Environmental News For The Week Ending 15November 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). This week it is posted in the early am Wednesday.

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

• 15 Nov 2020 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 15November 2020

• 15 Nov 2020 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 15November 2020

Summary:

At the end of last week, the US was approaching 10 million Covid-19 cases; by Friday evening, we had 11 million cases; we set a new record for coronavirus infections on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday, and again on Thursday, and then again on Friday, with Friday’s record more than 41% higher than the record high of last week. The 7 day average of Covid-19 cases this week was 45% above last week’s, and 80% higher than the week before that. We also saw new records for covid hospitalizations every day this week, covid hospitalizations are up around 40% so far in November and, as a result, hospitals in several states are running out of space and cancelling other non-essential procedures. Moreover, even if hospitals were to add beds, most wouldn’t have enough healthy staff to care for patients; for instance, Cleveland Clinic reported earlier this week that 360 doctors and nurses were infected. And, to top off this dismal week, this week’s US covid deaths were 18.7% higher than last week’s.

This week’s widely touted Pfizer vaccine is pie in the sky. There is no existing infrastructure to distribute it and keep it viable at -80C until it’s ready to use, so even if it’s approved, distribution of it will be spotty and expensive.

The exponential growth in infections is evidence that this country’s contact tracing has completely broken down, and we are at the mercy of the virus. The only way to stop its spread now would be to cancel Thanksgiving, lock down the malls, and prohibit other public gatherings until Christmas (or beyond). But there’s not a governor in any of the 50 states who’d order something like that ahead of the big shopping season, so a lot more of us are going to have to die.

Below is a copy of today’s graph of new US cases from WorldOMeters so you can get a visuallization of what the growth of this thing looks like. If the growth rate of the past couple weeks were maintained, Covid-19 could be infecting a million Americans a day by the time a new administration moves into the White House.

US hospitalizations for Covid-19 are also rising daily, as are Covid-19 related deaths, which were up 20% week over week and averaging over 1K per day.

New cases globally were also at a record 648,440 Friday, around 40% higher than the prior week. There were a record 11,624 deaths on Wednesday, a spike for the second week in a row which may be due to reporting issues. Nonetheless, deaths globally were 8,636 on Saturday, up from 7,551 a week earlier (+14%).

For perspective, here is the graphic below from Johns Hopkins, showing the daily global new cases since the start of the pandemic up through 17 November.

Calculated Risk continues to track US testing. The decline in positive test results over July and August ended in September. The trend is now up. In September the increase in new cases was attributed to increased testing. In October that has changed – increases in new cases are now arising more from increased percentage of tests returning positive. The November 17 graphic:

Here’s this week’s other environmental news:

Study: Pittsburgh kids near polluting sites have higher asthma rates – Pittsburgh-area children living near steel mills, power plants and other large sources of pollution had “nearly triple” the national rate of childhood asthma, according to a new peer-reviewed study.The researchers studied over 1,200 school-age students between 2014 and 2016 in Allegheny County who lived and went to school close to large sources of pollution, like industrial sites or highways. These communities were disproportionately minority and low-income.“We actually found an alarming prevalence of asthma,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Deborah Gentile, the medical director of Allergy and Asthma Wellness Centers. The study found children in these schools had a 22.5 percent asthma rate, nearly triple the nationwide average of 8.3 percent. Allegheny County’s overall child asthma rate is 11 percent.The group monitored air pollution levels near the schools, and found a correlation between high levels of particulate matter – tiny particles that can slip into narrow breathing passages – and asthma rates.“The asthma prevalence as well as the severity is being driven in some cases by their exposure to the pollution,” Gentile said. “We found an alarming number of kids exposed to high levels of particulate matter.”Overall, 38 percent of students lived in areas with higher levels of particulate matter than the USEPA’s standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter, and 70 percent lived in areas with levels above the World Health Organization’s threshold of 10 micrograms per cubic meter.The schools were located near US Steel’s Clairton Coke Works and Edgar Thomson Works, Cheswick Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, DTE Energy’s now-demolished Shenango Coke Works, and the Monroeville junction of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The study, published in the Journal of Asthma, received funding from The Heinz Endowments, which also funds The Allegheny Front.

Exposure to air pollution during pregnancy may increase blood pressure in early life — Exposure to an urban environment characterised by high levels of air pollution and noise in areas with a high building density during the foetal period and in early childhood may contribute to higher blood pressure. This was the conclusion of a study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) published in Environment International. ISGlobal is an institution supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation. Analysis of the results showed that exposure to higher levels of air pollution, particularly during the first two terms of pregnancy, was associated with higher blood pressure in childhood. Furthermore, other characteristics of the urban environment during childhood also appear to be important. High building density is associated with higher blood pressure and good urban transport connectivity is linked to lower blood pressure. “It is possible that these associations reflect how people move around in the city and may indicate that greater connectivity promotes physical activity in the population” explains ISGlobal researcher Charline Warembourg, first author of the study. Exposure to noise also appears to be associated with higher blood pressure in children. High blood pressure is one of the chief risk factors for cardiovascular disease, a condition which is currently the leading cause of death worldwide. “Numerous studies have shown that children with higher blood pressure are more likely to develop hypertension later in life,” says Martine Vrijheid, study leader and director of ISGlobal’s Childhood and Environment Programme. “The results of this study show how important it is to identify environmental exposures that contribute to hypertension in early life, from conception onwards.”

Children exposed to tobacco smoke at home have worse heart function as adults — The more secondhand tobacco smoke children breathe at home while growing up, the higher chance they have of developing markers of decreased heart function as adults, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2020. The meeting will be held virtually, Friday, November 13 – Tuesday, November 17, 2020, and is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science for health care worldwide. “We already know from previous studies that children exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to have structural differences in their vascular systems as adults, such as thicker blood vessel walls and a higher risk of plaque buildup in the arteries,” said Chigoze Ezegbe, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., lead author of the study and a Ph.D. candidate at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia. “In this study, we wanted to understand the impact of prolonged secondhand smoke exposure during childhood on heart function in adulthood.” The investigators examined the health records of more than 1,100 adults (average age 45 years, 52% female) who are participants in the ongoing Childhood Determinants of Adult Health study, an Australia-wide research project initiated in 1985 that investigates the importance of childhood factors in the later development of risk factors for heart disease and stroke. About half (54%) of the participants were exposed to secondhand smoking at home during childhood. The participants’ most recent evaluation was between 2014 and 2019, 34 years after they entered the study as schoolchildren. The severity of childhood smoking exposure was calculated three ways: the number of smokers in the home; the number of years each child was exposed to tobacco smoking by household members; and the severity of exposure index – whether a child was said to be exposed in the home never, sometimes or always.

Acute exposure to higher ozone levels linked to higher risk of cardiac arrest — Exposure to higher ozone concentrations in the air is significantly associated with a higher risk of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Heart Association’s Resuscitation Science Symposium 2020. The virtual meeting is November 14-16, 2020 and will feature the most recent advances related to treating cardiopulmonary arrest and life-threatening traumatic injury. Previous studies have shown acute exposure to ozone and particulate matter in the air is associated with the development of chronic diseases. A 2010 scientific statement from the American Heart Association deemed ambient air pollutants a “modifiable factor that contributes to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.” “Air pollutants have been associated with increased mortality in the U.S., however, it is unknown whether ozone and particulate matter in the air on any given day are associated with a higher risk of an individual experiencing cardiac arrest outside of the hospital,” said Ali Malik, M.D., M.Sc., a clinical cardiology and cardiovascular outcomes research fellow at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute in Gladstone, Missouri, and lead author of the study. Researchers used data from the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival to examine if higher concentrations of ozone and particulate matter were associated with incidents of cardiac arrest. This study included 187,000 individuals with non-traumatic OHCA during 2013-2016. Participants were age 63 years on average, 61% were men and 53% were non-white. Individual exposures to particulate matter and ozone were estimated using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s atmospheric models that predict daily ozone levels by census tract. The results of the analysis found that for every 12 parts per billion (ppb) increase in the ozone level, the odds of a OHCA increased by 1%, which is statistically significant. However, there was no association between particulate matter concentration and OHCA, and no difference in risk for air-quality-related OHCA tied to age, sex or race.

Chemicals in your living room cause diabetes – A new UC Riverside study shows flame retardants found in nearly every American home cause mice to give birth to offspring that become diabetic. These flame retardants, called PBDEs, have been associated with diabetes in adult humans. This study demonstrates that PBDEs cause diabetes in mice only exposed to the chemical through their mothers. “The mice received PBDEs from their mothers while they were in the womb and as young babies through mother’s milk,” said Elena Kozlova, lead study author and UC Riverside neuroscience doctoral student. “Remarkably, in adulthood, long after the exposure to the chemicals, the female offspring developed diabetes.” Results of the study have been published in the journal Scientific Reports. PBDEs are common household chemicals added to furniture, upholstery, and electronics to prevent fires. They get released into the air people breathe at home, in their cars, and in airplanes because their chemical bond to surfaces is weak. “PBDEs are everywhere in the home. They’re impossible to completely avoid,” said UCR neuroscientist and corresponding author of the study, Dr. Margarita Curras-Collazo. “Even though the most harmful PBDEs have been banned from production and import into the U.S., inadequate recycling of products that contain them has continued to leach PBDEs into water, soil, and air. As a result, researchers continue to find them in human blood, fat, fetal tissues, as well as maternal breast milk in countries worldwide.”

How Will the Biden Administration Tackle ‘Forever Chemicals’? – In his environmental justice plan, President-elect Joe Biden pledged to set enforceable limits for PFAS in drinking water and to designate PFAS as a hazardous substance under the Superfund cleanup law. PFAS chemicals are building up in the blood of every American, posing the risk of serious health problems. PFAS makes vaccines less effective and are linked to cancer, harm to the reproductive system and other health hazards.More than 200 million Americans are likely drinking water and eating food contaminated with PFAS. Nevertheless, the Environmental Protection Agency,Food and Drug Administration and Defense Department have for decades failed to address the chemicals’ health risks. There are no federal limits on PFAS releases and uses and no requirements to clean up PFAS pollution.Setting a national drinking water standard for PFAS under the federal Safe Drinking Water would have a huge impact on public health. Right now, only a few statesrequire drinking water utilities to meet tough standards for PFAS in tap water. A national standard that would apply to all utilities would dramatically reduce our overall exposure to PFAS.Designating PFAS as “hazardous substances” under Superfund would also be historic. By doing so, the Biden-Harris administration would not only kick-start the cleanup process but also require polluters to pay their fair share of cleanup costs. But that’s not all the Biden team has pledged. The president-elect also pledged to prioritize PFAS substitutes in the marketplace. That means Biden could direct the EPA and the FDA to quickly phase out non-essential uses of PFAS in food packaging, cosmetics, sunscreens and other everyday products.The Biden team will have other tools at its disposal. The president-elect could quickly restrict industrial discharges of PFAS into the air and water by using the tools provided by the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and expand reporting of these releases through the Toxic Release Inventory. Right now, more than 2,500 manufacturers are thought to be releasing PFAS with no limits. The Biden-Harris administration can also direct the Defense Department to accelerate efforts to end the use of PFAS-based firefighting foam, impose a moratorium on the incineration of remaining stocks of PFAS foam, and accelerate PFAS cleanup at military installations. More than 300 military installations are known to be contaminated with PFAS.

Victims of Nuclear Bomb Tests on U.S. Soil 75 Years Ago Continue to Seek Justice – On July 16, 1945, the first-ever nuclear bomb was tested in New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. . Seventy miles from what became known as ground zero – the Trinity test site – Genoveva’s family lived on a ranch just outside the village of Capitan in New Mexico. At precisely 5:30 a.m., as dawn broke, the sky suddenly went pitch dark. Having no other point of reference, they mistook the abnormally loud roaring and rumbling in the sky for thunder. The entire house began to shake. Fear-stricken, the family huddled together in a corner. When the sky cleared, her father stepped outside the house and found himself being showered with a white powder. The powder was everywhere and covered everything around them. Nothing escaped it, not the cows the family had raised, or the vegetables in the garden, or the rainwater they stored in the absence of running water. Like other families who went through this experience, Genoveva’s family also dusted off the powder and consumed their vegetables and the stored water. The blast produced so much energy that it incinerated everything it touched and formed a fireball that rose to more than 12 kilometers into the atmosphere. The fireball created ash that snowed over the communities surrounding the blast site. The people did not know it then, but this ash that covered thousands of square mileswas the radioactive fallout from the explosion.Dread gripped the communities in Tularosa Basin who either witnessed or experienced the phenomenon they could not make sense of. In the days and months leading up to the blast, U.S. government officials did not notify anyone who lived in the region about the imminent nuclear bomb test. Nobody in the Tularosa Basin was evacuated to safety.In the aftermath of the nuclear test, officials began to cement a false narrative into the consciousness of the nation; the region was remote and uninhabited. Tens of thousands of people, in fact, lived in the Tularosa Basinin 1945. For a long time, the people of the basin believed that the blast was an ammunition explosion. “We were lied to by the government,” said Pino.It takes 24,000 years for half of the radioactive plutonium used in the Trinity bomb to decay. The people of the region have inhaled and ingested radioactive particles for 75 years because of environmental contamination. Those in power refuse to accept responsibility and take any corrective action. To this day, there have been no cleanup efforts.Radiation exposure has caused high rates of aggressive cancers, thyroid disease, infant mortality, and other health abnormalities in generations of families in the Tularosa Basin region. The scale of the health impact cannot be determined accurately as long-term epidemiological studies have only been undertaken recently. The findings of the latest research studies by the National Cancer Institute were published in September 2020 in the journal Health Physics. “There were 10 of us; now only one is surviving,” Genoveva says, speaking of herself. She has lost everyone in her family to cancer.

Trump administration faces suit over removal of endangered species protections for gray wolves – The Trump administration is facing a lawsuit over its recent decision to remove endangered species protections for gray wolves. On Friday, a coalition of conservation groups filed a notice of intent to sueover the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decision, which was finalized late last month. The FWS rule lifts more than 45 years of protections for the wolves, except for a small band of Mexican gray wolves present in Arizona and New Mexico. The new notice argued that the basis for the decision was both legally flawed and not based on the best available science. It cited a peer review commissioned by the government that was critical of the delisting proposal. “Given that gray wolves in the lower 48 states occupy a fraction of their historical and currently available habitat, the Fish and Wildlife Service determining they are successfully recovered does not pass the straight-face test,” said John Mellgren, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center, in a statement on Monday. “While the Trump administration may believe it can disregard science to promote political decisions, the law does not support such a stance,” Mellgren added. FWS spokesperson Vanessa Kauffman defended the delisting decision in an email to The Hill, saying it “reflects the Trump Administration’s continued commitment to species conservation based on the parameters of the law and the best scientific and commercial data available.” “After more than 45 years as a listed species, the gray wolf has exceeded all conservation goals for recovery. This action reflects the determination that this species is neither a threatened nor endangered species based on the specific factors Congress has laid out in the law,” Kauffman said.

Russian scientists discover huge walrus haulout in Arctic circle (Reuters) – Scientists in northern Russia have discovered a huge walrus haulout on the shores of the Kara Sea where their habitat is under threat from shrinking ice and human activity. The haulout, a place of refuge where walruses congregate, reproduce, and socialise, is located in a remote corner of Russia’s Yamal peninsula, and scientists say they counted over 3,000 animals there last month. Walrus haulouts have traditionally been located on drifting sea ice or on Arctic islands, scientists say. But warmer climate cycles mean sea ice is shrinking and habitats are under threat from oil and gas exploration and more Arctic shipping. “This haulout is unique because there are both female and male walruses, as well as calves of different age,” said Aleksander Sokolov, a senior Arctic researcher at Russia’s Academy of Sciences who called the find a “unique open-air laboratory”. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the species as “nearly threatened” in 2016, estimating the total number of adult Atlantic walruses in the world at 12,500. Before commercial hunting of them was banned internationally in the middle of the 20th century, their numbers were threatened by overharvesting for their blubber and ivory. Andrei Boltunov, from the Marine Mammal Research and Expedition Center, said the Yamal haulout which was first discovered last year but only properly documented last month, showed that the Atlantic walrus population was recovering. “We want to believe that it’s a positive sign,” said Boltunov, who said there was too little information for now to draw sweeping conclusions however.

Horseshoe crabs are crucial to creating vaccines, but they are facing extinction – A creature that has existed for more than 440 million years is key for ensuring a coronavirus vaccine is safe, but experts are warning the ancient animal could soon be facing extinction. Drug manufacturers rely on Atlantic horseshoe crabs to develop safe vaccines and injectable drugs. Each year, hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs are rounded up by pharmaceutical companies, drained of their milky-blue blood, and returned to the ocean, after which many will die. That’s because the blood is used to keep contaminants from making their way into IV drugs and vaccines. “Horseshoe crab blood is harvested to produce limulus amebocyte lysate, LAL. That is a detecting system for bacterial contamination,” John Tanacredi, the director of the Environmental Research and Coastal Oceans Monitoring lab at Molloy College, told CBS New York. While the Atlantic horseshoe crab is not currently endangered, the practice of harvesting the crabs for their blood combined with overharvesting for bait and loss of habitat has resulted in a decline of the species across the U.S. mid-Atlantic over recent decades. Researchers estimated in 1990 more than 1.24 million crabs spawned in Delaware Bay, a prominent point where the crabs lay their eggs and a key harvesting area for pharmaceutical companies. In 2019, researchers said the number of crabs spawning in the area was about 335,000. Other areas have seen declines in the crabs’ numbers as well.

Ethiopia battles worst locust plague in 25 years – Ethiopian farmers are battling the country’s worst locust invasion in 25 years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which urged officials to scale up survey and control operations in its situation update on November 9, 2020. More than 200 000 ha (490 000) acres of land have been damaged since January this year, threatening food supplies. “They have destroyed my crop. I do not know what to do. We have lost food and battle against desert locusts,” farmer Leila Mohammed told Anadolu Agency. She was ready to harvest her millet crop when she saw gigantic swarms of locust approaching the field. Other farmers noted that after trying to combat the insects, they return to sap the last grain of crop left in the field. Siba Aden Mohammed, a local official serving at Awbare district, said the area was just sprayed with pesticides in early November but the swarms came back “to destroy whatever little had been left.” “The new swarms have destroyed eight Kebeles [farmers’ localities]. All standing crops have been lost entire standing at six localities of Jabsa, Shil Asley, Aladere, Wogera Adle, Keleroek, and Gez Obele.” “It did not seem to affect this time unlike a week ago when the aerial spray had killed the locusts. The government is trying its best, sending aircraft, sprays, and experts. But it looks nothing is working.” More than 200 000 ha (490 000 acres) of cropland have been impacted since the beginning of the year, affecting the food security of millions of people.FAO acknowledged that the invasion is Ethiopia’s worst since 1995, and representative Fatouma Seid fears that the pattern may be repeated next year. “Infestation will continue into 2021. We are being reinvaded and the swarms will then go to Kenya.” In its situation update on Monday, the org encouraged officials to scale up survey and control operations, particularly throughout the Somali region in eastern Ethiopia. “Immature swarms persist near Dire Dawa and Jijiga. Hatching and hopper band formation, probably on a widespread basis, [is] underway in the eastern portion of the Somali region, including the Ogaden.”

Farmers Are Depleting the Ogallala Aquifer Because the Government Pays Them to Do So – A slow-moving crisis threatens the U.S. Central Plains, which grow a quarter of the nation’s crops. Underground, the region’s lifeblood – water – is disappearing, placing one of the world’s major food-producing regions at risk.The Ogallala-High Plains Aquifer is one of the world’s largest groundwater sources, extending from South Dakota down through the Texas Panhandle across portions of eight states. Its water supports US$35 billion in crop production each year.But farmers are pulling water out of the Ogallala faster than rain and snow can recharge it. Between 1900 and 2008 they drained some 89 trillion gallons from the aquifer – equivalent to two-thirds of Lake Erie. Depletion is threatening drinking water supplies and undermining local communities already struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid crisis, hospital closures, soaring farm losses and rising suicide rates.In Kansas, “Day Zero” – the day wells run dry – has arrived for about 30% of the aquifer. Within 50 years, the entire aquifer is expected be 70% depleted.Some observers blame this situation on periodic drought. Others point to farmers, since irrigation accounts for90% of Ogallala groundwater withdrawals. But our research, which focuses on social and legal aspects of water use in agricultural communities, shows that farmers are draining the Ogallala because state and federal policies encourage them to do it. At first glance, farmers on the Plains appear to be doing well in 2020. Crop production increased this year. Corn, the largest crop in the U.S., had a near-record year, and farm incomes increased by 5.7% over 2019.But those figures hide massive government payments to farmers. Federal subsidies increased by a remarkable 65% this year, totaling $37.2 billion. This sum includes money for lost exports from escalating trade wars, as well as COVID-19-related relief payments. Corn prices were too low to cover the cost of growing it this year, with federal subsidies making up the difference. Our research finds that subsidies put farmers on a treadmill, working harder to produce more while draining the resource that supports their livelihood. Government payments create a vicious cycle of overproduction that intensifies water use. Subsidies encourage farmers to expand and buy expensive equipment to irrigate larger areas.

A dam blocking 348 miles of salmon streams hasn’t generated electricity since 1958. But who will take it down? – It has no license to produce electricity, hasn’t generated a kilowatt since 1958, and provides no benefits for irrigation or flood control. But one thing Enloe Dam, built 100 years ago, still does very, very well: block fish from reaching more than 340 miles of high-quality, cold-water habitat upstream in the Similkameen River. The dam is of no use to anyone, not the small rural public utility district (PUD) that owns it, and not to tribes longing to bring salmon back to this river. Obstacles of cost, liability and a quest by the PUD to revive the dam for more than a decade stood in the way of removal. But now new efforts are underway to take down Enloe Dam. “It’s got to go,” said Rodney Cawston, chairman of the business council of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, as he watched the river crash in a 53-foot white cascade over the spillway of the dam. “Our people have lived off salmon for thousands of years. This is of just huge importance to us.” Taking down Enloe Dam is crucial for rebuilding steelhead, lamprey and chinook salmon in this river, said Cody Desautel, natural resources director for the tribes. The question isn’t whether this dam in their traditional territory should come down. But how, and at what cost, and who pays. “This is a mathematic and engineering question, and a question of where the sediment [behind the dam] goes,” Desautel said. “But the question of whether to remove it or not, that is a no-brainer.” Tribal business council member Andrew Joseph’s Indian name is Badger – an animal whose ferocious determination well matches the tribes’ efforts to restore salmon where dams have long been a barrier.In 2019, the tribes even began reintroducing salmon above Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams.Here, on the Similkameen River, a tributary of the Okanogan, which flows into the Upper Columbia, the tribes see a chance for restoration that is one of a kind.“There is nothing else like it in the entire upper Columbia,” said Chris Fisher, principal fish biologist for the Colville tribes.Estimates in a 1983 report to the Bonneville Power Administration compiled by snorkel surveys of the Similkameen system reported 1.2 million square yards of spawnable habitat for steelhead trout and 439,000 square yards for chinook that could accommodate 98,000 spawning steelhead and 55,000 chinook.Estimates are just that. But there is no question that taking down the dam, built just west of Oroville, would open passage to an entire system of wilderness tributaries in upstream, precious, high-elevation, cold-water habitat. Dam removal could add decades to the survival of upper Columbia chinook and steelhead, Fisher said, cold-water species listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Study: Plastic Pollution Increases Ocean Acidification -A new study finds that plastic water bottles submerged three weeks at sea contained more detrimental bacteria than seawater, creating conditions that lead to ocean acidification.In the study, published last week in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, international scientists concluded that plastic pollution, particularly single-use plastic water bottles, collected harmful bacteria and microorganisms, which flourish in carbon dioxide-rich environments.Increased levels of CO2 in the world’s oceans are one of the causes of coral bleaching, and rising carbon levels have accelerated the climate crisis. The Great Barrier Reef, the largest system of corals in the world, is now 50 percent bleached.The study also found that beneficial bacteria, an important part of the carbon cycle, were adversely affected.”Discarded plastic drinking bottles have become a common sight in our oceans and we were expecting to see them being colonized by different types of bacteria,” said Dr. Ben Harvey, assistant professor at the University of Tsukuba’s Shimoda Marine Research Center, and an author of the study.As part of the experiment, the plastic bottles were immersed near Shikine, a Japanese island close to carbon dioxide seeps, where CO2 evaporates into the seawater. This condition is expected to materialize more in subsequent years.”It was surprising to see the extent of that change and how the raised levels affected species differently. To see beneficial species dwindling while harmful species thrive is an obvious present and future cause for concern,” said Harvey.In addition to coral bleaching, ocean acidification is often a driver in biodiversity loss, with disrupted food webs threatening species.”Up to 13 million tons of plastics from land end up in the oceans each year and they have been shown to affect all types and sizes of marine species,” said senior author of the study Jason Hall-Spencer, a professor of marine biology at the University of Plymouth.Without coral reefs, starfish, sea urchin and sea turtle populations shrink, for example. Plus, acidification can cause sharks’ scales and teeth to erode. And deep-sea life such as whales and rays face less prey to find.

All-time November snow records broken for parts of the Canadian Prairies A strong low-pressure system brought blizzard conditions, heavy snow and freezing rain to parts of the Canadian Prairies on November 7 and 8, 2020, shutting down roads in Saskatchewan and Alberta and setting new all-time November snow records. While heavy snow fell in western parts of Saskatchewan, its eastern regions experienced freezing rain. Several more cm of snow is expected through the end of the week. The town of Kindersley in Saskatchewan recorded 47.6 cm (18.7 inches) of snow on Saturday and Sunday, November 7 and 8, setting a new 48-hour snowfall record. Kindersley recorded 11.6 cm (4.5 inches) on Saturday; and 35.8 cm (14 inches) on Sunday, breaking the previous 24-hour snowfall record of 21.3 cm (8.3 inches) set on March 17, 1974. “To put the weekend’s snowfall in perspective, the nearly 48 cm that recently accumulated is more than Kindersley saw in November, December, January and February 2019,” Brittany Warner of West Central Online reports. “Those four months totaled 43.8 cm (17.2 inches) combined, approximately 4 cm (1.5 inches) less than what fell this weekend.” Biggar and Leader have also broken November 2019 snow totals with 21.1 cm (8.3 inches) in Biggar in 48 hours — which is 6 cm (2.3 inches) more than the entire November 2019 — and 23.1 cm (9 inches) in Leader. In November 2019, Leader recorded a total of 12.8 cm (5 inches). Between 15 and 20 cm (5.9 – 7.8 inches) was recorded in the city of Regina, and nearly 30 cm (11.8 inches) in Saskatoon. Saskatoon’s current 24-hour snow record is 36 cm (14.1 inches) set on January 7, 2007. Prince Albert recorded 37 cm (14.5 inches) of snow, Codette 33 cm (12.9 inches) and Limerick 31 cm (12 inches). Rosetown reported 16.8 cm (6.6 inches) over the weekend, just a bit more than it recorded during the entire November 2019. Winter storm and blizzard warnings have all been dropped by Monday, but travel is still not recommended, the Weather Network reports.

Record cold and snow engulf California and Nevada, U.S. – Back-to-back cold fronts brought record temperatures and heavy snow to California beginning Friday, November 6, 2020, after months of hot weather and wildfires in the state. Single-day snowfall records were also broken in several areas in Nevada. In California, a total of 46 cm (18 inches) of snow engulfed Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort over the weekend, followed by 25 cm (10 inches) at Sugar Bowl. Daytime temperatures plunged to 10 °C (50 °F), with freeze warnings and frost advisories issued for some inland valleys overnight. On Monday, November 9, the temperature at Oakland Airport dipped to 3.3 °C (38 °F), breaking the cold record of 5 °C (41 °F) set in 2009. Gilroy shivered through a below-freezing -0.5 °C (31 °F), beating the previous record of 1.1 °C (34 °F) set in 1986. Parts of Southern California have also started experiencing chilly temperatures after months of hot weather and wildfires. The National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts temperatures significantly below average in the region on Wednesday morning, November 11. Freeze warnings and frost advisories also remain in place. “Frost and freeze conditions will kill crops, other sensitive vegetation and possibly damage unprotected outdoor plumbing,” NWS warned.In the neighboring state of Nevada, single-day snowfall records were broken in several areas including Reno, Carson City, and Yerington. Much of the area registered 13 cm (5 inches) of snow, which was considered historic for the date. “We normally see our first snowfall around the middle of November, but what’s so unusual is the amount that fell,” said KRNV-DT. “As a matter of fact, in Reno, we’ve only seen that much snowfall two other times in history before November 8th. In our region, we have roughly 130 years of record keeping.”

Severe floods hit southern Andalusia after a month’s worth of heavy rain falls in a day, Spain (videos) Major floods hit parts of southern Andalusia, Spain, on Thursday, November 5, 2020, resulting in damage, blocked roads, trapped residents, and a derailed train. The region registered 148.1 mm (5.5 inches) of rain in a 24 hour period, which was more than the average November rainfall of 100 mm (3.9 inches). According to the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), some storms may still be experienced in the region on Monday, November 9. Heavy rains and strong winds lashed the southern Andalusia region on Thursday, resulting in floods that trapped several people and damaged some roads. The emergency services responded to 130 incidents, mostly were in Malaga with 90 reports, followed by Huelva with 19 calls, and Seville with 12. A six-month-old infant and two adults were rescued after floodwaters trapped them in their home in Ronda. According to the local fire department, Guadelevin River broke its banks during the severe weather’s onslaught. In the municipality of Ardales, roads were damaged while a road tunnel was blocked, leaving several areas isolated. Five major roads in the province of Malaga were also closed. In Teba, heavy rains caused a train with 40 passengers to derail, while floodwaters damaged tracks on the Algeciras-Madrid route. Four people, including the driver, sustained minor injuries. A school in the area was evacuated as well due to flooding.

Massive floods sweep through eastern Libya – (videos) Major floods swept through Libya’s eastern region after heavy rains struck on Friday, November 6, 2020, resulting in considerable damage to houses, cars, and public infrastructure. About 10 million Libyan dinars or 7 million dollars have been allocated to deal with the damages in Al-Bayda municipality. A two-day holiday from Monday to Tuesday, November 9 to 10, was declared as affected areas remain flooded. Authorities said blocked sewers caused floodwaters to enter houses and public facilities, including a hospital in the city center.The municipal council declared a two-day official holiday beginning Monday, November 9, as the streets remain inundated. The interior ministry warned citizens and motorists to take caution on public roads.In a statement on Sunday, November 8, the ministry announced a heightened state of alert in all departments of the National Safety Authority (NSA) and emergency services. Police officials remain on standby in case of emergency and to facilitate traffic movement.Health Minister Dr. Saad Agoub issued urgent instructions to all emergency departments and health services to provide people with necessary health care.Meanwhile, the head of the steering council of the Municipality of Tobruk, Faraj Boukhatabia, set up an emergency room– including the municipal guard, social affairs agency, NSA, and Red Crescent to accommodate calls from people.In Al-Bayda, the presidential council has allocated an amount of 10 million Libyan dinars or 7 million dollars to provide all the urgent requirements to deal with the situation in the municipality.

Hundreds dead and missing after Eta devastates Central America and southern Mexico – Hurricane Eta continued to break records in intensity as it caused widespread devastation and incalculable suffering across the entire Central American isthmus and much of the Yucatfln Peninsula in Mexico. As of this writing, 98 people have been found dead and 187 have been reported missing, while many more casualties are feared as rescuers reach communities isolated by the flooding and damage to roads and bridges. Millions have seen their livelihoods uprooted by the destruction of homes, public services, roads, and countless acres of plantations. The rampant social devastation in the region had already been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the storm, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America had estimated that the Central American economy would contract 6.5 percent this year and sink over 1.5 million more people into official poverty. Amid low levels of testing, the region has reported 512,572 coronavirus cases and 12,075 deaths, while the Pan-American Health Organization has warned that the storm has increased the threat of infection. The mass displacements of people, the crowding into shelters and water availability issues are compounded by the near total lack of emergency measures to prevent contagion. Hurricane Eta intensified at record levels right before making landfall as a strong Category 4 storm in eastern Nicaragua, before becoming a tropical depression as it crossed through eastern Honduras. The storm wiped out small communities in the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, where 30,000 people were evacuated. The government has acknowledged that two artisanal miners died but no official accounting of the damages has been provided. Damage in Panama was concentrated in the Chiriqu’ province bordering Costa Rica. Landslides and flooding killed at least 17 people and left 68 missing, according to the Security Ministry. In Costa Rica, a couple died after their home was swept away by a landslide. Authorities have reported that 1,872 people were sent to shelters after their homes were destroyed or placed at risk, while the destruction of roads and public infrastructure left 19 towns temporarily isolated and tens of thousands without power or running water. Honduras saw the most widespread damage, including at least 26 dead and six missing reported so far. Large portions of the city of San Pedro Sula, the industrial center of the country with more than 1 million inhabitants, were submerged under a meter of water. Authorities have given estimates that across Honduras hundreds of thousands of homes and 1.7 million people were affected, with many losing all their belongings. Thousands in surrounding communities in the Sula Valley were cut off, with residents waiting days to be rescued from rooftops. The news program “Hoy Mismo” received a call from a woman requesting a helicopter or boat. “We haven’t eaten for two days and there are about 60 of us here with children,”

Tropical Storm “Eta” makes landfall in Florida after leaving more than 235 dead in Central America – After striking Nicaragua on November 2 as a Category 4 hurricane and leaving more than 235 people dead in Central America, Eta made landfall along the south-central coast of Cuba at around 09:00 UTC on November 8 and in Lower Matecumbe Key in Florida, U.S at 04:00 UTC on November 9, both with maximum sustained winds of 100 km/h (65 mph) – tropical storm strength.

• Heavy rainfall from Eta will continue across portions of Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and southern Florida and spread north into central Florida, NHC warns.
• Life-threatening flash flooding will be possible across inundated urban areas of southeast Florida today.
• Flash and urban flooding will also be possible for Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas and the remainder of southern Florida, along with potential minor river flooding in central Florida.
• Tropical storm conditions will continue across portions of the Florida Keys, and south and central Florida today.
• Water levels will gradually recede along portions of the southern coast of the Florida peninsula and Keys. Residents in these areas should follow any advice given by local officials.
• Eta could approach the Florida Gulf Coast later this week as a tropical storm, and possibly bring impacts from rain, wind, and storm surge. Interests in this area should monitor the progress of Eta and updates to the forecast this week.

At 09:00 UTC on November 9, the center of Tropical Storm “Eta” was located about 70 km (45 miles) NNW of Key West and 100 km (62 miles) S of Naples, Florida. Eta had maximum sustained winds of 100 km/h (62 mph) and was moving 20 km/h (13 mph). Its minimum central pressure was 992 hPa. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Northwestern Bahamas, including the Abacos, Andros Island, Berry Islands, Bimini, Eleuthera, Grand Bahama Island, and New Providence; Florida coast from Brevard/Volusia County line to Anna Maria Island; Florida Keys from Ocean Reef to the Dry Tortugas, including Florida Bay; and Lake Okeechobee. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the Cuban provinces of La Habana, Artemisa, Mayabeque, Pinar del Rio, and the Isle of Youth. A west to west-southwest motion with some reduction in forward speed is expected later today (EST) and tonight.

Tropical Storm “Eta” brings deadly floods to Florida and North Carolina, U.S. – Tropical Storm “Eta” made its second landfall in Florida and overall fourth landfall at 09:20 UTC (04:20 LT) on Thursday morning, November 12, 2020, with winds of 85 km/h (50 mph), causing torn off trees and roofs, widespread flooding, at least one casualty, and power outage that affected 11 000 customers. Hours after pounding the state, it spread heavy rains and gusty winds around the Carolinas, resulting in record-breaking floods in Charlotte, multiple rescues, at least one collapsed bridge, and at least 6 fatalities. The overall death toll is now approaching 300. On Thursday morning, Eta made its overall fourth landfall and second Florida landfall near Cedar Key, with winds of 85 km/h (50 mph), according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Up to 152 mm (6 inches) of rain fell over central and northern Florida into Thursday morning. Officials in several areas– including St. Petersburg, Sarasota, and Madeira Beach have responded to reports of flooded streets and torn off roofs. Roughly 11 000 customers lost access to electricity. As of Friday morning, November 13, a total of 616 customers remain without power, according to poweroutage.us. After reaching the mainland, the winds fell to 64 km/h (40 mph) in the afternoon. The storm ripped roofs apart, caused flooding, and widespread outages that affected 11 000 customers. In the south St. Petersburg Beach area, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office deployed its High Water Rescue Teams to save 33 people trapped in their houses and streets. In Manatee County, one person lost his life after being electrocuted while standing in an inundated area prior to the landfall, emergency management officials said. Deputies and highway crews are still working to clear debris from roads. In the Carolinas, moisture from Eta combined with a cold front moving eastward across the Eastern U.S. generated extremely heavy rainfall. At least 6 people lost their lives in North Carolina.

Eta flash floods turn deadly in North Carolina – At least seven people are dead and three are missing after heavy rains slammed North Carolina Thursday and caused severe flash flooding, according to The Washington Post. Some areas of the Tarheel State were hit with up to 10 inches of rain as moisture from Tropical Storm Eta moved off the Florida coast and interacted with a cold front over the region. About an hour north of Charlotte, Alexander County was one of the hardest-hit areas where crews had to evacuate more than 30 people from a campsite due to flooding. Three people were found dead at the Hiddenite Family Campground and a child and two adults are still missing. One person also died after a car went into water in Alexander County, and two traffic-related deaths were reported near Statesville, about 40 miles north of Charlotte. Near Raleigh, a child playing near a creek that overflowed drowned in the town of Rolesville.Floodwaters damaged dozens of roads and at least four bridges in the hard-hit county, and a reporter from Fox 46 Charlotte was live on the air when one of the bridges collapsed near her. Rescue crews evacuated 143 students from the Charlotte Corvian Community School after floodwaters inundated the building, according to the Charlotte Fire Department. No injuries were reported. “The rain may have ended but hazards remain,” the National Weather Service said on Twitter Friday. “Numerous roads remain closed & several rivers continue to rise. Use caution while traveling & leave extra time in case you encounter a closed roadway. Never drive around barricades.” Eta has pummeled both coasts of Florida for days as it has moved north. The storm first made landfall in Central America last week as a Category 4 hurricane and left at least 120 people dead in the region and dozens of others missing, according to The Associated Press. Eta also made landfall in Cuba and in the Lower Matecumbe Key on Sunday.

More than half of Honduras’ banana production destroyed by Tropical Storm “Eta” –Honduras’ banana sector has been hit particularly hard by Tropical Storm “Eta” after it lashed Central America last week. More than half of the country’s existing 15 000 ha (37 000 acres) has been lost to severe floods– the biggest damage in history for bananas, according to producers. Eta hit Honduras around November 5, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their homes. At least 457 houses have been damaged, 41 communities were cut off, at least nine bridges were destroyed, and up to 63 fatalities have been reported as of November 10. The banana sector has been significantly affected as about 8 000 ha (20 000 acres) of crops have been ravaged, which was more than half of the existing 15 000 ha (37 000 acres) in the country. “I think this is the biggest damage in history for bananas,” said producer Hector Castro, adding that at least 16 000 direct jobs may be in danger and the export volume will decrease. As of August 2020, agricultural product exports had increased by 10.7 percent over the same period in 2019, totaling 631 million dollars. The volume of fruit shipments pummeled by 4.6 percent, but the average international price hiked by 26.3 percent, according to the Central Bank. “Honduras will be left in a very weak situation due to the blow this will have on the government’s finances on the private sector,” Mateo Yibrin stated, a businessman from San Pedro. “We all have to be aware that getting out of this won’t be easy. 2021 is going to be an economically very complicated and complex year.”

Subtropical Storm “Theta” forms as the record-breaking 29th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season – Subtropical Storm “Theta” formed over the open waters of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean on November 10, 2020, as the record-breaking 29th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. The previous seasonal record for Atlantic named storms was 28 set in 2005.The Atlantic now has two named storm simultaneously — Eta and Theta. This is the latest in the calendar year that the Atlantic hurricane season has had two named storms simultaneously since November 10, 1932, Dr. Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at CSU, said.The 2020 season now ranks among the top 5 seasons for named storm days, hurricanes and major hurricanes. “It remains somewhat above-average for other metrics,” Klotzbach added.At 09:00 UTC on November 10, the center of Subtropical Storm “Theta” was located about 1 545 km (960 miles) of the Azores. It had maximum sustained winds of 85 km/h (50 mph) and estimated minimum central pressure of 998 hPa. Theta was moving E at 19 km/h (12 mph). An eastward to east-northeastward motion across the eastern Atlantic is expected during the next few days. “Theta has generally changed little during the past several hours. The cyclone has some characteristics of a tropical cyclone, including a central dense overcast and a relatively small radius of maximum wind,” NHC forecaster Cangialosi noted at 09:00 UTC today. “However, the storm is still entangled with an upper-level trough, and based on all of these factors, Theta is being maintained as a subtropical storm.”

Iota Becomes 30th Named Storm in Historic Hurricane Season – A system swirling across the central Caribbean has been named Tropical Storm Iota as it heads toward hurricane-ravaged Central America. Iota is forecast to reach hurricane strength and approach Nicaragua and northeastern Honduras as early as Sunday night, the National Hurricane Center said. The region is still recovering from Hurricane Eta, which ripped through the same area earlier this month and left more than 100 dead. Iota is the 30th named storm in the Atlantic this year, beating the old record of 28 set in 2005. It’s likely to take a similar path as Eta, which made landfall Nov. 3 as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 140 miles per hour (225 kilometers per hour). That storm triggered massive flooding in Central America before heading back out to sea, and passed across Florida Thursday. Iota could become a Category 3 storm with winds of at least 111 mph as it approaches the coastline, said Jim Rouiller, lead meteorologist at the Energy Weather Group. “The results would be catastrophic,” Rouiller said. “They are still recovering and it is going to produce another serious threat – – the flooding is going to be tremendous. This is definitely the worst case.” Since the first storm of the year formed off the U.S. East Coast in May, 2020 has unleashed a conveyor belt of destruction. Hundreds of people have died, billions in dollars of losses and damages have been incurred and records have fallen by the wayside one after the other. Bearing Brunt An unprecedented 12 named storms have hit the contiguous U.S., with the Gulf Coast bearing the brunt of the damage. The East Coast hasn’t been spared either, with New York having been plunged into darkness in early August when Hurricane Isaias made landfall in North Carolina and tracked up the Northeast. So many systems have formed this year that the National Hurricane Center used up its official name list in mid-September and resorted to using Greek letters to designate tropical cyclones. “We didn’t expect to see the 2005 record go down so soon,” said Phil Klotzbach, lead author of the Colorado State University seasonal forecast. “There is obviously an improved observational component, but any way you slice it, 2020 has been one for the record books.”

Iota expected to strike Central America as a major hurricane – Tropical Storm “Iota” formed in the Central Caribbean at 21:00 UTC on November 13, 2020, as the 30th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. Iota is expected to strengthen into a major hurricane before it makes landfall in Central America. The same region that saw major floods and landslides caused by Hurricane “Eta” — in which nearly 300 people lost their lives — will experience another round of heavy rain and strong winds. Landfall is expected early Tuesday, November 17. The time to prepare is now. “2020 continues to add to the Atlantic named storm record,” Dr. Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at the CSU, said. “The old Atlantic single-season named storm record was 28 named storms set in 2005.” “2020 is now tied with 1931, 1961, 2001 and 2005 for the most Atlantic named storm on record to form in November.” Iota is also the 5th Caribbean named storm formation since October 1, along with Gamma, Delta, Zeta, and Eta. “The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is now tied with 2005 for the most Caribbean named storm formations after October 1 on record,” Klotzbach added. If the current forecast verifies, Iota will intensify into a major hurricane before it makes landfall in Central America — this would make it the 2nd major hurricane to form this month. Eta was the first. “Zero Atlantic hurricane seasons on record have had two major hurricane formations in November.”

Tropical Storm “Etau” nears Vietnam, landfall expected on November 10 — Tropical Storm “Etau” formed on November 9, 2020, in the South China Sea as the 21st named storm of the 2020 Pacific typhoon season. PAGASA declared the system as a tropical depression at 12:00 UTC on November 7 and assigned it the name Tonyo. Etau is expected to make landfall in the vicinity of Phu Yen and Ninh Thuan provinces on Tuesday, November 10. This will be the 12thstorm to strike Vietnam this year.At 12:00 UTC November 9, the center of Tropical Storm “Etau” was located about 815 km (505 miles) east-southeast of Da Nang, Vietnam. Etau’s maximum 10-minute sustained winds were 75 km/h (45 mph), maximum 1-minute sustained winds also 75 km/h, with gusts up to 110 km/h (70 mph). The minimum central barometric pressure was 996 hPa and the system was moving west-southwestward at 22 km/h (14 mph). Further strengthening is expected prior to landfall before Etau weakens into a tropical depression as it moves into Cambodia. The provinces of Quang Tri and Khanh Hoa are expected to see as much as 400 mm (16 inches) of rain from Monday, November 9 to Thursday, November 12. Quang Binh and the Central Highlands are expected to receive 200 mm (8 inches) of rainfall during the same period. According to Senior Colonel Nguyen Dinh Hung of the Border Guard Command, nearly 60 000 vessels at sea have been notified of the storm and have been guided to navigate away from the danger zone.

Tropical Storm “Vamco” (Ulysses) to rapidly intensify before striking Philippines – Tropical Storm “Vamco” formed on November 9, 2020, as the 22nd named storm of the 2020 Pacific typhoon season. The system entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) at 12:00 UTC on November 8, receiving the name Ulysses — still as a tropical depression. By 12:00 UTC on November 10, Vamco intensified into a Severe Tropical Storm. The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) has raised a red alert status in Bicol Region (Region 5).At 09:00 UTC (17:00 LT) on November 10, Tropical Storm “Vamco” (Ulysses) was located about 930 km (580 miles) east-southeast of Manila, Philippines.Its maximum 10-minute sustained winds were 85 km/h (50 mph), maximum 1-minute sustained winds 75 km/h (45 mph), with gusts up to 120 km/h (75 mph).The minimum central barometric pressure was 994 hPa, and the system was moving northwestward at 20 km/h (13 mph).According to PAGASA, the center of Vamco is more likely to make landfall over Quezon early Thursday morning, November 12, with a close approach of Catanduanes and Camarines Norte tomorrow afternoon and evening (LT), respectively. However, a slight southward shift in the orientation of the track forecast shows an increasing likelihood of landfall over Camarines Norte tomorrow afternoon or evening.Vamco may rapidly intensify into a typhoon by November 11 and reach a peak intensity of 130 to 150 km/h (80 – 93 mph) before the end of the day, PAGASA said. “Landfall at or near peak intensity is highly likely.”

Typhoon “Vamco” strikes the Philippines, leaving a massive trail of destruction Typhoon “Vamco” — known locally as the Ulysses — struck the Philippines on November 11, 2020, with maximum sustained winds of 155 km/h (96 mph) and gusts to 205 km/h (127 mph). This is the 21st named storm to hit the country this year and the 4th in the past month– after Molave, Etau, and Goni (super typhoon). It is also the 22nd named storm of the 2020 Pacific typhoon season and the 10th typhoon. Vamco left a massive trail of destruction, millions without power, at least two people dead, 4 missing, and nearly 200 000 displaced.Bicol, the worst affected by Super Typhoon “Goni,” was the first to feel Vamco’s powerful winds and rain. Many people there remain without power with only limited or no telecommunication services after Goni.The storm then battered Calabarzon, Central Luzon, and Metro Manila, unleashing powerful winds and torrential rain that left neighborhoods submerged and people appealing for aid and rescue, the Rappler reports.Social media sites were flooded with pictures of inundated villages with rooftops barely peering through the water’s surface.Metro Manila woke up to major flooding, described as the worst in years. Authorities used boats to reach people stranded on rooftops or trapped in their homes.Even some areas that were historically not flooded, such as the City Hall, were now submerged, PhilStar reported. More than 3.8 million customers in and around Manila were left without power. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has dispatched all of its disaster response units to affected areas, the Philippine News Agency (PNA) said, adding that AFP is monitoring the situation along the Marikina River that is experiencing heavy flooding.”Evacuation is ongoing, with the Naval Task Group of the JTF-NCR joining city disaster risk and reduction units with their rubber boats, trucks, and personnel,” AFP Chief of Staff, Gen. Gilbert Gapay, said in a statement Thursday.

New England Is Rattled by Strongest Earthquake Since 1976 — The biggest earthquake in decades rattled New England Sunday morning.The 3.6 magnitude quake was epicentered a few miles off the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts,according to NPR. No injuries were reported, but 21 people in New Bedford had to evacuate their homes because of minor structural damage, NBC10 Boston reported.”I’ve never in my life experienced something so scary, ever in my life,” one New Bedford woman told NBC10 Boston. “Like something exploded and I thought like a car had hit my building.”The quake struck around 9:10 a.m. at a depth of about 9.3 miles. It was felt across Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as well as in parts of Connecticut and Long Island, New York, CBS Boston reported. Around 14,000 people reported it to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) website.”Earthquakes in this area are commonly felt very far away because the rocks in this area are very contiguous, very old, so they transmit the energy very well from earthquakes,” USGS geologist Paul Caruso told The New York Times.Caruso said there had been 26 earthquakes in Southern New England since 1963. However, this was the largest since a 3.5 quake struck in March of 1976, Caruso told CBS Boston.”This was the first earthquake I really felt in New England,” local seismologist Dr. Alan Kaftka told NBC10 Boston. He said smaller earthquakes in the region were common, but there had only been around nine earthquakes of a similar magnitude since the 1700s. While no major damage was reported, there was some minor damage. The most dramatic involved collapsed chimneys in two New Bedford apartment buildings, displacing several families. The Red Cross said it was helping 21 people, including children, who had to find another place to stay because of earthquake damage in the city.

Sequence of powerful explosions at Stromboli volcano, Italy A sequence of powerful explosions occurred at Stromboli volcano, Italy starting at 20:04 UTC on November 10. 2020. The Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Osservatorio Etneo, reports that at 20:04:20 UTC a major explosion has occurred in Stromboli’s south-central crater area. The event lasted about 6 minutes and produced an eruption column that rose higher than the Pizzo Sopra la Fossa (elevation 400 m / 1 312 feet — an area atop the volcano about 100 m / 328 feet above the crater terrace). The products of the explosion were mainly distributed over the Sciara del Fuoco and led to abundant pyroclastic material rolling down. The event lasted until 20:10:00 UTC, with at least three explosions of minor intensity after the major explosion. In terms of seismicity, the event, which was visible on all seismic stations at Stromboli, was characterized by a sequence of explosive events that commenced at 20:03.50 UTC. No significant variations affected the volcanic tremor amplitude. All parameters returned to normal levels by 22:11 UTC. Spectacular incandescent nighttime explosions at this volcano have long attracted visitors to the “Lighthouse of the Mediterranean.” Stromboli, the NE-most of the Aeolian Islands, has lent its name to the frequent mild explosive activity that has characterized its eruptions throughout much of historical time. The small, 924-m-high (3 031 feet) island is the emergent summit of a volcano that grew in two main eruptive cycles, the last of which formed the western portion of the island.

Senate proposes spending increase at environmental agencies – The Republican-led Senate is proposing modest spending increases for environmental agencies compared to last year’s budget, diverging from proposed cuts that the Trump White House put forward earlier this year. In its $38 billion Interior-environment spending bill for fiscal 2021, the Senate Appropriations Committee proposed giving about $13.6 billion to the Interior Department and about $9.09 billion to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That’s up from the $13.5 billion given to Interior last year and the about $9.06 billion appropriated for the EPA in the last fiscal year. The Senate has also proposed increasing the Energy Department’s budget to about $42 billion, an approximately $3.45 billion increase over last year. The Democrat-led House has also proposed increases for these agencies. The push by Congress to increase funding for the agencies comes after the White House in February called for cutting the EPA’s budget by 26 percent, the Interior budget by 16 percent and the Energy Department budget by 8 percent. The Senate legislation included increases for major agencies at Interior such as the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. However, the top Democrat in charge of Interior-environment appropriations in the Senate expressed disappointment at some aspects of the bill. “We simply need more resources to fund programs that address existential threats such as climate change, imperiled species, and crumbling infrastructure, improve the lives of American Indians and Alaska Natives, and support the nation’s arts and cultural institutions,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said in a statement. “I am also troubled that the draft continues a number of anti-environmental policy riders from previous years that would bind the incoming Biden-Harris administration before they are even in office and need to be removed, including language to block protections for the sage grouse,” Udall added. The senator was referring to a provision in the bill that seeks to prevent the sage grouse bird from receiving endangered species protections. The sage grouse is found in the Western U.S. and has caused legal wrinkles for oil and gas producers seeking to lease federal lands. The bill that contains the Energy Department’s budget, meanwhile, would set aside $150 million to start a uranium reserve program, which the Trump administration has pushed for as part of an effort to increase nuclear energy production. It would also increase spending on energy efficiency and renewable energy as well as nuclear energy research and development, along with maintaining levels for fossil energy research and development. Additionally, it would increase funding for the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, which President Trump proposed eliminating.

Georgia Senator Dismisses Climate Change While Enjoying Protected Beachfront Mansion — IF SEN. DAVID PERDUE wins reelection in Georgia’s runoff in January, the Republican Party will almost certainly maintain its Senate majority. Perdue, an outspoken climate denier, urged President Donald Trump towithdraw from the Paris Climate Accords; voted against a Senate resolution that affirmed that climate change is real and that human activities contribute to it; and dismissed the Green New Deal as a “socialist wish list.” The one-term senator, who is a first cousin of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and golfing buddy of Trump, also vowed to protect the coal industry and was endorsed by the Koch-affiliated Super PAC, Americans for Prosperity. If Perdue wins, the potential for the Biden administration to respond to the global climate crisis will be greatly diminished.But even while Perdue publicly rejects the scientific consensus about climate change, the Georgia senator and former CEO of Dollar General is part of a gated beachfront community that has taken the global phenomenon and its consequences extremely seriously. Perdue owns a more than 9,000 square-foot mansion with six bathrooms, arched doorways, and a pool on Sea Island, a gated community on St. Simons Island, the wealthiest ZIP code in the state. Over the past few years, as sea-level rise has accelerated, the Sea Island Company, which owns the island resort, has constructed an elaborate and expensive system of jetties and sea walls in an effort to protect the lavish homes there. According to his federal disclosure forms, Perdue’s net worth is somewhere between $13.7 million and $39.8 million. Although it is just steps from the water in an area of Sea Island known as Ocean Forest, Perdue’s home – and the entire community – has been protected from the ravages of the quickly changing climate, giving the senator the privilege of dismissing the phenomenon even as his home is carefully girded against it. The Sea Island Company has built a sea wall, as well as three jetties, that combat beach erosion. And the company regularly collects massive amounts of sand from the southern jetty and redistributes it to other beaches along the island.

White House removes leader of major climate report – The White House has removed the top adviser responsible for leading the government’s assessment of the status of climate change. Michael Kuperberg, a climate scientist serving as executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), has returned to his previous post at the Department of Energy. Kuperberg’s reassignment came late Friday night, according to The Washington Post, removing him as leadership of the Fifth National Climate Assessment transitions to a new hire. The report involves drafting hundreds of top scientists to weigh in on climate change, often producing dire warnings about the limited time the U.S. has to act in order to avoid the most severe consequences. Kuperberg was already slated to be replaced by Betsy Weatherhead, a longtime climate scientist recently hired at the U.S. Geological Survey. But the shakeup means he will no longer be able to continue to work on the report as expected. According to The New York Times, some observers fear the administration may seek to place David Legates, a deputy administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, into the top slot. Legates, an academic with a history of questioning humans’ influence on global warming, could influence USGCRP as it seeks to select the academics and other experts that will write the report’s sections. The Fifth National Climate Assessment has already had trouble getting off the ground. Though due in 2022, the website for the report already anticipates delivery by the end of 2023. The administration delayed in putting the call out for researchers to help with the report, beginning the process only after media reports. According to the Post, Kuperberg was surprised by the reassignment. “He was extremely dedicated,” a White House official told The Post. “He did a very good job of figuring out how to walk that political line. He had no idea it was coming.”

Trump Administration Removes Scientist in Charge of Assessing Climate Change – The New York Times Michael Kuperberg was told he would no longer oversee the National Climate Assessment. The job is expected to go to a climate-change skeptic, according to people familiar with the changes. – The White House has removed the scientist responsible for the National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s premier contribution to climate knowledge and the foundation for regulations to combat global warming, in what critics interpreted as the latest sign that the Trump administration intends to use its remaining months in office to continue impeding climate science and policy. Michael Kuperberg, executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces the climate assessment, was told Friday that he would no longer lead that organization, people with knowledge of the situation said. According to two people close to the administration, he is expected to be replaced by David Legates, a deputy assistant secretary at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who previously worked closely with climate change denial groups. Dr. Kuperberg’s departure comes amid a broader effort, in the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s defeat last week by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., to remove officials who have fallen afoul of the White House. Also on Friday, Neil Chatterjee, head of the agency that regulates the nation’s utility markets, was demoted by the White House, after he publicly supported the use of renewable power. In a message to colleagues, Dr. Kuperberg said he was returning to his previous job at the Department of Energy. He was removed from the list of staff on the research program’s website on Monday. Dr. Kuperberg did not respond to requests for comment. The Global Change Research Program reports to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Asked why Dr. Kuperberg had been removed from the role, Kristina Baum, a spokeswoman for that office, said on Monday that “we do not comment on personnel matters.” Dr. Kuperberg’s dismissal appears to be the latest setback in the Trump administration for the National Climate Assessment, a report from 13 federal agencies and outside scientists that the government is required by law to produce every four years. The most recent report, in 2018, found that climate change poses an imminent and dire threat to the United States and its economy. It could be used in court to bolster the positions of fossil fuel companies being sued for climate damages. It could counter congressional efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where it contributes to global warming. And, ultimately, it could weaken what is known as the “endangerment finding,” a 2009 scientific finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that said carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to human health and therefore are subject to government regulation.

Chatterjee says exclusion of state regulators from carbon pricing conference was a ‘mistake’ Former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Neil Chatterjee on Wednesday acknowledged that excluding state voices from FERC’s carbon pricing conference may have been a “mistake.” “These are difficult jobs and it’s tough to get everything right. And I humbly acknowledge that I make mistakes. I make mistakes all the time,” he said during a Q&A at a virtual National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) conference, where a question was asked about state regulators’ absence from the technical conference on carbon pricing. “We could have done better. And with further reflection and more time, I acknowledge there could have been greater inclusion of direct state voices,” he added. The commission was criticized for not including state regulators within wholesale markets on any of the panels at the conference, as well as for lacking gender and racial diversity. Chatterjee had previously defended his choices, saying he felt their voices were still represented, a position he repeated Thursday. The Role of Integrated Video Telematics in Driver Safety and Fleet Efficiency Learn how video intelligence is supporting large fleets in improving driver safety and mitigating risk. Learn more Dive Insight: Chatterjee on Thursday attempted to defend decisions he’s made over the past few years as chairman that have been criticized by state regulators, promising he would work closely with the states going forward as a commissioner. Chatterjee was demoted from his role as chairman last week by the White House, a move he and others think could have been in response to his action on carbon pricing. He will stay on as commissioner until his role is up in June of next year. Tensions between state and federal regulators reached an “all time high” this year, according to stakeholders frustrated with what they saw as FERC interfering in state clean energy plans. And although states had been in discussions with the commission to join its carbon pricing conference, no regulator from a FERC-regulated state was chosen.

REGULATIONS: White House races to wrap up rules before Trump exits — Monday, November 9, 2020 Now that President Trump has lost reelection, observers and advocates are bracing for agencies to finish a host of actions on energy and the environment. Trump made deregulation a centerpiece of his 2016 campaign. Now the White House and political leaders at the different agencies have roughly two months to finish dismantling the regulatory state. “I think it’s probably going to be an all-hands-on-deck to get as much accomplished as possible,” said Nick Loris, an energy policy expert at the Heritage Foundation. This morning, the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at New York University School of Law launched a tracker – “Midnight Watch Project” – to monitor regulatory actions on climate change, toxics, public lands and other issues through Jan. 20. “Last-ditch efforts may already be underway to lock in the damage done over the past four years and preemptively hamstring sorely needed action to protect the environment and public health – they will not go unnoticed or unanswered,” said State Energy & Environmental Impact Center Executive Director David Hayes, a former Obama administration official. Analysts and observers expect EPA to speed up long-term priorities that could fundamentally change how future regulations are drafted, including a plan to restrict the use of scientific research. Another action would impose cost-benefit forecasting requirements for new air rules. Last week, EPA sent a proposal to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs that would keep air quality standards for fine particulate matter in place through 2025. That acton will likely be finalized by Jan. 20. The agency is working on a similar plan for ozone standards, though the agency may have a harder time wrapping up before the inauguration (Greenwire, Nov. 5).At Interior, observers say proposals to weaken protections under the Endangered Species Act would be at the top of the list.And even though a Biden administration might be able to reverse them, a rush of oil and gas lease sales – including a controversial one in Alaska – is also expected (see related story). Preparations for a regulatory mad dash have been underway for months, said Earthjustice attorney Drew Caputo. “I think we’re going to see a crash rear-guard effort by the Trump administration to do as much anti-environmental stuff before they have to turn out the lights,” he said.

POLITICS: Fractures appear in Biden’s climate army — Monday, November 9, 2020 — Looming behind the blaring car horns and fireworks that welcomed President-elect Joe Biden’s victory was the enormous challenge of fulfilling his campaign promises on climate change. Biden won on a wave of unity among union workers, liberal activists and a diverse coalition of climate-minded voters who coalesced as an army against President Trump. That alliance, uneasy at times, carried Biden through the Rust Belt states where fracking and manufacturing are woven into the region’s economy. It helped him persevere in states like Arizona and Nevada where deadly heat waves and drought made aggressive climate policy a salient political message. If that unity dissolves, Biden’s monumental task of eliminating carbon emissions could fracture the party’s audacious approach to confronting climate change. Glimpses of discord are already on display. The Sunrise Movement, a youth-oriented group of climate activists, warned Biden yesterday about backsliding. For now, Biden and Democratic leaders in Congress describe their sweeping approach toward an existential climate threat as a moral goal that will unify the moderate and progressive wings of their party. “Americans have called on us to marshal the forces of decency and the forces of fairness, to marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time,” Biden said in his victory speech Saturday night, including “the battle to save the climate.” That echo from the campaign trail could soon be replaced by disagreements between divergent Democratic factions. Moderate lawmakers, alarmed by dwindling House seats, might seek compromises that appear to liberal activists as a surrender to corporate polluters. Progressives stand to demand an all-or-nothing attack on global warming that could strike union leaders as strident and out of touch. Democrats achieved their goal of unseating Trump, but they suffered a series of down-ballot defeats that robbed them of the ability to erase Trump’s policymaking through Congress. Friction is already evident. During a three-hour caucus phone call Thursday, centrist Democrats blamed the loss of about a dozen House seats on progressive lawmakers who supported fracking bans and defunding police departments. Democrats emerged from the election with a threadbare majority – and with concerns about the future. It’s true that renewable energy is booming and coal is in economic decline. But there are thorny challenges that the Biden administration will have to confront in order to meet its rapid timeline of hitting net-zero carbon in the power sector, like the growth of natural gas. Then there’s the transportation sector, one of the steepest climate challenges Biden will confront. He said during the campaign that he won’t emphasize bans on cars powered by fossil fuels, but some heavy-handed policies seem inevitable if he’s going to zero out the sector’s emissions. If those are absent, progressives could rebel. The strain is already showing. While some Democrats are pointing to policies such as the Green New Deal as a key part of the victory, others are complaining that they barely won because of messaging around a fracking ban. As moderates warn that Democrats risk blowback by going too far, progressives counter that moderates cannot take their base for granted. The voters who powered Democratic victories – even narrow ones – want the party to enact Biden’s climate plan, polls show.

Biden announces energy, environment transition team members | S&P Global Market Intelligence – U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Nov. 10 named members of his agency review teams who will be responsible for preparing Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris for the start of their administration. The team members for the U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency and other energy-focused agencies included academics, representatives of environmental and labor groups, and several veterans of the Obama administration in which Biden served as Vice President. Biden’s DOE team lead is Arun Majumdar, co-director of Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy and founding director of the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. The energy team also includes Jonathan Elkind, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Elkind worked for the DOE under the Obama administration from 2009 to 2017, focusing on climate and energy programs with other nations, and left the department as assistant secretary for international affairs, according to Columbia’s website. The DOE team also includes Noah Deich, executive director of the nonprofit Carbon180, which is seeking to transform carbon into an asset. Deich has been especially active in the carbon capture, utilization and storage space. Another energy transition team member is Brad Markell, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and chair of the AFL-CIO energy task force. Prior to joining the AFL-CIO, Markell was a union representative in Detroit who was “deeply involved in the negotiations leading to the historic tailpipe emissions standards for light-duty vehicles,” according to a biography from the National Academy of Engineering. Biden’s transition team for the EPA will be helmed by Patrice Simms, vice president for healthy communities at the environmental law and advocacy group Earthjustice. Simms started his career in the EPA’s Office of General Counsel and went on to become deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division during the Obama administration. Additional noteworthy team members include former Obama administration officials Joe Goffman and Cynthia Giles, who both currently hold positions at Harvard University. Goffman, the executive director of Harvard’s Environmental and Energy Law Program, previously worked as general counsel in the Obama EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. There, Goffman helped write the Clean Power Plan, which set the first federal greenhouse gas emission standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants – a rule that has since been repealed and replaced by the Trump administration. Giles is a guest fellow at Harvard’s Environmental and Energy Law Program and previously served as assistant administrator in the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Notably, Giles analyzed EPA enforcement data for the first two years of the Trump administration and found a dramatic decline in civil penalties for polluters. The Interior transition team has considerable experience in tribal rights. The group will be led by Kevin Washburn, who served as Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs under Obama, and Janie Simms Hipp, CEO of the Native American Agriculture Fund. Similar to other Biden agency teams, it included Obama administration veterans such as Bob Anderson, co-chair of Obama’s Interior transition team in 2008, and former Interior senior advisor Kate Kelly, currently director of public lands at the nonprofit the Center for American Progress. Another member of the Interior team is Bret Birdsong, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has called for maintaining the Obama administration’s sage-grouse species protections and restoring the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, which President Donald Trump significantly reduced in 2017.

EPA nominees may face challenging Senate confirmation path – Filling the top spot at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may be one of the more challenging Senate confirmation efforts facing the incoming Biden administration as the team eyes picks that have been vocal Trump administration critics. The EPA is expected to play a vital role in a Biden administration determined to change the U.S course on climate change and sharply reduce emissions. Among those on the list to lead the agency are Mary Nichols, currently the head of the California Air Resources Board, National Wildlife Federation President Collin O’Mara, former EPA regional administrator Heather McTeer Toney, and Dan Esty, a Yale University professor who previously held senior roles at the EPA during former President George H.W. Bush’s administration. Nichols, one of California’s top environmental regulators, has been through a confirmation battle before, securing the nomination to lead the Office of Air and Radiation under the Clinton administration. But this process could be different, and Democrats haven’t been shy about voicing concerns over the leverage Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will hold over the process assuming Republicans win two Senate runoff elections in Georgia and keep the majority. “I take McConnell at his word. I understand he said that he will make it clear who he’s prepared to support and not support and that’s a negotiation that I’m sure we’ll have,” President-elect Joe Biden told reporters Tuesday. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) during a Washington Post Live interview also forecast ongoing discussion between Senate Republicans and the White House, calling cabinet picks “a shared responsibility.” Toomey said that while the president “should get significant deference,” Senate Republicans may not be willing to support “people who are well outside of the political mainstream.” Nichols has earned wide praise in the environmental community and many see her as the front-runner for the position. “Mary Nichols is one of those most distinguished and accomplished environmental leaders in the United States,” Stan Meiburg, former acting deputy EPA administrator during the Obama administration, told The Hill. But the so-called Queen of Green has also not kept a low profile during the Trump administration. California has been one of Trump’s biggest foes, suing the administration 56 times over environmental rollbacks or other similar issues, including a decision to strip the state of its ability to enact tougher vehicle emissions standards. And Nichols has been at the center of those efforts, particularly as she has led the charge in recruiting automakers to sign deals to produce cars that reduce emissions faster than the timetable that was rolled back by Trump.

Trump races clock on remaining environmental rollbacks The Trump administration is scrambling to wrap up a slew of environmental rollbacks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office in less than 70 days. The administration has yet to get some of its most prized proposals across the finish line: finalizing the prep work to enable drilling in the Arctic and off the coasts; limiting protections for endangered species and migratory birds; and restricting what types of studies inform the government’s policy choices. Those efforts are raising concerns among environmentalists who have spent the past four years battling President Trump on issues like climate change and scientific independence. “This is an administration that has been breaking norms from the beginning, so why shouldn’t we expect them to do that until the bitter end?” said David Hayes, executive director of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at New York University’s School of Law. Hayes, along with others, is also worried about “personnel and other disruptive executive actions” beyond new regulations. At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), top of the list is a proposal that has already generated roughly 600,000 negative comments. The rule, which the agency bills as a transparency measure, could block consideration of studies that don’t make their underlying data publicly available, something likely to exclude landmark public health research when crafting agency policy. Former EPA head Scott Pruitt, who led the agency from 2017-2018, called the rule a way to battle “secret science.” Critics counter it will block the agency from using studies that won’t release personal health information or confidential business data – common practices in studies the agency relies on when reviewing chemicals and assessing public health risks. Another rule the agency hopes to get out before Jan. 20 would change the cost-benefit analysis behind Clean Air Act regulations, making it tougher to account for some of the benefits of curbing air pollution. The rule change would also make it more difficult for future administrations to justify new air regulations. Critics say the two proposals would systematically undermine the agency going forward. “Those two are just killers for the whole foundation of the work of EPA,” said Betsy Southerland, director of the Office of Science and Technology at the EPA’s Office of Water during the Obama administration. Stan Meiburg, who served as the EPA’s acting deputy administrator under former President Obama, said “you can’t just put your fingers on the scale by discounting the benefits” of reduced air pollution. “You have to count all the costs and all the benefits,” he added.

Trump administration sued for failing to update efficiency standards for 25 appliances – Separate coalitions of 13 states and six environmental groups filed two lawsuits against the Trump administration Wednesday after it failed to update energy efficiency standards for 25 types of appliances. The standards cover appliances ranging from dishwashers to refrigerators to air conditioners that, without federal guidelines for efficiency improvements, may cost consumers an extra $580 billion in energy costs and release 2 billion metric tons of carbon emissions by 2050. “It’s astonishing that the Trump administration is failing to carry out this common-sense law that saves people money and reduces air pollution,Howard Crystal, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Energy Justice Program, said in a release. “The climate crisis demands we do everything possible to reduce carbon emissions to ensure a livable planet, and we can’t afford to let the Department of Energy abdicate its responsibility.” The suits target the Department of Energy, which is required to update appliance standards every six years. The move follows other actions taken by the department to roll back efficiency standards for lightbulbs and another rule to exempt quick wash dishwashers from energy efficiency standards–even though most dishwashers already meet them. President Trump has been particularly vocal about efficiency matters, complaining about lightbulbs and low flow shower heads and toilets at campaign rallies. “The Trump administration’s abject failure to implement the energy conservation program is part of a broader pattern of disregard for consumers’ interests, climate change and basic common sense,” said David J. Hayes, executive director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center, which helped coordinate the state effort. “The administration is allowing appliances to consume more energy, while also seeking to ensure that the power grid itself remains dependent on more expensive, more polluting sources of electricity. Consumers pay the price at every step.”

New York sues Department of Energy over lapsed energy standards – New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James, announced that she was leading a coalition of states to sue the Trump Administration’s Department of Energy (DOE). James’s office says the Department has shirked its responsibility to update national energy efficiency standards. “The Trump Administration’s abandonment of its responsibility to update key energy efficiency standards is not only illegal, it also threatens to worsen air pollution and cost consumers billions of dollars,” said James. “This lawsuit seeks to enforce the law and compel prompt action to strengthen these critically important and impactful energy-saving measures.” Specifically, the suit alleges that 25 types of consumer and commercial products require strengthening standards. Otherwise, James says, the evolving equipment and technology will cost taxpayers over $580 billion, while dumping two billion tons of pollution into the atmosphere over the next 30 years. James says the DOE has failed to meet legal deadlines to review and update national energy efficiency standards for industrial equipment and home appliances like washers, dryers, refrigerators, freezers, microwaves, air conditioners, and water heaters. Deadlines were passed by Congress through the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) over four years ago, James says. The lawsuit alleges that, because these deadlines are unmet, citizens and businesses in those states risk having higher energy bills, an unreliable electricity grid, and even more polluting emissions. The EPCA’s standards cover products that use about 90% U.S. residential energy, 60% of commercial energy, and 30% of industrial energy. The DOE has estimated that efficiency standards enacted through 2016 will save more energy than the nation consumes in a year, and a savings of over $2 trillion on consumer utility bills by 2030.

New York faces a long road on electric vehicle commitments – Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration is confident New York will have 10,000 publicly accessible charging stations for electric vehicles by the end of 2021. The number of places drivers will be able to find those plugs, however, will be far more limited. Cuomo announced his current 10,000 stations goal in 2018 – his administration aiming to “make ownership of gasoline-powered vehicles obsolete.” But the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which is overseeing efforts to bring the stations online, says that number refers to individual plugs for electric vehicles, not discrete stations throughout the state – an important distinction if the state hopes to alleviate “range anxiety” associated with the vehicles. The state appears to be lagging in the effort. Just getting to Cuomo’s goal will require construction to proceed over the next 14 months at a rate more than double the past year. There are currently about 6,500 charging plugs, including 800 at workplaces, across the state. And even if that threshold is met, clean energy boosters say the state needs to be more ambitious to cut transportation emissions to the level required under the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. “We really just need to make sure we’re rightsizing infrastructure for a fully electric future,” said the Sierra Club’s Allison Considine. “Ten thousand isn’t going to cover that.” Boosting the number of charging facilities, and ultimately making electric vehicles easy for everyone to own and operate, is a key component of Cuomo’s effort to fight climate change. Despite the high-level commitment and state subsidies meant to spur the installation of new stations, New York currently has fewer than 2,000 separate public charging locations – a quarter of the roughly 8,000 traditional gas stations that dot the state, according to federal and state data. The state is behind in the rollout of fast chargers at service areas on the Thruway, a project that has languished for years and won’t be complete by the 2020 target. The state’s underlying goal – to hit 850,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2025 – has proven challenging, and a blue-ribbon panel on electric vehicle technology announced by the Cuomo administration in January has yet to convene.

Diesel fuel from soybean, canola and used cooking oil? See Grön’s plan for $9.2B Baton Rouge plant – The Greater Baton Rouge Port Commission approved a land lease agreement Tuesday night with a Texas-based company that plans to build a renewable diesel plant that could be worth $1.2 billion in the first phase of what could be a multi-phase $9.2 billion development over nine years. Grön Fuels LLC will initially pay the port $20,000 to lease 141 acres at the port, on the Intracoastal Waterway west of the Genesis Baton Rouge Terminal. The payment will go up to $100,000 at the end of 2021 and $500,000 at the end of 2022, unless the deal is terminated. Once Grön begins commercial operations or no later than the end of 2023, the base lease will be $3.5 million a year.“We think they will move forward quickly,” said Jay Hardman, the port’s executive director. Hardman said the firm has an air quality permit ready to file.Port officials said this was one of the biggest economic development deals in the past 20 years. The Grön facility is expected to support 1,000 construction jobs.The company expects to hire 340 employees by 2024 and ramp up to 1,025 by 2031 if all potential expansions are developed. Officials said the jobs would have an average salary of about $100,000.Officials with Grön, which is Swedish for “green,” told port commission members that the plant would use soybean and canola oil, tallow and used cooking oil to produce renewable diesel fuel. Unlike biodiesel, renewable diesel can be used in existing diesel engines, pipelines and storage tanks.The company said it has a letter of intent with the Colonial and Bengal pipelines to connect the refinery to existing pipeline systems. This will provide access to major demand centers in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, Grön said. The Grön facility would initially produce 60,000 barrels of renewable diesel per day. In comparison, the nearby Placid crude oil refinery in Port Allen produces 75,000 barrels of oil a day.

Smithfield Foods and Dominion’s biogas plan a foul deal for Duplin, Sampson – Pork giant Smithfield Foods and energy giant Dominion Energy, in a joint venture called Align RNG, are collaborating to sell gas from multiple, polluting, industrial-scale pits full of hog feces and urine in North Carolina. They are using a nicer-sounding word for this operation, “biogas.” The project, called the Grady Road Project, will harm streams and rivers in eastern North Carolina, pollute our air and impact the health of families in Duplin and Sampson counties and beyond. We, the neighbors and residents who will be downstream from this project, must make our voices heard to ensure that people and not the polluters are protected at the only public hearing on this major project at 6 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 16. If approved, the Grady Road Project would be the first major project of its kind in the state. It would include trapping methane from 19 industrial scale, unlined pits of untreated hog waste in Duplin and Sampson counties; laying a maze of over 30 miles of pipelines over yet-unknown areas; and constructing a central facility where biogas is processed and injected into existing natural gas pipeline. At its core, the Grady Road Project relies on and furthers an outdated and unsafe system of storing untreated hog feces and urine in waste pits and spraying the untreated waste onto nearby land, where it pollutes our groundwater, rivers and streams, and our air. This harmful waste storage is called a lagoon and sprayfield system. The lagoon and sprayfield system makes people living near these industrial operations sick and overwhelms neighbors with foul odors. Researchers at Duke University found that North Carolinians who live near large swine operations have higher death and disease rates from a variety of causes than people who live farther away. People of color bear a disproportionate burden of foul odors and higher death and disease rates. Creating biogas from swine waste requires a cap over a waste pit, which aids in a process called “anaerobic digestion” and traps methane and carbon dioxide. Capping these lagoons results in a dramatic increase in harmful pollutants, including ammonia, in the liquid waste that remains in the lagoon and is then sprayed onto nearby fields where it runs off during rain, contaminating waterways. In addition, these waste pits are still susceptible to flooding and breaches during major rain storms, which are increasingly frequent and intense. Over 20 years ago, Smithfield promised to transition to cleaner systems for disposing of its hog waste, but the corporation hasn’t fulfilled its promise. Now, Smithfield and Dominion stand to make an enormous profit by displacing the burden of their primitive waste management practices onto our families and communities without investing in pollution prevention and following through on that two-decades old promise.

Underground electric transmission line moving ahead – Radio Iowa – A developer proposes building an underground, high power transmission line from north-central Iowa to northeastern Illinois. It would run 220 miles along railroad rights-of-way from Mason City to the Mississippi River, then on to Yorkville, Illinois, near Chicago. Soo Green spokesman Steve Frenkel, says it would be the first link in a major project that would send “clean” electricity to the East Coast. “When you look at states across the eastern half of the country, you’ve got stronger and stronger renewable energy standards being adopted,” Frenkel says, “and there just isn’t the low-cost renewable energy resource available in the eastern half of the U.S. compared to what the Midwest can offer in terms of scale and efficiencies.” The initial proposal would deliver two-thousand megawatts of power from the wind and solar farms in central Iowa to the East Coast, enough power to light 1.2 million homes. “The Midwest offers low-cost, highly efficient renewable energy development that can meet the needs of higher demand in population centers in the East where you’ve got a lot of ambitious clean energy goals,” Frenkel says. “We as a nation need a national clean energy grid and Soo Green could be the first link in what we’re calling a U.S. clean energy superhighway.”

Transmission troubles? A solution could be lying along rail lines and next generation highways | Utility Dive – Utility-scale renewables and flexible, distributed renewables, some of the basic elements of deep decarbonization, are growing rapidly, but the transmission system needed to deliver and integrate them is not. Recent studies, including the landmark and reportedly suppressed Department of Energy Seam study, show expanded transmission is critical. But two key barriers – where to put the new lines and how to pay for them – still slow development, according to a June 2020 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report to Congress. Allocation of the new lines’ costs remains unresolved, but new approaches to siting are attracting attention.”Siting is one of the most intractable barriers,” but “largely untapped” rights-of-way (ROWs) on already developed “brownfields,” such as railroads and highways, could “alleviate the problem,” former FERC Chair James Hoecker wrote on behalf of the Rail Electrification Council (REC) ina July filing with FERC on transmission planning incentives.Hoecker’s filing defines brownfields as “land already developed for another industrial or ground-disturbing purpose” and notes that “there are many potential kinds of available brownfields that may be suitable for co-development, railroads and highways among them.”These railways and “next generation” highways, in which transmission lines, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and broadband/5G infrastructure are co-located, could bypass objections of private landowners on transmission siting and streamline deployment. Using existing ROWs is a feasible way to build the urgently-needed interregional transmission described in the Seam study, transmission authorities agreed. But to resolve the cost allocation barrier, stakeholders must recognize high voltage transmission’s economic, reliability and resilience benefits, and its importance to deep power system decarbonization, they said.

Midwest utilities craft ambitious renewables, coal-retirement plans to meet goals – Six Midwest utilities have said they expect to spend more than a combined $15 billion over the next several years to install or buy roughly 4 GW of solar generation, more than 3.6 GW of wind generation and just over 1 GW of electric battery storage. Each of the utilities also said during third quarter 2020 earnings presentations that they intend to continue to retire long-held coal-fired capacity as they pursue carbon reduction targets that in most cases they have set for the years 2025, 2030 and 2050. The six Midwest utility holding companies — the WEC Group, which serves mainly Wisconsin, Alliant, which serves both Wisconsin and Iowa, Xcel’s Minnesota utility subsidiary, Michigan’s CMS Energy and DTE Energy and Ameren Energy based in St. Louis, Missouri — reported Q3 earnings in the last week of October and the first week of November and said they expect to retire a combined total of 5.8 GW of coal-fired capacity by the years 2022-2023. The utilities, which have a combined current generating capacity of 46.3 GW, are looking to replace their 5.8 GW of coal-fired capacity with 7.7 GW of new solar and wind over the next few years. While the combined total of future renewable investments among the six utilities came to $15.6 billion, the way they described their investments differed. WEC said it has a 2021-2025 capital plan for investing in its “efficiency and sustainability drives” that totals $16.1 billion, with “sustainable renewables” getting $4.1 billion of that total. The WEC Group also told analysts that it would be “allocating $1.9 billion for regulated renewables investing in carbon-free generation.” Ameren Energy, which in September filed its 2020 integrated resource plan with Missouri state regulators, said it was aiming at 3,100 MW of wind and solar generation by 2030, “representing an investment of approximately $4.5 billion.” After 2030, the company said, it will bring the total amount of renewables to 5,400 MW with a total investment of $8 billion.

McKinley to keep fighting for coal-fired power plants – A Democratic plan seeks to eliminate all carbon emissions in America by 2040, and U.S. Rep. David B. McKinley doesn’t think that is feasible. McKinley, R-W.Va., is working on a bill that would instead phase out carbon emissions to 20 percent by 2050. He is joined on this legislation by Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Oregon. The plan set forth by House Democrats in June seeks to eliminate all pollution from cars by 2035, from coal-fired power plants by no later than 2040, and to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. “To get to zero percent, it takes a serious effort and time period to get to that,” McKinley said. “Their plan isn’t enough. They want to take it (coal-fired emissions) to zero percent by (as soon as) 2035. This is only 15 years from now – we would go from where we are now to zero emissions. “I know it is aspirational. It has some possibilities. But it is not realistic – not by 2035,” McKinley said. The only way zero emissions could be achieved would be to shut down all coal-fired power plants, he said. Natural gas power plants also emit carbon and could not be used under a zero emissions edict, McKinley noted. Natural gas pipelines already have been blocked from coming through New England, and McKinley said that area now is forced to import its natural gas from Russia. “We were trying to put Putin in a corner, and we turn around and buy our natural gas from Putin, Russia and L&G,” he said. The U.S. also is buying some hydroelectric power from Canada, according to McKinley “I just don’t know what is going to happen to West Virginia, Eastern Ohio and Pennsylvania when you can’t use coal for coal-fired power plants,” he said.

USDA awards grants, loans to local entities preventing 100+ job loss – Harlan Enterprise – With the help of a CARES Act Business and Industry loan guarantee to industries in Harlan County, over 100 jobs will be saved from the chopping block, including positions at JRL Coal and local law enforcement.United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Administrator for Rural Business-Cooperative Service Rebeckah Freeman Adcock announced and awarded the grant on Friday, which will help to improve public safety. “Kentucky’s coal country has been hit extremely hard, so saving well over 100 well-paying jobs will have a tremendous impact not only on the employees but their families and the community as a whole,” said Adcock. “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Perdue, USDA Rural Development continues to be a valuable partner in helping rural businesses and communities across the commonwealth.”

AEP Announces Plans To Invest in Mitchell Plant in Moundsville – American Electric Power plans to keep Moundsville’s Mitchell Plant operating – with some new investments – as the energy company works toward complying with recently revised environmental regulations. The Mitchell Plant – a 1,560-megawatt, coal-fueled power plant that has been operating since 1971 – is one of four plants AEP will continue operating that will meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Coal Combustion Residuals and Effluent Limitation Guidelines rules, according to a news release. Three of the four plants are in West Virginia – Mitchell, the Mountaineer Plant in New Haven and the Amos Plant in Winfield. The fourth is the Flint Creek Plant in Gentry, Arkansas. AEP will file compliance plans this month with the EPA for the coal combustion residuals rule, which provides a set of requirements for the safe disposal of coal ash. Because of that, AEP will remove 1,633 megawatts of coal-fueled generation by 2028. The company plans to close a Hallsville, Texas, plant in 2023 and a Pittsburg, Texas, plant in 2028. The other four plants will remain, and AEP said that it will build dry-bottom ash handling systems – which use air rather than water to handle their coal ash – or new lined ash ponds, which prevent chemicals from leeching into groundwater and surface waters. These new systems will meet the EPA requirements, the company said.

Quarterly losses continue to mount for Peabody; Company says bankruptcy again an option -Coal giant Peabody reported on Monday another quarter with multimillion-dollar losses and warned that the company may look to bankruptcy for the second time in five years.Peabody, the world’s largest private-sector coal company, faces a deep downturn in coal coupled with slashed energy demand amid the coronavirus pandemic. The company announced Monday $67 million in losses in its third quarter, better than the $83 million it lost over the same period last year. Still, Peabody losses this year now add up to more than $1.7 billion.“Adaptability remains paramount,” said Mark Spurbeck, Peabody’s chief financial officer, speaking on Monday’s earnings call. “We are adjusting to changing demand, resetting our cost structure, and ensuring financial flexibility. And while we’ve made solid progress, we’re committed to doing more.”The announcement continues a trend of bleak news from the coal business. The nation’s second-largest coal producer, Creve Coeur-based Arch Resources, announced last month that it would rapidly pivot toward an “exit strategy”to end its sale of coal for electricity generation, and focus on coal for steelmaking. Arch even removed the word “coal” from its name earlier this year.Peabody CEO Glenn Kellow said on Monday his company’s emphasis remains on steelmaking coal, too, and he outlined prospects for its prominent Australian mines to serve Asian demand. At the same time, Arch’s planned exodus from the electricity market may give Peabody a dose of help – specifically in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the region that is the dominant supplier of coal for U.S. power generation, and where the companies run the nation’s two largest coal mines. With Arch’s departure, Peabody will remain “the low-cost P.R.B. producer,” Kellow said on Monday’s call.

IEEFA update: Peabody Energy flirts with bankruptcy – again – Just three-and-a-half years after emerging from its previous bankruptcy, Peabody Energy – the world’s largest private coal miner – admitted to investors on Monday that it could face yet another trip to bankruptcy court in the coming months. Peabody Energy’s Quarterly RevenueCoal bankruptcies in the United States have become increasingly common. Cheap gas and renewable power have steadily replaced coal in the U.S., contributing to a death spiral of weak demand, low prices, and inefficiencies that has pushed large and small coal companies into insolvency. Prospects for a quick turnaround seem slim, given the bleak picture of the global coal market that Peabody painted for its investors. According to the company, demand for metallurgical coal used in steelmaking has yet to recover from the global impacts of the coronavirus, and the company expects only modest growth over the next several years. For thermal coal used in power plants, the company acknowledged sharp declines in global coal use from developed economies (see latest Q10, page 7) . Peabody once seemed relatively immune from the changes sweeping through the sector. The company’s global footprint includes a number of low-cost coal mines in the U.S. and Australia. Its crown jewel – the North Antelope Rochelle mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin – is the largest in the world. Yet some of its biggest rivals in the U.S. and internationally have outperformed Peabody by shifting away from thermal coal in favor of higher-value metallurgical coal used in steelmaking. Arch Resources now refers to its thermal coal mines as “legacy assets” that it plans to quickly wind down. But Peabody, with its massive suite of thermal coal mines, has been either unable or unwilling to pivot to a more profitable or financially sustainable business model. As a result, the company’s revenues have fallen dramatically since 2018. As recently as mid-2018, Peabody’s share price stood at $45. Now, it is below $1 per share – a critical threshold that could force the New York Stock Exchange to remove Peabody from its listings.

US nuclear lab partnering with utility to produce hydrogen (AP) – The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded just under $14 million for an attempt to build a hydrogen-energy production facility at a nuclear power plant in Minnesota with the help of a nuclear research lab in Idaho. Idaho National Laboratory and Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy will work on devising and building the facility, most likely at Xcel Energy’s Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Station in Red Wing, Minnesota. The project announced this week is part of the Energy Department’s strategy to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions using nuclear power to generate carbon-free energy. Vehicles using hydrogen fuel cells, for example, produce only water vapor and warm air as exhaust. Hydrogen could also be used in industry, such as in the production of steel. Xcel Energy officials said they have a large amount of wind-generated energy they supply to customers. Officials said the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Station could make hydrogen when wind energy meets customer demand for electricity. Officials said the hydrogen would initially be used at the power plant but could ultimately be sold to other industries. According to its website, Xcel Energy provides energy to millions of homes and businesses across eight Western and Midwestern states, and has a goal of being 100% carbon-free by 2050. “Now we’ll be the first company to produce carbon-free hydrogen at a nuclear plant using this technology,” Tim O’Connor, Xcel Energy chief generation officer, said in a statement. The effort planned at the Minnesota plant will use a process called high-temperature steam electrolysis. Water is made out of three atoms: one oxygen and two hydrogen. The proposed project would use Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Station’s steam and electricity to split water and separate the hydrogen. Idaho National Laboratory will help with technical aspects of the project.

Contura found someone willing to take over its Cumberland coal mine – Contura Energy Inc. has found someone willing to take over its Greene County Cumberland mine and the reclamation liabilities that go along with it. Tennessee-based Contura has been under pressure from shareholders to accelerate its exit from thermal coal – the kind burned in power plants. It had already been planning to sell or close Cumberland by the end of 2022 and had canceled a capital project there that would allow the operation to be mined past that date. On Thursday, however, the company announced that Iron Senergy Holding LLC would get the stock of Contura’s Cumberland operations – an arrangement that avoids involving the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in approving a permit transfer to the new company. For this, Contura is paying Iron Senergy $50 million – $20 million of it in cash. The rest will go toward Iron Senergy’s reclamation bonds, which are necessary to ensure that environmental damage from the development of the mine is remediated in the event that the operator fails to do so. It is not clear what kind of entity Iron Senergy is. Nothing public is available about the new company, which was incorporated in Delaware in July. Contura also did not provide details. According to Contura’s announcement, Iron Senergy “has expressed its intention to continue operating the Cumberland Mine past Contura’s previously announced planned exit at the end of 2022, thereby extending employment opportunities for the Cumberland workforce, providing a continued tax base for the local community, and sustaining business opportunities for Cumberland’s vendors and a reliable fuel supply for customers.” It also suggested Iron Senergy has an interest in pursuing renewable energy at the site. There are about 600 people employed at Cumberland. . Contura rose from the ashes of the bankruptcy of Alpha Natural Resources, with many of the old company’s top executives assuming the leadership of the new firm. In the past few years, the company has been trying to focus its operations on metallurgical coal, which is used in steelmaking and fetches a better price than thermal coal. Contura said the deal with Iron Senergy still needs to clear some hurdles before closing, which it anticipates will happen next month.

Browns Ferry Unit 1 Completes Refueling and Maintenance Outage – – The Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 1 was safely returned to power production Saturday afternoon following a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage. The scheduled shutdown prepares the unit for the next two years of generating electricity for approximately 2.2 million homes.“We safely completed the necessary fuel replacement and maintenance to ensure Unit 1 provides reliable power to meet the energy needs of the Valley,” said Matt Rasmussen, Browns Ferry site vice president. “We did these tasks while keeping safety and employee health as our top priorities. We appreciate the continued commitment of our workforce in following additional health guidelines to keep everyone safe.”More than 10,500 work activities were completed during the outage, including the installation of 316 fuel assemblies. Other outage work activities included maintenance and upgrades to plant equipment, inspections and repairs of reactor components and refurbishment and testing of valves and electrical systems. Browns Ferry Unit 1 is one of seven operational Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear reactors.

PSEG wants three more years of nuclear subsidies A diverse group of consumer advocates, business groups and energy suppliers are once again forming a coalition to fight new attempts to have ratepayers pay subsidies to help keep New Jersey’s three nuclear plants operating. The coalition is comprised of roughly the same organizations that unsuccessfully opposed efforts by Public Service Enterprise Group and Exelon to obtain $300 million in annual subsidies from ratepayers two years ago, an outcome preventing the closing of the facilities. This time around, however, NJ Ratepayers United as the coalition calls itself, is fighting not only a new application to extend those subsidies for another three years but also unrelated proposals to restructure how the state goes about buying electricity for residents and most businesses. The latter proposals, offered by the companies earlier this year and the subject of a technical conference with state officials Monday, urge the state to withdraw from the regional power grid, PJM Interconnection. Instead, the state would set up its own entity for buying electricity in New Jersey, an option some argued would not undermine the goal of purchasing cleaner energy for customers. In comments submitted to the state Board of Public Utilities, PSEG argued its proposal to exit PJM could lower costs to consumers by hundreds of millions of dollars a year, while allowing increased purchases of renewable energy. Critics disputed those projections, claiming the proposal could increase costs by $300 million to $700 million a year. “Exiting our current regional market would create more uncertainty and higher electricity rates at a time when the state’s consumers can ill afford to pay even more,’’ said Evelyn Liebman, AARP New Jersey’s director of advocacy and a member of the coalition.

Gov. Abbott opposes West Texas waste site -The governor of Texas doesn’t want a proposed nuclear storage facility in his state near one of the most productive oil and gas basins in the nation.Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter Nov. 3 to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission urging denial of Interim Storage Partners’ license to develop a facility to store up to 40,000 metric tons of uranium in Andrews County, Texas, in the Permian Basin.The Permian Basin in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico provides about 35% of the oil production in the United States and about 16% of its natural gas production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.The regulatory commission accepted ISP’s application in August 2018, and a draft Environmental Impact Statement released in May concluded that building the above-ground interim site would have “no discernible negative effects on the environment or natural resources.”The new site would be built near an exiting waste site owned by the state of Texas and managed by Waste Control Specialists, one of the partners of ISP. That site has stored low-level radioactive waste since 2012.Abbott wrote that he consulted with several different Texas governmental departments and agencies and concluded that the new facility could be a prime target for terrorists or saboteur activities.“The proposed ISP facility imperils America’s energy security because it would be a prime target for attacks by terrorists, saboteurs and other enemies. Spent nuclear fuel is currently scattered across the country at various reactor sites and storage installations. Piling it up on the surface of the Permian Basin, as ISP seeks to do, would allow a terrorist with a bomb or a hijacked aircraft to cause a major radioactive release that could travel hundreds of miles on the region’s high winds. Such an attack would be uniquely catastrophic because, on top of the tragic loss of human life, it would disrupt the country’s energy supply by shutting down the world’s largest producing oilfield.”Abbott noted that the concept of “interim” storage had to be taken with a grain of salt because the license would be for 40 years. Also, he wrote that the federal government apparently has “abandoned” Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which had been the chosen site of the U.S. Department of Energy from the 1980s to 2010 to build a permanent nuclear waste storage facility. In May 2010, the Energy Department withdrew its licensing application for such a facility.Abbott also contended that the transport of waste on railroads through Texas is not a good idea. He said some cities and counties in the state have passed resolutions barring transport of nuclear materials through their areas and said even a non-hazardous accident could cause harm to other industries that rely on the railways.

Not a single HB 6 ‘yes’ vote lost their election. Some ‘no’ votes did. – Ohio Capital Journal The scandal surrounding House Bill 6 took out the speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives. It has dominated the newspages and airwaves for months. It was the subject of countless campaign attack ads. In the end, voters didn’t seem to care. The scandal implicating former Speaker Larry Householder and his effort to get a nuclear bailout enacted into law emerged as a major theme in the 2020 Statehouse elections, but seemingly had little impact on the results. In total, there were 46 lawmakers who voted for House Bill 6 and were on the ballot this November for a seat in the Ohio House or Ohio Senate. The unofficial results show that every single one of them won their election: 46-for-46. That includes Householder himself, who won reelection to his 72nd District over a slate of write-in opponents. In contrast, there were 35 “no” votes who were up for election. Four of them have been voted out, and a fifth lawmaker’s race is too close to call. That’s a striking result considering the extent to which the scandal has enveloped Ohio politics since the July arrests of Householder and four political operatives. In recent months, news outlets have extensively covered an 81-page affidavit outlining the years of alleged corruption and bribery that went into HB 6 being enacted to benefit the former FirstEnergy Solutions of Akron. So too did news stories highlight the vote to remove Householder as the House leader; the ensuing trials; and the ongoing effort to get HB 6 repealed. Voters got one last reminder last week, when two people charged in the alleged scheme pleaded guilty. The years-long plot, as alleged by federal investigators, involved FirstEnergy Solutions funneling “dark money” toward a group controlled by Householder. These resources were used to get Householder and a number of other Republican allies elected to the Ohio House of Representatives. These allies joined with more than two-dozen Democrats to elevate Householder as House speaker in 2019. Within months, Republicans introduced the nuclear bailout bill and quickly pushed it through both chambers. It was signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine in July 2019. The controversy surrounding the bill did not translate to any electoral trouble for its supporters and top backers. Both HB 6 sponsors were easily reelected: Rep. Shane Wilkin, R-Lynchburg, won another term in the 91st District by an unofficial margin of 77% to 23%, and Rep. Jamie Callender, R-Concord, won by an unofficial margin of 61% to 39% in the 61st District. State Rep. Shane Wilkin, R-Lynchburg Ten other bill cosponsors were up for election this year. All 10 won their contests. Four were unopposed, and the remaining six won comfortably – by an average margin of 35%. The remaining rank-and-file members who voted in favor of HB 6 and were up for election all were victorious as well.

Ohio Elections Commission may wait to consider complaints challenging Larry Householder’s use of campaign funds to finance his criminal defense – – The Ohio Elections Commission has no immediate plans to take up a case filed by state officials challenging former House Speaker Larry Householder’s decision to pay nearly $1 million in legal fees to lawyers overseeing his criminal defense on federal corruption charges. The Elections Commission will hold its next monthly meeting on Dec. 17, but may wait to hold a preliminary hearing on the issue until January or later, said Phil Richter, the election commission’s director. But the commission may wait until Householder’s case is over before taking it up, he said. That’s because Householder’s lawyers, responding to other complaints related to the corruption allegations, previously have declined to respond while the criminal case is ongoing, he said.“Even if I did send notice, all I’d get back is a ‘We’re taking the Fifth. We’re not making any comment on this.’ I wouldn’t have a whole lot of evidence or a whole lot to work with,” Richter said.“I appreciate the commission has said you can’t use campaign funds for criminal [defense] reasons,” Richter added. “You guys get to write the stories that say this is what they did, but we need evidence to establish that to be the case. We can’t assume that per se without some sort of evidence. So, I’m leery of going forward before we’d be able to get some sort of response from [Householder] to establish that.”Campaign finance records show that Householder has paid $920,000 from his campaign fund to two law firms defending him in federal court against federal corruption charges. The money came from donors who likely meant to help Ohio House Republicans retain their majority in the state legislatures, since Householder oversaw fundraising for the entire GOP caucus.The Ohio Elections Commission, which interprets election law in Ohio, repeatedly has found that spending campaign money on a candidate’s criminal defense is illegal under state law. It could refer the case for prosecution once it completes its review.Converting campaign funds for personal use is a first-degree misdemeanor in Ohio, punishable with up to six months and jail and a $1,000 fine. The OEC also could impose a $10,000 fine if it makes a referral to prosecutors.

Ohio’s head-in-the-sand legislature needs to act to remove the HB 6 stain – cleveland.com –Let’s examine the scorecard for House Bill 6 amid federal allegations it was the tainted fruit of the largest racketeering corruption case the Ohio Statehouse has ever seen.It makes for discouraging reading — even moreso, since Ohio voters on Nov. 3 failed to repudiate the alleged corruption and or show any displeasure with lawmakers’ failure to move quickly to repeal or replace the nuclear bailout bill.If the tainted HB 6 is not repealed soon, then, starting this Jan. 1 and for the next ten years, it will take more than $1 billion from Ohio ratepayers and give it to Akron’s Energy Harbor, current owner and operator of FirstEnergy Corp.’s two former nuclear plants. Yet voters on Tuesday returned all the principals involved in HB 6 to the Statehouse — including disgraced former House Speaker Larry Householder, alleged ringleader of the alleged $60 million corrupt scheme, who won reelection in a landslide. Talk about irony: The only Republican legislator punished with electoral defeat was state Rep. Dave Greenspan, of Westlake, who cleveland.com has reportedstood up to the alleged co-conspirators and helped the FBI make its case. Meantime, Ohio House Speaker Robert Cupp, who replaced Householder in the speakership (and voted for HB 6), has yet to schedule a vote on any repeal bill. In the Ohio Senate, President Larry Obhof says the “repeal” bill he favors is one that ends the nuclear and coal bailouts, but keeps HB 6′s evisceration of the state’s renewable energy portfolio standards, a true Bronx cheer to energy reformers. Why isn’t the Ohio legislature moving to remove the HB 6 stain? Simply put, they suspect Ohio voters don’t care. And maybe many don’t. But they should. And while the legislature twiddles its thumbs, others are acting.

FirstEnergy Terminates Two More Executives As HB6 Repeal Languishes in Legislature | WKSU – Akron-based FirstEnergy is at the center of a scandal that has rocked Ohio politics as well as the company’s front office. In late October, FirstEnergy fired its CEO and two other executives for violating company policy. In a filing Monday (see below), it announced two more executives, including the chief legal officer and chief ethics officer, have been dismissed. It all centers around House Bill 6, an energy bill approved last year by the Ohio Legislature that dramatically altered the state’s energy policy. The bill grants subsidies to keep open two Ohio nuclear plants owned by Energy Harbor, once a FirstEnergy subsidiary. Federal authorities allegeFirstEnergy gave big money to Ohio politicians to secure the bill’s passage. There have been calls – but no action yet – to repeal it. Reporter and attorney Kathiann Kowalski has been covering the story for Eye on Ohio and Energy News Network. Kowalski says without repeal, there will be ramifications for Ohio ratepayers. “If there is no repeal, it will likely mean higher bills for Ohioans,” Kowalski said. On average, the increase is expected to be about $7 a month “due to the nuclear plant subsidies, subsidies for two 1950s era coal plants and the elimination of the energy efficiency standard, plus gutting of the renewable energy standard.” Kowalski says House Bill 6 eliminated cost savings provided by the energy efficiency standard. The current speaker of the Ohio House, State Rep. Bob Cupp (R-Lima) has said that he wants to make repeal of House Bill 6 a priority for the rest of the lame duck session. “Honestly, we don’t know what form that will take,” Kowalski said. “There have been a variety of lawmakers pushing since August for a straight repeal of the bill. They tried to bring those up for a vote in early September. House leadership thwarted those efforts. So although repeal of House Bill 6 is on the agenda, we have to wait and see what form, if any, that will take.” She points out that many legislators who voted in favor of House Bill 6 were re-elected this month. That includes the former speaker, who allegedly orchestrated the corrupt network, Larry Householder (R-Glenford).

Ohio Republicans stuck on how to repeal nuclear bailout bill -Ohio’s Republican representatives agree that a law authorizing $1 billion in taxpayer money to bail out two nuclear power plants was tainted by an indictment of its leading advocate on federal bribery and racketeering charges. But they don’t agree on much else. Some House Republicans want to keep the law, calling it good public policy despite the scandal. Others want to scrap the nuclear, coal and solar subsidies in House Bill 6 while keeping the part lowering Ohio’s renewable energy standards. And a bipartisan bill in the Senate would repeal the whole thing. “I don’t think they know what they’re going to do … ,” said Rep. David Leland, D-Columbus. “I think there’s a conflict in their caucus.”Time is running out.The 133rd General Assembly ends in December, which means any outstanding bills have to start from the beginning in 2021. And Ohioans will start paying toward those nuclear bailouts in January. That’s why the Ohio Senate took an unusual step Tuesday, holding informal hearings on a bill that has yet to have its first hearing in the House. “We only have about six weeks left until the end of the year,” said Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina. “We can’t wait around for them to send us a bill on Dec. 10.”So the Senate Energy committee took testimony from Rep. Mark Romanchuk, R-Mansfield. “House Bill 772 is not a full repeal of HB 6,” Romanchuk said. “Rather it is a partial repeal that removes bad policy that harms Ohioans.”It would repeal both the nuclear and coal bailouts as well as the federal request to spend Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) dollars helping people weatherize their homes. But it would keep cuts to renewable energy standards – something Democrats and a handful of Republicans were less than thrilled about. Sen. Matt Dolan, R-Chagrin Falls, wanted to raise the amount of renewable energy electricity service companies have to provide back up to 12.5% by 2026. HB 6 cut that number down to 8.5%. “If we are going to revisit this bill, we need to revisit all parts of this bill, not just the parts you don’t like,” Dolan told The Dispatch.But Obhof said those standards likely would be a sticking point for more conservative members who “historically oppose some of the mandates that drive up bills.”There are a lot of competing ideas, Sen. Steve Wilson, R-Maineville, told his colleagues during Tuesday’s hearing. “The whole idea of today was to be sure that this committee continues to build on its knowledge of this complex issue.”Leland called it a diversion. “The good parts in the bill are such minor issues compared to the bailouts to the nuclear power companies, the $350 million de-coupling gift to FirstEnergy, the $444 million bailout to coal plants – one of them in the state of Indiana. Those are the major portions of House Bill 6… ,” Leland said. “Everybody knows what House Bill 6 is about. It’s about a bunch of people trying to create a bribery scandal.” He wants to repeal the entire bill and then decide what parts – if any – to pass again.

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