Answering the call of state and local governments to give them more involvement in the development of federal environmental rules, EPA has a new policy to broaden its consulting efforts with intergovernmental partners when new regulations and policies cost more than $25 million each. This is a significant lowering of the previous consultation threshold of $100 million.
“State and local officials often serve as the ‘front line’ managers of federally mandated environmental regulations,” said EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock. “If we want good rules, early consultation with these partners is crucial.”
EPA’s new policy updates existing policy that was put in place to carry out Executive Order 13132, Federalism. The order requires the federal government to consult with elected state and local government officials before proposing regulations or actions that have substantial direct effects below the national level, either by virtue of their implementation costs or their preemption of state or local authority.
When the order was first issued in 1999, EPA and other federal agencies adopted an interpretation of “substantial direct effects” consistent with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), a 1995 law that set the state and local consultation threshold at $100 million per rule. Based on its experience in conducting rulemakings over the last several years, EPA has determined a need for state and local input on a wider range of regulations and is lowering the consultation threshold to $25 million.
EPA’s action comes at a time when state and local officials are calling for a stronger working relationship with their federal partners in solving many of today’s major environmental challenges. The National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments, the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities, the International City/County Management Association and the U.S. Conference of Mayors recently issued a joint statement urging the incoming Administration to “adopt a policy of constructive engagement” and to “cooperate and consult with state and local leaders.” These seven associations, along with three others (National Association of Towns and Townships, County Executives of America, and Environmental Council of the States), constitute the group of 10 organizations with whom EPA will consult under its new Federalism policy.
More information on how EPA develops regulations: http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/index.html
To view Executive Order 13132: Federalism: http://www.epa.gov/fedreg/eo/eo13132.htm
Read the full story in Water & Wastewater News.
Pollution by phosphorous and nitrogen isn’t just bad for lakes, streams, and other bodies of freshwater. According to researchers at Kansas State University, it’s also bad for Americans’ pocketbooks.
Read the full post at EcoGeek.
There’s good news for The New York Times, at least about their building. The New York Times Building was designed to use 1.28 watts per square foot of lighting, but with the installation of a lighting management system, they’ve actually only used .38 watts per square foot, a 70 percent savings. That reduction in energy use translates into savings of $315,000 and 1,250 metric tons of CO2 a year for the building.
Popular Science has compiled it’s annual Best of What’s New list. The GreenTech winners include:
Via Docuticker.
How Green Is the Deal? The Growing Role of Sustainability in M&A
Source: Deloitte LLPThe “greening” of products and business operations has become a central theme in virtually every industry. In today’s environment, companies that have strong corporate responsibility and sustainability (CR&S) programs in place are likely to be rewarded for their efforts. As CR&S wields growing influence on the strategy and operations of a company, so too will it become an increasingly important aspect of mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
In this paper, we provide an outline of six key areas of focus for executives, and discuss how greater consideration of sustainability related issues, when evaluating potential M&A transactions, can help to improve deal success.
+ Full Paper (PDF; 721 KB)
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Read the full story in Plenty Magazine.
As enviro-minded consumer choices go mainstream, even traditionally un-eco businesses like convenience marts are implementing environmental initiatives
Read the full story in Plenty Magazine.
The US military is fighting a new enemy: global warming. But is the Pentagon really going green, or just trying to save money? Judge for yourself.
Read the full story in Biopact.
Interesting developments in both solar thermal and bioenergy allow us to envision a relatively low-cost future of carbon-negative baseload power. The more energy one would use from this power plant, the more one would be solving the climate crisis. Read that again: the more you consume, the better for the planet. Best of all, ‘negative emissions energy’ can be done by taking over the enemy: coal-fired power plants into which we plug renewables and CCS.
Read the full story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
A passionate, witty young filmmaker-ecologist named Josh Tickell is hoping that his film “Fuel” catches on in the green environs of Seattle, Portland and Austin, Texas, and has a cross-country run comparable to the biodiesel powered “Veggie Van” in which he took to the road a decade ago.
Read the full story in Biodiesel Magazine.
The U.S. EPA has published a compliance assistance manual for biodiesel producers.
Published by the EPA’s Region 7 Biofuels Work Group, the manual titled “Environmental Laws Applicable to Construction and Operation of Biodiesel Production Facilities” provides information about federal environmental programs and the roles that federal, state, and local agencies play in relation to companies interested in designing, building, and operating biodiesel manufacturing facilities.
Read the full post at Biopact.
A few days ago some of the world’s leading climate scientists wrote that we need to be far more active in cutting carbon emissions, urgently. Currently, atmospheric CO2 levels are at 383ppm and we need to go back to 350ppm if we want to keep the planet liveable. This implies a range of technologies that actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere, such as biochar, reforestation and carbon-negative bioenergy (i.e. biomass coupled to CCS). Now professor Tim Flannery, chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council and the Australian equivalent of Al Gore, joins in saying we must use biological means to tackle a crisis that could otherwise end in a catastrophe much earlier than expected.
Read the full story in the Coloradoan.
The city of Fort Collins and Rocky Mountain Sustainable Enterprises, or RMSE, are having its second annual Holiday recycOil event to help residents recycle waste fryer oil after Thanksgiving. This will divert hundreds of gallons of waste vegetable oil from municipal sewer systems and landfills. So take that leftover vegetable oil to our one-day collection event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 29 at the city’s Rivendell Recycling Facility, 1702 Riverside Drive. The oil will be used to manufacture biodiesel.
Read the full story in Biodiesel Magazine.
Renewable Energy Group Inc. has received a $740,000 grant from the Iowa Power Fund to staff a new state-of-the-art biodiesel research and feedstock commercialization lab at its headquarters in Ames, Iowa.
Read the full story in the Washington Post.
Wal-Mart has signed a contract to help power hundreds of its stores using wind energy, one of the largest investments in the field by a U.S. retailer.
The four-year agreement with Duke Energy is expected to provide up to 226 million kilowatt-hours of power each year to about 360 stores and distribution centers in Texas, about 15 percent of the total electricity used. The company said the purchase will result in the reduction of about 139,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of what 25,000 cars would emit.
Read the full Associated Press story.
In future years we may look back at the Great Mexican Tortilla Crisis of 2006 as the time when ethanol lost its vroom.
Right or wrong, that was when blame firmly settled on biofuels for the surge in food prices. The diversion of American corn from flour to fuel put the flat corn bread out of reach for Mexico’s poorest.
Two years later, the search is on for ways to keep corn on the table rather than in the gas tank. Moving away from food crops, the biofuel of the future may come from the tall grass growing wild by the roadside, from grain stalks left behind by the harvest, and from garbage dumps and dinner table scraps.
Read the full story in the New York Times.
Phoenix fire officials say they have seen a trend of area residents using chemicals like methanol and lye to make cheap fuel.
Read the full story in the Washington Post.
The federal government has invested billions of dollars over the past 16 years, building a fleet of 112,000 alternative-fuel vehicles to serve as a model for a national movement away from fossil fuels.
But the costly effort to put more workers into vehicles powered by ethanol and other fuel alternatives has been fraught with problems, many of them caused by buying vehicles before fuel stations were in place to support them, a Washington Post analysis of federal records shows.
It might be difficult to see the future of hybrid automobile efficiency underneath the grime surrounding an unpainted 1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle.
“That’s the fun. By the time we’re done, it’s going to be totally different, and it’s going to be great,” says Lou McKown, a University of Kansas senior in mechanical engineering.The EcoHawks hard at work on a 1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle
For his senior project, McKown is part of a team called the EcoHawks, that is taking the iconic round vehicle and transforming it from a motionless heap to a fully integrated hybrid vehicle by the end of the school year.
Read the full post at Biopact.
Landfill sites produce the greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide, as putrescible waste decays. Growing selected plants and trees on top of a landfill, a process known as ‘phytocapping’, could reduce the production and release of these gases, according to Australian scientists writing in a forthcoming issue of International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management. What is more, the technique allows urban communities to build new green spaces in and around their cities. When phytocapping is carried out well, the former garbage sites can even become biodiversity corridors for species that were previously chased out of the city-scape.
Read the full post at Green Car Congress.
Researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M) are launching a project to develop a Web-based, interactive modeling tool that can be used to analyze the likely impact and potential viability of proposed technologies and policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the light-duty vehicle sector. As a test case for the development of the tool, the researchers are using President-elect Barack Obama’s proposal to put a million US-made plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) getting 150 mpg on the road by 2015.
Tessa's mom, environmental librarian, House Rabbit Society volunteer, PTA/school mom, avid reader.
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