By DAVE MICHAELS Washington Bureau The Dallas Morning News - Feb. 9, 2011
WASHINGTON — Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked Congress on Wednesday to block the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, saying legislation would allow him to drop his lawsuits over the rules.
Abbott testified at a congressional hearing where Republican lawmakers grilled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson over her agency’s move to regulate climate-altering gases emitted by industrial facilities.
A Republican bill would overturn the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and would prevent the agency from using the Clean Air Act to address climate change.
Texas’ fossil fuel producers, utilities and other businesses stand to benefit if Republicans succeed in blocking regulation, although President Barack Obama would almost certainly veto the bill. Texas Republicans have been at the forefront of efforts to stymie the EPA.
Abbott has filed six legal challenges of EPA regulations that address climate change. One of the lawsuits challenges the decision to invalidate parts of Texas’ clean-air program over its refusal to award permits for greenhouse gas emissions.
“I am here to tell you that if your legislation passes, that will mean that Texas will be dismissing those six lawsuits against the EPA,” Abbott told the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Jackson said the EPA was forced to take over parts of Texas’ clean-air program because the state failed to carry out its responsibilities. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA sets thresholds for regulated pollutants, which states must enforce.
Texas’ refusal
While other states have challenged EPA regulation of greenhouse gases, Texas is the only state that refused to include greenhouse gases in its clean-air program. Jackson said businesses that wanted to build in Texas would have been unable to get permits without the EPA’s intervention.
“The Nucor steel facility just got a permit in the state of Louisiana,” Jackson told the committee. “If they wanted to build the exact same facility in Texas, they would need a permit for greenhouse gases — and they cannot get one because Texas refuses to consider those permits.”
Jackson also clashed with Texas Republicans on the committee over dozens of pollution permits that were invalidated when the EPA rejected three Texas permitting programs in September 2009. The EPA said the Texas programs failed to meet the standards set by the Clean Air Act.
Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, complained to Jackson that Texas was singled out for disapproval, while other states with similar programs weren’t challenged.
“This appears to be Texas-specific,” Burgess said. “And if it is, that is wrong.”
But Jackson said EPA’s concerns with the quality of Texas’ clean-air programs went back to the Bush administration.
“When I became administrator, I found a situation where businesses in Texas have no certainty that the permits protect them from lawsuits for excessive pollution,” Jackson said. “The answer certainly could not have been to look the other way.”
Jackson testified on the same day that House Republicans unveiled their proposals for spending cuts, including a $1.6 billion budget cut for EPA in 2011. Such cuts could hurt the EPA’s ability to carry out its regulatory agenda.
‘Highhanded’ EPA
The agency has become a prime target for House Republicans who question the science of global warming and assert that EPA regulations create uncertainty for business.
“The EPA has been highhanded in Texas,” said Rep. Joe Barton , R-Arlington. “I don’t think the EPA had the authority to revoke these existing permits, and I think their [carbon dioxide] regulations are extremely onerous if implemented.”
Barton said the committee would probably approve the legislation, called the Energy Tax Prevention Act, in the next two months. Sen. James Inhofe , R-Okla., has sponsored the legislation in the Senate, where its path to passage is much less certain.
Some House Democrats, including Rep. Gene Green of Houston, said they disapproved of EPA regulation of greenhouse gases and preferred Congress to set standards. But it’s not clear that Green and other Democrats would vote for the GOP bill.
Much of Wednesday’s hearing revolved around Republicans and Democrats arguing about whether man-made activities are to blame for climate change.
Republicans faulted Democrats for ignoring the regulations’ impact on jobs and energy costs. Democrats blasted Republicans for trying to legislatively overturn the EPA’s finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health.
“Politicians overruling scientists on a scientific question — that would become part of this committee’s legacy,” Jackson said.
Read more in the Dallas Morning News
Showing posts with label greenhouse gas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greenhouse gas. Show all posts
Friday, February 11, 2011
Friday, June 29, 2007
Waste transformation generates interest - using waste products to fuel energy in North Texas
By ELIZABETH SOUDER - The Dallas Morning News - Wednesday, June 27, 2007
North Texas is beginning to be fueled by its own filth.
Companies are building several new facilities to turn waste, manure and even smellier stuff into fuel for power plants.
Waste Management Inc. recently fired up a small power generator that runs off the methane produced by its landfill in Ferris, just south of Dallas. The company plans to spend $400 million to add generators to 60 landfills across the country.
MONA REEDER/DMN The Waste Management landfill near Ferris is dotted with gas lines that pop up to vent methane. The gas fuels four generators, pumping out enough electricity to power about 5,000 homes. And Environmental Power Corp. built a plant near Stephenville to turn manure and animal fats into methane. The facility pumps the gas into pipelines and sells it to the Lower Colorado River Authority as power plant fuel.
"The higher the cost of current energy sources, the higher natural gas prices and electricity prices, the more viable the renewable energy sources become," said Russel Smith, executive director of the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association.
He added that public demand for cleaner energy also spurs such investment.
The only disappointment for environmental advocates is that such plants are small. Each can supply enough electricity for a few thousand households – hardly enough to feed Texas' growing appetite for power.
Eighty-four of Waste Management's 281 U.S. landfills already fuel power plants. Eight landfills in Texas have generators, including one in Lewisville.
And investing in such plants has become a lot more attractive recently as electricity prices rise and regulators require power companies to accumulate renewable energy credits.
Federal tax benefits sweeten the economics.
Now, the country's largest garbage collector plans to install power plants on every landfill it operates with enough methane to run a generator. Sites in Fort Worth and Austin are slated for power plants.
And the company wants to offer its services to other landfill operators to install and run power plants at their sites, too.
The Ferris landfill looks like a grassy hill with a few black pipes sticking out. Those are gas wells that draw off methane produced by the decades-old garbage under ground.
Waste Management must tap the gas and burn it off, or the landfill belches methane. In the past, the company just burned off the gas.
"They're a good investment. It's a cliché, but it's the right thing to do, and it makes use of a fuel that's otherwise flared," said Paul Pabor, vice president of renewable energy for the Houston company.
Now, the methane fuels four yellow Caterpillar generators, each about the size of a compact car. They pump out enough electricity to power about 5,000 homes.
"It used to be a dump," said Kano Galindo, a district manager who oversees the plant. But don't use that term around him, he said; he admires the shiny generators.
The manure and animal-fat processing center near Stephenville isn't quite so squeaky clean or fragrant as the landfill. When the smell of manure wafts past, it's actually a relief from the stench of the animal parts, or "material," as the executives say.
Just like the landfill operator, Microgy, a unit of New Hampshire's Environmental Power Corp., gets its fuel for free.
The plant, which used to be a composting site, takes in manure and materials from dairies and food processing plants.
The waste naturally emits methane when it decomposes. Microgy's eight digesters use microorganisms to hasten that process.
The $13 million plant can churn out up to 635,000 million British thermal units of gas a year. That's enough gas to power around 10,000 homes.
Environmental Power is eyeing another potential revenue stream. By burning the potent greenhouse gas as a fuel, rather than venting it, the facility can qualify for greenhouse gas offset credits.
If the U.S. limits such emissions, those credits could be in high demand.
"We believe that could be equal to or even greater than our gas" business, said Richard Kessel, chief executive of Environmental Power.
See WFAA Report
North Texas is beginning to be fueled by its own filth.
Companies are building several new facilities to turn waste, manure and even smellier stuff into fuel for power plants.
Waste Management Inc. recently fired up a small power generator that runs off the methane produced by its landfill in Ferris, just south of Dallas. The company plans to spend $400 million to add generators to 60 landfills across the country.
MONA REEDER/DMN The Waste Management landfill near Ferris is dotted with gas lines that pop up to vent methane. The gas fuels four generators, pumping out enough electricity to power about 5,000 homes. And Environmental Power Corp. built a plant near Stephenville to turn manure and animal fats into methane. The facility pumps the gas into pipelines and sells it to the Lower Colorado River Authority as power plant fuel.
"The higher the cost of current energy sources, the higher natural gas prices and electricity prices, the more viable the renewable energy sources become," said Russel Smith, executive director of the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association.
He added that public demand for cleaner energy also spurs such investment.
The only disappointment for environmental advocates is that such plants are small. Each can supply enough electricity for a few thousand households – hardly enough to feed Texas' growing appetite for power.
Eighty-four of Waste Management's 281 U.S. landfills already fuel power plants. Eight landfills in Texas have generators, including one in Lewisville.
And investing in such plants has become a lot more attractive recently as electricity prices rise and regulators require power companies to accumulate renewable energy credits.
Federal tax benefits sweeten the economics.
Now, the country's largest garbage collector plans to install power plants on every landfill it operates with enough methane to run a generator. Sites in Fort Worth and Austin are slated for power plants.
And the company wants to offer its services to other landfill operators to install and run power plants at their sites, too.
The Ferris landfill looks like a grassy hill with a few black pipes sticking out. Those are gas wells that draw off methane produced by the decades-old garbage under ground.
Waste Management must tap the gas and burn it off, or the landfill belches methane. In the past, the company just burned off the gas.
"They're a good investment. It's a cliché, but it's the right thing to do, and it makes use of a fuel that's otherwise flared," said Paul Pabor, vice president of renewable energy for the Houston company.
Now, the methane fuels four yellow Caterpillar generators, each about the size of a compact car. They pump out enough electricity to power about 5,000 homes.
"It used to be a dump," said Kano Galindo, a district manager who oversees the plant. But don't use that term around him, he said; he admires the shiny generators.
The manure and animal-fat processing center near Stephenville isn't quite so squeaky clean or fragrant as the landfill. When the smell of manure wafts past, it's actually a relief from the stench of the animal parts, or "material," as the executives say.
Just like the landfill operator, Microgy, a unit of New Hampshire's Environmental Power Corp., gets its fuel for free.
The plant, which used to be a composting site, takes in manure and materials from dairies and food processing plants.
The waste naturally emits methane when it decomposes. Microgy's eight digesters use microorganisms to hasten that process.
The $13 million plant can churn out up to 635,000 million British thermal units of gas a year. That's enough gas to power around 10,000 homes.
Environmental Power is eyeing another potential revenue stream. By burning the potent greenhouse gas as a fuel, rather than venting it, the facility can qualify for greenhouse gas offset credits.
If the U.S. limits such emissions, those credits could be in high demand.
"We believe that could be equal to or even greater than our gas" business, said Richard Kessel, chief executive of Environmental Power.
See WFAA Report
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