ITC for solar energy being dramatically reduced

From an Article by Ari Natter, Bloomberg News, February 5, 2020

The Trump administration is withholding nearly a billion dollars for a clean energy program it has unsuccessfully tried to cut, congressional Democrats said Wednesday, raising the specter of political interference.

The unspent funds now amount to $823 million in the Energy Department’s office that provides grants and other financial assistance for alternative energy, electric vehicles and energy efficiency, according to Democrats on the House Science Committee, which is holding a joint subcommittee hearing on the topic.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which has a $2.85 billion budget, was targeted for 80% cuts in the last White House budget request — only to see Congress increase its funding instead. The office has also recently canceled funding of proposed projects and left scores of staffing positions unfilled, said Illinois Democrat Bill Foster.

“When Congress passes a budget, we expect that budget to be followed,” said Foster, chairman of the panel’s Investigations and Oversight subcommittee. “It’s unclear to many of us there has been a completely good-faith effort.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement that the delayed-funding was yet another example of “ideologically driven efforts that thwart action to combat climate” change. The Trump administration has moved to ease Obama-era rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and power plants, while also pulling the country out of the Paris climate accord.

“The agency is flouting congressional intent,” said Arjun Krishnaswami, an analyst with the environmental group’s climate and clean energy program.

Republicans on the committee said so-called carry-over funding within the office was normal. “It’s business as usual,” said Representative Ralph Norman, of South Carolina.

And Daniel Simmons, assistant secretary for Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said the agency fully intends to spend its appropriated funding “consistent with both congressional guidance and administration priorities.” The office is in the process of hiring more staff, Simmons said.

He pointed to $126 million in funding for solar technologies announced by the Energy Department just as the hearing began Wednesday. ”This has been a very good faith effort,” Simmons testified.“We are trying to be good stewards of tax payer dollars.”

Planning underway by Clean Energy States Alliance, May 9, 2019

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which grew under Obama, has financed research into technologies ranging from electric vehicles to energy projects powered by ocean waves. It has been credited with financing research to help make the cost of wind power competitive with coal-fired electricity, and cutting the costs of LED lighting.

Fracking wastewater (“brine”) is mainly transported by tanker trucks

From an Article by Kate Mishkin, HD Media, May 12,2019

State and federal regulators are skirting their obligations to protect West Virginia’s drinking water from the effects of fracking, a report from the Natural Resources Defense Council says.

The report, made public this week, examines the way the state Department of Environmental Protection regulates oil and gas underground injection activities, and how hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, can threaten underground drinking water if operators aren’t held accountable.

By examining records from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, the group detailed the times the state was inconsistent in its reporting, and found it often sidestepped the state underground injection control program, and federal Safe Drinking Water Act requirements.

In some cases, companies submitted reports that said they’d been injecting wastewater under an expired permit, and that wells had been abandoned without being plugged.

Companies extract natural gas by shooting water, chemicals and sand at a high pressure into wells, often generating large amounts of wastewater, which can contain contaminants such as radiation and heavy metals. Companies often dispose of the large quantities of wastewater by injecting it underground.

And as companies continue to tap into the sprawling Marcellus Shale, the amount of wastewater injected grows, too – “exacerbating the need for safe waste-management practices,” the report says.

“It is crucial that underground injection be properly designed, constructed, operated and maintained – and eventually plugged and abandoned – to ensure that they do not threaten underground sources of drinking water protected by federal and state statutes,” the report says.

In many cases, though, the state DEP allowed companies to inject without a permit, continue to operate without applying for a renewal permit before the permit expired and continuing to inject after the DEP issued an order stopping it.

The wells, the report says, “reveal a pattern of unsafe practices and lax enforcement over the years. Any improperly operated well has the potential to cause environmental problems, and potential violations should be taken seriously.”

There are currently three active disposal wells that have received Notices of Violations but haven’t been abated, said Terry Fletcher, a spokesman for the DEP. Of those, two have been abated but aren’t in the department’s database; one well isn’t injecting.

“The WVDEP acknowledges that abandoned and unplugged wells are a legitimate issue and has been working with well operators and others within the industry to find viable solutions to this issue,” Fletcher said.

He said the DEP hasn’t logged any incidents of groundwater contamination from a UIC disposal well.

The EPA declined to answer questions about the report.
“Until we’ve had a chance to read it, it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment,” a spokeswoman for the EPA said.

Amy Mall, senior policy analyst for the NRDC, said some of the failure comes from a lack of accountability. “I think there’s a combination of the fact that a lot of these sites are in rural areas, companies may think nobody’s watching them [and] nobody’s going to find out if they don’t fully comply with the law,” she said.

And in many cases, companies don’t have a reason to be deterred from breaking rules, Mall said. “Companies don’t have the incentive to comply with the law unless there’s strict enforcement and penalties, otherwise there’s no incentive for them to comply,” she said.

The report recommends the DEP establish stronger operating standards, enforce its rules and be more transparent. It asks the federal Environmental Protection Agency to enforce the Safe Drinking Water Act in the state.

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

REFERENCE: West Virginia’s Groundwater Is Not Adequately Protected from Underground Injection, Amy Mall, NRDC, April 30, 2019

SUMMARY — This paper provides an overview of how the Safe Drinking Water Act’s Underground Injection Control program regulates oil and gas underground injection activities. It then examines aspects of the program that are out of date and ine ective at meeting the statutory goal of protecting underground sources of drinking water. In particular, the paper analyzes the status of the underground injection control program in West Virginia, where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to incorporate any state requirements under EPA authority for federal enforcement. The paper also provides recommendations for improvements in the policies of both the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the EPA.

Kavanaugh Also Lied About His Environmental Record

From an Article by Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch.com, October 6, 2018

Protesters demonstrated against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh outside the U.S. Supreme Court on October 3 thru 6 in Washington, DC.

The upper chamber of the Senate is set to vote at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time Friday on whether to end debate on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. If the motion passes, the Senate could vote whether to confirm him Saturday, CNN reported.

Much of the outcome will depend on whether key swing voters believe Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when they were both in high school, or if they accept Kavanaugh’s denials. But anyone paying attention to how he represented his environmental record would have reason to doubt his credibility, The Intercept reported Thursday,

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh presented himself as pro-environment overall. “In some cases, I’ve ruled against environmentalists’ interests, and in many cases I’ve ruled for environmentalists’ interests,” he said.

But an analysis from Earthjustice found that of 26 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cases he had written opinions for, he had ruled for rolling back clean air and water protections 89 percent of the time. The Natural Resources Defense Council came out against a Supreme Court nomination for the second time in 25 years to oppose his advance to the nation’s highest court. And an analysis by William Snape, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity, found that in 18 decisions he had made on wildlife cases, including split ones, he had ruled against protecting animals in 96 percent of them.

“He lied. He abjectly lied,” Snape told The Intercept of Kavanaugh’s testimony. “And if he’s going to lie about his record on environmental cases, what’s he not going to lie about?”

In one moment in particular during his testimony on Sept. 5, Kavanaugh said he had upheld environmental regulations in several cases, including what he described as “the Natural Resources Defense Council case versus EPA, a ruling for environmentalist groups.”

When senior NRDC attorney John Walke, who argued the case in question before Kavanaugh, heard his testimony, he was stunned.

“My immediate reaction was, I thought I had misheard him,” Walke told The Intercept. “But as he kept talking, I realized he was talking about my clean air case before him. And then, I honestly could not believe that a federal judge and Supreme Court nominee was misrepresenting my case to U.S. senators in order to bolster his environmental credentials.”

Walke wrote a Twitter thread explaining how Kavanaugh had misrepresented his own ruling. Walke pointed out that Kavanaugh had ruled against the NRDC and the Sierra Club, who had also participated in the case, on three out of four counts. He upheld lax pollution limits for soot, lead, arsenic and other metal emissions from cement plants and let the EPA grant polluters a two-year extension to meet the weakened limits. He only ruled in favor of the environmental groups on a procedural question.

“[T]he claim is revealing because my case was one of his own leading examples of pro-environmental rulings: that it is a very poor example ends up reinforcing the relative paucity of his ‘rulings in favor of environmentalists’ interests,” Walke tweeted.

The true cost of the ACP .....

Press Release from Jake Thompson and Elizabeth Heyd, Natural Resources Defense Council, March 12, 2018

WASHINGTON (March 12, 2018) –Virginia’s top economic watchdog today validated expert analysis showing that Dominion Energy’s proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline could cost Virginia ratepayers up to $2.3 billion, decisively refuting Dominion’s faulty claims that the pipeline would save customers on their electric bills.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission issued its final order approving Dominion’s 2017 Integrated Resource Plan, its long-term plan that included the utility’s plan to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a proposed pipeline that would run 600 miles between West Virginia to the North Carolina/South Carolina border.

In its order, the commission accepted—over Dominion’s objection—analysis from Gregory M. Lander, a veteran natural gas industry analyst. Lander’s analysis relied on Dominion’s data to find that building the pipeline would increase costs for Dominion ratepayers between $1.61 billion and $2.36 billion.

Dominion had contended, based on a more than three-year-old study, that building the pipeline would cut customers’ energy bills by several hundred million dollars annually and create many jobs.

“It’s now clear as a bell that the Atlantic Coast pipeline is not a good deal for Virginians. This is a speculative pipeline in search of a market, and that market is not Virginia,” said Walton Shepherd, Virginia policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Not only is this pipeline unneeded, it would burden Virginia ratepayers and therefore the state’s economy. Virginia ratepayers shouldn’t have to pony up as much $2.3 billion to underwrite Dominion’s pipeline venture.

Walton Shepherd also said: “That’s not right. That’s not fair. And we call on Gov. Northam to step in and protect Virginia’s consumers and economy by conducting a full economic review of the merits of this project, through his Secretary of Commerce and Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy.”

Rather than contest Lander’s cost analysis, Dominion had filed a motion at the doorstep of the August hearing asking that Lander’s testimony be stricken from the record as irrelevant. But the corporation commission today rejected that request, leaving Lander’s cost analysis uncontested by Dominion and part of the record in its final order.

Furthermore, the corporation commission ordered Dominion to address the impact of a bill the Virginia General Assembly just approved calling for Dominion to ramp up investment in clean energy and energy efficiency in its next Integrated Resource Plan due in May.

NRDC and other groups, as well as a number of landowners, have raised other concerns about the controversial pipeline, showing that it would stifle investment in Virginia’s clean energy economy, threaten water quality, and impose an especially steep financial burden on low-income Virginians who already struggle to meet their energy costs.

Lander’s analysis is here: http://www.scc.virginia.gov/docketsearch/DOCS/3gy601!.PDF

A blog by Shepherd on the cost increases shown in the analysis is here: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/walton-shepherd

A blog by Amy Mall, senior policy analyst in NRDC’s Nature program on the pipeline’s cost and burden on low-income families is here: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amy-mall/atlantic-coast-pipeline-more-bad-news-north-carolina

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

Another blog by Amy Mall on 10 reasons to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline is here: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amy-mall/top-ten-concerns-mountain-valley-atlantic-coast-pipelines

###

Sediment from the Rover Pipeline construction flowing into Meathouse Fork, Doddridge Co. WV

From Autumn Crowe, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, December 4, 2017

This month WVDEP is holding public hearings on two major natural gas pipelines, the Mountain XPress Pipeline and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Each public hearing focuses on stormwater and sediment control permits, which regulate runoff from oil and gas development. Check out our guide to stormwater permits to learn more.

Mountaineer XPress Pipeline Public Hearings – December 11 & 12

The Mountaineer XPress Pipeline (MXP) would stretch 170-miles across West Virginia as part of the Columbia Pipeline Group, which spans multiple states.

Monday, December 11, 6-8pm
Doddridge County Park
1252 Snowbird Road
West Union, WV 26456

Tuesday, December 12, 6-8pm
Ripley High School
2 School Street
Ripley, WV 25271

Written comments will be accepted through Friday, December 22, 2017.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline Public Hearings – December 18 & 21

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) would span 3 states in it’s 600-mile path, approximately 100 of those miles in West Virginia.

Monday, December 18, 6-8pm
Buckhannon Upshur High School
270 Bu Drive
Buckhannon, WV 26201

Thursday, December 21, 6-8pm
Pocahontas County High School
271 Warrior Way
Dunmore, WV 24934

Written comments will be accepted through Sunday, December 31, 2017.

Don’t wait to the last minute!

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

New consultant report on pipeline economics and manufacturing jobs

By Amy Mall, National Research Defense Council, December 4, 2017

A new expert report commissioned by NRDC concludes that there is no support for claims that a new natural gas pipeline will save consumers money, is needed to meet new natural gas demand, or will lead to additional opportunities for new manufacturing jobs. This report focuses on ACP due to the information available on the proposed end uses, but offers some cautionary relevancy for MVP:

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amy-mall/pipe-dreams-economic-jobs-myths-natural-gas-pipelines

Other relevant blog posts:

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amy-mall/virginia-deq-wrong-pipelines-contaminate-clean-water

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amy-mall/pipelines-ruin-farmland-across-country

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amy-mall/virginia-water-board-can-and-should-deny-pipeline-permits-0

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/amy-mall/top-ten-concerns-mountain-valley-atlantic-coast-pipelines

Thank you for all you do to help out!

AMY MALL, Senior Policy Analyst
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
1152 15TH STREET NW, SUITE 300
WASHINGTON, DC 20005

NRDC Visits Drilling & Fracking Sites in West Virginia

By S. Tom Bond assisted by Julie Archer of WVSORO

The Natural Resources Defense Council  (NRDC) is a large, well established environmental group with offices in five major U. S. cities.  On Wednesday the 29th of January and Thursday the 30th, they sent a group to tour Marcellus trouble areas in West Virginia. The group included three lawyers, an established photographer with a press video camera and the writer Amy Mall.
 
The trip began at Morgantown with Evan Hansen of Downstream Strategies, an environmental consulting firm.  First they visited Casey and Stacie Griffith’s house in Marion County, because the operations are so close to the residence. 
 
Mr. Hansen then took the group to a site in Northwest Harrison county where 2100 gallons of a drilling fluid had been pumped into a wetland and then flowed downstream.  Several families have been impacted by loosing their well water.
 
The next stop was the Sherwood Station processing facility on Route 50 near West Union, followed by a visit to the Powell compressor site on County Route 11.  The compressor station lies very low in the flood plain of a local stream and was invaded by high water later in the evening.
 
Wednesday ended with a community meeting and dinner in West Union, attended by about 20 local residents and some visitors from surrounding counties, who were given a chance to describe their problems with shale gas development companies.  One person said she had a paved road, but it was broken up shortly after drilling began, “and we lived in a dust cloud for three years with hundreds of trucks going by some days.” 

Another complained that when he identified an old, unplugged gas well in his yard, the company representative said, “That’s not a concern.” The man knew full well it would increase the chance of losing his water well.  Another complained about being surrounded by gas wells, all around her house.  A number of other incidents around the county were discussed.
 
West Virgina Host Farms volunteers provided lodging and breakfast for the NRDC group.  After breakfast on Thursday they went to see the Joye Huff property, where a drilling company has planned a drilling pad in the flood plain, causing great confusion in the county government and county court.  Next they visited a site where condensate tanks are venting very close to a residence, and interviewed the home owners. They also visited the Pike Fork, Central Station and Straight Fork Road sites in Doddridge before going on to Ritchie County.
 
In Ritchie they met David McMahon of the WV Surface Owners’ Rights Organization (WVSORO). He showed them a family’s pond that is filling up with mud and other runoff from a nearby well site. Afterward they headed north to Wetzel County. Bill Hughes of the Wetzel County Action Group led them on a tour of drilling sites in the Lewis Wetzel Wildlife Management Area. Before heading back to Washington, DC, they visited with a family near Jacksonburg whose water well is contaminated.