[TheClimate.Vote] April 4, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Apr 4 08:54:26 EDT 2021
/*April 4, 2021*/
[Salon reveals]
*Goldman Sachs has made big promises on climate policy — but where does
the money go?*
Giant investment bank has loudly trumpeted its climate commitments. Its
actual record tells a different story
By JON SKOLNIK - APRIL 3, 2021
Since the mid-2000s, Goldman Sachs — the world's second largest
investment bank, with an estimated $44.56 billion in revenue last year —
has repeatedly expressed its concern about climate change and promised
to deploy its immense financial clout to combat it. But Goldman is also
one of the world's largest financiers of the fossil fuel industry, and
its actual record does not appear to live up to its pro-green rhetoric.
In 2006, for example, the same year Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient
Truth" framed climate change as a "planetary emergency," Goldman
distinguished itself as an early bird in climate action. It launched the
Center for Environmental Markets, partnering with a cohort of academic
institutions, corporations and NGOs to "catalyze much-needed capital
flows towards environmentally beneficial solutions," and made the first
in a series of promises to scale down its involvement in the fossil fuel
industry...
- -
Another sobering reality is that the time horizon of Goldman's purported
commitment simply is not adequate to the scale of the disaster. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently posited that the
average temperature of the Earth may increase by 1.5°C in the next five
to seven years. According to climate scientist Kevin Anderson, a mere
4°C net increase in the global temperature will "devastate the majority
of ecosystems" and is "incompatible with an organized global community."
This reality poses a colossal challenge for financial institutions
looking to make a meaningful impact on climate change, and evinces the
need for aggressive interim targets.
"The work isn't done with the pledge," said Horster. "We as a civil
society need to hold banks accountable every year. They need to make
sure that carbon removal becomes scalable, and the time for that is long
before 2050."
"We would expect to see clear interim targets," echoed Spalding. "If you
don't see an interim target, it's not meaningful."
Goldman has promised to "set interim business-related climate targets by
the end of 2021." But the bank has not outlined what those targets will
be or how it plans to reach them. Previous targets set by Goldman have
been flimsily premised. In its Environmental Policy Framework from 2005,
Goldman promised to "achieve carbon neutrality across our own operations
from 2015 onwards and target 100 percent renewable power to meet our
global electricity needs by 2020." In the company's latest statement
from March 2021, it claims to have delivered on this promise.
But according to a carbon emissions report conducted by APEX Companies,
Goldman consumed 549,940 megawatt-hours of energy in 2018 alone. That
number corresponds to roughly 50,000 times average household energy
consumption in the northwestern U.S., according to the Northwest Power
and Conservation Council. In terms of corporate comparisons, Goldman
consumes more than eight times as much energy as Blackrock, but is less
than three times its size. Goldman has said it is still "progressing
toward [its] goal of 100% renewable power."
In one corporate document, Goldman Sachs called climate change "one of
the most significant environmental challenges of the 21st century,"
adding that "urgent action by government, business, consumers and civil
society is necessary to curb greenhouse gas emissions." Climate
activists would agree, but if this investment Goliath truly means what
it says about the necessity of "urgent action," then it needs to move
beyond rhetoric and change its behavior.
https://www.salon.com/2021/04/03/goldman-sachs-has-made-big-promises-on-climate-policy--but-where-does-the-money-go/
[The Economist $]
*Those who worry about CO2 should worry about methane, too*
It’s the other greenhouse gas
Science & technology
Apr 3rd 2021
Politics, Otto von Bismarck is supposed to have said, is the art of the
possible. And one of the most depressing features of discussions about
global warming is their tendency to take place in a fantasy land of the
politically impossible. Few people in those parts of the world made rich
by carbon-dioxide-emitting enterprise are going to volunteer for a cut
in living standards. And it is hard to ask those from parts of the world
that are not yet rich to sacrifice the chance to become so.
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/04/03/those-who-worry-about-co2-should-worry-about-methane-too
[30 min video]
*Where Did Earth's Water Come From?*
Jun 14, 2020
History of the Earth
Written & Researched by Leila Battison. Check out her channel:-
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXIk7euOGq6jkptjTzEz5kQ
Script & video edited & by Pete Kelly. Check out his channel:-
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXIk7euOGq6jkptjTzEz5kQ
Narrated by David Kelly. Check out his channel:-
https://www.youtube.com/c/VoicesofthePast/featured
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjDnh7zfO98
[follow the money, leading the meat]
*Big Meat and Dairy Companies Have Spent Millions Lobbying Against
Climate Action, a New Study Finds*
The companies have been slow to make emissions reductions pledges, and
have worked to undercut climate and environmental legislation.
By Georgina Gustin - April 2, 2021
Top U.S. meat and dairy companies, along with livestock and agricultural
lobbying groups, have spent millions campaigning against climate action
and sowing doubt about the links between animal agriculture and climate
change, according to new research from New York University.
The study, published this week in the journal Climatic Change, also said
the world’s biggest meat and dairy companies aren’t doing enough to curb
their greenhouse gas emissions, with only a handful making pledges to
reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
“These companies are some of the world’s biggest contributors to climate
change,” said Oliver Lazarus, one of the study’s three authors, now a
doctoral student at Harvard University. “They’ve spent a considerable
amount of time and money downplaying the link between animal agriculture
and climate change.”..
Top U.S. meat and dairy companies, along with livestock and agricultural
lobbying groups, have spent millions campaigning against climate action
and sowing doubt about the links between animal agriculture and climate
change, according to new research from New York University.
The study, published this week in the journal Climatic Change, also said
the world’s biggest meat and dairy companies aren’t doing enough to curb
their greenhouse gas emissions, with only a handful making pledges to
reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
“These companies are some of the world’s biggest contributors to climate
change,” said Oliver Lazarus, one of the study’s three authors, now a
doctoral student at Harvard University. “They’ve spent a considerable
amount of time and money downplaying the link between animal agriculture
and climate change.”..
Industry lobby groups—the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the
National Pork Producers Council, the North American Meat Institute, the
National Chicken Council, the International Dairy Foods Association and
the American Farm Bureau Federation, along with its state members—spent
nearly $200 million, much of it lobbying against climate and
environmental regulations, from 2000 to 2019, the authors found.
A spokesperson for the National Pork Producers Council said the
organization voted against a cap-and-trade bill specifically because it
“would have converted massive amounts of cropland to forest” at a time
when pork producers were already struggling to gain access to feed.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the North American Meat
Institute (NAMI), the new study said, published or funded research
downplaying the emissions from livestock production, often pointing to
the low percentage relative to overall U.S. emissions.
Sarah Little, a spokeswoman for NAMI, said the report referenced
outdated documents. “NAMI members are at the forefront of research and
innovation to strengthen meat’s contributions and ambitious commitments
to healthy diets and protecting our environment. The U.S. meat sector
has dramatically reduced its impact on the environment in recent
decades, including by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions…. This
study was already outdated the day it was researched.”
The nine U.S.-based companies covered in the report emitted 6 percent of
overall U.S. emissions, the study found, but emitted about 350 million
metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s on the same scale as Brazil, which
has the highest carbon footprint from animal agriculture and where the
top four livestock companies emitted about 380 million metric tons of
the greenhouse gas annually. But that amounts to about 28 percent of
that country’s emissions.
“The US industry really leans on Brazil’s terrible carbon footprint to
compare to its own,” Jacquet said, but domestic agriculture is “high in
terms of absolute emissions.”
The report also notes that the U.S. companies’ emissions totals
presented in the study don’t include those connected to production
outside of the U.S.
The authors pointed out in an interview that there’s been ample academic
research into the fossil fuel industry’s attempts to influence public
discourse, but that a similar body of research into the agriculture
industry’s efforts has not yet emerged. That could largely be
attributed, they said, to the fact that very little agricultural
research is done outside of industry-influenced universities or by
independent researchers.
“It’s not surprising that they’re this active in shaping climate
discourse,” Lazarus said, referring to the livestock companies. “What
we’re trying to do is show the extent to which that has largely been
ignored.”
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042021/meat-dairy-lobby-climate-action/
[Book tour]
*Bill Gates is bullish on climate change mitigation, but warns ‘We don’t
have time to waste’*
APR 03, 2021
Gates says the path forward rests on three foundations: Let science and
innovation lead the way. Make sure solutions work for poor countries
too. And start now.
"If you want to understand the kind of damage that climate change
will inflict, look at Covid-19 and spread the pain out over a much
longer period of time. The loss of life and economic misery caused
by this pandemic are on par with what will happen regularly if we do
not eliminate the world’s carbon emissions."
https://www.kuow.org/stories/bill-gates-is-bullish-on-climate-change-mitigation-but-warns-we-don-t-have-time-to-waste
[Zero by 2030 would be a better goal]
[waters in motion]
*https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-have-observed-ominous-winter-leaks-in-greenl-1846592038Scientists
Have Observed Ominous Winter Leaks in Greenland Ice Sheet Lakes*
For the first time ever, scientists have shown that lakes on Greenland’s
ice sheet can drain during the winter months, in a phenomenon that could
accelerate the rate of glacial melt.
The rate at which the second largest ice sheet in the world is draining
into the northern Atlantic ocean may be occurring faster than we think,
according to new research published in the Cryosphere on Wednesday.
As the new paper shows, water that collects on the surface of the
Greenland ice sheet during the summer can remain in a liquid state
during the winter and leak through cracks that appear along the surface,
sending it down to the base below. The drained water then acts like a
greasy lubricant, increasing the speed at which ice shelf can move.
That’s not an encouraging finding in this, the era of human-induced
climate change where Greenland is already losing six times more ice than
it was in the 1980s.
“One of the unknowns in terms of predicting the future of the ice sheet
is how fast the glaciers move—whether they will speed up and if so, by
how much,”...
..
The new study, while interesting and illuminating, remains incomplete.
As the authors themselves note in the paper, future research is needed
to determine if the winter lake drainage is happening elsewhere in
Greenland, and if it has happened during other years. The scientists are
also hoping to acquire a better understanding of the “triggering
mechanisms,” and how the water cycle and chemistry (both geological and
biological) are affected. And of course, they’d also like to know if
“winter lake drainage will become more prevalent under future climate
warming scenarios.”
Greenland’s ice sheet has suffered a host of shocks over the past few
years. Soot from wildfires, extreme summer heat, and even abnormally
sunny weather have all sped up its melt in recent years, and all have
been linked to climate change. No doubt, climate change could be
amplifying the process, necessitating a rethink of Greenland’s ice sheet
and its current—and future—rate of movement and melt. If true, it would
represent yet another example of the long reach imposed by global warming.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-have-observed-ominous-winter-leaks-in-greenl-1846592038
- -
[Article]
*A low-cost method for monitoring snow characteristics at remote field
sites*
Rosamond J. Tutton and Robert G. Way
Department of Geography and Planning, Queen's University, Kingston, ON
K7L 3N9, Canada
Received: 21 Jul 2020 – Discussion started: 29 Jul 2020 – Revised: 24
Oct 2020 – Accepted: 02 Nov 2020 – Published: 04 Jan 2021
*Abstract*
The lack of spatially distributed snow depth measurements in natural
environments is a challenge worldwide. These data gaps are of
particular relevance in northern regions such as coastal Labrador
where changes to snow conditions directly impact Indigenous
livelihoods, local vegetation, permafrost distribution and wildlife
habitat. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of cost-efficient
and reliable snow observation methods available to researchers
studying cryosphere–vegetation interactions in remote regions. We
propose a new method termed snow characterization with light and
temperature (SCLT) for estimating snow depth using vertically
arranged multivariate (light and temperature) data loggers. To test
this new approach, six snow stakes outfitted with SCLT loggers were
installed in forested and tundra ecotypes in Arctic and subarctic
Labrador. The results from 1 year of field measurement indicate that
daily maximum light intensity (lux) at snow-covered sensors is
diminished by more than an order of magnitude compared to uncovered
sensors. This contrast enables differentiation between snow coverage
at different sensor heights and allows for robust determination of
daily snow heights throughout the year. Further validation of SCLT
and the inclusion of temperature determinants is needed to resolve
ambiguities with thresholds for snow detection and to elucidate the
impacts of snow density on retrieved light and temperature profiles.
However, the results presented in this study suggest that the
proposed technique represents a significant improvement over prior
methods for snow depth characterization at remote field sites in
terms of practicality, simplicity and versatility.
How to cite -- Tutton, R. J. and Way, R. G.: A low-cost method for
monitoring snow characteristics at remote field sites, The Cryosphere,
15, 1–15, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1-2021, 2021...
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/1/2021/
[discussing a new paper YouTube]
*Imminent Global Ocean Tipping Points: Ocean Warming, Acidification, and
Deoxygenation*
Apr 3, 2021
Paul Beckwith
- -
The ocean is a giant reservoir for heat and dissolved carbon. Since the
beginning of the industrial revolution the oceans have taken up about 30
- 40% of the total CO2 emitted by humanity, as well as roughly 93% of
the heat added to our planet from global warming. There is a huge cost
to the oceans, with the heating we are getting much higher marine
temperatures throughout the water column, and with the added CO2 we are
getting ocean acidification. There are a myriad of consequences for
marine biochemistry, geochemistry, and for all ocean life, including the
loss of oxygen dissolved in the water.
I chat mostly about the key points in the new peer-reviewed scientific
paper titled “The Quiet Crossing of Ocean Tipping Points”, namely that
the most imminent problems are ocean warming, ocean acidification, and
ocean deoxygenation. In many of my videos I talk about extreme weather
events increasing greatly in frequency, severity, and duration and we
are also seeing this in extreme ocean “weather” events, for example
marine heat waves, coastal hypoxia, and ocean acidification events
linked to strong upwelling episodes. The paper emphasizes that the ocean
warming, acidification, and deoxygenation are all high-probability,
high-impact ocean tipping points in the oceans physical, chemical, and
biological systems. Although often fragmented both regionally and in
time, the cumulative compounding effects really affect the entire ocean.
The ocean tipping elements exhibit the characteristics of threshold,
highly nonlinear behaviour, bifurcation, regime shifts, and system
reorganization associated with math theory on tipping points.
I also touch on some of the grave consequences of ocean tipping points,
including coral reef bleaching, phytoplankton loss at the base of the
marine food web, ocean plastics, ocean currents weakening and switching,
ocean stratification reducing vertical mixing with depth, sea surface
temperatures going much higher than the 26.5C threshold for powering
stronger, larger, more rapidly intensifying hurricanes, typhoons, and
cyclone tropical storms.
Warmer oceans do not hold as much dissolved gas, so with less oxygen in
the water, and stressed ecosystems, we are getting large species
migrations from lower latitudes to higher latitudes. The deoxygenation
in the Gulf of Mexico that has been caused mostly by excessive nutrient
runoff from rivers has created so called ocean dead zones for many
years. More concerning is that we are now getting deoxygenation in many
parts of the open ocean, most notably in the low latitude Pacific Ocean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55mFyvWRYZA
- -
[difficult combinations of ocean calamities]
*The quiet crossing of ocean tipping points*
PNAS March 2, 2021 118 (9) e2008478118;
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2008478118
Abstract
Anthropogenic climate change profoundly alters the ocean’s
environmental conditions, which, in turn, impact marine ecosystems.
Some of these changes are happening fast and may be difficult to
reverse. The identification and monitoring of such changes, which
also includes tipping points, is an ongoing and emerging research
effort. Prevention of negative impacts requires mitigation efforts
based on feasible research-based pathways. Climate-induced tipping
points are traditionally associated with singular catastrophic
events (relative to natural variations) of dramatic negative impact.
High-probability high-impact ocean tipping points due to warming,
ocean acidification, and deoxygenation may be more fragmented both
regionally and in time but add up to global dimensions. These
tipping points in combination with gradual changes need to be
addressed as seriously as singular catastrophic events in order to
prevent the cumulative and often compounding negative societal and
Earth system impacts.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/9/e2008478118.short?rss%3D1
Article Figures and SI
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/9/e2008478118/tab-figures-data
[Dire Reports continuing ]
*Weather Service Internet systems are crumbling as key platforms are
taxed and failing*
Most of the agency’s online systems went down Tuesday, and during last
week’s tornado outbreak in the South, a vital resource for relaying
information crashed
By Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow
March 30, 2021
The National Weather Service experienced a major, systemwide Internet
failure Tuesday morning, making its forecasts and warnings inaccessible
to the public and limiting the data available to its meteorologists.
The outage highlights systemic, long-standing issues with its
information technology infrastructure, which the agency has struggled to
address as demands for its services have only increased.
In addition to Tuesday morning’s outage, the Weather Service has
encountered numerous, repeated problems with its Internet services in
recent months, including:
-- a bandwidth shortage that forced it to propose and implement
limits to the amount of data its customers can download;
-- the launch of a radar website that functioned inadequately and
enraged users;
-- a flood at its data center in Silver Spring, Md., that has
stripped access to key ocean buoy observations; and
-- multiple outages to NWS Chat, its program for conveying critical
information to broadcasters and emergency managers, relied upon
during severe weather events.
Problems with the stability and reliability of the Weather Service’s
information dissemination infrastructure date back to at least 2013,
when Capital Weather Gang began reporting on the issue.
‘This is not rocket science.’ Years after a fix was promised, National
Weather Service website still unreliable.
The Weather Service is working to evaluate and implement solutions to
these problems which are, in the meantime, impacting its ability to
fulfill its mission of protecting life and property.
‘Major, national outage’ Tuesday
Tuesday morning’s outage meant the Weather Service’s flagship website,
weather.gov was down, cutting off access to its forecasts and warnings.
“There is a major, national outage impacting the distribution of NWS
products,” tweeted the Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in
College Park, Md.
The Weather Service’s central operations center issued a bulletin at
5:11 a.m. highlighting failures nationwide, which included its forecast
offices losing contact with the agency’s networks “impacting product
dissemination and data reception,” inoperable websites and no access to
NWS Chat.
The lack of data limited what model data and observations Weather
Service meteorologists could use to make forecasts.
Meteorologists and Weather Service constituents took to Twitter to
complain about the outage, many noting the chronic issues with its
Internet services:
-- “Why do things like this keep happening? It’s inexcusable at this
point. The folks at NWS are constantly dealing with IT hurdles to
get their message out in recent months. The frequency and
complications are about the absolute worst I’ve seen,” tweeted Matt
Lanza, a Houston-based meteorologist in the energy industry.
-- “There are absolutely no words appropriate for twitter that can
describe how maddening it is that in the year 2021, the richest and
most powerful government on Earth cannot get lifesaving weather
forecasting information to its citizens because of an internal
internet outage,” tweeted Jack Sillin, a meteorology student at
Cornell University.
-- “The perpetual tech issues that NWS has to deal with are
completely unacceptable. The response capabilities of the entire
country are undermined when this happens,” tweeted Samantha Montano,
a disaster specialist.
-- “The @NWS outages are just part and parcel of our country’s
massive infrastructure problems. It’s hard to imagine meaningful
climate resilience without addressing our literally crumbling
bridges, broken roads, and 1995 data services,” tweeted Kathie
Dello, the state climatologist for North Carolina.
-- “A seven hour outage of the NWS heading into the peak of severe
weather season.....so lucky that it was an extremely quiet evening.
Fiber cut or not, this is not the beginning or end of IT issues in
the NWS. I’d demand congressional investigation into this before the
pimple pops,” tweeted Victor Gensini, a professor of meteorology at
Northern Illinois University.
By midmorning Tuesday, the Internet problems appeared to be resolved,
but cast new light on numerous other information technology problems the
Weather Service has faced in recent weeks and months...
[snip]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/03/30/nws-internet-infrastructure-outages/
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - April 4, 2002*
The New York Times reports:
*Executive Order Followed Energy Industry Recommendation, Documents
Show*
By Don van Natta Jr. - April 4, 2002
President Bush signed an executive order last year that closely
resembles a written recommendation given to the administration two
months earlier by the American Gas Association, according to
documents released by the Bush administration.
The executive order called for the creation of an interagency energy
task force to accelerate the time it takes for government agencies
to review corporations' applications for permits for energy-related
projects, like power plants and the exploration of oil and natural
gas on public lands. Mr. Bush signed the order last May.
The language in Mr. Bush's executive order is similar to a passage
in a proposed energy bill sent in March 2001 to the Energy
Department by officials at the American Gas Association, the trade
group that represents large natural gas companies and has given more
than $500,000 to the Republican Party since 1999.
Establish a task force ''to streamline regulation of exploration and
production on federal lands,'' the gas association wrote in its
recommendation. The executive order established a task force ''to
monitor and assist the agencies in their efforts to expedite their
review of permits or similar actions, as necessary, to accelerate
the completion of energy-related projects.''
Officials of the gas association said they were thrilled to learn
that their proposed legislation had been adopted by the president as
an executive order, bypassing the much more time-consuming process
of trying to get the provision passed as part of the energy bill
being considered by the Senate.
''We considered it a very welcome step because it was an action we
had been calling for for some time to streamline the process for
pipeline certification,'' said Daphne Magnuson, a spokeswoman for
the association.
In January 2000, the association began lobbying the Clinton
administration for a similar law or executive order, but that
administration rejected the recommendation.
White House officials said today that the executive orders Mr. Bush
signed reflected the administration's commitment to reducing the
bureaucratic and duplicative permit process that can often delay new
energy production projects for years.
''The goal of the executive order is to expedite the permit
process,'' said Anne Womack, a White House spokeswoman. ''While you
are meeting all these regulatory guidelines, you are also giving
companies the chance to build clean burning power plants more
quickly. This is completely consistent with the goal of the energy
task force, which was to provide more energy to the American people
in a clean and safe manner.''
The American Gas Association is among the most generous energy
industry supporters of the Republican Party, contributing a total of
$505,348 since 1999, according to Federal Election Commission data
compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Environmental groups have complained that they had almost no say in
the formulation of the national energy policy.
The proposal for the task force was one of two executive orders Mr.
Bush signed on May 18, 2001, the day after the White House released
its national energy report. The second order closely tracks a draft
executive order submitted by the American Petroleum Institute, a
trade group that represents the nation's largest oil companies. That
order involved government regulations that affect energy supply and
distribution.
Officials of environmental groups said they were outraged that the
president signed two executive orders that had been recommended by
large industry trade groups. Both orders, they say, benefit the
energy industry.
''I see this as yet another example of the energy industry holding
the pen for the president,'' said Sharon Buccino, a senior lawyer at
the Natural Resources Defense Council, which sued for the documents
released last week by the Energy Department.
The council discovered the parallels in language between the trade
association groups' proposals and the two executive orders.
Ms. Womack, the White House spokeswoman, said the energy report was
the product of a balanced process that heard the voices of a wide
array of experts.
''We obviously received a tremendous amount of input from a great
variety of sources, corporations, environmental groups, trade
groups, labor unions, individuals and members of Congress,'' she
said. ''And those suggestions were examined and if there was merit
to them, they were discussed and sometimes components of them ended
up in the energy plan.''
Ms. Magnuson of the American Gas Association said, ''I know that we
provided this material to the Bush administration, but we also
aggressively provided it to the Clinton administration, to Secretary
Bill Richardson, to Vice President Gore.''
The documents reflecting the trade association's recommendation were
in the 11,000 documents released last week by the Energy Department,
which was ordered by a federal judge to do so. For 11 months, the
administration had refused to release thousands of pages of
documents related to the formulation of its national energy plan.
Lawsuits have been brought by several public interest groups that
are trying to determine whether industry executives influenced the
writing of the administration's energy plan.
The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress,
has sued Vice President Dick Cheney to get lists of corporate
executives who helped the administration formulate its energy policy.
Ms. Womack said there was an important distinction between the
American Gas Association's recommendation and the president's
executive order. The trade group had asked specifically for a
provision involving the ''regulation of exploration and production
on federal lands (including federal waters and the Outer Continental
Shelf).'' Ms. Womack pointed out that the recommended provision was
not used in the president's executive order.
''It's an important distinction,'' she said, arguing that not
everything the gas association recommended was included in the
executive order.
The American Gas Association submitted its proposed legislation on
energy policy to the Energy Department on March 22, 2001.
Darrell Henry, the director of public affairs for the trade group,
wrote a memorandum to Joseph Kelliher, who was then a Department of
Energy policy adviser, that outlined the group's ''energy policy
principles.'' Part of its proposal was an interagency task force
that would ''streamline regulation.''
Two weeks later, Mr. Henry sent an e-mail message to Andrew
Lundquist, the executive director of the energy task force.
Then, on May 4, 2001, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham met with
three officials of the American Gas Association in his office,
according to Mr. Abraham's calendar, which was included in documents
released by the Energy Department last week.
Two weeks later, the White House's national energy policy was
released. In Chapter 3, the task force recommended that the
president issue an executive order that would establish an
interagency task force ''to ensure that federal agencies responsible
for permitting energy-related facilities are coordinating their
efforts.''
The next day, Mr. Bush followed that recommendation, signing the
executive order called ''Actions To Expedite Energy-Related Projects.''
Chart: ''FOR THE RECORD -- Two Statements on Energy Policy''
From recommendations on energy policy submitted to the White House
by the American Gas Association on March 22, 2001, as provided by
the Natural Resources Defense Council:
Establish, within the Office of National Energy Policy, an
interagency and intergovernmental task force on energy and federal
lands to streamline regulation of exploration and production on
federal lands (including federal waters and the outer continental
shelf), while protecting the environment.
From the executive order signed by President Bush on May 18, 2001:
There is established an interagency task force to monitor and assist
the agencies in their efforts to expedite their review of permits or
similar actions, as necessary, to accelerate the completion of
energy-related projects, increase energy production and
conservation, and improve transmission of energy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/04/us/executive-order-followed-energy-industry-recommendation-documents-show.html
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