

Feds file criminal case against ComEd, implicate House Speaker Mike Madigan – Chicago Sun-Times –Early last year, when federal investigations into public corruption dominated the headlines, a longtime ally of House Speaker Michael Madigan gave a little advice to a ComEd vice president, according to an explosive court document filed Friday. Lobbyist Mike McClain allegedly told the utility executive that, “I would say to you don’t put anything in writing.” The two then discussed a “favor” for Madigan that federal prosecutors now say was part of a brazen, years-long Chicago-style bribery scheme that sent $1.3 million to Madigan’s associates for doing little or no work for the utility, all while ComEd hoped to land Madigan’s support for legislation in Springfield worth more than $150 million. ComEd has now been charged in federal court with bribery and is expected to pay a $200 million fine – believed to be the largest criminal fine ever in Chicago’s federal court. Several politicians, including Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, said Madigan should resign if the allegations against one of the most powerful Democrats in the state are true. While the bombshell case implicates several individuals in the alleged scheme, no one else has been criminally charged. And that includes Madigan.“Our investigation is ongoing,” U.S. Attorney John Lausch said repeatedly at a Friday news conference outside the Dirksen Federal Courthouse when asked about additional criminal charges. In fact, the feds earlier on Friday hit Madigan with a fresh subpoena that appears to seriously expand the investigation, with inquiries about AT&T Services Inc., Walgreens and Rush University Medical Center. The document, obtained by the Sun-Times, also seeks records concerning a laundry list of Madigan’s top supporters, including former Aldermen Mike Zalewski and Frank OIivo, current 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn, ComEd and Exelon, McClain, properties in Chinatown, previously written about by the Sun-Times, and former Ald. Danny Solis. Walgreens had no comment. AT&T did not respond to a request for comment. Rush said in a statement only that it “has received and is cooperating with a subpoena for records reflecting work by, and communications with, certain government relations consultants for the period 2014 to the present.” The Sun-Times first revealed in January 2019 that Solis has for years cooperated with federal prosecutors. It also reported that the FBI recorded Madigan during a meeting with Solis and a developer hoping to build a hotel also in the Chinatown neighborhood. The Sun-Times report about the feds’ Madigan recording, also in January 2019, landed nine days before McClain told the ComEd vice president on Feb. 7, 2019, not to put things in writing.

Tallying Up The High Cost of ComEd’s Springfield Scheme | WBEZ Chicago – Commonwealth Edison executives have admitted the huge power company bribed its way to lucrative legislative wins in Springfield – and millions of customers in Illinois can see the steep price they’re paying for it on every electric bill. During the eight-year bribery scheme, the amount of state-approved revenue Chicago-based ComEd collected for delivering power to its many customers across northern Illinois increased more than 30%, according to a WBEZ analysis of records from the state agency that oversees the electric company and other public utilities.Over the same period, ComEd’s net annual operating income swelled more than 50%, the documents from the Illinois Commerce Commission show.“It affected our electrical bills, yours and mine,” said Juliet Sorensen, a former federal prosecutor who investigated corruption cases. “It’s really a prime example of the fallacy that public corruption is a victimless crime.” About 4 million homes and businesses are feeling the financial pain from the sharp increase in rates because ComEd enjoys a near-monopoly in Chicago and far beyond, delivering power to roughly 70% of the people of Illinois. Last week, ComEd and federal prosecutors in Chicago announced that the company would pay a $200 million fine to the U.S. government to settle allegations it engaged in the long-running bribery scheme in state government.The company concedes it was all part of a push to curry and keep favor with “Public Official A,” a clear reference to longtime state House Speaker and Democratic Party of Illinois boss Michael Madigan. He has not been charged and has vehemently denied wrongdoing. But in its agreement with the feds, the power company executives admitted ComEd secretly paid more than $1.3 million from 2011 through 2019 to Madigan-connected consultants for little or no work.Clout hiring to win influence also impacted ComEd’s internship program, which drew “primarily” from the students in Madigan’s 13th Ward, and even a seat in the corporate boardroom, according to court records.The politically connected “subcontractors” mentioned in court records included a former Chicago alderman and one of Madigan’s top three precinct captains from his ward organization, who trained others to work effectively on campaigns for the speaker’s vaunted political army.The payments to the politically blessed, ghost consultants and other clout hires have provided a big return on ComEd’s investment. The corrupt behavior won concessions in Springfield that have been worth exponentially more than the payments “indirectly” funneled to Madigan-connected consultants through a ComEd lobbyist and other third parties, according to court records.ComEd’s agreement with the feds pointedly notes how the speaker from Chicago’s Southwest Side and other Illinois lawmakers favored the company with two pieces of lucrative state legislation, in 2011 and 2016.“ComEd acknowledges that the reasonably foreseeable anticipated benefits to ComEd of such legislation exceeded $150,000,000,” according to the court records unsealed a week ago.

Ohio House Speaker Arrested In $60M Bribery Scheme Which Added New Fee To Every Electricity Bill In State – A massive corruption scandal being described as the “largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people of the state of Ohio” – to the tune of $60 million, has just rocked the Buckeye state. On Tuesday the Republican Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder along with four others were arrested for being allegedly part of a scheme to pass legislation for a billion dollar bailout of two failed Ohio nuclear plants which were on the brink of permanent closure. Householder is widely looked upon as Ohio’s third most powerful and influential lawmaker. Federal agents raided his farm Tuesday morning and made the arrest. The AP has described the top Ohio lawmaker as a “driving force” behind the uphill battle to controversially bail out the state’s two nuclear power plants at a significant expense to taxpayers.Householder’s adviser Jeffrey Longstreth was also arrested, as well as lobbyist Neil Clark, and former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matthew Borges and Juan Cespedes of Columbus-based consulting firm The Oxley Group. It appears a classic pay-to-play scandal, but in this case so vast that it is sure to enrage every single Ohioan that pays an electricity bill, considering, according to Axios that – “Householder was one of the driving forces behind the nuclear plants’ financial rescue, which added a new fee to every electricity bill in the state and directed over $150 million a year through 2026 to the plants near Cleveland and Toledo.” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has called on Householder to resign immediately given the enormity of the charges against him. The linchpin in the government’s case against the five is incriminating statements made during a sting while meeting with undercover agents. An 80-page criminal complain involving a large-scale FBI investigation details the schemers were engaged in an enterprise which shuffled millions into Householder’s pockets to assist in his bid to secure his position as Ohio House speaker. In turn he helped push through “House Bill 6, a billion-dollar bailout that saved two failed, Ohio nuclear power plants from closing,” according to the criminal filing. Tens of millions were funneled via the “dark money enterprise” over a total of at least three years, from March 2017 to March 2020. Given that much money and the significant length of time, it’s clear it must have involved many more players; indeed, the FBI says more arrests are coming as part of the probe. The reality is this: Ohioans will not see this as somehow “remote” – given that not only through state taxes, but especially through the “added fee” to each electricity bill as a result of House Bill 6’s passage, they’ll be on the hook for this for years to come.

Ohio House Speaker Arrested in Alleged $60 Million Racketeering, Bribery, Money Laundering Scheme; A Window Into Politics in America — Yves Smith – Lambert highlighted the arrest of Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican, and four associates in a Federal indictment on charges involving over $60 million in racketeering, bribery, and money laundering, making it the biggest political corruption prosecution in Ohio history. We’re highlighting this case as a window into the ugly side of American politics. It also offers stark proof of political scientist Tom Ferguson’s “Golden Rule” theory of politics, that it is moneyed interests that drive legislation and regulations. Needless to say, this is one of those rare occasions where powerful individuals engaged in bad conduct are being held to account. Each of the defendants could spend as long as 20 years in prison. We’ve embedded the filing below. The short version is that Householder and his four lobbyist/operative allies took payments from FirstEnergy Corp to get House Bill 6 passed and defend it against a ballot initiative. House Bill 6 provided for a $1.3 billion bailout of zero carbon energy producers…with nearly all the money going to keep two of FirstEnergy’s nuclear plants from going bankrupt. $60 million might seem an awful lot to get a bill passed. In fact, over $2 million was still left in the coffers of Generation Now, the main slush vehicle secretly controlled by Householder, set up as a not-for-profit so as to avoid pesky PAC disclosure requirements. $1 million went into the personal brokerage account of one of the defendants, political strategist Jeff Longstreth. Over $500,000 allegedly went to Householder, for campaign expenses, fix-ups to his Florida house, and to pay off credit card debt. And all those lobbying fees too! Nevertheless, the filing describes a long campaign, first to fund Republican primary candidates for House seats who understood they were expected to back Householder as Speaker (Householder had lost to a termed-out departing Speaker who’d named a successor) and then to support their campaigns in the general election. For instance, the indictment describes how Householder’s team estimated that it would take $2.5 to $3 million to win the primary battles; FirstEnergy obligingly ponied up over $2 million by the date of the primary and Generation Now spent $1.8 million, including $90,000 on Householder’s bid. The day Householder was sworn in as Speaker, he vowed to establish a subcommittee on power generation. Three months later, junior representatives he’d helped get elected introduced HB6. Note that similar legislation had failed in 2017. More money was deployed, first to pass the bill in the House, then the Senate, then to beat back the ballot initiative seeking to overturn the legislation. The indictment has lots of gory elements:

Did Householder use ’bribe money’ to fix his Florida house, pay overdue taxes? – – The Columbus Dispatch – Larry Householder’s place in Naples, Florida, fell into disrepair last year.The Republican speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives also had another problem, according to records there. He had not paid two years’ worth of property taxes and penalties on his house totaling more than $9,000.But Householder, 61, of Glenford, in Perry County, came up with the money to pay both his long-overdue Florida taxes and fix his deteriorating $300,000 house – after being found guilty of violations by Collier County, Florida, officials, An FBI agent alleges in an affidavit made public Tuesday that Householder spent more than $100,000 in “bribe money” on his southwest Florida house that authorities say he received in a racketeering scheme involving Ohio’s $1 billion nuclear power plant bailout.By early last year, the Collier County tax assessor was after Householder, threatening to seize and sell his house to pay off a tax lien. Householder had not paid property taxes and penalties on his home totaling $9,412 from the 2016 and 2017 tax years.On April 11, 2019, Householder paid off his overdue taxes, according to Collier County records, while also paying his 2018 tax bill of $4,356. That was a three-year total of $13,768 paid in taxes.Householder, though, is again being cited for delinquent taxes, this time for failing to pay his 2019 property taxes and penalties of $4,299 due June 1, records show.Householder bought the Florida property in 2009, after he departed his first go-around as House speaker and prior to his second stint beginning in 2019. He is now charged with using his legislative position to criminally enrich himself.The speaker’s Florida house, valued at $306,393 on Belville Boulevard, backs onto a man-made lake in Naples, a spot popular spot with many Ohioans, and is located five miles east of the Gulf of Mexico beaches.But Householder apparently did not keep up his Florida getaway.On Feb. 12, 2019, Collier County zoning code authorities cited Householder with violations involving a moldy roof that had missing or damaged tiles; broken and boarded-up windows; and a swimming pool that was not enclosed with an approved barrier. Householder appeared in person at a public hearing before a special magistrate in Naples on Oct. 4. He was found guilty of the violations and ordered to pay $112 in costs. He had agreed in a document the day before to correct the violations, county records show.Records show Householder hired a company to replace the tile roof of the house on Dec. 4 and hired another firm to replace a screened enclosure around his pool on Feb. 1.No county records were found concerning repairs to the broken and boarded-up windows. None of the repair records placed an estimate on costs. The federal affidavit in the case also alleges Householder used about $20,000 from the First Energy conspiracy to pay credit card debt and $300,000 to cover legal fees and a settlement in a defamation lawsuit he dropped after suing political opponents for ads questioning his ethics. Householder and four colleagues were arrested by federal officials Tuesday as part of a bribery investigation involving the state’s $1 billion nuclear plant bailout and Householder’s maneuverings to secure support to lead the legislative chamber.

An FBI investigation shows Ohio’s abysmal energy law was fueled by corruption –On Tuesday, the news broke that the FBI had arrested Ohio Speaker of the House of Representatives Larry Householder, the architect of HB 6, a law that passed in July 2019. That bill, widely recognized as the worst energy policy in the country, gutted Ohio’s renewables and energy efficiency laws while bailing out several coal and nuclear plants.As I wrote in my book, Short Circuiting Policy, the law was a multibillion-dollar gift to FirstEnergy, a private electric utility that has resisted climate policy for decades. It turns out it was a gift paid for with $61 million in bribes.Spending a few million to get more than a billion dollars? Not a bad return on investment.Unfortunately, this kind of corruption is not an aberration for the electric utility industry. Across the country, most private utilities are resisting the clean energy transition, and many are buying off politicians with campaign contributions to do it. What’s more, the industry celebrates it – the Edison Electric Institute, the national private utility association, gave FirstEnergy an award for its work to pass HB 6. The 82-page, 250 paragraph FBI affidavit – a collage of colorful text messages and political ads – is stunning in its simplicity: This is bribery.The alleged participants in the scheme even used the term “pay to play” when describing what Householder and his associates were up to, saying that the funding from FirstEnergy for their political aims was “unlimited.”Before the FBI arrests, many journalists and watchdog groups suspected that Householder was corrupt. He was a controversial choice for speaker – his last time in the role, during the early 2000s, he found himself under federal investigation for money laundering. Householder was only elected speaker last year after a contentious fight. Somehow candidates supporting his leadership found themselves with well-funded campaigns.We now know, according to the affidavit, that FirstEnergy funneled millions of dollars to 21 candidates who pledged to support Householder’s rise to power. All of these politicians supported Householder’s speakership, and only one voted against the bailout.Per the FBI, Householder also benefited financially from the arrangement with FirstEnergy. According to the affidavit, at least $300,000 was used to settle a lawsuit against him, more than $100,000 went toward his Florida vacation home, and another $97,000 went directly to his campaign expenses. Householder also received personal favors from FirstEnergy, like a flight to President Trump’s inauguration on a corporate jet.The corruption allegedly did not end when HB 6 became law. When groups wanted to let the public decide whether to overturn this draconian policy through a petition for a ballot initiative, FirstEnergy wired $38 million in funds to Generation Now. This money funded adsthat falsely claimed the Chinese government would use your personal information if you signed the petition. It also paid for bribery, harassment, and even physical assault of people collecting signatures.It was an anti-democratic dark money campaign, and it worked. Facing this well-funded opposition, the advocates failed to get enough signatures. Ohio voters were never given a chance to overturn the bailout. HB 6 remains law.

Follow the money, and repeal FirstEnergy’s Ohio bailout – Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis – FirstEnergy’s successful campaign last year to secure a $1 billion bailout of its Ohio nuclear plants is at the center of a pay-to-play scandal that is rocking Ohio. Yesterday, the Justice Department indicted Larry Householder, speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, and four close associates in a case U.S. Attorney David DeVillers called “likely the largest bribery, money-laundering scheme ever perpetrated against the people in the state of Ohio.” Governor Mike DeWine and other top Ohio officeholders called on Householder to resign immediately but that is not enough. The governor should convene the Ohio General Assembly now to repeal the law that bailed out the nuclear plants and begin a new legislative process. The scheme, as laid out in a federal indictment, revolved around Householder’s control of a non-profit corporation called “Generation Now,” which was used to pool campaign contributions and to fund tactics used to prevent a citizens organization from placing a measure on the ballot last fall to repeal the referendum. The nuclear bailout law, known as House Bill 6, passed the Ohio House of Representatives in July 2019 with only one more vote than the minimum required, and DeWine quickly signed it into law. The indictments make clear that the bill’s passage was the tainted result of corruption. Householder’s own “yes” vote was necessary for passage. And the U.S. attorney showed that the scheme deprived the citizens of Ohio of their right to place a repeal referendum on the ballot. The complaint describes a web of complicity around “Company A,” which funneled some $60 million to Generation Now and an additional $890,000 to other entities. As Villers said, “Everyone in this room knows who Company A is. I will not be mentioning the name today because of our regulations and rules.” The case has prompted a Twitter storm, including this popular comment: “Will the Browns now be playing in Company A Stadium?”The stock market knows who Company A is. FirstEnergy’s stock was down 17% at the close of trading yesterday ad as of 2 p.m. today is down an additional 18%. And less than an hour after the arrests were announced, the stock of FirstEnergy’s former subsidiary, Energy Harbor (formerly FirstEnergy Solutions), dropped by 20% so quickly that trading was automatically halted. Energy Harbor stock is down by an additional 16% today. The 81-page complaint spells out details of a web of influence-peddling, as shown here (click on the image to enlarge the chart):

House Bill 6 repeal bills are being drafted by Ohio lawmakers from both parties – cleveland.com – Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the Ohio House are preparing to introduce legislation to repeal House Bill 6, the $1.3 billion nuclear bailout law at the center of House Speaker Larry Householder’s arrest on Tuesday.Republican state Reps. Mark Romanchuk of Richland County and Laura Lanese of suburban Columbus are currently soliciting other co-sponsors for a repeal bill, Lanese confirmed via text message Wednesday morning.Separately, Democratic state Reps. Mike Skindell of Lakewood and Michael O’Brien of Warren announced in a release Wednesday they intend to file their own repeal bill.All four of those lawmakers voted against HB 6 when it passed the House in July of 2019.HB6 provides massive ratepayer subsidies for Ohio’s Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants, owned and operated by Energy Harbor – formerly FirstEnergy Solutions, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., until it broke away earlier this year.Under the law, from 2021 until 2027, every Ohio electricity customer will have to pay a new monthly surcharge that ranges from 85 cents for residential customers to $2,400 for large industrial plants.The law also provides subsidies for coal plants in Ohio and Indiana, and it effectively guts the state’s green-energy mandates for utilities.Householder and four allies were charged Tuesday with conducting one of the largest bribery and money-laundering schemes in Ohio history, funneling more than $60 million in FirstEnergy donations through a “web” of dark-money groups and bank accounts to expand the speaker’s political power, thwart an anti-HB6 referendum effort, and enrich themselves by millions of dollars. “Corruption has no place in our government, regardless of political party. When corruption is revealed, it is important we act quickly to fix what has been broken,” said Skindell in a statement. “Ohio has been under a one-party rule for decades and what we are seeing are the consequences of that undemocratic arrangement. With deeply gerrymandered districts, Republican politicians feel invincible and are more beholden to special interest groups and corporations than they are to their own constituents. HB 6 was the manifestation of this alleged corruption.”It’s not clear yet whether there are the votes to repeal the law in either the House or the Senate, each of which are controlled by a Republican supermajority. House Bill 6 passed the House 51-38, with 10 Democrats giving 41 Republicans the “yes” votes needed to pass the bill.

DeWine shifts gears, seeks repeal of ‘tainted’ nuclear bailout – Gov. Mike DeWine on Thursday shifted gears and called on the Ohio General Assembly to repeal the law that would provide a $1 billion bailout of two nuclear power plants on Lake Erie, given revelations about the alleged $60 million bribery scheme that led to its passage. He said the process behind the bill’s passage “stinks” and has tainted what he has said is still the good policy behind saving the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Oak Harbor and the Perry plant east of Cleveland. “It is also clear, as I think about it, that no matter how good this policy is, the process by which this bill passed is simply not acceptable,” he said during a Thursday news conference about the coronavirus pandemic. “That process, I believe, has forever tainted the bill and now the law itself. While the policy in my opinion is good, the process by which it was created stinks. It’s terrible. It’s not acceptable.” He called on lawmakers to repeal and replace House Bill 6 through an open process “that the public can have full confidence in.” “Reasonable people can disagree about what that policy should be,” he said. “I’ve made it very clear for a long time that I think our energy policy in the state of Ohio must include nuclear energy, that plants that are here that are functioning should continue to function.”

HB 6 repeal would address only part of Ohio lawmakers’ recent actions to slow renewables – But a complete repeal is needed as a minimum to undo the bill’s gutting of the clean energy standards, advocates say. Both Republican and Democratic Ohio lawmakers are pushing to repeal the state’s nuclear bailout bill after this week’s release of a federal criminal complaint against House Speaker Larry Householder and others. Clean energy advocates say that would be a start, but more is needed to address eight years of lawmakers’ actions to slow the growth of renewables in the state.The complaint alleges a $60 million bribery and conspiracy scheme that led to the passage of House Bill 6 last summer, followed by the defeat of a referendum effort to give voters a say on the bill. Amounts involved are about 20 times more than amounts that could be tracked through public documents.HB 6 is primarily known as a “nuclear bailout” for providing six years of subsidies for the FirstEnergy Solutions/Energy Harbor nuclear power plants in Ohio totaling roughly a billion dollars, but it also gutted the state’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards, and provided bailouts for two 1950s-era coal plants in Ohio and Indiana.And while Gov. Mike DeWine has recently shifted his position from defending HB 6 to saying he wants to “repeal and replace” it, legislators from both parties say the whole thing should be thrown out. DeWine has said his office had no involvement in the alleged scheme. Yet he signed the law within hours after Householder secured its passage last summer.Whether due to actual or perceived corruption, HB 6 “is a corrupt piece of legislation. All of it – not just part of it,” said Rep. Mike Skindell, D-Lakewood. “Therefore, the entire thing needs to be repealed. … That is one step in restoring the confidence of the citizens which was broken because of this corrupt process.”“Those of us who are free-market conservatives are against the bill. Those of us who care about consumers and predatory pricing are against the bill. And it’s why those of us who want more renewable energy, not less, are against the bill,” said Rep. Laura Lanese, R-Grove City. “Ohioans deserve an immediate and full repeal of House Bill 6 in order to restore the public’s trust in the legislative process, and also to get Ohio’s clean energy future restarted,” said Miranda Leppla, vice president of energy policy for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund. “There is simply no room to consider anything less than a full repeal of this bill, as it is corrupt to the very core. Ohio lawmakers should consider what policies are best for Ohioans, without the corrupt influence of pay-to-play politicians and lobbyists working to influence their decisions.”

Investigate everyone involved – Allegations against Ohio House of Representatives Speaker Larry Householder and others should make Buckeye State residents sick to their stomachs. If true, they mean higher utility bills throughout the state will be due to bought-and-paid-for legislation. Householder, a Republican from a district just east of Columbus, was arrested Tuesday, along with four alleged accomplices. All are accused by federal authorities of participating in a $60 million bribery scheme. U.S. Attorney David DeVillers called it “likely the largest bribery scheme ever perpetrated against the state of Ohio.” Investigators say Generation Now, a group controlled by Householder, received the $60 million from a company that has not been identified.In exchange, Householder and his cronies allegedly worked to enact a bill that adds a surcharge to every Ohio electric bill. Most of the proceeds from that, about $150 million a year through 2026, are to go to two nuclear power plants near Cleveland and Toledo. About $20 million a year goes to the solar power industry.It is known that Householder pushed hard for the bill. If charges he was bribed to do so are accurate, Ohio lawmakers – and law enforcement authorities – need to investigate whether some of the $60 million was spent to buy the votes of others in the General Assembly. If so, they, too, should be arrested. No one involved in the scheme should be permitted to escape justice.

Analysts expect some economic fallout for Akron companies implicated in public corruption case – Akron Beacon Journal – — With FirstEnergy Corp. and its former subsidiaries implicated in a public corruption scandal, market analysts are sharing varying degrees of concern for the economic toll two of Akron’s biggest employers could pay. Racketeering charges filed Tuesday against a lawmaker and four associates, who allegedly took donations in exchange for a $1 billion energy bailout bill, all but named FirstEnergy and its former power-generation subsidiary FirstEnergy Solutions as the source of the cash. FirstEnergy Solutions is now Energy Harbor after emerging in February from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Now two companies with headquarters in Akron and thousands of employees in multiple states, FirstEnergy Corp. and Energy Harbor say they’re reviewing the criminal complaint and cooperating with federal investigators. Neither will talk about the potential impact on business or investor confidence. Stock prices for both companies are off by a third since the scandal broke. Subpoenas announced Tuesday evening for FirstEnergy followed the morning arrests of Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder, former GOP Chairman Matt Borges and three top statehouse lobbyists. The men and Generation Now, a dark money group that investigators believe Householder used to conceal FirstEnergy donations, are being charged with racketeering. “FirstEnergy is an integral part of our local economy, employing thousands of hard-working residents,” said Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan, who was “shocked” Tuesday by allegations that lawmakers illegally enriched themselves through a “criminal conspiracy.” . “The men and women who rely on FirstEnergy for employment are our neighbors – working to provide for their families, even through these tumultuous times.” Political backlash could be especially costly for Energy Harbor, which is depending on the controversial state bailout signed into law last year. Two Republicans and several Democrats said Wednesday morning that they intend to claw back the subsidy. “When I spoke in support of H.B. 6, it was with the hope of keeping many good paying jobs in our community,” said Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro. “Maintaining jobs is important, but not at the cost of the alleged activities that appear to have put H.B. 6 into action. The news out of Columbus yesterday was both shocking and disappointing.”The repeal of House Bill 6, which Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday he would not support, could rewind the clock for Energy Harbor to March 29, 2018, when – then operating as FirstEnergy Solutions – the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant was scheduled for decommission in May 2020 followed by the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in 2021. FirstEnergy Solutions filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy two days later on March 31, 2018. That July, FirstEnergy Solutions arranged but did not follow through with the sale of its retail and wholesale electricity business to Constellation, a subsidiary of Chicago-based energy giant Exelon.

Pa. Consumer Advocate: FirstEnergy can’t recover $60 million alleged bribe from customers -FirstEnergy Corp. would not be able to raise electric rates on its 720,000 West Penn Power Co. customers in an attempt to recoup what federal prosecutors say was $60 million in bribes allegedly paid to Ohio power brokers. Prosecutors allege the bribes were paid in an effort to secure a $1.3 billion bailout of two failing nuclear power plants a FirstEnergy subsidiary owned in Ohio. “ ‘Lobbying’ expenses (by a utility) are not recoverable from the ratepayers. It would be disallowed,” Tanya McCloskey, acting Pennsylvania Consumer Advocate, said Wednesday. “We do a very detailed review of their expenditures and their expenses,” when a utility asks the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission for a rate hike, McCloskey said. The state PUC constantly is “closely monitoring recent cases in Ohio and Illinois involving companies that also operate affiliates in Pennsylvania to safeguard consumers in our state,” said Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, a PUC spokesman. The commission tracks utility-related developments in other states to evaluate their potential impact, Frederiksen noted. The PUC also conducts a “rigorous management audit” that reviews all expenses of utilities in Pennsylvania, and those audits are available to the Consumer Advocate whenever a utility seeks a rate hike, McCloskey said. FirstEnergy serves two million customers in the state through Greensburg-based West Penn Power, as well as Met-Ed, Penelec and Penn Power. Todd Meyers, a spokesman for Greensburg-based West Penn Power, could not be reached for comment. The FBI on Tuesday arrested Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder and four others in an elaborate scheme in which a nonprofit, Generation Now, allegedly received payments from FirstEnergy in its efforts to win the bailout in 2019 and defeat an attempt to put a referendum regarding the bailout on the Ohio ballot. FirstEnergy Solutions, which had been a subsidiary of FirstEnergy, was in bankruptcy at the time and operating the nuclear power plants. The company emerged from bankruptcy in February 2020.

FirstEnergy CEO says company “acted ethically” in efforts to pass House Bill 6 – cleveland.com — In a quarterly earnings report released Thursday afternoon, FirstEnergy CEO Charles Jones said his company “acted ethically” in connection with efforts to pass House Bill 6 that federal prosecutors say were fueled by bribery.“We intend to cooperate fully with the Department of Justice investigation involving the Ohio Speaker of the House, and we will ensure our company’s involvement in supporting HB 6 is understood as accurately as possible,” Jones said. “I believe that FirstEnergy acted ethically in this matter. At no time did our support for Ohio’s nuclear plants interfere with or supersede our ethical obligations to conduct our business properly. I believe the facts will become clear as the investigation progresses.”A criminal complaint filed Tuesday accuses Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four others of taking $60 million in bribes from FirstEnergy in order to secure legislation that would bail out the utility’s two nuclear plants in Ohio.Neither the company nor Jones have been charged with a crime.The Akron-based company had previously declined to substantively comment on the investigation, issuing a statement Tuesday that only said the company had received subpoenas and intended to fully cooperate.FirstEnergy’s second-quarter earnings, which amounted to $309 million, compared to $308 million in second-quarter 2019. The company’s stock dropped this week after the announcement of the arrests.

Wisconsin law firm announces investigation of possible securities fraud by FirstEnergy | wkyc.com – A Milwaukee-based law firm specializing in securities fraud and shareholder litigation has announced an investigation into FirstEnergy in the aftermath of Tuesday’s arrest of Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. Ademi & O’Reilly, LLP is looking into the connection between FirstEnergy and Householder,who was arrested on racketeering charges along with four others.In a release from the firm, the investigation will focus on whether FirstEnergy issued false and misleading statements regarding its business practices, internal controls and prospects. FirstEnergy allegedly spent approximately $2.9 million on Larry Householder’s 2017 campaign. Householder became Ohio House Speaker in 2019 and allegedly returned the favor by enacting laws to support FirstEnergy’s two nuclear plants as well as a pair of coal plants. In total, political donations and bribes by FirstEnergy and other parties involved may have totaled as much as $60 million. U.S. Attorney David DeVillers called the conspiracy “probably the largest bribery case ever in Ohio.”Householder pushed hard for the passage of the roughly $1 billion financial rescue andoffered praise when it narrowly cleared the General Assembly last July over the objections of even several of his Republican colleagues. The legislation added a new fee to every electricity bill in the state and directed over $150 million a year through 2026 to the nuclear plants near Cleveland and Toledo. The investigation found that the money was paid from March 2017 to March 2020 to Householder and his associates from what prosecutors referred to as “Company A,” identified as a nuclear energy company and subsidiaries in the complaint. Householder received quarterly $250,000 payments from the related-energy companies into the bank account of a non-profit called Generation Now. The defendants allegedly spent millions of the company’s dollars to support Householder’s political bid to become Speaker, to support House candidates they believed would back Householder, and for their own personal benefit.

Here’s when Ohio utilities will resume service shutoffs for unpaid bills – cleveland.com – Since the coronavirus crisis hit Ohio in March, water, electric, and natural gas utilities, at the direction of the state, have halted service disconnections to customers with overdue bills.But those moratoriums are ending, as utilities around the state are planning to resume shutoffs within the next couple of months, even though critics say it’s still too soon for them to do so.In late March, following the DeWine administration’s “stay-at-home” and business-closure orders, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency directed municipal water systems to stop customer shutoffs and reconnect water service for everyone who was disconnected dating back to Jan. 1. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio secured similar pledges from gas and electric utilities it regulates in the state.But the Ohio EPA’s order expired July 10. And many utilities are beginning to roll out plans to once again stop service for delinquent customers.Utilities that have already made arrangements to resume shutoffs say they will first attempt to make arrangements with customers to get caught up on their bills before moving to disconnect service.“We know that customers are facing economic hardships right now. We want to work with them,” said Jennifer Young, a spokeswoman for FirstEnergy Corp., who said company subsidiaries – including The Illuminating Company and Ohio Edison – won’t restart shutoffs until Sept. 15 at the earliest.Even so, utilities are moving too quickly to cut service while their customers are still hurting from the pandemic and the subsequent financial crisis, according to Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Bruce Weston, a state official who advocates on behalf of residential utility customers.“With minorities disproportionately represented in poverty, unemployment is higher, coronavirus cases are surging in places, and now loss of essential utility services could make people’s plight more desperate,” Weston said in a statement. “Ohio should lead with its heart and keep Ohioans connected to utility services for the time being.”

FirstEnergy scandal is latest example of utility corruption, deceit – Energy and Policy Institute – Federal agents arrested Ohio Speaker of the House Larry Householder, along with several lobbyists, on July 21 on charges that the group used $60 million of funds provided by the monopoly utility FirstEnergy Corp. in exchange for passing a law that bailed out that company’s nuclear and coal plants. The scandal is the latest example of monopoly utility companies deceiving lawmakers, regulators, and the public to enrich executives and shareholders, and occasionally being criminally investigated or prosecuted for their actions. Many instances of utility corruption center around attempts to change policies or regulations in ways that would increase electric bills – often to cover costs at expensive power plants, win approval to construct controversial power plants, or restrict the growth of rooftop solar power. While the government’s criminal complaint refers to FirstEnergy Corp. only as “Company A Corp.,” it makes clear that the company both provided the funding and was intimately involved in the scheme that Householder ran. Householder used the $60 million provided by FirstEnergy to finance a takeover of the Ohio House of Representatives by legislative candidates who would be loyal to him. Those legislators then elected him as House Speaker in January 2019 after a fierce leadership battle. The bill – which cost electric customers in Ohio billions of dollars – also undid Ohio’s standards requiring utilities to use renewable energy for a modest portion of their generation, and to help customers save electricity via energy efficiency measures. On July 17, ComEd agreed to pay $200 million to resolve a federal criminal investigation into a years-long bribery scheme, as part of a three-year deferred prosecution agreement. According to the agreement with the Department of Justice, ComEd admitted that it arranged jobs, vendor subcontracts, and payments associated with those jobs and subcontracts for various associates of a high-level elected official for the state of Illinois – reported to be Speaker Michael Madigan – to influence and reward the official for his efforts to pass legislation favorable to ComEd. n February, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil fraud lawsuit against two top former SCANA electric utility executives. The lawsuit alleges that senior SCANA executives, CEO Kevin Marsh and executive vice president Stephen Byrne, lied and deceived shareholders, regulators, and the public regarding the construction of two new nuclear units at the V.C. Summer site, which the company abandoned amid massive cost overruns in July 2017. Byrne entered a guilty plea on federal criminal charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud last month, and The Post & Courier reported today that, as a condition of his plea, Byrne will cooperate with federal prosecutors, giving them “insights and advantages as they continue to bring charges against the people involved in a failed $9 billion nuclear expansion project in South Carolina.”

Former SCANA executive pleads guilty to fraud charges tied to failed SC nuclear project – Federal prosecutors locked in a valuable witness Thursday who will give them insights and advantages as they continue to bring charges against the leaders of a failed $9 billion nuclear expansion project in South Carolina. Steve Byrne, the former vice president of Cayce-based SCANA Corp., pleaded guilty in federal court to defrauding electric customers and lying about construction progress as the company tried to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County. The guilty plea requires Byrne, 60, to cooperate with federal prosecutors who have spent three years investigating the project’s sudden abandonment in July 2017. The construction failure cost South Carolina electric ratepayers billions of dollars in higher power bills. SCANA’s shareholders also suffered huge losses when the company’s stock value tanked. The company was ultimately sold at a bargain price to Virginia-based Dominion Energy.On Thursday, Byrne admitted to falsely telling regulators, investors and the public the project was on track in order to win rate hikes on customers and keep the venture going while failing to raise alarms about critical flaws that were dooming the expansion effort.By pleading guilty, Byrne is hoping to avoid a stiffer sentence. The fraud charges he pleaded to can still carry up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release afterward.He could also be required to forfeit up to $1 million in pay and bonuses tied to his performance when he oversaw the V.C. Summer venture. For now, Byrne will remain out of jail. A federal magistrate released him on $25,000 bail and required Byrne, who owns a home on the Isle of Palms, to surrender his passport. He will need permission from federal parole officials to leave the state for consulting work or special occasions.U.S. Magistrate Judge Shiva Hodges said she was providing leniency because it could take years for a judge to issue Byrne’s sentence, which will come at the end of a federal investigation targeting other SCANA officials.

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