HB 1230 (Regulation of Coal Combustion Residuals) was signed into law by Gov. Holcomb last Thursday.
The Chamber testified in support of this bill during the committee hearings and continued to advocate for its passage. This bill makes corrections to existing law to allow the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) to have delegated authority from EPA regarding disposal of coal combustion residuals (CCR).
The EPA had primacy over Indiana businesses that have CCR disposal issues.
The recent news that parts of five Indiana counties have been pushed out of attainment for ambient air quality and exceed a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard for sulfur dioxide comes as no shock.
Indeed, the U.S. EPA continues to lower the standards, making it increasingly difficult for communities to meet the new requirements.
U.S. EPA officials point to coal-fired power plants as the main contributors to the release of more sulfur dioxide than is permitted in the new standards. Sulfur dioxide is a colorless gas that contributes to acid rain that damages the environment and can worsen breathing problems.
Parts of Marion, Morgan, Daviess, Pike and Vigo counties are the ones that have now been pushed out of attainment. For a number of years, all 92 counties have met the necessary levels for ambient air quality standards. But the U.S. EPA has continued to tighten the belt on standards that measure carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide.
Hoosier regulators now have 18 months to draft a plan telling how the counties will come back into compliance within five years.
So it sounds like Indiana’s air is just dirtier than ever, right?
Nope. In fact – it’s much cleaner than it’s ever been in our lifetimes. This 2011 BizVoice® story on the state of Indiana’s environment points to significant improvement in Hoosier air, water and land quality. But that’s hardly the story everyone hears.
For the story, I spoke with Dr. William Beranek Jr., president of the Indiana Environmental Institute, a third-party forum for analysis and understanding of Indiana’s environmental protection laws, rules and policies.
This is what he told me at the time: “We have been steadily and significantly improving across this timeframe (past 20 to 30 years), by sulfur dioxides, by nitrogen dioxide, by ozone, by lead and by particulates,” he explains.
“One of the challenges we’ve had across this time is that the technical community – for better or worse – has been steadily determining that some of those parameters are actually more harmful to human health than we had thought. Therefore, while we had been steadily improving the quality of the air, the indicator of whether we have good air has been steadily tightening. We’re at a point where we’re just as far from the finish line as we were when we started.”
Another expert on the matter: Bernie Paul, president of B Paul Consulting and former air quality expert for Eli Lilly & Company, also pointed to the federal process used for evaluating and changing air quality standards – starting with the Clean Air Act of 1970. That legislation was written so that all standards are re-evaluated every five years, and that cost implications cannot be taken into consideration when creating air quality standards.
“For a public agency to have to re-evaluate technical information every five years, when it takes 10 years to execute the plans to bring the air quality level down to where they set it, that’s a broken process,” he insists.
“A 10-year or even a 20-year review cycle would make more sense, because it takes so long for all of the implementation to be executed. We really can’t have a system where you’re constantly churning the standard.”
How does this relate to you? If coal-fired power plants are pointed to as the problem with these new regulations and the only way to match the requirements is to add more emission controls (or phase out coal altogether, as some would suggest), that means your electricity rates will go up.
Organizations including the U.S. Energy Information Association (EIA) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) provide estimates between 83% and 95% of Indiana’s electricity coming from coal-fired power plants. It affects jobs here too: the EIA ranks Indiana as eighth in coal production in the country.
These are just some things to keep in mind the next time you read a story about Indiana’s “dirty” air.
Frequent readers here or of other Chamber communications have no doubt taken notice of the alarming Washington trend of government by regulation. Numerous reports, the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Ten Thousand Commandments among the latest, have examined this dangerous development. Congress may be deadlocked, but government agencies are the ones putting the stranglehold on businesses in Indiana and throughout the country.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence weighed in this week with a letter to President Obama regarding carbon dioxide standards that are being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency. Pence writes, in part, that the "EPA is proposing a rule that will constrain any potential for an all of the above energy strategy and harm our economy in the process."
The Governor points out that Indiana will be particularly impacted because of its status as one of the leading manufacturing states. While the energy mix has been diversified, coal will remain the major source of electricity. Pence says, "The coal industry and electricity providers have made great strides toward lower emissions, and, as we replace our aging electricity generation plants, I have no doubt that we will find ways to lower emissions even further."
View the full letter — and let's hope Washington pays attention!
While there was quite a bit of activity in the environmental area in the 2013 Indiana legislative session, there was little heavy lifting and relatively few changes to environmental law. Yes, it is a work in progress, but Indiana business and industry has done so much to reduce its air, land and water emissions that there are fewer and fewer legislative fixes needed. Still, watch for a number of issues to be studied this summer by the Environmental Quality Service Council (EQSC).
Water and wastewater issues are of concern to the Indiana Chamber. Related to that, there were a number of legislative items addressing the wonderful world of water and sewage. The struggle is between those who are not on a sewer system and those who want them to be. There were also several bills to address the overcharging by water and wastewater utilities of those outside the jurisdiction of the municipality. The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) was added to the current court system as an avenue to take a grievance.
Rockport Plant
The energy arena provided much more drama: At the center, the proposed nearly $3 billion Rockport coal gasification facility on the Ohio River in Spencer County, which generated strong non-partisan emotions. Senator Doug Eckerty (R-Yorktown) and Rep. Suzanne Couch (R-Evansville) were the Senate and House champions who stood strong against an emotional plea from those in the Rockport area. The Indiana Chamber is not opposed to the Rockport project and well-recognizes the potential positive economic development with the plant construction, coal mining jobs and related transportation. However, the funding formula for this project is flawed – any losses at the plant would be paid for by the state’s two million residential and small/medium-sized business taxpayers for some 30 years. Speaker Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) called the Rockport bill the most complex issue to face the General Assembly this year and, in fact, held the final third reading vote until after the state budget was approved in the House; it was the very last bill for consideration at nearly 1:30 a.m. on Saturday,
April 27. The Indiana Chamber joined forces with the Indiana Manufacturers Association and Indiana Farm Bureau in support of the Rockport bill that, in the end, passed the House by a convincing 70-28 vote and the Senate by a 43-7 margin.
It contains much-needed additional protections to ensure that small/medium-sized businesses and residential ratepayers will not pay excessive additional rates for the natural gas produced by this plant (if it is built).
The major bill for the electric power industry was SB 560. The Indiana Chamber was neutral as the language carried a “tracker” provision which allows an expense to be tracked most directly into a ratepayer’s bill without a rate case. The Indiana Chamber has members on both sides of this issue. Senate Bill 560 allows the expenses related to “transmission and distribution system improvement charges” (TDSIC) to be “tracked” into bills but requires the utility to submit a seven-year plan and present a full rate case to the IURC within that seven years (if it uses the tracking mechanism).
Interim Activity
The legislative summer committees will likely see many environmental and energy issues as some of the legislative attempts were punted to the summer study docket and other items discussed will probably show up on the agenda. Senator Ed Charbonneau (R-Valparaiso) will likely chair the EQSC this summer and has clearly stated his interest in addressing a variety of topics. Some of the items that are already identified that may be studied in the EQSC or other legislative summer study committees include: agricultural fugitive dust, consolidation of all water management functions under one agency, single point of contact for Indiana Department of Environmental Management 401 certification and Department of Natural Resources flood control, small modular nuclear reactors, non-jurisdictional water and wastewater rates and charges, and Indiana’s water plan status.
The United Mine Workers of America fully supported President Obama in his 2008 bid against John McCain. But as Obama seeks re-election this November, it appears the coal union’s support has cooled. Not that coal workers are clamoring to help elect Mitt Romney either, mind you. National Journal has the interesting saga:
“As of right now, we’ve elected to stay out of this election,” said Mike Caputo, a UMWA official and a Democratic member of the West Virginia House of Delegates. “Our members right now have indicated to stay out of this race, and that’s why we’ve done that…. I don’t think quite frankly that coalfield folks are crazy about either candidate.”
Both candidates are trying to prove otherwise to voters in coal-intensive swing states. Earlier this week the Obama campaign released in the first coal-issue ad of this cycle, claiming that Romney has flip-flopped his position on coal. The ad includes comments that Romney made as Massachusetts governor in 2003 standing in front of a coal plant, saying that he wouldn’t support jobs that kill people.
For his part, Romney is claiming Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is waging a war on coal with a slew of regulations.
The 54-year-old Caputo, who grew up across the street from a coal plant near Fairmont in central West Virginia and has been in the coal industry virtually his whole life, said he couldn’t remember a time UMWA did not endorse a presidential candidate. Caputo is a vice president on the UMWA’s International Executive Board.
“It’s unusual,” he said during an interview at UMWA’s Fairmont office. Caputo, who describes himself as a “hard-core Democrat,” intends to vote for Obama. “I’m loyal to my party,” he said.
David Kameras, a UMWA spokesman based at the union’s headquarters in Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C., said UMWA has not officially completed its endorsement selection decisions for the 2012 election and expects to do so by about mid-September. In 2008, UMWA endorsed Obama in May of that year.
"Our members count on coal-fired power plants and burning of coal to keep jobs,” Caputo said. “We’re a very Democratic union and we try to listen to the rank and file. They’ve sent a clear message that they’re not supportive of the environmental rules that are being put in place.”
Caputo pointed out that many of the biggest EPA rules, including one finalized last December to control mercury and other air toxic pollution from coal plants, were first enacted under Republican administrations, including President George H.W. Bush.
“A lot of our members don’t realize that,” Caputo said. “But whoever is in charge is going to get blamed.”
Caputo also noted that newly discovered resources of shale natural gas found all over the country, including the coal-intensive states of West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, have contributed to coal’s decline as low natural gas prices compel utilities to shift from coal to gas as a power generator.
But politically, the EPA is the culprit for the coal industry’s woes. Throughout Appalachia where Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia converge, the coal industry’s disgruntlement with Obama is plastered on yard signs and billboards.
One billboard alongside a freeway near the Pennsylvania and West Virginia border said drivers were entering “The Obama administration’s no jobs zone.” The billboard was sponsored by a coal-industry group, the Federation for American Coal, Energy, and Security (FACES of Coal). Yard signs seen along back roads and throughout towns juxtapose the word “coal” with “fire Obama.”
Labor groups almost always align with Democratic candidates, and Caputo said the UMWA would be very unlikely to endorse Romney given his record with the coal industry and his positions on labor issues.
“Governor Romney’s record on coal isn’t any better,” Caputo said, referring to the comments Romney made in 2003 that were featured in the Obama ad—and the fact that Romney’s former air chief in Massachusetts, Gina McCarthy, now holds a similar position at Obama’s EPA. “Mitt Romney has never been a friend of our industry," Caputo said. "Now he’s out preaching he’s all for coal, but his history sure doesn’t show that.”
Hat tip to the Chamber’s Jeff Brantley for the story lead.
Who doesn’t love a good list? If you’re in the energy business or just have an interest in which states are leaders in various production categories, check out this information from the U.S. Energy Information Administration:
Coal production (2010)
Natural gas marketed production (2010)
Crude oil production (2011)
Total net electricity generation (2011)
And a few more natural gas numbers courtesy of a State Legislatures article:
In the last two issues of BizVoice magazine, we’ve touched on the fact that there are no nuclear power facilities operating in the state of Indiana. And that fact is true.
While we’ve stated that a nuclear plant in Michigan (the Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant just north of Bridgman, Michigan or 25 miles north of the Hoosier border) supplies Northwest Indiana with a small portion of nuclear power, we didn’t tell the whole story. The Indiana Michigan Power facility actually sends 80% of its 2,200 megawatts to Indiana.
That 80% of the 2,200 MW (about a third of the company’s total generation in Indiana) "assists with our coal, hydro and wind facilities in providing power to our roughly 500,000 customers in Northeast Indiana, East Central Indiana and the South Bend/Mishawaka areas in addition to selling to wholesale customers throughout the state."
Thus, the nuclear facts are now in order. And, who knows, nuclear may one day become a bigger part of the energy mix in Indiana and beyond.
Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for this well-timed and well-written reaction to yesterday’s EPA announcement:
At an unusual gala ceremony on the release of a major new Environmental Protection Agency rule yesterday, chief Lisa Jackson called it "historic" and "a great victory." And she’s right: The rule may be the most expensive the agency has ever issued, and it represents the triumph of the Obama Administration’s green agenda over economic growth and job creation. Congratulations.
The so-called utility rule requires power plants to install "maximum achievable control technology" to reduce mercury emissions and other trace gases. But the true goal of the rule’s 1,117 pages is to harm coal-fired power plants and force large parts of the fleet—the U.S. power system workhorse—to shut down in the name of climate change. The EPA figures the rule will cost $9.6 billion, which is a gross, deliberate underestimate.
In return Ms. Jackson says the public will get billions of dollars of health benefits like less asthma if not a cure for cancer. Those credulous enough to believe her should understand that the total benefits of mercury reduction amount to all of $6 million. That’s total present value, not benefits per year—oh, and that’s an -illion with an "m," which is not normally how things work out in President Obama’s Washington.
The rest of the purported benefits—to be precise, 99.99%—come by double-counting pollution reductions like soot that the EPA regulates through separate programs and therefore most will happen anyway. Using such "co-benefits" is an abuse of the cost-benefit process and shows that Cass Sunstein’s team at the White House regulatory office—many of whom opposed the rule—got steamrolled.
As baseload coal power is retired or idled, the reliability of the electrical grid will be compromised, as every neutral analyst expects. Some utilities like Calpine Corp. and PSEG have claimed in these pages that the reliability concerns are overblown, but the Alfred E. Newman crowd has a vested interest in profiting from the higher wholesale electricity clearing prices that the EPA wants to cause.
Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is charged with protecting reliability, abnegated its statutory responsibilities as the rule was being written.
One FERC economist wrote in a March email that "I don’t think there is any value in continuing to engage EPA on the issues. EPA has indicated that these are their assumptions and have made it clear that are not changed [sic] anything on reliability . . . [EPA] does not directly answer anything associated with local reliability." The EPA repeatedly told Congress that it had "very frequent substantive contact and consultation with FERC."
The EPA also took the extraordinary step of issuing a pre-emptive "enforcement memorandum," which is typically issued only after the EPA determines its rules are being broken. The memo tells utilities that they must admit to violating clean air laws if they can’t retrofit their plants within the EPA’s timeframe at any cost or if shutting down a plant will lead to regional blackouts. Such legal admissions force companies into a de facto EPA receivership and expose them to lawsuits and other liabilities.
The economic harm here is vast, and the utility rule saga—from the EPA’s reckless endangerment to the White House’s failure to temper Ms. Jackson—has been a disgrace.
Having diverse sources of energy is a good thing. But the implications go far beyond the very important Indiana advantage of being a low-cost power producer.
The "other" implications will be the focus on an October 25 half-day summit titled Secure Energy: Our jobs, Our Economy, Our Future. In the words of the organizers, this event "will highlight the critical role North American petroleum and natural gas, particularly secure sources such as Canadian oil, play in America’s and Indiana’s economy."
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is the keynote speaker. Gary Doer, Canadian ambassador to the United States, will also be a presenter. Panel discussion will feature state and national experts.
The Indiana Chamber is a sponsor of the event at the Westin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. Pre-registration is required. Full details available online.
When a lengthy information-gathering/discussion meeting ends with a lot of people nodding their heads and a few "ah-hah" moments, it has generally been a success.
An example is a recent Indiana Vision 2025 task force meeting dealing with energy and water issues. Sounds thrilling, right? But it was most informative and I’m confident the 15 or so business leaders present would agree. (2025, by the way, is the process of the Chamber looking beyond the short term and developing a long-range economic development plan for the state; you’ll hear more as the work continues over the course of the rest of the year).
Expert presenters on nuclear, wind, coal, energy policy and water issues presented a variety of interesting facts and future scenarios. I’ll only scratch the surface here. The task force will use the information and the importance of ensuring adequate, cost-efficent energy and water supplies in helping craft the state’s economic future.
A few numbers: