But that’s history, and the annual two-week negotiations over addressing global climate change did end on Sunday with what the WaPo called “a last-minute deal.”  The deal?  An agreement to potentially reach an agreement that would apply something called “an agreed outcome with legal force” to developing nations.  This is arguably an advance on the Kyoto Protocol, which did not require developing nations to commit to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.   And that’s important because some “developing nations” — namely China and India — are leading the globe in aggregate emissions.  To be fair, their per capita emissions are far lower than developed nations, but that shouldn’t give them a free pass.  The key negotiating issue since the US pointed out the fundamental unworkability of the Kyoto Protocol has been  how to account for developing nations’ exploding emissions without unfairly impeding their economic growth — after all, the developed nations built their economies on cheap fossil fuels and only subsequently has the world (well, most of it) realized that there will be highly negative consequences because of it.

It remains to be seen whether this year’s climate confab really moved the ball on this point.  Host South African foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane certainly thinks so, as the WaPo quotes him saying, “We have indeed saved tomorrow today.“  Veteran climate watcher Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, had a different view, noting failure to achieve agreement on reducing the gap between expected emissions and those most scientists believe are the maximum that the climate can endure without expensive and life-threatening damage:  “There’s nothing [in the agreement] that’s going to get the world to lift its game and close that gap.”

Maybe more important news this weekend came from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where dysfunction apparently reigns.  Both the WaPo and the WSJ reported Saturday on four NRC Commissioners, two Democrats and two Republicans, writing to the White House accusing Chairman Greg Jaczko of  ”actions and behaviors [that] are causing serious damage to this institution.”  That quote is from the WSJ, which runs an unfortunate lead sentence (“Four of the five members . . .”) — if you didn’t already know that there are only four commissioners and a chairman, you don’t find that out until the end of the piece, so casual readers may have thought there was a hold-out.  The fact is that all four of these highly respected professionals, Democrat and Republican alike, took the trouble of airing their concerns about the NRC’s leadership to the White House.  House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, not the fuming four, released the letter to the media.

The bipartisan nature of the criticism made Senator Harry Reid’s (D-NV) otherwise laudable defense of his former staffer ring a bit hollow.  As reported in the WaPo on Sunday, he called the complaints “a politically motivated witch hunt.”  We’re guessing Senator Reid meant that Chairman Issa was hunting witches, not labelling the letter such.  But since loyalty in Washington is often in short supply, we’ll give him a pass either way.  Not so the NRC as a whole, an organization too critical to our energy future to have it’s oversight confined to the weekend papers.  Oversight hearings, anyone?

WaPo’s dynamic duo of Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson reported on the “Keystone pipeline battle heating up” this past Sunday.  Useful graphic shows the existing Keystone pipeline as it drops down through the plains states and over to St. Louis and quotes Canadian ambassador Gary Doer about the pending US decision on the expansion:  ”If it’s made on the merit, we’re confident.  If it’s made on the noise, it’s unpredictable.”  This project gets essentially an anti-subsidy from the US, with costs nearing $2 billion on pipe and other stored equipment sitting idle during the three-year environmental review.  That’s almost 30% of the total $7 billion project cost.  Kind of a reverse investment tax credit.  WaPo cites a worry of activists opposing the pipeline:  ”the break in an Exxon Mobil pipeline in Montana over the summer” that spilled about 42,000 gallons of product and will cost an estimated $135 million to clean up.  But of course, that’s precisely the point:  it will be cleaned up.  Anti-energy activists need to recognize that producing energy carries risks and consequences, no matter how carefully it’s done.  More efficient cars and lightbulbs will help us all use less energy, not none.

Saturday’s WSJ also noted that forecasts of colder temperatures caused natural gas futures to jump 4.2% to $3.923 per million Btus.  ”Frosty Air Heating Up Gas Futures” quoted Matt Smith at Summit Energy:  ”It’s all about the weather.”    The same article reported that US EIA found underground gas inventory up 92 billion cubic feet, “much higher than the five-year average build for the current period.”  If futures can “jump” to only $3.92 per MBtu, the news is really how astoundingly low natural gas prices will probably stay. . . .

Front page in multiple papers Saturday on White House review of all loan guarantees made by DOE under the stimulus bill.  WaPo headline:  ”White House orders audit of Energy Dept. loans: Move comes amid GOP subpoena threat in Solyndra case.”  The story that won’t die, the “review is a tacit acknowledgment that the loan program, defended by President Obama and his senior advisers for weeks, has raised enough internal concern that an outside assessment is necessary to clear the air and determine its future.”  Good luck clearing the air.  Loan guarantee program future is bleak . . . .

Front page Sunday NYT:   “A New York Village’s Debate Over Drilling Turns Personal”:  ”The debate over horizontal hydraulic fracturing . . . has become increasingly contentious across the Eastern United States, with dozens of communities passing or considering bans.”  No real news here, including the allegation that fracking opponents are also generally “antigrowth fanatics, opposing a once-a-year music festival . . . wind turbines . . .even additional Little League fields. . . . .”

And the most important piece of the weekend, Dan Yergin in Sunday’s WaPo, Outlook section.  In “Oil’s new world order,” Yergin makes the point that the global geopolitical balance of power in the oil economy is shifting.  He finds that a “new world oil map is emerging” . . .”centered not on the Middle East but on the Western Hemisphere.”  But don’t breathe a sigh of relief yet, for since “there is only one world oil market” the U.S. “will still be vulnerable to disruptions . . . .”  Darn.

“The world is headed for a “dire future” where high energy prices drag on economic growth and global temperatures rise dangerously, unless significant innovations are made to lower the cost of clean energy and carbon-capture technology, the International Energy Agency said.

Senior officials from the agency painted the gloomy picture of the world’s current trajectory at a two-day meeting with international energy ministers and business leaders in Paris.

Participants concluded that growth in energy demand will be met largely by coal—and that the only hope of keeping global temperatures at safe levels would be in the creation of cheaper technologies to caputre carbon dioxide.”

Just a few inches later, we read “Tokyo Reconsiders Plans to Reduce Emissions”:

“Japan is reconsidering plans to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 25% by 2020 due to a rethinking of its energy future, and the country is worried that it is spending too much on carbon-credit programs,a  senior government official said.

Japan’s doubts, prompted in part by its nuclear disaster in March, come at a time the European Union is questioning whether it should press ahead with plans to cut greenhouse-gas emissions if others don’t follow suit.”

So on the one hand, future costly calamity awaits, but on the other, current economic maladies reduce interest in spending money to prevent that future.

If only there was a way to make sound economic decisions today that held promise of reducing future high prices and dangerous global temperature rises.  Fortunately, there is.  Our dependence on oil in the transportation sector is both a current drag on the economy and a major contributor to future costly climate change.  Moving from dependence on mostly imported oil to completely homegrown advanced biofuels and domestically-powered electrified vehicles will reduce our balance of payments deficit, insulate us from oil-related economic shocks, lower the cost of clean technology, and help prevent dangerous global climate change.  It’s not a win-win, it’s a win-cubed.

New York’s charged debate over the natural gas extraction process known as hydrofracking will soon move to the face-to-face stage. At hearings set for November, pro- and anti-drilling forces will get a chance to address state regulators directly.

New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, which is tasked with regulating the drilling, has announced that it will hold public hearings in four places — New York City, Dansville, Binghamton and Loch Sheldrake — on its draft environmental impact statement and proposed regulations for high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Each public hearing will include an afternoon and an evening session, the department said.

The hearings are part of an extended public comment period that ends Dec. 12 and is intended to ensure that the rules are tough enough to guarantee that drilling is conducted safely.

One hopes that’s not actually the goal.  No regulations are going to “guarantee” that any human activity will be conducted with 100% safety.  Humans are involved, so not matter how good the systems are, the potential for human error exists. 

The point of regulation is in this area, as in so many others, is three-fold:  ensure that best practices are followed by all participants; ensure that conditions are monitored so that failures or lapses can be detected; ensure that those engaged in the activity have the financial resources to make affected humans and ecosystems whole in the event of an incident. 

Nothing we do is risk-free, and energy production in particular has the potential for damage.  We live with that risk because energy production is so important to our way of life.  We seek to mitigate the risks through the application of regulations and the threat of civil litigation.  To pretend that the goal is guaranteed safety is a disservice to the public.

First, ANWR—an environmental preserve in the northeast corner of Alaska larger than the state of West Virginia—is again the subject of debate over if the territory should be opened to oil and gas exploration.  On Wednesday, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell (R), along with Alaska Senators Lisa Murkowski (R) and Mark Begich (D) as well as Rep. Don Young (R) testified in a House Natural Resources Committee Hearing.  Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) is pushing to open the reserve as a way to generate revenue through lease and royalty sales.  Politicians have been battling over the ANWR for decades, and at the current time the territory remains closed.  But, with the country’s unacceptable levels of unemployment and the current focus on deficit reduction, it seems entirely plausible for a change in outcome.  Earlier this year, Senator Murkowski applauded SAFE for releasing analysis supporting directional drilling in ANWR, an approach which allows development of oil and gas resources without establishing a surface presence within the territory (full report available here).  It is also important to note that at a renewable energy conference this week, Sen. Murkowski expressed support for using revenues from oil to fund clean energy projects.

The focus of congressional attention this week has been on the House’s vote rejecting a short-term continuation of government funding.    After all but six Democrats aligned against the bill, House GOP members scrambled for support within their own ranks and ultimately came up short, with the vote failing 195-230.  Speaker of the House John Boehner urged members of his party to pass the bill, but many found it contained insufficient budget cuts for their liking.  “Boehner just broke it down pretty simple,” said freshman Rep. Bobby Schilling (R-Ill.). “He goes, ‘I know there are some of you out here who don’t want to vote for this thing, but if you don’t, you think this is a big number? Wait until you see what we get back, and we’re not in the driver’s seat then.’ ”

A major point of contention within the bill is funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which must be increased to manage recent natural disaster such as hurricanes in the East Coast, wildfires in Texas, and flooding in the Midwest.  The GOP’s goal is to offset increases in FEMA’s budget with reductions in other programs, one of which is Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) proposal.  The ATVM’s budget is $1.5 billion, 1 billion of which Republicans are hoping to divert to FEMA, while rescinding the other .5 billion.   It is important to note that this is the only government loan opportunity for vehicle innovation, which creates technological solutions to transportation and energy challenges.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has sharply criticized the move, and argues that an offset for disaster management is unprecedented.

Both the House and Senate must pass a spending bill by September 30^th to avoid government shutdown.  It is essential that this important loan program remain in the final proposal—sacrificing it would only serve to delay essential innovations currently being made in electric and hybrid vehicle technology.

Folks who are knowledgeable about the need for government assistance for innovative energy security projects and technologies trying to navigate the valley of death are heart-sick over the on-going Solyndra saga, since it is for the general public likely their first exposure to the DOE loan guarantee program.

It is for times like these that the phrase “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” was coined.  Thankfully, we now have the future chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, current Ranking Republican Lisa Murkowski (AK), in the words of the Hill, “looking ahead to a post-Solyndra world.”

 ”Murkowski said Monday that she hopes to work with Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) to improve the Energy Department loan guarantee program for advanced energy projects.

 “One of the things that I would like to have the committee consider is not necessarily picking apart Solyndra. Solyndra is yesterday’s bankruptcy. I am concerned about what this might portend for the loan guarantee program as a whole,” Murkowski said in the Capitol. “I think it is important that we have a strong loan guarantee program.”

 She is oh-so-right about that.  The country needs a strong loan guarantee program if we are ever to improve our energy security and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.   The loan guarantee program was conceived by Republicans as a cost-effective way to help promising technologies prove they were ready for prime time.

It was manifestly not designed as a job program for projects that were supposedly “shovel-ready.”  Let’s hope the political slugfest that is Solyndra can punch itself out in one arena, while thoughtful and needed reforms to the loan guarantee program are debated in another.

Here’s Senator Murkowski with the final word:

“Some have suggested that because of what has happened to Solyndra we need to get rid of the loan guarantee program. I happen to believe that these loan guarantees are important,” Murkowski said. “I don’t want to get rid of the program, but I want to make sure we have a program that functions as we have intended, and I don’t want to ever see another situation the likes of what we are watching unfold with Solyndra.”

In the Washington Post this week, a piece by Robert Samuelson summarizes the points in favor of the pipeline, stating:

“We would be crazy to turn our back on this. In a global oil market repeatedly threatened by wars, revolutions, and natural and man-made disasters — and where government-owned oil companies control development of about three-quarters of known reserves — having dependable suppliers is no mean feat. We already import about half of our oil, and Canada is our largest supplier, with about 25 percent of imports. But its conventional fields are declining. Only oil sands can fill the gap.”

Adding to the already strong level of GOP support, this week the State Department and Energy Secretary Stephen Chu both issued statements generally favorable to oil sands development. The State Department’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) found that it poses “no significant impacts to most resources” along the route if the applicable environmental conditions and regulations are properly adhered to. The State Department urged that their report does not represent a decision or a lean either for or against the pipeline. Similarly, Secretary Chu’s comments during an interview on Tuesday described the potential benefits of the pipeline, namely Canada’s reliability as an energy supplier. However, the final decision rests with the Department of State, not the Department of Energy.

Joining numerous Congressional Democrats, Al Gore, and environmental groups, Nebraska’s Republican Governor Dave Heineman has expressed opposition to the pipeline (although for slightly different reasons) as it would cross a portion of the Ogallala aquifer—a vital water source for Nebraska’s agricultural industry. He disagreed directly with the State Department’s statement that a spill would “affect a limited area of the aquifer around the spill site,” and wrote in a letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that although he does not oppose pipelines in general, he is concerned about the threats the Keystone XL poses to the state’s water supply. According to the Natural Resourced Defense Council (NRDC), a spill of
tar sands crude has particularly severe consequences for water bodies compared to regular crude, due to the dense and caustic properties of the liquefied bitumen. Environmental groups also cite the comparatively high level of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from oil sands production and refining as compared to conventional oil resources. Indeed, environmentalists are so strongly unified against the proposal, they see it as a bellweather for the Obama environmental legacy, and are unlikely to support him in 2012 if the project is approved.

The Obama Administration’s final decision is expected before the end of the year. Without question, strong opinions are galvanized on both sides, and the debate will only intensify as the decision is reached.

Now of course to enviros, as reported by both papers, Deutch’s stellar credentials are tainted  by the fact that he once served on the board of oil and gas giant Schlumberger and currently serves on the board of Cheniere Energy, Inc.  The professional fundraising interest group advocacy community apparently believes policy-makers should not listen to folks who have actual experience in a field.  And on the other side of the divide, API reportedly believes the panel didn’t have enough industry participation.  Sounds like balance.

Lead paragraphs also spun the panel’s report differently:  WSJ:  “The use of hydraulic fracturing to drill for natural gas poses risks to air and water quality and should be subject to tighter rules and more disclosure . . .”

WaPo:  “A key Energy Department advisory panel will issue a qualified endorsement of shale gas exploration Thursday, saying that hydraulic fracturing . . . can continue safely as long as companies disclose more about their practices and monitor their environmental impact.”

In fact, as the WaPo piece notes later, the panel also calls for “adoption of rigorous emission standards for both new and existing sources of methane, air toxics, ozone-forming pollutants and other major airborne contaminants . . . .”

So yes, do read both articles — and better yet the actual report — for a good sense of the issues.  And then go to the end of the WaPo piece, for another sense of the reality-disconnect suffered by many in the professional “environmental” movement.  Eilperin quotes one enviro as describing the emminent panel’s 90-day examination of the issues as a “rush to judgment that’s just inappropriate.”  The enviro’s preferred response?  A moratorium.  How’s that not a rush to judgment?

Let’s leave the final word to Professor Deutch, as quoted in the WSJ:  “To say that there are not serious environmental impacts is not sustainable.  When you realize we may have several thousand such wells drilled in the U.S. over the next 20 years, it’s important to get this right.”  Indeed.

With the nation’s attention diverted by the drama over the debt ceiling, Republicans in the House of Representatives are loading up an appropriations bill with 39 ways — and counting — to significantly curtail environmental regulation.

Whatever one’s view of environmental regulation — too much; too little; just right — it’s clear that one aspect of envirionmental regulation has long been neglected:  the impact of those regulations on our energy security.  Our bedrock environmental laws were passed mostly in the 1970s and then strengthened in the ’80s, culminating with the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.  This was an era of the Cuyahoga River catching fire, toxic waste at Love Canal, and acid rain killing pine trees in New England.

We don’t suffer from those ills anymore, and much credit belongs to those environmental laws, their enforcement by EPA and DOJ, and countless voluntary (or mostly voluntary) actions by citizens and businesses.

What we now have is a pretty strong legal framework and much cleaner air, water and land.  We also have a national economy and way of life powered by electricity and, for the time being, oil.  And the debate is long overdue on how we tailor well-intended environmental laws and regulations in a way that balances competing values of energy security and electricity reliability.

That’s in part why many of the appropriations provisions — what insiders call “riders” — deal with environmental regulations hampering energy production:

One would prevent the Bureau of Land Management from designating new wilderness areas for preservation. Another would severely restrict the Department of Interior’s ability to police mountaintop-removal mining. And then there is the call to allow new uranium prospecting near Grand Canyon National Park.

Without debating here the merits or demerits of those provisions, there are a few reasons why appropriations bills become the vehicles for these policy debates — and why the breakdown in the budget and appropriations process means old environmental laws, and the regulations that flow from them, are now exerting undue influence on our energy security.  It has been a long time since any of the authorizing committees in Congress amended our environmental laws.  In fact, any attempts to do so are usually met with rabid cries of “rollback” as the interest group fundraising machines crank into high gear.

So thoughtful discussions and debates on balancing competing interests — and if that’s not the purpose of a legislature, what is? — are left to agency rule-makings.  But those rule-makings are obviously controlled by one party in one branch of government operating under the tight confines of existing law.

So if the authorizing committees don’t engage in regular legislative oversight and activity, frustrated congressional representatives are then left with only one option:  use the appropriations process to exercise their constitutional authority over the executive branch.  And that leads to appropriations “riders” that usually can have only one blunt policy impact:  cutting off funding for a particular agency activity, enforcement or implementation of regulation.

Not surprisingly, those blunt instruments are vigorously opposed by both the Administration (of any party) and the organized, fundraising-based cadre of interest groups who regularly pollute the policy process with their extremist views.  And then we are left with two nearly equally bad outcomes:  either agencies can’t enforce some provisions at all; or their enforcement is left without meaningful congressional oversight.  In recent years, there has even been a breakdown in that process, as leaders of the House (but mostly) the Senate have failed to produce individual appropriations bills and instead have resorted to continuing resolutions or omnibus spending bills.

Just look at the three examples in the NYT today, and the serious questions they raise:  BLM’s designation of a wilderness area means no natural gas or oil production there; might it work to have a large wilderness area with a small and temporary energy production facility occupying part of it?  Does DOI’s “policing” of a coal-mining process means it just doesn’t happen, regardless of what cost-effective restoration efforts might be available?  And just how far away from the GCNP must we keep uranium prospecting?  Those questions have nuanced answers about which reasonable people may disagree.  But the policy process — committee hearings, debate, amendments and votes — is designed to reach agreement, based on the time-honored principle of majority rule.

Continuing to ignore that process by failing to reauthorize laws and failing to use regular order in the appropriations process as a back-up  is an abdication of constitutional duty that is imperiling our energy security.