EXTRACTED: Daily News Clips 8/11/22
PIPELINE NEWS
Grist: In exchange for climate legislation, Joe Manchin was promised a pipeline. Will he get it?
AgWeek: North Dakota county throws 100% voluntary easement mandate, $135 million fee at Summit Carbon pipeline
KCRG: Meetings planned for proposed carbon capture pipeline that would stretch across Iowa
Associated Press: Idaho-Wyoming natural gas pipeline needs environmental study
WASHINGTON UPDATES
Reuters: Conceding to Manchin, U.S. climate bill exempts most oil industry from methane fees
Bloomberg: Methane ‘Loophole’ Shows Risk of Gaming New US Climate Bill
E&E News: Would the climate bill slash methane? It depends
STATE UPDATES
Associated Press: Landowners seek $275K after ND law found not constitutional
Bismarck Tribune: North Dakota intervening in oil and gas leasing lawsuit
City News Service Los Angeles: LA planning department releases proposal banning oil drilling
EXTRACTION
National Observer: Oil and gas companies’ sky-high net earnings renew calls for windfall tax
Reuters: Canada's Trans Mountain Corp names former TransAlta boss as CEO
Politico: Biogas releasing more methane than previously known — study
CLIMATE FINANCE
LittleSis: Liberty Mutual Director Profits Big From Dirty Canadian Tar Sands Oil
Evergreen Action: Time to Clean Up Greenwashing in ESG Funds
Press release: TC Energy closes $1.8 billion bought deal offering of Common Shares
OPINION
WV News: Time to move the pipeline forward
Food & Water Watch: Will The Manchin Climate Bill Reduce Climate Pollution?
Truthout: Let’s Acknowledge Inflation Reduction Act’s Significance — and Its Inadequacy
The New Republic: The Manchin Climate Deal Is Both a Big Win and a Deal With the Devil
Troy Media: Oil Sands Divestment campaign won’t reduce global emissions
PIPELINE NEWS
Grist: In exchange for climate legislation, Joe Manchin was promised a pipeline. Will he get it?
NAVEENA SADASIVAM, 8/10/22
“When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin announced the surprising rebirth of a deal to pass sweeping climate legislation last week, reporters could at first only speculate about what exactly it took to secure Manchin's support,” Grist reports. “...The summary includes a requirement to "complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline," a 303-mile pipeline that delivers natural gas from northwestern West Virginia — Manchin's home state — to southern Virginia… “But whether Congressional intervention can help the pipeline cross the finish line is unclear. The one-page summary requires "relevant agencies to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation of the Mountain Valley pipeline" and "give the D.C. Circuit jurisdiction over any further litigation." (A change in venue may help the pipeline developers who have been repeatedly rebuffed in the Fourth Circuit court.) The full legislative text has not yet been released, but environmental law experts Grist spoke to said that, based on the summary, it didn't appear that Manchin is proposing that Congress take the most sure-fire step to ease the way for the pipeline: exempting it from environmental laws. The lawsuits and the Fourth Circuit rulings have been based on arguments about the pipeline's failure to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act among other laws. If Mountain Valley was suddenly exempt from those rules, its opponents would have far fewer avenues to stop it. "From what I'm seeing, they still need to show they comply with the law even if the summary language is that it should be approved," Jared Margolis, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity who has been involved in litigation efforts challenging the pipeline's permits, told Grist. "There's nothing in this language that suggests to me that that Congress is directing the courts to rule in Mountain Valley's favor in ongoing litigation… "It's this weird in-between where they're saying, 'approve it,' but they're not exempting the [pipeline from] laws that still need to be followed.”. If federal agencies feel they are being pressured by Congress to rush the approval process, it could ironically further jeopardize the pipeline's permitting prospects by leading to errors and resulting in more legal challenges, according to environmental attorneys.”
AgWeek: North Dakota county throws 100% voluntary easement mandate, $135 million fee at Summit Carbon pipeline
Jeff Beach, 8/11/22
“A North Dakota county on the main line of a massive carbon capture pipeline has created some additional hurdles for the company behind the project – Summit Carbon Solutions,” AgWeek reports. “The Emmons County Commission passed two motions to update requirements for being granted an industrial conditional use permit: Any necessary easements from landowners must be voluntary. The fee for the permit has been changed to 3% of the total project cost. Summit Carbons Solutions has described its five-state, 2,000 mile carbon capture pipeline as being a $4.5 billion project. A 3% fee on the total project could amount to $135 million. The fee had previously had been $450… “The majority of the people don’t want to see this happen and they have good reason for that,” Weichel said of the project. Many landowners in all five states – Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota – have been vocal in opposing the pipeline, especially the use of eminent domain to force landowners to provide a right-of-way for the pipeline… “I don’t know that we can flat out deny a project that hasn’t been applied for,” Magrum said, adding that he would have a hard time approving a permit for a project where even one affected landowner objects. But, Magrum said, “we can make it difficult to approve this eminent domain.” Borracci said Summit Carbon Solutions, a spinoff of Iowa-based Summit Agricultural Group, had done more than 2,000 reroutes already and were doing about 200 reroutes every week trying to work with landowners… “Eliot Huggins with the Dakota Resource Council, an environmental group helping organize opposition to the project, said the action in Emmons County could be a model for other counties and be more effective than a resolution against eminent domain. "Taking it another step further, that’s going to be the goal," Huggins told AgWeek.
KCRG: Meetings planned for proposed carbon capture pipeline that would stretch across Iowa
8/10/22
“Meetings are now set for people to discuss a proposed carbon capture pipeline that could move across Iowa, including portions of eastern Iowa,” KCRG reports. “...This proposed 1,300 mile pipeline would come from Navigator’s Heartland Greenway. It would span 810 miles in Iowa, across 33 counties. It would also hit parts of Minnesota, South Dakota, and Nebraska on its way to a permanent storage site in Illinois… “The company is planning numerous informational meetings in communities across the state to show maps of where the pipeline would be located. Navigator says it will provide pre-printed maps to any landowner in attendance who requests one.”
Associated Press: Idaho-Wyoming natural gas pipeline needs environmental study
KEITH RIDLER, 8/11/22
“U.S. officials won’t approve a natural gas pipeline from Idaho to Wyoming until additional environmental studies are completed,” the Associated Press reports. “A U.S. District Court on Wednesday approved an agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and two environmental groups that filed a lawsuit to stop the 50-mile (80-kilometer) Crow Creek Pipeline Project. The Forest Service agreed to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement before authorizing the project that partially crosses Forest Service land. The timeline for completing the environmental study isn't clear. Wyoming-based Lower Valley Energy wants to build the pipeline that would start near Montpelier, Idaho, and run to Afton, Wyoming. But the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Yellowstone to Uintas Connection say it will harm protected grizzly bears and other wildlife. "The ruling is a huge victory for the climate as well as free-roaming endangered species like grizzly bears, wolverines, and lynx,” Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, told AP.”
WASHINGTON UPDATES
Reuters: Conceding to Manchin, U.S. climate bill exempts most oil industry from methane fees
Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom, 8/9/22
“The U.S. Senate climate bill’s fee on oil and gas industry methane emissions will cover less than half the sector’s releases of the powerful greenhouse gas, thanks to concessions made to win over party holdout Joe Manchin, according to a review of the legislation and interviews with lawmakers that negotiated it,” Reuters reports. “The reduced scope of the fee is among numerous changes made by Senate Democratic leadership to secure a deal on the hard-won Inflation Reduction Act, which is being hailed as the biggest climate package in U.S. history but which pales in comparison to President Joe Biden’s initial vision for legislative action on global warming… “The fee aims to force oil and gas companies to plug leaks and stop deliberate venting of their methane during drilling, transport, storage and processing by charging companies for excess emissions, starting at $900 per metric tonne in 2024, rising to $1500 by 2026. But the fee only applies to companies that emit 25,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year - including a small number of the largest oil companies and independent producers -effectively exempting around 60% of industry emissions, according to an analysis of the bill by the Congressional Research Service… “In another concession made to Manchin, oil and gas companies that comply with the Environmental Protection Agency's forthcoming methane rules due later this year would also be exempted from the fee… “Some environmentalists told Reuters such concessions weaken the impact of the fee because it lets many polluting facilities off the hook.”
Bloomberg: Methane ‘Loophole’ Shows Risk of Gaming New US Climate Bill
Zachary Mider, 8/10/22
“Range Resources Corp. claims to have one of the cleanest natural-gas operations in the US. Year after year, the western Pennsylvania shale pioneer reports a lower emissions rate for methane than virtually all its peers,” Bloomberg reports. “But an examination of Environmental Protection Agency data reveals one of the pitfalls of that approach: companies have broad leeway to decide how much pollution they report, based on how they interpret more than 100 pages of complex agency rules. An unorthodox reading of a single word in the EPA regulations allowed Range to slash its reported emissions from energy production by 93% in 2020 compared with the approach used by most oil and gas companies. That’s enough to move the company from the bottom of its peer rankings to the top. The EPA says this interpretation isn’t valid, although Range insists that it is. If Range Resources had counted methane emissions the way most other energy producers do, the result would have been different. Such wrangling could become more widespread if the bill becomes law and the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, now a low-stakes counting exercise, starts hitting companies with millions of dollars in fees. Expected to move to the House this week, the Inflation Reduction Act would impose a levy of as much as $1,500 a ton on methane releases above a certain threshold… “Range is one of a handful of companies identified by Bloomberg Green that use the unorthodox interpretation in annual disclosures to the agency. EPA data suggest units of BP Plc and Coterra Energy Inc. have used the interpretation for years. Two privately held firms, Terra Energy Partners LLC and Flywheel Energy LLC, appear to have started using it for the first time in 2020, resulting in a sharp drop in reported emissions… “Some companies just saw it as a loophole that they could take advantage of,” Logan told Bloomberg. As of now, there’s little to stop companies from exploiting such ambiguities. Regulators review companies’ emissions disclosures for potential inconsistencies and can ask them to resubmit, but the figures are ultimately the companies’ responsibility, EPA spokeswoman Shayla Powell told Bloomberg. Of the oil and gas emissions reports with questionable disclosures identified by Bloomberg Green, only a few were flagged by the EPA as not compliant or still undergoing verification.”
E&E News: Would the climate bill slash methane? It depends
Mike Lee, Carlos Anchondo, 8/11/22
“Inflation Reduction Act” provisions aimed at cutting methane emissions would be a boon for the high-tech companies that sell detection equipment, but it may not have a big effect on the broader oil and gas industry’s emissions, analysts say,” E&E News reports. “The bill — which passed the Senate last Sunday — includes $1.5 billion to promote methane detection and measurement in the oil and gas sector. Those funds could help the growing group of companies, many of them supported by the Department of Energy, that are deploying lasers, drones, satellites and other technology to help producers spot fugitive methane emissions. But another provision — a fee of up to $1,500 per ton on emissions from oil and gas producers, pipeline operators and others — may have a muted effect on the industry. The charge wouldn’t apply to the entire oil and gas sector, and would miss roughly 60 percent of the industry’s emissions, Robert Kleinberg, a researcher at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told E&E. EPA’s pending regulations on methane from the oil and gas industry, along with pressure from investors, is likely to remain the main factor that pushes companies to cut their emissions, several observers told E&E… “Some of the best-known companies, like Exxon Mobil Corp. and pipeline giant Energy Transfer LP, also were already working on ways to curb their methane emissions before the bill moved through Congress. “All the big operators, they understand that this is the reality,” Dan Katz, CEO of Orbital Sidekick, which provides satellite-based monitoring systems for pipeline operators and other energy companies, told E&E. “Even if it wasn’t going to come in the form of hard regulation, the entire industry is moving in this direction” of cutting emissions.”
STATE UPDATES
Associated Press: Landowners seek $275K after ND law found not constitutional
JAMES MacPHERSON, 8/10/22
“A landowners group will seek more than $275,000 in lawyers’ fees and other costs after North Dakota’s Supreme Court found a state law pushed by the energy industry amounted to the unconstitutional taking of private property rights,” the Associated Press reports. “In a ruling last week, the state’s high court said key portions of the so-called pore space law passed in 2019 “have been shown to be unconstitutional on their face.” “Government-authorized physical invasions of property constitute the ‘clearest sort of taking,’” the high court’s unanimous opinion said. Pore spaces are cavities in rock or soil and are used when the petroleum industry injects saltwater from oil and gas production underground for permanent storage or for enhanced oil recovery. The Northwest Landowners Association sued the state arguing the law was a giveaway to the energy industry, and denied landowners of their right to be compensated for the use of their pore space. Under the law, landowners couldn’t be compensated for pore space when it is used for saltwater disposal or enhanced oil recovery, unless they had an existing contract. Landowners adjacent to a disposal well also could not make a claim that saltwater, a byproduct of oil production, had migrated into their pore space, nor could they sue for trespassing. The Supreme Court struck down those provisions.”
Bismarck Tribune: North Dakota intervening in oil and gas leasing lawsuit
JACKIE JAHFETSON, 8//9/22
“A federal judge is allowing North Dakota to intervene in a lawsuit by environmental groups that challenges the government's resumption of oil and gas lease sales on federal lands,” the Bismarck Tribune reports. “The Biden administration announced in April that it was resuming oil and gas lease sales on federal lands after a pause of more than a year… “Several climate and conservation groups are suing over the resumption of oil and gas leasing, including one lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that challenges approval of lease sales in several states including North Dakota. The groups including the Dakota Resource Council and the Sierra Club maintain that the sales will result in social and environmental harm. The North Dakota Attorney General's Office in late July filed a motion to intervene in the case. Special Assistant Attorney General Paul Seby wrote that the state seeks "to protect its significant sovereign rights and economic interests." State officials have argued that North Dakota's situation is unique due to the checkerboard nature of mineral ownership in the state. They say that prohibiting drilling through federal minerals could prevent the development of private minerals and state-owned minerals in the surrounding area.”
City News Service Los Angeles: LA planning department releases proposal banning oil drilling
8/9/22
“Los Angeles is one step closer to banning oil drilling after the Department of City Planning released a draft ordinance Tuesday,” City News Service Los Angeles reports. “The City Council in January unanimously approved a series of recommendations aimed at banning new oil and gas wells. Tuesday's draft ordinance was released by the Department of City Planning. The department will hold public meetings with stakeholders in the coming months. The city of LA has 26 oil and gas fields and about 5,274 oil and gas wells, according to the planning department. The City Council in January unanimously approved a series of recommendations aimed at banning new oil and gas wells. The draft ordinance would phase out all such oil and gas extraction activities by immediately banning new oil and gas extraction and ceasing such operations within 20 years. “Oil drilling has long been a part of our past, but today, we’re sending a clear message: Dirty energy production has no future in Los Angeles,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement. “We are one step closer to getting toxic fumes out of our frontline communities.” “...Communities of color have felt the impact of gas and oil drilling for decades — in their air, water, and overall health,” Council President Nury Martinez told CNS. “Local climate change and environmental justice advocates have been working tirelessly with our council to find solutions that would bring an end to drilling in Los Angeles and now, this goal is finally coming to fruition. As our country faces multiple public health emergencies and countless natural disasters due to climate change, this move cannot come soon enough for our city and our planet.”
EXTRACTION
National Observer: Oil and gas companies’ sky-high net earnings renew calls for windfall tax
Natasha Bulowski, 8/11/22
“Sky-high net earnings for Canada’s four biggest oil companies have renewed calls for a windfall tax that Ottawa shows no sign of adopting,” the National Observer reports. “The gas lobby is clearly very powerful and holds a lot of sway in Canada,” Environmental Defence’s programs director Keith Brooks told Canada’s National Observer, adding the industry is impeding effective climate action and creating deep inequality among Canadians. Cenovus, Suncor, Imperial Oil and CNRL — the country’s four largest oil companies — raked in more than $12 billion in net earnings last quarter, nearly three times more than the same quarter in 2021. “This is record high inflation … a lot of it driven by high energy prices, and we clearly now see who is benefiting from this,” Brooks told the Observer, referring to the second-quarter profits. “Government should strongly consider whether it wants to weigh in on this and help redistribute those benefits to people who need them the most.” When asked about the possibility of a windfall tax on oil and gas profits, Finance Canada responded with a statement outlining previously announced measures like a luxury tax on vehicles, the Canada Recovery Dividend and a corporate income tax increase… “Despite recording impressive earnings, Pathways Alliance says it cannot meet the federal government’s goal, which “unfairly targets the Canadian oil and gas sector,” group president Kendall Dilling told Canada’s National Observer in an emailed statement.”
Reuters: Canada's Trans Mountain Corp names former TransAlta boss as CEO
Nia Williams, 8/10/22
“Canadian government-owned pipeline operator Trans Mountain Corp named Dawn Farrell, former top boss of electricity firm TransAlta Corp, as its chief executive officer and president on Wednesday,” Reuters reports. “Farrell will take over from interim president Rob Van Walleghem on Aug. 15, and inherits a company struggling with ballooning costs and lengthy delays as it builds the Trans Mountain expansion (TMX) project. TMX will nearly triple the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline that carries 300,000 barrels per day of crude from Alberta's oil sands to Canada's Pacific Coast, but has faced opposition from environmental groups and some First Nations. Earlier this year, Trans Mountain Corp said the cost of the expansion had soared to C$21.4 billion ($16.76 billion) from C$12.6 billion, and its in-service date would be pushed back by nine months to late 2023. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government bought the pipeline in 2018 to ensure the expansion went ahead, and intends to sell Trans Mountain once the work is complete. However in June Canada's parliamentary budget officer said the pipeline is no longer profitable due to cost over-runs… “Farrell led Calgary-based TransAlta for nine years, during which the company transitioned away from coal-fired electricity generation, before retiring in 2021.”
Politico: Biogas releasing more methane than previously known — study
CAMILLE BOND, 8/10/22
“Researchers in London are reporting that biogas and biomethane supply chains emit twice as much methane — a greenhouse gas with more severe short-term effects than carbon dioxide — as previously thought,” Politico reports. “Biogas and biomethane are considered renewable alternatives to natural gas because they can be produced using a variety of waste streams, from agricultural waste to animal manure to wastewater sludge. The fuels can be burned for energy using the same infrastructure as natural gas. But the researchers at Imperial College London, who published their findings in the environmental science journal One Earth, concluded that methane emissions from the biogas and biomethane supply chain must be addressed for the fuels to live up to their promises. The fuel “may lose its advantages as a clean-energy technology, and may jeopardize Paris Agreement targets if used extensively” if today’s industry conditions hold, the authors wrote… “They found that methane emissions from biogas and biomethane supply chains in 2018 were more than twice the International Energy Agency’s most recent estimate. The overall quantity of methane emitted from those supply chains was lower than the oil and gas supply chain’s share, but the biogas and biomethane supply chains emitted methane at a higher rate, according to the study. Given that high emission rate, if production of biogas and biomethane were expanded to the scale of the oil and gas industry, the renewable fuels’ supply chains could leak almost four times as much methane as oil and gas supply chains, Semra Bakkaloglu, a research associate at Imperial College London’s Sustainable Gas Institute and the lead author of the study, told Politico.”
CLIMATE FINANCE
LittleSis: Liberty Mutual Director Profits Big From Dirty Canadian Tar Sands Oil
Yusra Bitar, 8/10/22
“Despite growing demands from concerned organizers and stakeholders, the insurance giant Liberty Mutual refuses to distance itself from dirty tar sands oil operations. The fossil fuel industry and its tar sands oil production cannot survive without insurers like Liberty Mutual underwriting its business. Moreover, climate catastrophe presents a huge financial risk to Liberty Mutual’s bottom line,” LittleSis reports. “But Liberty Mutual just can’t seem to commit to moving away from tar sands – and the fact that one of its longtime current directors is also a director of one of Canada’s biggest tar sands producers, and is personally profiting in the millions from those operations, may have something to with this. Annette Verschuren has been a Liberty Mutual board member for the past 15 years. At the same time, she’s also served as a director of Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL), one of Canada’s biggest oil and gas producers, with major tar sands operations, since 2014. Verchuren has personally profited in the millions from CNRL’s fossil fuel operations. According to company filings, she owned nearly $3.4 million (Canadian dollars) in company holdings at the end of 2021. Moreover, at the end of 2020, her holdings were around $1.52 million. This means the value of her holdings in CNRL’s oil and gas business skyrocketed by nearly two million in just one year… “Moreover, one Liberty Mutual director, Jay Hooley, is also the lead director of ExxonMobil, the top US oil supermajor. Hooley owns over $1.2 million (US dollars) in Exxon’s oil stock. This is a huge climate conflict for Liberty Mutual: how can someone govern the insurance company on climate progress while also being the lead director of – and personally profiting from – a top oil company that wants to burn more oil and gas for decades to come and is dedicated to fighting climate regulation?”
Evergreen Action: Time to Clean Up Greenwashing in ESG Funds
8/9/22
“In the last few years, “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (ESG) investing has skyrocketed in popularity – in part, fuelled by investors’ desire to divest from fossil fuels and put money into more sustainable and climate-friendly funds. This demand has grown so large that investment managers now claim that sustainable investments total over $35 trillion globally,” according to Evergreen Action. “But there’s a big problem with this trend. While asset managers are making huge profits from the public’s interest in “socially responsible” investing, there is very little oversight into what’s actually in these ESG funds. A growing body of evidence suggests that some asset managers are “greenwashing,” or misleading investors into thinking their ESG investments are more socially responsible than they actually are. Sound deceptive? It is. Thankfully, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a pair of highly-anticipated rule proposals in May to crack down on misleading or deceptive claims related to ESG investment practices. These two proposed rules will help give investors the accurate information they need to make smart, fact-based decisions – and not fall prey to greenwashing. Now, before the August 16 comment deadline, it’s time to raise our voices and tell the SEC that these two proposals should be strengthened and finalized immediately… “With the help of these improvements, the SEC’s proposed standardized disclosure framework would protect investors from funds with misleading names, and put an end to the ballooning culture of greenwashing that only serves to put money in the pockets of asset managers without supporting investments that help transition the U.S. to a more clean and just economy.”
Press release: TC Energy closes $1.8 billion bought deal offering of Common Shares
8/10/22
“TC Energy Corporation today announced that it has completed its previously announced public offering of common shares of the Company (the Common Shares). The Offering was announced on Aug. 4, 2022 when TC Energy entered into an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters led by RBC Capital Markets and Scotiabank under which they agreed to purchase from TC Energy and sell to the public 28,400,000 Common Shares. The purchase price of $63.50 per Common Share (the Offering Price) resulted in total gross proceeds of approximately $1.8 billion. TC Energy has also granted the underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase up to an additional 2,840,000 Common Shares at the Offering Price, exercisable for a period of 30 days after closing of the Offering. TC Energy intends to the use the proceeds of the Offering, directly or indirectly, together with other financing sources and cash on hand, to fund costs associated with the construction of the Southeast Gateway Pipeline, a US$4.5 billion, 1.3 billion cubic feet per day, 715-kilometre offshore natural gas pipeline in the southeast region of Mexico.”
OPINION
WV News: Time to move the pipeline forward
8/10/22
“While the jury remains out — and will be for some time — on whether Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., made a good deal in agreeing to President Joe Biden’s agenda with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, one thing is clear. The most enticing part was the agreement Manchin made with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and President Biden to put regulations in place that free the Mountain Valley Pipeline — and hopefully future ones as well — to be completed,” the WV News Editorial Board writes… “Charlie Burd, executive director of the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia, told WV News that the deal is welcome news for the industry… “There is no question that the Mountain Valley Pipeline has long been needed and should be completed. A bare minimum for the Manchin-Schumer-Biden deal to be considered successful is for the completion of that project — and hopefully a pathway to more pipelines as needed.”
Food & Water Watch: Will The Manchin Climate Bill Reduce Climate Pollution?
Jim Walsh and Peter Hart, 8/10/22
“The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) takes aim at a lot of things over the next decade — everything from prescription drug prices to corporate tax rates,” Jim Walsh and Peter Hart write for Food & Water Watch. “For climate advocates, the headlining claim is this: the IRA would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 42%. But that target isn’t actually in the bill. In fact, there are no emissions targets in the bill at all. Instead, this legislation relies on carrots (money to nudge private markets in the right direction) over sticks (actual mandates to reduce pollution)... “Several models claim to predict the IRA’s outcomes, but the one getting the most attention is from Princeton University’s REPEAT Project. Its model estimates that, without any new legislation, emissions will fall about 27% from 2005 highs. With the IRA, according to the model, emissions could fall about 42%. But the model relies on some suspect reductions. For example, that 42% would need an astonishing turnaround for so-called carbon capture technologies… “The REPEAT analysis acknowledges that carbon capture is currently responsible for almost no emissions reductions. However, it projects that emissions reductions from carbon capture will reach 50 megatons of carbon by 2024 — mostly from coal plants -– and 200 million tons per year by 2030. There’s no explanation for this miraculous growth, but the analysis nonetheless suggests there will be “6 gigawatts of carbon capture retrofits at existing coal-fired power plants and 18 gigawatts of gas power plants with carbon capture installed by 2030.” These assumptions would require $17 billion in carbon capture tax credits in 2030 alone. That is far more than the $3.2 billion total 2022-2031 expenditure the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Overall, the analysis assumes that carbon capture would deliver “roughly one-sixth to one-fifth” of total emissions cuts. This is an unfathomable improvement for an industry that has failed to deliver emissions reductions after decades of research and billions in funding. The analysis also leaves its assumptions unclear on the actual emissions reductions of carbon capture technology. While the industry claims it can capture 90% of emissions, real-world analyses of full lifecycle emissions put that figure closer to 39%, at best. And captured CO2 is almost entirely used for more oil drilling, eliminating any supposed climate benefits.”
Truthout: Let’s Acknowledge Inflation Reduction Act’s Significance — and Its Inadequacy
C.J. Polychroniou, 8/9/22
“The Schumer-Manchin reconciliation bill, called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), is a massive piece of legislation that aims to boost the economy and fight the climate crisis,” C.J. Polychroniou writes for Truthout. “...The IRA is the most important climate bill in U.S. history. Nonetheless, it is also a bill full of defects, and parts of it will actually make the climate crisis worse, Robert Pollin, one of the world’s leading progressive economists, told Truthout… “How can we possibly reconcile a supposedly transformative piece of climate legislation with building new natural gas pipelines? The only conceivable way to get there is to also support massive-scale deployment of carbon capture technology as a major component of the overall U.S. emissions-reduction program,” Pollin told Truthout. “Carbon capture technologies aim to remove emitted carbon from the atmosphere and transport it, usually through pipelines, to subsurface geological formations, where it would be stored permanently. To date, the general class of carbon capture technologies have not been proven to work at a commercial scale, despite decades of efforts to accomplish this. After all, carbon capture would be the savior for oil, coal and natural gas industries if the technology could be made to work commercially at scale. A major problem with most carbon capture technologies is the prospect for carbon leakages that result through flawed transportation and storage systems. These dangers will only increase to the extent that carbon capture does end up becoming commercialized and operates under an incentive structure in which maintaining safety standards cuts into corporate profits. Matters become still worse to the extent that the IRA channels big-time funding into carbon capture, as could easily happen… “Overall, then, the IRA can contribute to reducing inflationary pressures in the U.S. to the extent that it succeeds in fighting the power now exercised by the giant oil and drug companies.”
The New Republic: The Manchin Climate Deal Is Both a Big Win and a Deal With the Devil
Kate Aronoff, 8/3/22
“It’s a bit hard to get a handle on what’s actually happening with the Inflation Reduction Act,” Kate Aronoff writes for The New Republic. “...In exchange for all that, West Virginia Senator turned Prime Minister Joe Manchin is demanding a sweeping overhaul of the environmental review processes that govern how and where fossil fuel infrastructure is built, a green light for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and a host of other sweeteners for fossil fuel companies. Among the giveaways is a provision that requires the Department of Interior to, for the next decade, offer up at least 60 million acres for offshore drilling every year that it leases land out for offshore wind. So what should be made of this “all of the above” devil’s bargain? Democratic politicians have an obvious incentive for wanting a win and to brush off criticisms about potential trade-offs. Nonprofits, think tanks, and academics commenting on the proposed deal have millions of dollars in grants tied to being able to claim credit for something passing that can feasibly be called climate policy, so won’t exactly give critical quotes to the media in the eleventh hour of negotiations. Journalists who rely on them to craft their analyses are inclined to agree. Those who have criticized the bill for boosting, rather than curtailing, fossil fuels have been smeared as wreckers, or ignored… “Green groups rallying around the package know it’s not perfect. But there also isn’t much of a working theory from the most enthusiastic boosters about how to win more… “Major companies, including big polluters, wouldn’t be pressuring Manchin to pass something if they didn’t have something to gain from it. The same goes for the fossil fuel companies “delighted” by the IRA announcement… “Does all this mean Democrats should abandon the deal? Not necessarily. But there should probably be an intellectually honest debate not just about the pros and cons of the deal on paper but about the future this bill could build.”
Troy Media: Oil Sands Divestment campaign won’t reduce global emissions
Deborah Jaremko is director of content for the Canadian Energy Centre, an Alberta government corporation funded in part by taxes paid by industry on carbon emissions, 8/10/22
“Activists like to trumpet the narrative that the world is rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels, but the reality is different,” Deborah Jaremko writes for Troy Media. “An activist group called Oil Sands Divestment is trying to convince the British Columbia Investment Management Corp. (BCI) to get out of fossil fuels by the end of this year. The campaign says oil and gas is not a sound investment and that projects are increasingly “stranded assets.” Neither is true… “Here are the facts: The world needs responsibly produced oil and gas. While activists like to trumpet the narrative that the world is rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels, the reality is that oil and gas will be around for a long, long time… “Shutting off Canada’s ability to supply oil and gas would have no impact on how much oil and gas is used around the world – or how much emissions that use generates. It would only shift supply to regions that are less responsible actors in areas like social progress, environmental protection and worker safety… “Heavy hitters like the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board have no interest in blanket divesting from oil and gas companies… “Total oil sands emissions – not just emissions per barrel – are expected to start going down within the next five years. Six oil sands companies representing more than 95 per cent of production have jointly set the target to reduce emissions to the equivalent of zero by 2050. This means that any emissions from production will be balanced by emissions removed from the atmosphere. Now – and on the long-term road to a zero-emissions future – the world needs more Canadian oil and gas, not less.”