Eternal vigilance needed to protect our water supply, streams & rivers (Angie Rosser of WV Rivers Coalition)

Submitted by Julie Archer, League of Women Voters of West Virginia, July, 17, 2021

We’re sharing this important Action Alert from our friends at the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

A recent a policy decision by the WVDEP related to water quality standards creates a loophole to allow industries to dump more toxins in our source water.

This proposal is part of a second round of human health criteria revisions – the portion of our water quality standards that protects our health from dangerous pollutants like cancer causing toxins, chemicals known to cause birth-defects, and poisons like cyanide.

Submit comments on the proposal today! [1]

This policy is dangerous for West Virginia. Not only will it allow more toxins in our drinking water sources, it creates a shortcut for polluters to allow EVEN MORE toxins in our water with less public
involvement.

Ways this policy puts our health and our water at risk:

* The proposal creates a loophole for industry to further weaken the
human health criteria on a case-by-case basis if industry funds a study
that sways the WVDEP to decide that water and fish can handle more
toxins.
* This is handout to big corporations, who can afford the studies.
Hint: chemical manufacturers asked for this loophole, so we are pretty
sure they can afford these studies and are confident they believe they
can demonstrate results in their favor.
* There is already a process in place to revise water quality
standards. The revision sidesteps that procedure by creating a shortcut
that reduces scrutiny and public input in decision-making.
* The loophole exacerbates environmental justice issues by allowing
more toxins in waters near industrialized areas, which are often poorer
communities that are already struggling with problems related to social,
economic, and environmental justice.
* On top of all these factors, it’s just plain old bad policy. It’s_
_vague and sets a precedent for further weakening of water quality
standards statewide.

This is an all hand on deck call to action!

You can submit comments on the proposal through July 19 here [1]. It’s important for the WVDEP to hear personalized responses from commenters. Think about how the policy change would affect you and your loved ones
personally.

In addition to submitting written comments, please plan to join the virtual public hearing on the proposal on July 19 at 6:00PM [2].

See the Links:
——
[1] https://wvrivers.salsalabs.org/hhc2021/index.html

[2] https://dep.wv.gov/events/Pages/event.aspx?eventid=363

Conceptual layout of Longview II and III

LONGVIEW POWER II, LLC, and
LONGVIEW RENEWABLE POWER, LLC

Joint Application of Longview Power II, LLC and
Longview Renewable Power, LLC to Authorize the
Construction and Operation of Two Wholesale Electric
Generating Facilities and One High-Voltage
Electric Transmission Line in Monongalia County.

NOTICE OF FILING AND HEARING

On September 6,2019, Longview Power II, LLC and Longview Renewable Power, LLC (Applicants) filed a joint application pursuant to W. Va. Code $8 24-2-1 1c and 24-2-1 1a to authorize the construction and operation of two wholesale electric generating facilities and one high-voltage electric transmission line in Monongalia County, West Virginia, including all interconnection and ancillary facilities.

The Facilities proposed by the Applicants include a 1,200 MW natural gas-fired electric combined cycle gas turbine generating facility and associated high-voltage transmission line (CCGT Facility) and a 70 MW utility scale solar facility to be located in West Virginia and Pennsylvania (Solar Facility). Longview Power 11, LLC will construct and operate the CCGT Facility, and Longview Renewable Power, LLC will construct and own the Solar Facility. When combined with the existing 710 MW coal-fired facility (Coal Facility) owned by Longview Power, LLC, an affiliate of the Applicants, the CCGT and Solar Facilities will produce nearly 2,000 MW of generating capacity in north-central West Virginia and south-west Pennsylvania.

The CCGT Facility will deploy two gas turbines with a high efficiency, secondary cycle steam turbine system and will include a 500 kV transmission line extending approximately three-quarters of a mile north from the facility to the North Longview Switchyard in Pennsylvania. The Solar Facility will be a 70 MW (direct current) utility scale solar facility with 20 MW of panels in West Virginia and 50 MW of panels in Pennsylvania as presently configured. The solar array fields in West Virginia will have a 34.5 kV collection system that transmits power to the point of interconnection, where the voltage will be stepped up to 500 kV. The CCGT and Solar Facilities will be constructed adjacent to the site of the Coal Facility on reclaimed mine land owned by Longview Power, LLC and its affiliates.

The Applicants estimate that the total construction costs of the CCGT and Solar Facilities (excluding financing charges and fees in 2018 dollars) will be approximately $956 million.

The Applicants assert that they are not public utilities providing service to the public and that the construction and operation of the Facilities will not impact West Virginia ratepayers. Rates charged for electricity sold by the Facilities will be subject to regulation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) pursuant to Section 205 of the Federal Power Act. The Applicants intend to file a market-based rate schedule with FERC that will allow sales from the Facilities to be at negotiated rates.

The Applicants will be responsible for the construction and operation of the Facilities and for the sale of electricity generated by them. The Applicants will operate the Facilities as exempt wholesale generators as defined under Section 32(a) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935.

The Applicants will enter into interconnection and operating agreements with PJM, a regional transmission organization, which will govern the interconnections of the CCGT and Solar Facilities with West Perm Power and PJM at the North Longview Switchyard in Pennsylvania. The Applicants, or the purchasers of the electricity generated by the Facilities, will enter into transmission service agreements with West Penn Power to govern the transmission of
the electricity across West Penn Power’s facilities. Such transmission of electricity will be subject to the terms of PJM’s Open Access Transmission Tariff on file with the FERC. The interconnections with West Penn Power will not compete with other utilities and will be for the sole purpose of transmitting electricity generated at the Facilities onto the grid for the wholesale market.

The Applicants assert that because they are not public utilities under West Virginia law, considerations relevant to the issuance of a certificate of convenience and necessity under W. Va. Code 5924-2-1 1 and 24-2-1 1a such as the need for the Facilities and the information required by Tariff Rule 42, should not be addressed by the Commission.

Therefore, the Applicants request a waiver of the Public Service Commission’s filing requirements to provide certain information including the utility service rendered, proposed rates, project construction costs, project financing and estimates of operating revenues and expenses, and the information required by
Tariff Rule 42 (e.g., statements of net income, operating revenues, depreciation, West Virginia jurisdictional rate base, plant in service and capital structure).

And, because the Applicants will not be regulated by the Commission as public utilities following completion of the Facilities, they request a waiver of the Commission’s filing and reporting requirements, metering requirements, customer relations, inspections and tests, standards and quality of service, promotional practices, consumer reimbursement program, uniform accounting requirements, and the requirement to allow Commission inspection of books, papers, reports and statements that are specific to regulated public utilities whose practices affect captive ratepayers.

Further information concerning the Application is available in the case file at the Commission offices at 201 Brooks Street, Charleston, West Virginia, or on the Commission’s website, www.psc.state.wv.us, under Case No. 19-0890-E-CS-CN.

The Commission set a procedural schedule, including a hearing on the Application. The hearing will begin at 9:30 a.m. on January 30, 2020 and will continue into January 31, 2020, if necessary, in the Howard M. Cunningham Hearing Room at the Commission’s offices at 201 Brooks Street, Charleston, West Virginia.

Anyone desiring to file public comments in support or in opposition to the Application may do so by mailing to the address below. The Commission will receive written public comments until the beginning of the hearing.

Anyone desiring to petition to intervene in this case must file a written request to intervene within thirty (30) days of the date of publication of this notice, unless otherwise modified by Commission order. Anyone requesting a hearing in this case must also file such
request in writing within the same 30-day period and state why a hearing is necessary. Failure to timely protest or intervene can affect your right to protest or participate in future proceedings in this case. If no substantial protests or requests for hearing are received within said 30-day period, the Commission may waive formal hearing and grant the Application based on the evidence submitted with said Application and its review thereof. All protests or requests to intervene shall briefly state the reason(s) for the protest or intervention. Requests to intervene must comply with the Commission’s rules on intervention set forth in the Commission’s Rules of Practice and Procedure. The Commission’s rules are available via a link on the Commission’s Home Page to the website of the West Virginia Secretary of State.

All written comments and protests, requests to intervene, and requests for hearing must state the case name and number and be addressed to Connie Graley, Executive Secretary, Post Office Box 812, Charleston, West Virginia 25323.

Public comments may also be filed online by clicking the “Formal Case” link at:
http://www.psc.state.wv.us/scripts/onlinecomments/default.cfm

LONGVIEW POWER 11, LLC, and
LONGVIEW RENEWABLE POWER, LLC

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Recommendation of Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition (MVCAC):

File a Letter of Protest with the WV Public Service Commission

Ask that the Certificate of Site Approval be denied unless Longview installs carbon capture to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Be sure to include the reference to Case # 19-0890.

Mail letters to: Connie Graley, Executive Secretary, West Virginia Public Service Commission, 201 Brooks Street, Charleston, WV 25301.

Or file comments on-line Protesting Case Number 19-0890 at: http://www.psc.state.wv.us/scripts/onlinecomments/default.cfm

Attend the Public Hearing. The PSC will hold a public hearing on Monday, Jan. 6, 2020 at 5:30 PM at the Monongalia County Courthouse, 243 High Street, Morgantown. You can present your comments in person at that time.

Exxon Gas Well blowout & fire in Ohio River Valley (2/2018)

From an Article by Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times, December 16, 2019
·
The first satellite designed to continuously monitor the planet for methane leaks made a startling discovery last year: A little known gas-well accident at an Ohio fracking site was in fact one of the largest methane leaks ever recorded in the United States.

The findings by a Dutch-American team of scientists, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, mark a step forward in using space technology to detect leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, from oil and gas sites worldwide.

The scientists said the new findings reinforced the view that methane releases like these, which are difficult to predict, could be far more widespread than previously thought.

“We’re entering a new era. With a single observation, a single overpass, we’re able to see plumes of methane coming from large emission sources,” said Ilse Aben, an expert in satellite remote sensing and one of the authors of the new research. “That’s something totally new that we were previously not able to do from space.”

Scientists also said the new findings reinforced the view that methane emissions from oil installations are far more widespread than previously thought.

The blowout, in February 2018 at a natural gas well run by an Exxon Mobil subsidiary in Belmont County, Ohio, released more methane than the entire oil and gas industries of many nations do in a year, the research team found. The Ohio episode triggered about 100 residents within a one-mile radius to evacuate their homes while workers scrambled to plug the well.

At the time, the Exxon subsidiary, XTO Energy, said it could not immediately determine how much gas had leaked. But the European Space Agency had just launched a satellite with a new monitoring instrument called Tropomi, designed to collect more accurate measurements of methane.

“We said, ‘Can we see it? Let’s look,’” said Steven Hamburg, a New York-based scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, which had been collaborating on the satellite project with researchers at the Netherlands Institute for Space Research in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Natural gas production has come under increased scrutiny because of the prevalence of leaks of methane — the colorless, odorless main component of natural gas — from the fuel’s supply chain.

When burned for electricity, natural gas is cleaner than coal, producing about half the carbon dioxide that coal does. But if methane escapes into the atmosphere before being burned, it can warm the planet more than 80 times as much as the same amount of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

The satellite’s measurements showed that, in Ohio in the 20 days it took for Exxon to plug the well, about 120 metric tons of methane an hour were released. That amounted to twice the rate of the largest known methane leak in the United States, from an oil and gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon, Calif., in 2015, though that event lasted longer and had higher emissions overall.

The Ohio blowout released more methane than the reported emissions of the oil and gas industries of countries like Norway and France, the researchers estimated. Scientists said the measurements from the Ohio site could mean that other large leaks are going undetected.

“When I started working on methane, now about a decade ago, the standard line was: ‘We’ve got it under control. We’re managing it,’” Dr. Hamburg said. “But in fact, they didn’t have the data. They didn’t have it under control, because they didn’t understand what was actually happening. And you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”

An Exxon spokesman, Casey Norton, said that the company’s own scientists had scrutinized images and taken pressure readings from the well to arrive at a smaller estimate of the emissions from the blowout. Exxon is in touch with the satellite researchers, Mr. Norton said, and has “agreed to sit down and talk further to understand the discrepancy and see if there’s anything that we can learn.”

“This was an anomaly,” he said. “This is not something that happens on any regular basis. And we do our very best to prevent this from ever happening.” An internal investigation found that high pressure had caused the well’s casing, or internal lining, to fail, Mr. Norton said. After working with Ohio regulators on safety improvements, he said, the well is now in service.

Miranda Leppla, head of energy policy at the Ohio Environmental Council, said there had been complaints about health issues — throat irritation, dizziness, breathing problems — among residents closest to the well. “Methane emissions, unfortunately, aren’t a rare occurrence, but a constant threat that exacerbates climate change and can damage the health of Ohioans,” she said.

Scientists said that a critical task was now to be more quickly able to sift through the tens of millions of data points the satellite collects each day to identify methane hot spots. Studies of oil fields in the United States have shown that a small number of sites with high emissions are responsible for the bulk of methane releases.

So far, detecting and measuring methane leaks has involved expensive field studies using aircraft and infrared cameras that make the invisible gas visible. In a visual investigation published last week, The New York Times used airborne measurement equipment and advanced infrared cameras to expose six so-called super emitters in a West Texas oil field.

In a separate paper published in October, researchers detailed the use of two satellites to detect and measure a longer-term leak of methane from a natural gas compressor station in Turkmenistan, in Central Asia. Researchers estimated emissions from the site to be roughly comparable to the overall release from the Aliso Canyon event.
The leak has now stopped, satellite readings show, after the researchers raised the alarm through diplomatic channels.

“That’s the strength of satellites. We can look almost everywhere in the world,” said Dr. Aben, a senior scientist at the Dutch space institute in Utrecht and an author on both papers.

There are limitations to hunting for methane leaks with satellite technology. Satellites cannot see beneath clouds. Scientists must also do complex calculations to account for the background methane that already exists in the earth’s atmosphere.

Still, satellites will increasingly be able to both rapidly detect large releases and shed light on the rise in methane levels in the atmosphere, which has been particularly pronounced since 2007 for reasons that still aren’t fully understood. Fracking natural-gas production, which accelerated just as atmospheric methane levels jumped, has been studied as one possible cause.

“Right now, you have one-off reports, but we have no estimate globally of how frequently these things happen,” Dr. Hamburg of the Environmental Defense Fund said. “Is this a once a year kind of event? Once a week? Once a day? Knowing that will make a big difference in trying to fully understand what the aggregate emissions are from oil and gas.”

Video — The Ohio disaster leaked as much methane as the entire oil and gas industries of some nations release in a year.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

See also: This So-Called Bridge Fuel ‘Leads to Hell’: Blowout at ExxonMobil Fracking Site Among Nation’s Worst-Ever Methane Leaks, Common Dreams News, Jessica Corbett, December 17, 2019

New data about the 2018 incident sparks fresh warnings about the dangers of natural gas and renewed calls for a rapid transition to renewable energy.

Tree sitters protesting Mountain Valley Pipeline

From an Article by Laurence Hammack, Richmond Times, April 4, 2019

ELLISTON — The 212th day was a lot like the first, which for foes of the Mountain Valley Pipeline was a good thing.

Since Sept. 5, 2018, two people have occupied tree stands in a white pine and a chestnut oak, perched about 50 feet off the ground while supporters camped on the ground sent up food and water in plastic buckets and kept watch over the peaceful protest.

On Thursday, they celebrated another day of blocking tree-cutting for the controversial natural gas pipeline, which is destined to run across this wooded slope in eastern Montgomery County on its way from northern West Virginia to Chatham.

One thing new to the scene was 69-year-old Scott Ziemer, who earlier in the week climbed up the white pine to replace another protester. He joined Phillip Flagg, a millennial who has been living in the oak tree since October.

For Ziemer, Flagg and the protesters who preceded them, the tree-sit is now the longest active blockade of a natural gas pipeline on the East Coast, according to Appalachians Against Pipelines, a group that has helped organize the effort.

A resident of Albemarle County, Ziemer has been an opponent of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a similar project slated near his home. “The more I dug, and the more I learned, the more I realized that it didn’t seem like a good idea,” he said of a pipeline that will increase the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, which generate polluting greenhouse gases.

After fighting the Atlantic Coast project for several years, Ziemer decided to take a more direct role in the opposition to Mountain Valley. “I know it’s a little more risky, dangling off a 50-foot platform,” he said Thursday from his spot on a wooden tree stand. “But I have grandchildren, and I’m thinking about their future as well.”

Over the years, Ziemer has held a number of outdoor occupations that prepared him for his most recent post. He has worked as a carpenter, a builder and facilitator of ropes courses, an arborist, the owner of an outdoor adventure business and most recently as a sailing instructor.

The biggest challenge so far, he said, is confining his 6-foot-4 frame to an 8-by-4-foot structure than moves in the wind a little like a sailboat.

Like Flagg, Ziemer was reluctant to say how long he plans to stay in his tree, or under what conditions he might agree to come down. “I’ll continue my resistance to the pipeline, regardless of what happens,” said Flagg, who stuck his head out of a tarp covering his tree stand for an interview.

Mountain Valley broke ground on the 303-mile pipeline a year ago, but quickly ran into problems controlling erosion and sediment from its linear construction zone.

A lawsuit filed by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the State Water Control Board alleges more than 300 violations of regulations. Mountain Valley must also regain two key permits, thrown out last year on challenges from environmental groups, if it is to achieve its goal of completing work by the end of the year.

About a dozen other protesters, who have sat in trees or chained themselves to construction equipment at various points along the pipeline’s route, have come down voluntarily or been removed by police over the past year.

In December, attorneys for Mountain Valley filed a request for a preliminary injunction against the tree-sitters on Yellow Finch Lane in Montgomery County, asking a federal judge for assistance in having them removed by members of the U.S. Marshals Service. Judge Elizabeth Dillon has yet to rule on the request.

“The MVP project team is awaiting a ruling from Judge Dillon regarding the previous hearing and we do not have additional information or plans regarding any persons who may or may not have taken the place of existing opposition,” Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox wrote in an email Thursday.

At the last hearing in the case, held in January, Mountain Valley officials testified they had told two people — identified in court records only as “Tree-sitter 1” and “Tree-sitter 2” — that they were blocking the construction easement, which the company had earlier gained access to though an eminent domain filing against landowner Cletus Bohon.

With no ruling from Dillon after more than three months, the protesters are staying put. “By occupying a tree-sit in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline,” Ziemer said, “I am adding my voice to those who are fighting to slow down and stop the burning of fossil fuels, which are the primary cause of climate change.

Former WV Commerce Secretary drinks toast with Chinese delegation

From an Article by Brad McElhinny, WV MetroNews, November 18, 2018

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — More than a year after it was announced, details of West Virginia’s investment agreement with China Energy remain a mystery, but the court system could bring the arrangement to light.

Appalachian Mountain Advocates, a nonprofit law firm, sued this past summer for documents from the West Virginia University Energy Institute, which was heavily involved with the deal.

Appalachian Mountain Advocates sought any agreements West Virginia officials entered into with the China Energy Investment Corporation in 2017, any list of energy projects that West Virginia provided to China Energy and correspondence that Energy Institute staff sent or received that year that included the words “China” and either “energy,” “coal” or “gas.”

West Virginia University filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Appalmad, as it’s shortened, is fighting. Both arguments are to be heard at 1:30 p.m. Monday in the courtroom of Monongalia Circuit Judge Russell Clawges Jr.

West Virginia officials made a splash on November 9, 2017, with the overnight announcement that then-Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher had been in Beijing to sign an enormous agreement. The memorandum of understanding was said to be worth up to $83.7 billion.

When Thrasher returned, he and Gov. Jim Justice touted the deal but would not provide details or publicly share the memorandum. Over the coming months, Thrasher would be forced out and the investment would be called into doubt.

But the fight to see details of the deal remains on. WVU wants the judge to dismiss the motion to make the documents public.

The university argues that the documents are protected by economic development privilege. WVU contends the documents are actually the confidential possessions of the West Virginia Development Office.

WVU was sued because Quingyun Sun of its energy institute is also the governor’s assistant for China affairs at the Development Office.

The university also argues that Appalmad’s request is burdensome and isn’t specific enough. “Because Plaintiff has refused to narrow its FOIA request, the University would be forced to review, segregate and, as necessary, redact more than 15,000 potentially responsive emails,” wrote lawyers for WVU.

Appalmad claims WVU’s arguments are thin. It says the university provided no Vaughn index, which is a description of documents being withheld along with justification of non-disclosure — “no affidavit, no testimony, no evidence whatsoever.

“This is simply not the way it is done: a public agency cannot parry the Act’s general disclosure requirement merely by pointing to the Code book. “Rather it must put forth affirmative, clear and convincing evidence to sustain an exemption.”

Applamad argues that the university provides little support for its claim of an undue burden. “The court has no way of knowing whether the University is double-counting emails sent to multiple Energy Institute staffers,” lawyers wrote.

Appalmad also contends that exemptions meant for economic development don’t apply to the university. In part, that’s because the university doesn’t contend its primary responsibility is economic development.

“Because the pleadings alone demonstrate that the University is altogether ineligible for protection under the economic development privilege, judicial economy is best served by closing on that defense now.”

Led to an extreme, Appalmad contends, any entity that wanted to keep a document secret just make sure the state Development Office is looped in. “Under the University’s theory, the Development Office would become a clearinghouse for records that the government preferred hidden from the public,” wrote lawyers for Appalmad.

“Merely by copying the Development Office — or any of its employees — a state agency could transform a public record subject to the Act into a record ‘received by the Development Office’ and therefore immune to disclosure.”

James Hansen, Ph.D., in his Study

Will We Miss Our Last Chance to Survive Climate Change?

From an Article by Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone, December 22, 2016

In the late 1980s, James Hansen became the first scientist to offer unassailable evidence that burning fossil fuels is heating up the planet. In the decades since, as the world has warmed, the ice has melted and the wildfires have spread, he has published papers on everything from the risks of rapid sea-level rise to the role of soot in global temperature changes – all of it highlighting, methodically and verifiably, that our fossil-fuel-powered civilization is a suicide machine.

And unlike some scientists, Hansen was never content to hide in his office at NASA, where he was head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York for nearly 35 years. He has testified before Congress, marched in rallies and participated in protests against the Keystone XL Pipeline and Big Coal. When I ran into him at an anti-coal rally in Washington, D.C., in 2009, he was wearing a trench coat and a floppy boater hat. I asked him, “Are you ready to get arrested?” He looked a bit uneasy, but then smiled and said, “If that’s what it takes.”

The enormity of Hansen’s insights, and the need to take immediate action, have never been clearer. In November, temperatures in the Arctic, where ice coverage is already at historic lows, hit 36 degrees above average – a spike that freaked out even the most jaded climate scientists. At the same time, alarming new evidence suggests the giant ice sheets of West Antarctica are growing increasingly unstable, elevating the risk of rapid sea-level rise that could have catastrophic consequences for cities around the world.

Not to mention that in September, average values of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record 400 parts per million. And of course, at precisely this crucial moment – a moment when the leaders of the world’s biggest economies had just signed a new treaty to cut carbon pollution in the coming decades – the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet elected a president who thinks climate change is a hoax cooked up by the Chinese.

Hansen, 75, retired from NASA in 2013, but he remains as active and outspoken as ever. To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, he argues, sweeping changes in energy and politics are needed, including investments in new nuclear technology, a carbon tax on fossil fuels, and perhaps a new political party that is free of corporate interests.

He is also deeply involved in a lawsuit against the federal government, brought by 21 kids under the age of 21 (including Hansen’s granddaughter), which argues that politicians knowingly allowed big polluters to wreck the Earth’s atmosphere and imperil the future well-being of young people in America. A few weeks ago, a federal district judge in Oregon delivered an opinion that found a stable climate is indeed a fundamental right, clearing the way for the case to go to trial in 2017. Hansen, who believes that the American political system is too corrupt to deal with climate change through traditional legislation, was hopeful. “It could be as important for climate as the Civil Rights Act was for discrimination,” he told me.

Last fall, I visited Hansen at his old stone farmhouse in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. At times he seemed downright cranky, as if he were losing patience with the world’s collective failure to deal with the looming catastrophe that he has articulated for the past 30 years. “It’s getting really more and more urgent,” Hansen told me. “Our Founding Fathers believed you need a revolution every now and then to shake things up – we have certainly reached that time.”

>>> You’ve arguably done more than anyone to raise awareness of the risks of climate change – what does Trump’s election say about the progress of the climate fight?

Well, this is not a whole lot different than it was during the second Bush administration, where we had basically two oil men running the country. And President Bush largely delegated the energy and climate issue to Vice President Cheney, who was particularly in favor of expanding by hundreds the number of coal-fired power plants. Over the course of that administration, the reaction to their proposals was so strong, and from so many different angles – even the vice president’s own energy and climate task force – that the direction did not go as badly as it could have.

In fact, if you make a graph of emissions, including a graph of how the GDP has changed, there’s really not much difference between Democratic and Republican administrations. The curve has stayed the same, and now under Obama it has started down modestly. In fact, if we can put pressure on this government via the courts and otherwise, it’s plausible that Trump would be receptive to a rising carbon fee or carbon tax. In some ways it’s more plausible under a conservative government [when Republicans might be less intent on obstructing legislation] than under a liberal government.

Trump’s Cabinet nominees are virtually all climate deniers, including the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt. Are Trump’s appointments a sign that climate denialism has gone mainstream?

Climate denialism never died. My climate program at NASA was zeroed out in 1981 when the administration appointed a hatchet man to manage the program at Department of Energy. Denialism was still very strong in 2005-2006 when the White House ordered NASA to curtail my speaking. When I objected to this censorship, using the first line of the NASA Mission Statement ["to understand and protect our home planet"], the NASA administrator, who was an adamant climate denier, eliminated that line from the NASA Mission Statement. Denialism is no more mainstream today than it was in those years.

>>> How much damage can a guy like Pruitt do to our chances of solving the climate crisis?

The EPA is not the issue. They have been attacked several times by an incoming administration since I got into this business – but they always survive without much damage. EPA cannot solve the climate problem, which is a political issue.

>>> If President-elect Trump called you and asked for advice on climate policy, what would you tell him?

What we need is a policy that honestly addresses the fundamentals. We must make the price of fossil fuels honest by including a carbon fee – that is, a straight forward tax on fossil fuels when they come out of the ground, and which is returned directly to people as a kind of yearly dividend or payment. Perhaps someone will explain to President-elect Trump that a carbon fee brings back jobs to the U.S. much more effectively than jawboning manufacturers – it will also drive the U.S. to become a leader in clean-energy technology, which also helps our exports. The rest of the world believes in climate change, even if the Trump administration doesn’t.

So he wants to save the jobs of coal miners and fossil-fuel workers and make the U.S. energy-independent, but he also wants to invest in infrastructure, which will make the U.S. economically strong in the long run, and you can easily prove that investing in coal and tar-sands pipelines is exactly the wrong thing to do.

China and India, most of their energy is coming from coal-burning. And you’re not going to replace that with solar panels. As you can see from the panels on my barn, I’m all for solar power. Here on the farm, we generate more energy than we use. Because we have a lot of solar panels. It cost me $75,000. That’s good, but it’s not enough. The world needs energy. We’ve got to develop a new generation of nuclear-power plants, which use thorium-fueled molten salt reactors [an alternative nuclear technology] that fundamentally cannot have a meltdown. These types of reactors also reduce nuclear waste to a very small fraction of what it is now.

>>> If the Trump administration pushes fossil fuels for the next four years, what are the climate implications?

Well, it has enormous implications, especially if it results in the building of infrastructure like the Keystone Pipeline, which then opens up more unconventional fossil fuels, which are particularly heavy in their carbon footprint because of the energy that it takes to get them out of the ground and process them. But I don’t think that could happen quickly, and there’s going to be tremendous resistance by environmentalists, both on the ground and through the courts. Also, the fossil-fuel industry has made a huge investment in fracking over the past 20 years or so, and they now have created enough of a bubble in gas that it really makes no economic sense to reopen coal-fired power plants when gas is so much cheaper. So I don’t think Trump can easily reverse the trend away from coal on the time scale of four years.

>>> How would you judge President Obama’s legacy on climate change?

I would give him a D. You know, he’s saying the right words, but he had a golden opportunity. When he had control of both houses of Congress and a 70 percent approval rating, he could have done something strong on climate in the first term – but he would have had to be a different personality than he is.

You know, the approach of subsidizing solar panels and windmills gets you a few percent of the energy, but it doesn’t phase you off fossil fuels, and it never will.

Climate change hardly came up during the election, except when Al Gore campaigned with Hillary Clinton. Do you think Gore has been an effective climate advocate?

I’m sorely distressed by his most recent TED talk [which was optimistic in outlook], where Gore made it sound like we solved the climate problem. Bullshit. We are at the point now where if you want to stabilize the Earth’s energy balance, which is nominally what you would need to do to stabilize climate, you would need to reduce emissions several percent a year, and you would need to suck 100 gigatons of CO2 out of the atmosphere, which is more than you could get from reforestation and improved agricultural practices.

>>> You’ve described the impacts of climate change as “young people’s burden.” What do you mean by that?

Well, we know from the Earth’s history that the climate system’s response to today’s CO2 levels will include changes that are really unacceptable. Several meters of sea-level rise would mean most coastal cities – including Miami and Norfolk and Boston – would be dysfunctional, even if parts of them were still sticking out of the water. It’s just an issue of how long that would take.

Right now, the Earth’s temperature is already well into the range that existed during the Eemian period, 120,000 years ago, which was the last time the Earth was warmer than it is now. And that was a time when sea level was 20 to 30 feet higher than it is now. So that’s what we could expect if we just leave things the way they are. And we’ve got more warming in the pipeline, so we’re going to the top of and even outside of the Eemian range if we don’t do something. And that something is that we have to move to clean energy as quickly as possible.

If we burn all the fossil fuels, then we will melt all the ice on the planet eventually, and that would raise the seas by about 250 feet. So we can’t do that. But if we just stay on this path, then it’s the CO2 that we’re putting up there that is a burden for young people because they’re going to have to figure out how to get it out of the atmosphere. Or figure out how to live on a radically different planet.

>>> Trump has talked about pulling out of the Paris Agreement. How do you feel about what was achieved in Paris?

You know, the fundamental idea that we have a climate problem and we’re gonna need to limit global warming to avoid dangerous changes was agreed in 1992 [at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change]. This new agreement doesn’t really change anything. It just reaffirms that. That’s not to say there’s nothing useful accomplished in Paris. The most useful thing is probably the encouragement of investment into carbon-free energies. But it’s not really there yet. I mean, the U.S. should double or triple its investment in energy. The investment in research and development on clean energies is actually very small. There are these big, undefined subsidies, like renewable portfolio standards, that states place on their electricity generation, which can help them get 20 or 30 percent of their power from renewables. But we’re not actually making the investments in advanced energy systems, which we should be doing. There were agreements to do that in Paris. They have to be implemented – somebody’s gotta actually provide the money.

I think that our government has become sufficiently cumbersome in its support of R&D that I’d place more hope in the private sector. But in order to spur the private sector, you’ve got to provide the incentive. And that’s why I’m a big supporter of a carbon fee.

>>> Is the target of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius, which is the centerpiece of the Paris Agreement, still achievable?

It’s possible, but barely. If global emissions rates fell at a rate of even two or three percent a year, you could achieve the two-degree target. People say we’re already past that, because they’re just assuming we won’t be able to reduce missions that quickly. What I argue, however, is that two degrees is dangerous. Two degrees is a little warmer than the period when sea levels were 20 to 30 feet higher. So it’s not a good target. It never had a good scientific basis.

>>> In Paris, negotiators settled in an “aspirational” target of 1.5C.

Yes. But that would require a six-percent-a-year reduction in emissions, which may be implausible without a large amount of negative emissions – that is, developing some technology to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.

>>> Let’s talk more about policy. You’re a big believer in a revenue-neutral carbon fee. Explain how that would work, and why you’re such a big supporter of it.

It’s very simple. You collect it at the small number of sources, the domestic mines and the ports of entry, from fossil-fuel companies. And you can distribute it back to people. The simplest way to distribute it and encourage the actions that are needed to move us to clean energy is to just give an equal amount to all legal residents. So the person who does better than average in limiting his carbon footprint will make money. And it doesn’t really require you to calculate carbon footprint.

So this would provide the incentive for entrepreneurs and businesses to develop carbon-free products and carbon-free energies. And those countries that are early adopters would benefit because they would tend to develop the products that the rest of the world would need also, so it makes sense to do it. But it’s just not the way our politics tend to work; they tend to favor special interests. And even the environmentalists will decide what they want to favor and say, “Oh, we should subsidize this.” I don’t think we should subsidize anything. We should let the market decide.

Photo: Hansen being arrested at a White House protest in 2011. “We have to move to clean energy,” he says. “If we burn all the fossil fuels, then we will melt all the ice on the planet, and that would raise the seas by about 250 feet.” 

>>> Of course, the problem with getting carbon-fee legislation passed is that Congress is run by people who don’t even acknowledge that climate change is a problem.

We need a revolutionary third party that takes no money from lobbyists. Look at Obama and Bernie Sanders: Their campaigns initially were funded by small donors. They didn’t have to take lobbyist money. The public is not into the details of what’s going on, but it knows that it’s become a rotten system.

>>> I agree that a carbon fee could be an effective tool to cut emissions, but how do you get the politics right to get it done? I mean, it’s one thing to…

Well, you have to make it simple. You can’t do this 3,000-page crap, like they did with cap-and-trade in 2009. You gotta simplify it down to the absolute basics, and you do it in a way that the public will not let you change it. If the public is getting this dividend, they won’t let you change it.

>>> A lot of people say you are a great scientist, but when it comes to policy, that’s a whole other thing – and something you should leave to politicians.

Bullshit. What scientists do is analyze problems, including energy aspects of the problem. I got started thinking about energy way back in 1981, when I published a paper that concluded that you can’t burn all the coal, otherwise you end up with a different planet. There’s nothing wrong with scientists thinking about energy policy, in my opinion. In fact, if you have some scientific insights into the implications of different policies, you should say them. It’s the politicians who try to stop you. And that includes people who ran NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where I worked for 33 years. Before I would go to Washington to testify, I’d sometimes get a call from the director of the center – somebody who I respect a lot and is a very good scientist and engineer. But he would tell me, “Just be sure to only talk about science, not policy.”

>>> Do you ever feel a sense of futility about the situation we’re in – the essential insanity of continuing to emit carbon pollution, given what we know about the future consequences.

It’s not at all surprising, because it’s related to the desire of people to raise their standard of living out of poverty levels. That’s what we did in the West. We discovered fossil fuels, which allowed us to replace slavery with fossil fuels. That’s what China and India and other countries want to do now. But if they do it the way we did, then we’re all going down together. If we go over there and say, “You guys do it differently. Use solar panels” [laughs], that’s stupid. We have to work together in a way that will actually work. And they understand the risks, too.

There is a lot of talk about the rise of China as a military power. Well, they’re not gonna bomb their customers. The bigger threat is this climate threat. That’s what could destroy civilization as we know it.

Only one major political party in the world denies climate change, and it’s in charge of the most important political body in the world. 

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

The Morgantown Dominion Post on Sunday, May 22^nd had a front page article on “Expert touts drilling’s merits”, a page 3 article on the Wellsburg moratorium on drilling, an editorial on the growing public protest activity in Morgantown and a letter to the editor about Chesapeake Energy.  The “expert” is a Professor in Geology and Geography, Tim Carr, who believes that any spills of fluids from drilling near the Morgantown Industrial Park will be diluted by the current if they reach the River.  The editorial indicates that the process of granting the drilling permits is unacceptable, as seen in the summary below:  

“We the people finally showed up last week. More than 100 people rallied at the Monongalia County Courthouse against several Marcellus shale wells near the Monongahela River. By all accounts it was the first significant public protest against the booming Marcellus shale drilling operations spreading across northern West Virginia.  Another protest at Morgantown’s City Hall preceded the courthouse rally.  At least 20 people spoke out against the wells at a recent city council meeting. The wells are located about 1,500 feet from the greater Morgantown area’s drinking water intake site, near the treatment plant.”
   
“We have no evidence that Northeast Natural Energy isn’t up to the job of operating these wells safely. However, aside from the protesters, many members of this community — including this newspaper — are shocked that a site so near our community’s water intake was even considered by this company, let alone approved by state regulators. The process in which this happened is unacceptable.”

 “We call on all West Virginians to not forget legislators who, earlier this year, impeded attempts to pass a bill to alter this process. If the only recourse the public has to protect its drinking water is to stand upon our First Amendment rights — to assemble, to petition, to speak out and report on these wells — then so be it.    We urge the public — students, property owners, environmentalists and everyone else — to keep protesting these wells and this industry until regulations are on the books and inspectors are in the field to enforce them.”

Back in mid-February, acting governor Tomblin signed an executive order creating a Marcellus to Manufacturing Task Force, consisting primarily of gas and chemical industry executives, from Bayer Corporation, Triana Energy, Caiman Energy, Northeast Natural Energy, Chesapeake Energy, EQT and others. Its main goal was to attract and encourage employers that convert ethane, a compound removed from natural gas during the refining process, into the widely used chemical compound named ethylene. (Ethane is a major component of “wet” gas from Marcellus shale fracking operations).

A meeting of this task force had been called for today.  However, Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette reported:  “Just heard from Kurt Dettinger, general counsel for the governor’s office, and he informed me that they’ve called off tomorrow’s task force meeting, citing the inadequate public notice.”  So, after two months of its existence, the task force is yet to meet.  

The Marcellus Gas and Manufacturing Development Act was passed by the WV Legislature and approved by Tomblin to provide numerous tax breaks  for the very same industrial plants to be promoted by the Task Force.  Yet, a framework for protecting the infrastructure of the State, its land, water, air, and roads, is not being studied and has no “task force”.   Nor does the WV Office of Oil and Gas have adequate inspectors to enforce the existing laws, according to most observers.  No ”special session” of the WV Legislature has been scheduled in spite of the many calls for such.

Delegate Bonnie Brown summed it up, “We are just giving them tax breaks before we even regulate the industry.”

In the final hours of the last day of the legislative session Saturday night, SB 424, which would have increased the allowed distance between a residence and a rig, required gas inspectors to be hired by the same process as other state inspectors, and protected public water supplies, was reordered on the calendar and there was simply not enough time to deal with it. Lawmakers did, however, have time to pass SB 465, providing tax incentives for the gas drilling industry.  Included in this bill is a clause making drillers eligible for tax credits if they hire at least 75% of their work force from West Virginia.

Senator Mike Green, who opposed amendments added to SB 424 by the House of Delegates, chided the House for failing to act in a timely manner.  His comments are recorded in the Senate Journal.