Governments of the people must take responsibility for our future

From an Essay by Paul Krugman, Opinion Columnist, January 27, 2020

I’ve never been a fan of the World Economic Forum at Davos, that annual gathering of the rich and fatuous. One virtue of the pageant of preening and self-importance, however, is that it brings out the worst in some people, leading them to say things that reveal their vileness for all to see.

And so it was for Steven Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary. First, Mnuchin doubled down on his claim that the 2017 tax cut will pay for itself — just days after his own department confirmed that the budget deficit in 2019 was more than $1 trillion, 75 percent higher than it was in 2016.

Then he sneered at Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist, suggesting that she go study economics before calling for an end to investment in fossil fuels.

Well, unearned arrogance is a Trump administration hallmark — witness Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, claiming that a respected national security reporter couldn’t find Ukraine on a map. So it may not surprise you to learn that Mnuchin was talking nonsense and that Thunberg almost certainly has it right.

One can only surmise that Mnuchin slept through his undergraduate economics classes. Otherwise he would know that every, and I mean every, major Econ 101 textbook argues for government regulation or taxation of activities that pollute the environment, because otherwise neither producers nor consumers have an incentive to take the damage inflicted by this pollution into account.

And burning fossil fuels is a huge source of environmental damage, not just from climate change but also from local air pollution, which is a major health hazard we don’t do nearly enough to limit.

The International Monetary Fund makes regular estimates of worldwide subsidies to fossil fuels — subsidies that partly take the form of tax breaks and outright cash grants, but mainly involve not holding the industry accountable for the indirect costs it imposes. In 2017 it put these subsidies at $5.2 trillion; yes, that’s trillion with a “T.” For the U.S., the subsidies amounted to $649 billion, which is about $3 million for every worker employed in the extraction of coal, oil and gas.

Without these subsidies, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would still be investing in fossil fuels.

But maybe Mnuchin thinks that the I.M.F. should also take some courses in economics — along with the thousands of economists, including every living former Federal Reserve chair, dozens of Nobel laureates, and chief economists from both Democratic and Republican administrations, who signed an open letter calling for taxes on emissions of greenhouse gases.

In short, Greta Thunberg may be only 17, but her views are much closer to the consensus of the economics profession than those of the guy clinging to the zombie idea that tax cuts pay for themselves. But could the economics consensus be wrong? Yes, but probably because it isn’t hard enough on fossil fuels.

On one side, a number of experts argue that standard models underestimate the risks of climate change, both because they don’t account for its disruptive effects and because they don’t put enough weight on the possibility of total catastrophe.

On the other side, estimates of the cost of reducing emissions tend to understate the role of innovation. Even modest incentives for expanded use of renewable energy led to a spectacular fall in prices over the past decade.

I still often find people — both right-wingers and climate activists — asserting that sharply reducing emissions would require a big decline in G.D.P. Everything we know, however, says that this is wrong, that we can decarbonize while continuing to achieve robust growth. Given all this, however, why are people like Mnuchin and his boss Trump so adamantly pro-fossil fuel and anti-environmentalist?

Part of the answer, I believe, is that conservatives don’t want to admit that government action is ever justified. Once you concede that the government can do good by protecting the environment, people might start thinking that it can guarantee affordable health care, too. The bigger issue, however, is sheer greed.

Given the scale of subsidies we give to fossil fuels, the industry as a whole should be regarded as a gigantic grift. It makes money by ripping off everyone else, to some extent through direct taxpayer subsidies, to a greater extent by shunting the true costs of its operations off onto innocent bystanders.

And let’s be clear: Many of those “costs” take the form of sickness and death, because that’s what local air pollution causes. Other costs take the form of “natural” disasters like the burning of Australia, which increasingly bear the signature of climate change.

In a sane world we’d be trying to shut this grift down. But the grifters — which overwhelmingly means corporations and investors, since little of that $3-million-per-worker subsidy trickles down to the workers themselves — have bought themselves a lot of political influence. And so people like Mnuchin claim not to see anything wrong with industries whose profits depend almost entirely on hurting people. Maybe he should take a course in economics — and another one in ethics.

>>> Paul Krugman has been a columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography.

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See also: Davos asks CEOs to set net-zero target by 2050 | World Economic Forum, January 17, 2020

“Clean Coal” Is A Political Myth, Says Coal Company Owner

From an Article by Steve Hanley, E & E News, July 25, 2017

Robert Murray is the CEO of Murray Energy, America’s largest privately owned coal-mining company. He has met privately with #FakePresident Donald Trump on several occasions to advise him on how to put coal miners back to work. He is one of the people who helped craft the message from serial prevaricator and all-around despicable human being Mitch McConnell and others in Washington that “clean coal” was the magic bullet that would reinvigorate the coal mining industry.

Based in part on the sweet nothings Murray was whispering in his ear, The Trumpster made “clean coal” a big part of his campaign message. His claims bamboozled unemployed miners with promises they would soon be back to work, once the evil Obama was evicted from the White House. The problem is, it was all a bold faced lie designed to pander to the most vulnerable workers in America.

Murray was in Washington recently to attend a meeting of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Scott Pruitt, the alleged administrator of the EPA, was present to tell the group about his plan to counterattack climate scientists by hiring a bunch of charlatans supported by the Koch Brothers and other fossil fuel interests to say whatever they are paid to say, no matter the consequences.

How odd, then, that at a conference on clean coal, Murray told the press, “Carbon capture and sequestration does not work. It’s a pseudonym for ‘no coal.’ It is neither practical nor economic, carbon capture and sequestration. It is just cover for the politicians, both Republicans and Democrats that say, ‘Look what I did for coal,’ knowing all the time that it doesn’t help coal at all.” Talk about throwing the boss under the bus!

As if to underline the truth of his pronouncements, Southern Company announced shortly thereafter that it will stop throwing away billions of dollars a year on a carbon capture venture in Kemper County, Mississippi. It will not, however, refund the money that local utility customers had to pay to support the short sighted plan. Utility companies get their mistakes paid for by their customers.

In an article earlier this year about Murray and Elon Musk tangling on Twitter about climate change and coal emissions, Murray took time out of his busy day advising presidents and senators to send me an email saying he drives a lowly Ford Ranger, as if somehow that excuses him from raping and pillaging the land in search of a buck.

Oddly enough, he claims that climate change is just a money making scheme for people promoting solar, wind, and other renewable energy projects. Somehow, Murray and his ilk do not see the hypocrisy of complaining about renewable energy companies being profitable when they have fattened their own wallets for generations by pumping tons of pollutants into the environment.

>>> About the Author — Steve Hanley writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island.

QUOTE for TODAY — “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” Elie Wiesel

Wendy Radcliff - X- Environmental Advocate

New secretary fires WVDEP environmental advocate Wendy Radcliff

From an Article by Ken Ward, Jr., Charleston Gazette-Mail, January 27, 2017

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Austin Caperton on Friday fired Wendy Radcliff, the leader of the DEP’s Office of Environmental Advocate.

The move immediately drew strong criticism from West Virginia citizen groups and environmental organizations that were already wary of how Caperton, a longtime coal industry consultant, would run the agency charged with regulating mining, gas drilling and other industries.

“I’m really almost speechless,” said Cindy Rank, the longtime mining chairwoman for the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. “If they wanted to alienate the citizens and the environmental community, this is the way to do it.”

Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, said it is shocking that Caperton made the move prior to a newly scheduled meeting the week after next with representatives of her organization, the Highlands Conservancy, the West Virginia League of Women Voters and the West Virginia Environmental Council.

“This is troublesome news,” Rosser said. “Wendy Radcliff has been the direct line for citizen concerns to help make sure the agency is accountable to the public. It’s concerning this decision seemingly was made without input from the people who the environmental advocate is designed to serve.”

Caperton, who is just finishing his second week on the job for Gov. Jim Justice, also fired Kelley Gillenwater, the DEP’s communications director.

Gillenwater and Radcliff declined to comment Friday, but their firing was confirmed by numerous DEP sources who asked not to be identified.

Radcliff, an attorney, has filled the environmental advocate post for more than six years during two stints at the agency. Gillenwater had been communications director for nearly three years and, while emphasizing the DEP’s position on various issues, also had developed a reputation for pushing to make agency officials more responsive to news media requests.

The Justice administration offered no complete explanation for the shakeup at the DEP, and it was not clear what — if any — other changes Caperton planned to make among the top leadership at the agency.

Caperton did not return phone calls and, on orders from the Governor’s Office, has rejected interview requests from the Gazette-Mail. Caperton, an engineer and an attorney, previously worked for A.T. Massey Coal and for his family’s company, Slab Fork Coal. He’s worked as an energy industry consultant since 1989, but a list of his clients has not been made public.

Jake Glance, an assistant to Gillenwater in the DEP public information office, provided a one-sentence statement via email, but did not return phone calls or answer emailed questions about the statement.

“We are restructuring to make our operation more efficient by consolidating roles,” the statement from Glance said.

Under state law, the DEP is required to have an environmental advocate and a public information officer. There was not a clear answer on Friday about whether Caperton plans to fill either post or combine their functions, or what his timeline is for either option.

And, the DEP’s rules for the environmental advocate office specifically state that the advocate “may not in any official capacity organize public campaigns” either to oppose or support “positions taken” by the DEP “on environmental matters,” a prohibition that would seem to create a roadblock to combining the advocate and communications director roles.

Friday also was the deadline for Caperton’s internal request that each of the more than 800 DEP employees submit to him “at least one cost-saving idea for the agency.” In a memo to DEP employees, Caperton had said Justice “has directed that we do everything in our power to eliminate waste and find savings.” Caperton asked that the ideas be provided through an online survey or provided to Gillenwater.

An exact breakdown of the environmental advocate office budget was not available, because its spending is combined within the total for the DEP’s executive offices. But in addition to Radcliff, the office had two other employees and shared a secretary with a separate DEP Office of Small Business Ombudsman, whose stated role at the agency is to “safeguard small business’s rights and help them when they have problems with regulatory agencies.”

The DEP environmental advocate office was created by the Legislature in 1994, at the behest of then-state Sen. David Grubb, D-Kanawha. Grubb had threatened to hold up passage of a 1,400-page, industry-backed bill to consolidate the state’s various environmental agencies unless language was added to create a position aimed at helping everyday citizens navigate the DEP’s complex regulatory system.

Early on, the office faced repeated but unsuccessful efforts by some Republican lawmakers to eliminate it. And various industry trade groups tried during a public comment period on the rules governing the advocate office to narrowly define the position’s role at DEP.

The West Virginia Manufacturers Association, for example, opposed giving the office additional staff and argued against the idea that citizens needed help getting more of voice in state environmental policymaking.

Radcliff, though, served as environmental advocate under five different top DEP leaders — including two whose backgrounds were in the coal industry — and in both Democratic and Republican administrations. She began in mid-1994 under then-DEP Director David C. Callaghan during the Democratic administration of Gov. Gaston Caperton, who is Austin Caperton’s cousin.

Among other projects, Radcliff helped DEP officials organize a Citizens’ Strip Mine Tour in 1997 that provided one of the first close-up glimpses of the impact of mountaintop removal on residents in some coalfield communities. During the administration of Republican Cecil Underwood, Radcliff lasted for about 18 months, before resigning in June 1998, citing differences in philsophy and other career opportunities.

Longtime Kanawha Valley chemical plant safety activist Pam Nixon took over as environmental advocate later in 1998. Nixon retired at the end of 2013 and then-DEP Secretary Randy Huffman convinced Radcliff to come back in June 2014.

Huffman, who left earlier this month for a full-time position with the West Virginia Air National Guard, made Radcliff part of the DEP’s senior staff, which provided access to regular meetings of the agency’s division directors. Among other things, Radcliff organized a program that helped find and better train emerging leaders within the agency’s ranks.

“I really got to know Wendy well over past few years when she agreed to come back to [the] DEP and serve as our state’s environmental advocate,” Huffman said Friday. “Her enthusiasm and passion for West Virginia is contagious. I appreciate how she understands the nexus between environmental protection and economic growth and how faithfully she supports the role of [the] DEP in that mix. She is selfless in all she does and she makes everyone around her better. I consider her a friend of mine and a friend of West Virginia.”

Bill Price, senior organizer for the Sierra Club in West Virginia, said he is troubled by Radcliff’s dismissal.

“Wendy Radcliff is a person that people trusted when they felt unheard,” Price said. “Is this a sign of how the people of West Virginia will be shut out by the Justice administration?”

“For many who have well water woes or who are worried about another coal slurry spill, have questions about an oil and gas or coal permit or have any number of questions about how to interact with [the] DEP, Wendy’s the first point of contact,” said Vivian Stockman, vice director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. “She’s friendly, helpful and competent. She does the agency proud, so her dismissal is confounding.“

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Chemical Storage Tanks -- Elk River

EQB upholds WV-DEP chemical tank designations

From an Article by Ken Ward, Charleston Gazette, April 26, 2016

The state Environmental Quality Board has upheld decisions by state regulators about which chemical storage tanks would be covered by new safety standards passed to try to prevent a repeat of the January 2014 Freedom Industries spill that contaminated drinking water for thousands of people in Charleston and surrounding communities.

In a 10-page order, board members said that the state Department of Environmental Protection had legal authority to make the designations.

Lawyers for the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia and three related companies, C.I. McKown and Son Inc.; Pocono Energy Corp.; and Tempest Energy Corp., had appealed the WV-DEP designations and a formula the agency used to make them.

At issue in the case were decisions the WV-DEP made about which tanks are within two different zones within certain distances and stream-flow times from sites where public drinking water intakes are located. Under the law, originally passed in 2014 and then rolled back significantly last year, the WV-DEP designations — of “zones of critical concern” or “zones of peripheral concern” near intakes — determine what level of regulation applies to different tanks.

Natural gas lobbyists had tried to have their industry exempted entirely from the chemical tank legislation, but lawmakers declined to adopt that proposal.

Among other things, the gas industry appeal argued that the WV-DEP wrongly did not make its zone designations through a separate rulemaking that would have been subject to public review and comment, and that in making tank decisions, agency officials used “arbitrary and capricious” assumptions.

Board members said that the Legislature had required the WV-DEP to use the rulemaking process for certain parts of its implementation of the chemical tank law, such as setting fees and spelling out inspection procedures, but did not require that for other matters — such as the formula for determining tank designations.

“The Legislature did not state that a rule was required for making the mathematical model,” the board ruling said. “The board refrains from reading more into the statute than is expressly provided.”

Board members also said that the WV-DEP’s model “was essentially an invention required by law” and put together by the agency “with limited funds” in a six-month period, requiring “innovation, assumptions, and acceptance of limitations.”

“This is especially understandable given no alternative has ever been presented,” the board said.

The board did rule that the WV-DEP had wrongly implemented a 1,320-foot buffer zone for the Ohio River, adopted from the Ohio River Valley Sanitation Commission, rather than using the 1,000-foot buffer mandated by the Legislature.

Board members, ruling after a hearing in January, also ruled that it was right to allow two citizen groups, the West Virginia Citizen Action Group and the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, to intervene in the case.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Sunday School 106: “The alluring, controlling promise of coal”

Letter to Editor, Charleston Gazette, September 30, 2014

Coal River, what a portentous name. Sounds like it might eventually be burned and take the whole world with it. Coal is a nasty substance, full of cancer-causing compounds, that once released by the magic of fire distributes poisons throughout the earth. Burning coal blocks out the sun and pours out carbon dioxide that holds in infrared radiation — a scientific name for heat. Smoke from “black gold,” burned in West Virginia, has sterilized lakes in New York and Canada.

When coal’s original connections are altered, it lets go of the sunshine that created it millions of years ago. Plastic and steel and asphalt are made by rearranging the connections conjured up by giant ferns. In spite of suicidal side effects, the root of all evil keeps the process going. Coal left alone isn’t nasty, but the love of money is a nasty, perverse and abusive love. Grandma Barker watched the fish from the top of the riverbank, in the peace and shade of the canopy of the forest, where Big Coal River ran through a tunnel of arched trees that seemed to make the very air turn green. The river was cool in the summer and drifted slowly down the valley it had been carving for millions of years. From the top of the bank, Grandma saw fish swim and the sandy bottom that was kind to her bare feet. Grandma and her father fished in Coal River. What extra they caught went into a barrel that was sunk in the bottom of the shallow side of the river. When they wanted fish for dinner, she poled the boat or lifted her dress and waded barefoot out to the barrel and grabbed a mess.

By the 1940s, so much coal had been mined along Coal River that people walked their john-boats up and down in the sandy, shallow parts, and picked up escaped pieces of coal. There was enough to heat their homes, to cook with, and to give them asthma and lung cancer. Coal made it unnecessary to haul and split large quantities of wood — a little kindling wood and some wood for the cook stove were all that was needed. With far less than half the labor, a person could extract more than twice the heat from coal than from wood. Coal gave the subsistence farmer time to do something besides labor for winter heat. That luxury, now expanded to air conditioning and such, is what has made coal so dangerous, so destructive and so controlling. The love of money is indeed the root of all evil. The desire for comfort and relief from drudgery, ensures a ready market for those making that money.

Today the mountains along Coal River are being destroyed forever to accommodate the desire for comfort, rest from drudgery and the love of money.A young, future grandma once sat blissfully on the river bank, and never imagined that someday the choice of comfort would injure her progeny and destroy their world. She didn’t live to see nearby Bull Creek, Ashford Ridge, Fork Creek, the ridge across from Costa and the edges of Kanawha State Forest, forever blown away.Choices are being made between overfed American comfort and West Virginia’s mountains, streams, wildlife, and human health.

Julian Martin of Charleston, is a retired teacher active with the WV Highlands Conservancy. He is a graduate of WVU and served in the Peace Corps.