Environmental Protection Agency

March 11, 2016

Energize RI carbon pricing bill under-taxes fugitive methane emissions

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[The following is the testimony presented by Professor Peter Nightingale at the hearings for Energize RI’s carbon tax bill (H 7325) introduced by Representative Aaron Regunberg.]

I would like to thank the sponsors of the Energize RI Act for putting carbon tax on the table. This is important legislation, but I cannot support the bill in its current form.

My main objection is that the bill under-taxes natural gas by a factor of 5 to 10, precisely when a perfect fracked-gas storm is about to hit RI:

The Raimondo administration is pushing for a one GW fracked-gas fired power plant in Burrillville.
National Grid is asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a permit to build an LNG liquefaction facility at Fields Point.

The Office of Energy Resources will be in charge of large parts of the implementation of this bill. I know from conversations with people in that office that they do not understand that fracked gas is worse for the climate than coal and oil on the time scale that matters.

The Office of Energy Resources bases itself on federal numbers, but:

EPA has systematically underestimated the amount of natural gas that escapes unburned.
EPA fails to account properly for the fact that methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Undoubtedly, these numbers also pollute the REMI study which, as a consequence is likely to overstate the greenhouse gas reduction that this bill will produce. [See also:
A study of pricing carbon pollution: reality or fiction?]

Indeed, “Methane Leaks Erase Climate Benefit Of Fracked Gas, Countless Studies Find,” was the tittle of a recent publication. This was sparked by a recent Harvard study that found an increase in U.S. methane emissions from 2002–2014. The increase was more than 30% from 2002-2014.

By under-taxing fugitive methane by roughly a factor ten, this bill unintentionally favors natural gas infrastructure development relative to fossil fuels with a smaller greenhouse gas potential. That is precisely the disaster that the Raimondo administration is planning in Burrillville.

Rhode Island cannot solve the emission problem by itself, but we should have a carbon tax bill that can be copied by other states. The Energize Rhode Island Act fails this test.

Please see my lack of support for the Energize RI Act as constructive criticism, and thanks again for your much appreciated efforts.

February 15, 2016February 14, 2016

Lead poisoning in Rhode Island

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[A version of this article was originally published by The College Hill Independent on February 12, 2016.]

435px-Symptoms_of_lead_poisoning_(raster) Several men huddled around a fire hydrant late on a recent winter night. They were workers with Providence Water, a state-regulated department of the City of Providence that provides the capital with its water supply. They were flushing the main, the large pipe that runs down the center of a street, by releasing a high velocity stream of water from the hydrant. Over time, minerals from the water build up on the walls of the pipe, tightening its aperture and reducing flow and water quality. According to the workers, these flushes have nothing to do with lead.¹ Providence, the workers were quick to point out, has the second best water in the country.

The claim that Providence has the second best water in the country used to appear on the homepage of Providence Water’s website, until it was removed sometime between October 16 and December 16, 2014. This despite the fact that in 2012, 2013, and 2014 the water consumers got from the tap exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) lead action level, being the level of concern at which remedial measures are triggered under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Under the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the utility was required to distribute brochures notifying customers of elevated lead levels in all three years.

The most recent legally required notification of high lead levels was issued May 28 of last year. 2015 water quality data has not yet been released, but a spokesperson for Providence Water, Dyana Koelsch, told the Independent that “the latest testing shows that we do meet current regulations.” It is important to note, however, that meeting current regulations does not mean that the lead levels are below the EPA’s level of concern. For example, an excessively high lead level coupled with an informational brochure is fully in compliance with federal regulations without indicating that water lead levels are safe. As of the time of writing, water quality data had yet to be released.

But the tests that produce such data may be intentionally misleading. UK newspaper the Guardian recently exposed several US health departments for giving at-home water-testers instructions that would lead to systematically underreporting the amount of lead in tap water. The Rhode Island Department of Health allegedly instructed residents selected to participate in the testing to run their taps “until cold” before filling the sample bottles, a practice that reduces the amount of lead in the water and does not reflect the lead content of water that has been sitting in the pipes for several hours (like, for example, when you wake up in the morning).

Koelsch called the Guardian’s claim a “misunderstanding” and said that, while the utility would not go “tit-for-tat” with a newspaper, she conceded it would indirectly rebut the accusation by communicating “the truth.” Providence Water has not yet communicated a statement to the Independent, but has updated the section of their website dealing with lead at least three times between February 5 and 10. The old page, “Lead In Your Drinking Water,” has been replaced with “Reducing Lead Levels in Drinking Water,” and the link on the homepage now reads “Lead in Household Plumbing.” Providence Water has not placed dates on their statements. The most recent one (as of February 10) says, in part, “Our water meets or exceeds all Federal and State Safe Drinking Water Act Regulations.”

Despite lead being a highly regulated and tightly monitored neurotoxin, information about one’s personal risk from lead can be surprisingly difficult to get. Some Rhode Island buildings are certified as lead safe, but most aren’t. And some 80 percent of homes are thought to be older than 1978, the year lead paint was outlawed for home use, according to the Rhode Island Department of Health. Providence Water estimates that 20,000 homes in Providence are still serviced with lead pipes that run from the mainline in the center of the street to the sidewalk, where the homeowner’s piping begins. Federal law has required that Providence Water distribute brochures via mail informing residents of excessively high lead concentrations in the city overall, but doesn’t require that the utility distribute information detailing exactly where utility-owned lead service lines are used. Consequently, a system map is not available online. Customers may call the Lead Service Hotline or the Water Quality Hotline and inquire about a specific address, but it’s easy to imagine that many Providence residents do not know that they should be doing this. And information about pipe material isn’t widespread even among utility employees. None of the maintenance employees from that night knew what metal the service lines off the main they were flushing consisted of.And even if someone does know the material of the pipes, both in their service line and in their own plumbing, testing for lead in the water that comes out of the tap is done mostly by conscientious customers that are willing and able to pick up a lead testing kit and pay a $10 processing fee. Koelsch did say, however, “I’m sure if people can’t afford the $10 they’ll give [the test] to them.”

A recent report by the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island shows that environmental toxins are predominantly concentrated in low-income and minority neighborhoods of Providence. This finding is supported by a 2010 study in the Maternal and Child Health Journal that demonstrates that lead poisoning is concentrated in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, and Woonsocket, and in poorer and less white areas within each of those cities. In some suburban census blocks they found zero cases of lead poisoning between 1993 and 2005, compared to one urban census block where 48.6 percent of children were lead poisoned in that same time period.² But local activists from organizations such as Childhood Lead Action Project and the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island say the problem goes beyond the presence or absence of environmental health hazards in these neighborhoods. “We don’t live in a city and a state where everyone has the same power to act on the information that they may or may not have about lead hazards and other environmental hazards in their homes,” Laura Brion, Director of Community Organizing and Advocacy at the Childhood Lead Action Project, told the Independent.

Since federal and state legislation began targeting lead in the 1970s, the incidence of lead poisoning has steadily decreased in the United States, a fact that has lead some media outlets to call news coverage of the Flint, Michigan water crisis overdone. In the mid-1970s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the average US child under the age of 5 had a blood lead level of 15 micrograms per deciliter. In context, the on-going crisis in Flint finds 4.9 percent of the city’s children with blood lead levels greater than or equal to 5 micrograms per deciliter, the amount of lead that the CDC defines as lead poisoning.

Rhode Island is one of the country’s worst states when it comes to lead poisoning. According to a 2010 study by Rebecca Renner published in Environmental Health Perspectives, the rate of children with elevated blood lead levels in Rhode Island is three times higher than the national average. Renner attributes this, among other things, to corrosive water that strips traces of metals from the pipes, to the fifth-oldest housing stock in the nation, and to the tens of thousands of Providence homes serviced with lead service lines.

“We also have issues, just like Flint, with lead pipes being used to bring our water to our homes,” Jesus Holguin, Youth Leadership Director at the Environmental Justice League of RI, told the Independent. “There are similarities between Providence and Flint when talking about our Industrial past and the way these industries have all closed down and moved away, leaving a legacy of pollution in our communities. The right to clean air, clean water, and safe places for kids to play is something that wealthy communities take for granted. Many low-income and minority communities don’t get parks, street lights, housing code enforcement, or safe drinking water.” Koelsch, for Providence Water’s part, says that the utility “take[s] concerns from all their customers seriously, no matter what neighborhood they live in.”

Renner believes that the Rhode Island Department of Health downplays the correlation between lead in drinking water and lead poisoning among children, arguing instead that other environmental sources of lead are the prime drivers of lead poisoning. “When we see elevated blood levels, the typical sources are either paint, dust, or soil,” Joseph Wendelken of the Rhode Island Department of Health told the Independent when asked about Renner’s position. (For the record, Laura Brion agrees that paint, dust, and soil are more often the culprits behind elevated blood levels, but worries that the current flawed testing protocol means that we don’t really know what the scope of the lead-in-water problem is.)

Despite this worry, Rhode Island is making progress in the fight against lead poisoning. Data from the Department of Health show the prevalence of lead poisoning has decreased steadily from 34 percent of children in 2002 to 5 percent in 2014. “Rhode Island is still known, nationwide, as a lead poisoning hot spot,” says Brion. “We’re known as a lead poisoning hotspot that has done a lot to make the situation better, but we’re still not ahead of the pack.” The 2014 data indicate that about 1,000 children had elevated blood lead levels that year, according to calculations made by the Independent. And for advocates, that number is still too high.

Every case of lead poisoning is preventable. The sources of lead are well-known and the mechanisms by which it enters the blood stream are non-controversial, even if the relative proportions to be attributed to water versus soil, dust, and paint are debated. That’s a big reason why these 1,000 lead poisoned children in Rhode Island represent a scandalous failure to public health advocates despite the fact that the figure is an improvement on ten years ago. And it’s why the situation in Flint is such an outrage to so many. Part of what is missed by those who call media coverage of Flint overdone is the fact that ‘better’ simply isn’t good enough when it comes to lead.

Critics of lead abatement policies point out that the blood lead level considered to be poisoning has been lowered over time by the CDC—most recently in 2012 it was lowered from ten to five micrograms per deciliter. State Representative Joseph Trillo (R–Warwick), speaking in 2014 against a tax increase on home sales that would have provided $2.3 million for lead paint abatements said, the state’s improvement in the lead poisoning rate “wasn’t enough for the lead paint people. So what did they want to do? We had reduced it from thirteen thousand kids ten years prior down to twelve hundred. Now it was going down so low they said we have to lower the standard of the blood level. And they did that… we’re putting a tax on the property owners to put money towards a problem that’s been solved.”

But there is no known safe concentration of lead in the blood, and negative health effects have been found with as little as two micrograms per deciliter. The dangers of even low levels of lead are well established and include risk of a variety of neurological and other disorders. Inadequate funding or political will behind lead paint abatement programs, home risk assessment programs, or upgrades to water systems, will continue to allow a certain amount of lead poisoning to happen. And since the victims are predominately poor and predominately Black and Latinx, a certain political tolerance for lead poisoning seems likely to persist despite the efforts of generally well-intentioned yet underfunded health departments like Rhode Island’s. “Although Providence has made a lot of good progress around lead,” Holguin says, “we still see disparities in who’s affected in terms of race and income.”

“When I look at Flint I’m just heartbroken on so many levels because I just know how possible it was to stop the disaster from ever happening,” Brion told the Independent. “Every child that has been lead poisoned has experienced a violent attack on their brain. And I don’t think that’s a dramatic way of putting it. It deserves that attention, that horror, and that respect. Our normal should be zero. Because it can be zero and because all children deserve that.”

¹Providence Water officials disagree, and tout the practice as part of their anti-lead efforts.

²The paper does not make it clear whether that census block is in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, Woonsocket, or Newport, which are statistically clustered together as the worst lead poisoning areas.

January 22, 2016January 23, 2016

“Zero-emission” cars running on fracked gas

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In an editorial this week in the ProJo, Janet Coit and Marion Gold come to the rescue of embattled Governor Gina Raimondo. Janet Coit is Director of Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management and Marion Gold is Commissioner of the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources. Both serve at the pleasure of the governor and whatever strengths, independence is not one of them.

Governor Raimondo has troubling connections to Wall Street going back to her days as Rhode Island treasurer. Here are just two of a recent flurry of publications questioning the pension fund reforms that she pushed through in those days:

One of Governor Raimondo’s key supporters is John Arnold, a former Enron trader who went on to found a profitable hedge fund.

The irony of the Coit-Gold ProJo editorial is that it’s based on Enron-style accounting, used in this case to hyper-inflate Governor Raimondo’s “visionary” contributions to the climate change battle.

In their editorial Coit and Gold mention that RI ranks number four on the State Energy Efficiency Scorecard put out by ACEEE. You do not have to know how this ranking is produced to understand that it is pure bunk. Just look at what the Energy Information Adminstration web site has to say about Rhode Island:

Natural gas fueled 95% of Rhode Island’s net electricity generation in 2014.
Rhode Island is the second-lowest emitter of carbon dioxide among all states. Like the lowest emitter, Vermont, Rhode Island does not have any coal-fired electricity generation.

Natural gas is mostly methane. It is a greenhouse gas that is about 100 times as potent as CO₂. Methane is burned and escapes unburnt to generate Rhode Island electricity, but we put all of those climate threatening emissions on our neighbors’ tabs.

There is more about the ACEEE rating of Rhode Island as fourth in the nation that is disconcerting. Scan the ACEEE web site and you quickly discover that they mention EPA’s Clean Power Plan again and again. There are some minor problems with this plan:

Obama’s “Clean Power Plan” is a huge gift to the methane (“Clean Energy”) industry — we’ll show you how in a minute. And guess who’s big in methane? Big oil, of course […]

The plan fits perfectly with Obama’s general practice of saying one thing and doing the opposite.

Director Coit is one of the members of the Energy Facility Siting Board that is currently deliberating the fate of the new fracked-gas power plant with the Orwellian name Clear River Energy Center, Invenergy’s plan to sacrifice Burrillville to unfettered greed.

Coit is publicly on record with her support of methane:

With her so-called pragmatism, doesn’t Director Coit not sound remarkably like House Speaker Mattiello?

In the Coit-Gold editorial there is not a word about Clear River, nor about the natural gas that already produces 95% of RI’s electrical power. There is no mention that Governor Gina Ms Wall Street Raimondo is on record supporting fracked gas. That silence must be “because there is a fire wall,” as Director Coit said in the preliminary hearing of the siting board last week. How convenient!

As the Clear River theater of the siting board progresses, we might hear about the CO₂ emissions the power plant will produce in Rhode Island. What we will not hear from the Governor and her allies on the board is to whom we will charge the fugitive methane. Most of that escapes at the wellheads in Pennsylvania and along the pipelines and from the compressor stations. Nor will we hear about the suffering it causes to the people on the frontlines in Burrillville and across the globe. None of that, but we’ll follow the statutes, because we are a nation of laws.

Indeed, all of the Enron-style accounting is perfectly legal, but, dear reader, you surely do not believe any more than I do, that Mother Nature is impressed.

There is yet another accounting trick buried in the Coit-Gold editorial: the Zero-Emission Vehicle Action Plan. True, we need electric cars and they have no tail pipes that emits CO₂. Still, the electric energy such cars use has to be generated somewhere. If it comes from renewables we win; if we generate it with fracked gas, we loose. The latter is of course exactly what will happen if we let Invenergy build the Clear River Energy Center.

We are constructing a 30 megawatt wind farm off Block Island and are talking about a frack-gas facility with 30 times that capacity in Burrillville. Accounting gimmicks devoid of physics may fool the people, the editor of the the ProJo and our hapless leaders, but none of that will change the laws of nature.

Update after the original post: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from National Grid has finally made up his mind and now supports the Clear River Energy Center. He uses his same old arguments about choke points and price spikes. That was none of that last winter is but an irrelevant detail: As New England freezes, natural gas stays cheap.

January 21, 2016October 6, 2016

Raimondo: States need ‘broader view’ of renewable power

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The Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition announced that it “will pair its advocacy work for wind with work for solar energy as well” and has changed its name to the Governors’ Wind and Solar Energy Coalition (GWSC).

Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, who serves as Vice Chair of the Coalition, said, “I support the foresight of my colleagues to broaden the Coalition’s focus and include solar energy development as a policy priority. Wind and solar provide complementary benefits to the U.S. electric grid and will help diversify the country’s energy mix. The need for states to take a broader view of renewable power is clear.”

Raimondo’s support of wind and solar seems at odds with her support for Invenergy‘s proposed Clear River Energy Center, a fossil fuel power plant slated to be built in Burrillville. John Niland, vice president of business development at Invenergy said in an interview with Ted Nesi that his company is “very keen on renewable energy” but not, apparently for Rhode Island. Is this new embrace of solar and wind power a sign that Raimondo is shifting her position on methane gas?

According to an American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) press release:

“This bipartisan governors’ coalition has been highly effective at getting policy results and have helped grow wind energy for nearly a decade,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of the AWEA. “The governors’ decision to combine forces with solar energy reflects the economic and environmental value of diversifying our nation’s grid with clean, reliable renewable energy.”

Technological innovations and performance-based policy continue to help lower wind and solar energy’s costs, making both homegrown technologies more affordable than ever. Wind and solar power are important job creators, putting Americans to work in all 50 states.

Wind and solar energy added 61 percent of all new generation capacity in 2015 through November according to SNL Energy. As states make plans to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan, the nation’s first-ever rule to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants, zero-emission wind and solar power are expected to continue supplying large amounts new electricity in the years ahead, resulting in numerous consumer and environmental benefits.

American wind power now supplies enough electricity for 19 million American homes after surpassing the 70 gigawatt (GW) mark of installed wind capacity late last year. Wind energy could double to supply 10 percent of the U.S. electricity mix by 2020, and double again to supply 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030. It can become one of the largest sources of electricity in the U.S. by supplying 35 percent by 2050. According to the Department of Energy’s Wind Vision report, by meeting the 2030 scenario American wind power could support 380,000 well-paying jobs, a number that could grow to 600,000 by 2050.

Emerging opportunities to invest in the rapid growth of the U.S. wind energy industry will be on full display at this year’s WINDPOWER 2016 in New Orleans from May 23 – May 26. The event is the Western Hemisphere’s largest annual wind power trade show.

January 20, 2016January 21, 2016

EJLRI confronts the EPA in Boston

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Environmental justice leaders from frontline communities hardest-hit by climate change and pollution converged on all 10 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regional office headquarters yesterday, to mark the end of the final public comment period for the Obama Administration’s federal Clean Power Plan (CPP) to reduce power plant carbon emissions 32% by 2030.

Members of the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island (EJLRI) lead the efforts in Region 1, meeting with Curt Spalding, Administrator for the EPA’s New England Region, headquartered in Boston.

After their meeting with Spalding, I spoke to Dania Flores, EJLRI’s Executive Director and the coordinator of the action, and Julian Rodríguez-Drix, an EJLRI board member, in the hallway of the EPA offices.

“We’re part of the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), a national alliance of climate justice grassroots groups. We decided that no one has engaged on the side of the people on the CPP plan which is a power generation plan on how the states are going to clean up their act,” said Flores.

The CJA is a collaborative of over 35 community-based and movement support organizations uniting frontline communities to forge a scalable and socio-economically just transition away from unsustainable energy towards local living economies to address the root causes of climate change. They have developed an “environmental justice counterpoint to the Clean Power Plan” they call “Our Power Plan.”

“One the first things in our plan is to engage with the EPA in each region to try to convince them that no one has actually meaningfully engaged the people,” said Flores, “We’re asking the EPA to comply with the law. They have the power to ask state governments to engage in meaningful engagement with frontline communities.”

Under Obama’s CPP, states have “until August to come up with a plan [reduce power plant carbon emissions] or they can ask for an extension,” said Flores, “but we are asking the EPA to tell states that already have a plan, ‘No, we don’t believe that you have actually meaningfully engaged with [frontline] communities.’”

Flores says that states have until 2018 to present their plan and that the CJA wants the plans “to include exactly how states engaged in meaningful engagement [with frontline communities.]”

Rodríguez-Drix said, “Here in Region 1 the issue we see is that the transition away from coal and oil very much favors natural gas as a fuel source and we have a number of very strong reasons that we do not believe that’s [a viable solution].”

The EJLRI’s position is that “if there’s energy infrastructure being built it has to be true renewables,” not energy based on extraction and burning.

Right now, to satisfy a requirement to invest in weatherization and renewables, National Grid tacks on a surcharge to all energy customers, “but the fund is mostly used for solar panels in the suburbs,” says Rodríguez-Drix. This means that poor communities are helping to subsidize the energy conversions of their richer neighbors.

“It benefits white homeowners, primarily,” says Rodríguez-Drix, “We need to look at the whole system and the economics behind it so that the system benefits frontline communities, not just in terms of jobs installing solar panels, but in terms of generating energy that is owned by people of color.”

This problem is exasperated by another issue primarily faced by poorer communities of color. “Slum lords aren’t the ones paying [energy] bills and they don’t care about [weatherization and energy efficiency]. [The communities we represent] have a lot of housing insecurity. We need incentives and investments that will put people of color to work installing and benefiting from increased weatherization and energy efficiency.”

“I had the sense that Spalding was sympathetic to what we had to say,” said Rodriguez-Drix.

“A lot of the conversation revolves around what the translation of certain words in the law is,” said Flores, “What it means to them and what it means to us. When we talk about community engagement, what does it mean to be meaningful? We think we are going to be engaged and be part of the conversation. When they talk about engagement it means they are going to leaflet someplace and schedule two meetings.

“Real meaningful engagement is a lot more work than they have been doing.”

Though this was a nationwide effort, not every EPA office allowed for this level of engagement from CJA aligned groups. “In some EPA offices, meetings like this did not occur,” said Flores, “In some offices an activist would hand over written material to a secretary.”

“EPA welcomes public input from all parties on the Clean Power Plan,” said Spalding when asked for a comment, “We are pleased that stakeholders and communities are actively engaging in the public comment process because robust public participation leads to better outcomes for our health and environment. It is important that environmental justice communities provide EPA with their unique perspective on proposals like the Clean Power Plan.

“EPA is committed to ensuring meaningful public involvement throughout implementation of the Clean Power Plan, so that all communities benefit equally from this vital step to address climate change and protect our health and environment. EPA will consider the input we have received before taking final action.”

Flores, the EJLRI and the CJA see this contact as the beginning of a series of conversations. “We’re going to up the ante as this develops. If the EPA doesn’t push states to wait until 2018 to submit plans, after meaningfully engaging with frontline groups, we will be pushing towards a national gathering in the Summer,” said Flores.

12400573_1009301082459381_7511060132359889040_n — Photo (c)2016 EJLRI

January 13, 2016May 3, 2016

Fossil Free RI statement on Invenergy power plant hearing

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At its public meeting today, the Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board postponed ruling on giving grassroots groups and individuals the opportunity to get a fair hearing of their objections to the Clear River Energy Center, a fracked-gas power plant proposed by Invenergy, based in Chicago, IL. The board will announce its final ruling on this matter at the next public hearing, scheduled for January 29.

The two remaining members of the three who should make up the board serve at the pleasure of Governor Raimondo, who is on record supporting expansion of the “natural” gas infrastructure. As a result, Janet Coit, one of the two board members, is in a bind. She is Director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and an avid environmentalist. Last summer, she spoke at the Sierra Club-sponsored rally, “The Environment is Everyone’s Business.” Coit is painfully aware of the toll climate change is already taking on life in Narragansett Bay. At the rally, she referred to a “profound experience” she had looking at colonial nesting birds on Hope Island. She said: “There are several islands in the Bay that used to host colonies of nesting terns and now they are submerged.”

Said Lisa Petrie of Fossil Free Rhode Island: “We’re calling on Governor Raimondo to wake up and recognize that building more gas-fired power plants threatens the future of our state and of humanity as a whole.” Indeed, the Invenergy proposal is inconsistent with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, which determined that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare of current and future generations. This language parallels that of the 2007 denial of a fossil-fuel plant permit by Roderick Brembly, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Obviously, team Raimondo is lagging reality by almost a decade.

Fossil Free Rhode Island reiterated that Governor Raimondo’s policies violate Article 1, Section 17 of the Rhode Island Constitution, the supreme law of the state, which clearly specifies the duty “to provide for the conservation of the air, land, water, plant, animal, mineral and other natural resources of the state.”

The Conservation Law Foundation has put forth that, by increasing Rhode Island’s greenhouse gas emissions, the Clear River Energy Center would violate the Resilient Rhode Island Act of 2014. The foundation urged the Board to terminate its deliberations, which would effectively deny Invenergy the permit it seeks.

The Burrillville Land Trust, in a blistering take down of Invenergy’s proposal, argued for the same and writes: “We are being denied an opportunity to respond in a meaningful way because of mis-information, inadequate information and outright absence of information.”

Governor Raimondo has tried to make the case that Invenergy’s Energy Center will bring jobs to Rhode Island. The Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council, in its request for late intervention, agrees with the governor. This view is untenable and Fossil Free Rhode Island referred to a recent report of the Political Economy Research Institute of UMass in Amherst that states: “New investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy will generate more jobs for a given amount of spending than maintaining or expanding each country’s existing fossil fuel sectors.”

Fossil Free Rhode Island once again drew attention to current research that shows that, given the urgency of dealing with climate change, “natural” gas has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than coal and oil. In other words, Invenergy’s proposed power plant is bad for Rhode Island on all counts: physics, economics and morality.

Sister Mary Pendergast, one of the individual intervenors, said: “I do not think that the spiritual and moral issues of environmental ethics will be adequately represented by excluding my testimony. Any decision the Siting Board makes that is good for the corporation, but not for the environment, is a bad decision and we will live to regret it.”

The Board referred to the ambiguous rules under which they operate. They seem to interpret the rules as the requirement of attorney representation. This interpretation would exclude virtually all members of the public who filed for the status of intervenor. Pat Fontes, representing Occupy Providence, said: “The refusal to admit the voice of Occupy Providence in the deliberations of this board would symbolize and contribute to the likelihood that ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people’ will indeed perish from the earth.”

[From a press release]

RI Future covered the hearing here: Strong public opposition to Burrillville power plant at hearing

January 7, 2016January 7, 2016

Invenergy fails to gag activists on power plant intervention

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During the last two days activists filed rebuttals with the Energy Facility Siting Board as they contest Invenergy’s attempt to suppress public input on its proposal to build a fracked-gas power plant proposal.

In a press release late last month Fossil Free Rhode Island cited as reasons for filing a motion for intervention with the Board:

The construction of the proposed power plant —part of the energy policy of team Raimondo— would slow down the transition to renewable energy.

As a recent report of the PERI Institute of UMass in Amherst states: “New investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy will generate more jobs for a given amount of spending than maintaining or expanding each country’s existing fossil fuel sectors.”

“Natural” gas has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than coal and oil. Clearly, team Raimondo is wrong on all counts: physics, economics and morality.

In response to Invenergy’s objections to their Motions for Intervention Sister Mary Pendergast, Occupy Providence and Fossil Free Rhode Island argue that the company misconstrues the rules according to which the Board operates.

The activists also take Invenergy to task on its claim that they lack sufficient interest to justify intervention. They remind the company of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Massachusetts v. EPA (2007), which declared that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act. They also remind Invenergy of the Endangerment Finding of 2009 of the Environmental Protection Agency that determined that greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations.

In a landmark environmental case (Payne & Buttler v. Providence Gas Co., 1910) the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that citizens can sue corporations for damages caused by “deleterious and poisonous substances.”

If these facts, rulings and liabilities do not constitute a direct interest, nothing will.

Occupy Providence, in its rebuttal, said:

Invenergy cannot credibly argue that Occupy Providence lacks sufficient interests to justify intervention in spite of the fact that “the proposed plant will produce greenhouse gases highly injurious to the 99% for the purpose of producing profits which will go almost entirely and certainly disproportionately to the 1%.”

Sister Mary Pendergast echoed the same sentiment and quoted from Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’:

26. Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change. However, many of these symptoms indicate that such effects will continue to worsen if we continue with current models of production and consumption. There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy. Worldwide there is minimal access to clean and renewable energy.”

Two members of the Board serve at the pleasure of Governor Raimondo. That does not bode well for the impartiality of the Board. This is very troubling when it is clear that the Raimondo administration fails to understand the moral imperative to act on climate change.

Is there any ethical system under the Sun that holds that near-term profit is the ultimate standard? It is certainly not what is meant by the Affirmation of Humanism that proclaims:

We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.

Nor is it consistent with, as the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change puts it:

Re-focus their concerns from unethical profit from the environment, to that of preserving it and elevating the condition of the world’s poor.

Citizens of Rhode Island understand that intervention is fully justified and, in spite of Invenergys’ claim to the contrary, that the public interest is not adequately represented by a state government and its corporate allies who willfully act in violation of Article 1, Section 17 of the Rhode Island Constitution, the supreme law of the State which establishes the duty to provide for the conservation of the State’s air, water and land.

Note added after original post: Also the RI Democrats of America (RIPDA) have filed a reply to Invenergy’s objection to their motion for intervention. In their conclusion they write:

Invenergy’s desire to block RIPDA’s involvement should concern both the Board and the general public, as it suggests that Invenergy wishes to limit the discourse on this topic and stack the deck in its favor.

October 29, 2015October 30, 2015

RIDOH Director Alexander-Scott weighs in on LNG in PVD

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Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, director of the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH), responded to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) request for comments on National Grid’s plans to build a new liquefaction plant at Field’s Point on the south side of Providence.

The project has been the target of sharp criticism by environmental and social justice groups as an example of environmental racism, and much in Dr. Alexander-Scott’s assessment backs up such an assessment.

Though the director does not outright oppose the project, she does recommend that “FERC conduct a robust review of the project that fully incorporates public health perspectives and reviews potential public health concerns” and that RIDOH, “be deemed a cooperating agency, with all the rights and opportunities to participate in FERC’s review of this project preserved thereby.”

“Given the set of potential risk scenarios,” says Dr. Alexander-Scott in her final paragraph, “RIDOH requests that FERC consider requiring a Risk Management Plan for both the proposed liquefaction facility as well as the existing LNG storage facility, which does not currently have a Risk Management Plan.” [Emphasis mine]

“As Director,” says Dr. Alexander-Scott, “my strategic priorities for RIDOH are to address the social and environmental determinants of health, to eliminate health disparities in Rhode Island by promoting health equity, and to ensure access to quality services, especially for vulnerable populations.”

In her letter, Dr. Alexander-Scott outlines quite a few hazards and “risk scenarios” relative to the project.

Examining the proposal from a geographic standpoint, Dr. Alexander-Scott notes that the facility is planned within “an industrial area with a concentration of facilities listed in the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), facilities requiring Risk Management Plans (RMP), and Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDF) that handle hazardous materials.”

Perhaps more critical “is the concentration of healthcare facilities and critical health system infrastructure within close proximity to the proposed project. Rhode Island’s only Level 1 Trauma Center is located in the Rhode Island Hospital complex, which includes Hasbro Children’s Hospital and is adjacent to Women and Infants Hospital. There are many additional primary care, specialty care, pediatric healthcare, and Federally Qualified Health Centers within this area of interest at varying degrees of proximity to the site location of the proposed facility. Providence Community Health Center’s administrative building and Chafee Health Center are within the half mile radius parcel map…”

Having this much emergency and non-emergency medical care infrastructure in one area, and an area so close to the proposed liquefaction facility requires “that careful attention be paid to any potential impacts to this critical healthcare infrastructure, including both for the cumulative impacts of construction and normal operation of the facility, and for any potential increased risk for accidents or emergency situations,” says the Director.

She sums up some of the potential accidents or emergency situations:

Although the possibility of an emergency or disaster may be low, the combination of multiple hazardous facilities, healthcare infrastructure, and vulnerable communities requires extra care and attention. Potential hazards may include leaks, fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, storm surge, equipment malfunction, accident, terrorism, and the added risk of secondary offsite incidents including chemical incidents or explosions from co-located facilities requiring chemical risk management plans. RIDOH is concerned about the health impacts that would results from a worst-case scenario involving secondary impacts, which might involve amplified chemical reactions with substances such as chlorine, ammonium, and heat from flammable materials stored in co-located facilities. The close proximity to the I-95 highway corridor, and Rhode Island’s level 1 trauma center present an additional risk to the critical infrastructure needed for responding to any potential disaster situation. With a medically-vulnerable population and a relatively high percentage of people who are linguistically-isolated in the adjacent community, considerations around communications in disaster preparedness and response should also be taken into consideration as part of the environmental assessment and/or a broader emergency/risk management review.”

Though she doesn’t use the term “environmental racism,” Dr. Alexander-Scott provides numbers making it impossible not to draw such a conclusion.

“Socioeconomically,” says Dr. Alexander-Scott, “the one mile buffer around the proposed facility is 75 percent minority population…, 56 percent low-income…, 17 percent linguistically isolated… and 31 percent have less than high school education.” (86th percentile for state). The combined socioeconomics for the neighborhoods of Upper and Lower South Providence and Washington Park are 82 percent minority population…, 64 percent low-income…, 24 percent linguistically isolated… and 33 percent have less than high school education.” She notes that “these socioeconomic statistics are of important public health interest as significant social determinants of health.”

“RIDOH,” says the director, “has ample data on poor health outcomes, elevated health risks, and racial and ethnic health disparities within the City of Providence and in particular within the neighborhoods of Upper and Lower South Providence and Washington Park, which are in closest proximity to the proposed project. RIDOH’s 2014 Asthma Claims Data Report used health insurance claims data to produce detailed hot spot maps for asthma prevalence, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations, which all show asthma hot spots and elevated asthma risk in this focus area, at some of the highest levels in the state. Providence has the highest asthma-related pediatric hospitalization rates in the state, and asthma is elevated in low-income individuals and Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino communities.”

It seems that the efforts of National Grid, in building this facility, stand in direct opposition to the Department of Health’s mission to improve health outcomes in at risk neighborhoods.

“RIDOH is funding 11 Rhode Island non-profit organizations and local governments at various levels to support innovative approaches to improving health outcomes,” says the director. “The Department of Health and these grantees have created Health Equity Zones – defined geographic areas where high rates of obesity, illness, injury, chronic disease or other adverse health outcomes will be improved by coordinated strategies to reduce and manage chronic diseases, promote healthy lifestyles, improve birth outcomes, assure healthy child development, and create environments where healthy choices are easier to make. It is the vision of the Department of Health, that communities are engaged in democracy and committed to equality and diversity. Through these Health Equity Zones we will create and maintain sustainable and healthy places for all Rhode Islanders to live, work, and learn. It is imperative that alterations to the community’s landscape by other sectors does not impede the progress being achieved by such initiatives.”

Ironically, the build up of LNG infrastructure in Rhode Island will contribute to climate disaster, yet the location of the proposed liquefaction facility is at risk from sea level rise caused by climate change. Dr. Alexander-Scott doesn’t explicitly touch on this irony, but says, “Other environmental factors that are worth considering in the scope of the review include coastal flooding, both current and future levels given projected sea level rise, as well as potential storm surge and wind impacts. The effects of climate change on this project and therefore long-term population health is a necessary, additional component of the current environmental review.”

You can read the full letter from Dr. Alexander-Scott here.

October 9, 2015October 9, 2015

Peter Nightingale’s call to action at URI

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At the University of Rhode Island’s 19th annual Diversity Week, Peter Nightingale, professor of physics at URI, and climate activist, challenged students’ perspectives on climate change and offered a call to action in order to address environmental racism. The event, “Race and the Environmental Justice Movement,” was held at the Multicultural Student Services Center.

Nightingale began the event with a stark warning: in order to avoid catastrophic climate change, we must reduce greenhouse emissions globally by 7 percent. The U.S. is home to a fraction of the world’s population, it emits 25 percent of global greenhouse gasses. Even though the U.S. is greatly responsible for climate change, it will be the poor of the world, nations with less developed infrastructure, that will bear the consequences.

Nightingale referenced Robert Bullard’s work, “Dumping in Dixie”, in the presentation:

The environmental movement in the United States emerged with agendas that focused on such areas as wilderness and wildlife preservation, resource conservation, pollution abatement, and population control. It was supported primarily by middle- and upper-middle-class whites. Although concern about the environment cuts across racial and class lines, environmental activism has been most pronounced among individuals who have above-average education, greater access to economic resources, and a greater sense of personal efficacy.”

“I’m one of those people who are in a position of privilege,” said Nightingale. It was Nightingale’s privilege that allowed him to be treated politely by police when resisting fracked gas expansion. “Suppose I were half my age, and my color is a little bit darker – would they be equally polite, and nice? No – absolutely not.”

In the fight for the environment, there are the following stakeholders: the environmentalists, the social justice advocates, and the neo-liberal boosters, who, “have as their chief concerns maximizing profits, industrial expansion, economic stability, laissez-faire operation, and deregulation,” said Nightingale, quoting Bullard.

“If you follow the economic discussion in Rhode Island,” continued Nightingale, “all you hear people say is ‘all we need is more jobs, more jobs’ – but when you scrape away the rhetoric, a lot of people of color and poor minorities are being divided among themselves… the elites never mention that it’s all about their profits, about busting unions, about exploiting people – and this is one of the problems we have to deal with.”

For instance, Governor Gina Raimondo stated, “I am committed to moving ahead with cost-effective, regional energy infrastructure projects—including expansion of natural gas capacity—that will improve our business climate and create new opportunities for Ocean State workers.”

Nightingale also referred to the President’s Climate Action Plan as the “President’s Business Climate Action Plan” – stating that it is based on the interests of Wall Street, not in science. We are moving away from fossil fuels, and going towards natural gas, essentially replacing carbon dioxide with methane, a gas that is much more potent than carbon dioxide. “Let that sink in – that’s what [Senator] Sheldon Whitehouse is saying we should do and it’s a bad plan”

Not only are we “Dumping in Dixie,” but we are dumping in Providence, we are dumping in Burrillville, and we are dumping globally. From National Grid’s proposed LNG liquefaction facility to the proposed gas-fired power plant in Burrillville, the environment and the people are under assault says Nightingale.

“Who are the people that live next to I-95 in Providence… the people are about to thrown out of their houses… their skin tone is a couple of shades darker than mine.” Nightingale directed attendees to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice website, which shows several environmental and demographic indicators regarding pollution. In the presentation, Nightingale showcased the current indicators for the proposed LNG liquefaction facility at Fields Point location in Providence, and compared the indicators to those of East Greenwich.

Nightingale continued by critiquing Cap and Trade. “We are taking a serious problem [and] financializing it. We’re putting it on the stock market, and we’re allowing people to speculate.” By allowing environmental destruction to continue in impoverished communities, while Wall Street profiteers from the destruction, we thus institutionalize environmental injustice. “We can live yet another day, because we are taking the livelihood from someone else in the Southern Hemisphere.” A prime example of this is the continued deforestation of the Amazon rain forest. Nightingale drew a parallel to Pope Francis’ comments on climate change and tax credits:

The strategy of buying and selling ‘carbon credits’ can lead to a new form of speculation which would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide. This system seems to provide a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment, but in no way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.”

Nightingale concluded by offering a powerful statement from Pope Francis, “The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”

August 21, 2015August 22, 2015

Fracked gas releases 8X more methane than previously believed

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A new report from researchers at Colorado State University shows that “U.S. gathering and processing facilities — where natural gas from nearby wells is consolidated for distribution through pipelines,” leak 8 times the amount of methane previously estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Methane “is about 72 times stronger than the same mass of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame.”

As Rhode Island considers moving forward with several large scale natural gas projects, including an expanded pipeline in Burrillville, a new energy plant in Burrillville, and a liquefaction facility in South Providence, it seemed appropriate to ask representatives from business, labor, government and environmental groups for their comments on this report.

It is important to point out, says David Graves, media relations for National Grid, that, “this study has to do with the gathering of natural gas. That’s something National Grid is not involved in and is in no way associated with liquefaction, LNG or the operations of local natural gas distribution companies, which is what we are.” As of this writing National Grid is considering issuing a more comprehensive statement.

Of course, the larger issue is the global impact that fracked gas will have on the climate. (The local health impacts of having a liquefaction facility and LNG storage near a community is outside the scope of the Colorado State University study.) The question becomes, should Rhode Island be committing resources to an energy source that contributes to world destruction? Future generations are dependent on our making smart decisions today.

Governor Gina Raimondo’s office downplayed the impact of our energy choices on future generations, saying, “The Governor has always spoken about the importance of having a balanced energy mix. We have to meet the needs of the present, while looking to the future.

“In the present,” continues the Governor’s office’s statement, “we have a serious problem getting a sufficient supply of natural gas, and our soaring, unpredictable energy costs are a huge challenge for our businesses and our families. This new next generation clean energy facility will help us increase our supply of energy and bring down costs – and in doing so, will help make our state a more attractive place for businesses to operate.

“At the same time, the Governor has made it clear we are committed to doing this in a way that drives a cleaner, more reliable energy system in the long-term. We cannot lose sight of our focus on no-to-low carbon energy solutions, such as energy efficiency and renewables, including offshore wind and solar power. We are focused on enhancing system-wide energy diversity by harnessing clean energy solutions that offer new possibilities for economic growth and innovation. It is clear we can be a real leader for the rest of the country in this industry and create new jobs.”

Michael Sabitoni, president of the RI Building & Construction Trades Council, concurred with the Governor, saying that, “The members of the building trades are just as concerned as anyone else with the quality of life in Rhode Island and that certainly includes their care for the environment. We have supported numerous renewable projects that will provide clean energy to our members and to our state. However, we think even the most ardent environmentalists agree that renewables cannot meet all of our energy demands. Therefore, we support development of clean fossil fuel plants to meet these needs. The proposed Burrillville plant will have the most advanced technology. This project will eventually replace old and outdated plants. In doing so it will not only meet our needs but minimize the concerns raised by the Colorado State report. Quite frankly, it is a project environmentalists should support.”

However, “ardent environmentalists” don’t seem to be on board with this alignment of industry, labor and government. Peter Nightingale, of Fossil Free Rhode Island, said that, “We have known since 2011 that ‘natural’ gas, methane, is not the bridge fuel that our national energy policy claims it to be. Both fracked and conventional gas have a larger global warming potential than coal or oil for any possible use. Robert Howarth, who was one of Time‘s three People of the Year in 2011, summed it up perfectly: the Whitehouse (in suggesting natural gas a ‘bridge fuel’) made a decision that is not based on good science. Today’s report is just the latest of many cracks in the nation’s meth bridge to Hell.”

Edit: After this posted David Graves of National Grid sent me the following statement:

“The Colorado State University report is not directly related to local distribution companies like National Grid. However, we take the issue of natural gas emissions very seriously. We have acted and are continuing to act where we can have the greatest impact. That is by limiting emissions within our system. National Grid has invested significantly in our 35,000 miles of natural gas mains which serve more than 3.5 million customers in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York, lowering overall emissions while the distribution network has grown. We invested more than $1.2 billion in our gas infrastructure this past fiscal year and, to further limit emissions, we will spend $6 billion over the next five years. In Rhode Island, where we purchased the business of New England Gas Company in 2006, we have replaced nearly 300 miles of leak prone pipe beginning with 11 miles in 2009 and adding significantly to those numbers each year. Our goal is to replace 60 miles this year and 65 miles in each of the coming years with a long-term goal of replacing all 1,400 miles of leak prone pipe.”

Fossil Free Rhode Island also suggested the following video: