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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>April 4, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[Salon reveals]<br>
<b>Goldman Sachs has made big promises on climate policy — but where
does the money go?</b><br>
Giant investment bank has loudly trumpeted its climate commitments.
Its actual record tells a different story<br>
By JON SKOLNIK - APRIL 3, 2021 <br>
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. <br>
<br>
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...<br>
- -<br>
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. <br>
<br>
"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." <br>
"We would expect to see clear interim targets," echoed Spalding. "If
you don't see an interim target, it's not meaningful."<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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."<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.salon.com/2021/04/03/goldman-sachs-has-made-big-promises-on-climate-policy--but-where-does-the-money-go/">https://www.salon.com/2021/04/03/goldman-sachs-has-made-big-promises-on-climate-policy--but-where-does-the-money-go/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
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[The Economist $]<br>
<b>Those who worry about CO2 should worry about methane, too</b><br>
It’s the other greenhouse gas<br>
Science & technology<br>
Apr 3rd 2021<br>
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.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/04/03/those-who-worry-about-co2-should-worry-about-methane-too">https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/04/03/those-who-worry-about-co2-should-worry-about-methane-too</a><br>
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[30 min video]<br>
<b>Where Did Earth's Water Come From?</b><br>
Jun 14, 2020<br>
History of the Earth<br>
<blockquote>Written & Researched by Leila Battison. Check out
her channel:-<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXIk7euOGq6jkptjTzEz5kQ">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXIk7euOGq6jkptjTzEz5kQ</a><br>
Script & video edited & by Pete Kelly. Check out his
channel:-<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXIk7euOGq6jkptjTzEz5kQ">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXIk7euOGq6jkptjTzEz5kQ</a><br>
Narrated by David Kelly. Check out his channel:-<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/c/VoicesofthePast/featured">https://www.youtube.com/c/VoicesofthePast/featured</a><br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjDnh7zfO98">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjDnh7zfO98</a><br>
<br>
<br>
[follow the money, leading the meat]<br>
<b>Big Meat and Dairy Companies Have Spent Millions Lobbying Against
Climate Action, a New Study Finds</b><br>
The companies have been slow to make emissions reductions pledges,
and have worked to undercut climate and environmental legislation.<br>
By Georgina Gustin - April 2, 2021<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
“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.”..<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
“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.”..<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.”<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
“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.”<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
“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.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042021/meat-dairy-lobby-climate-action/">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042021/meat-dairy-lobby-climate-action/</a><br>
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[Book tour]<br>
<b>Bill Gates is bullish on climate change mitigation, but warns ‘We
don’t have time to waste’</b><br>
APR 03, 2021 <br>
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.<br>
<blockquote>"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."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.kuow.org/stories/bill-gates-is-bullish-on-climate-change-mitigation-but-warns-we-don-t-have-time-to-waste">https://www.kuow.org/stories/bill-gates-is-bullish-on-climate-change-mitigation-but-warns-we-don-t-have-time-to-waste</a><br>
[Zero by 2030 would be a better goal]<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[waters in motion]<br>
<b><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-have-observed-ominous-winter-leaks-in-greenl-1846592038Scientists">https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-have-observed-ominous-winter-leaks-in-greenl-1846592038Scientists</a>
Have Observed Ominous Winter Leaks in Greenland Ice Sheet Lakes</b><br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
“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,”...<br>
..<br>
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.”<br>
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.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-have-observed-ominous-winter-leaks-in-greenl-1846592038">https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-have-observed-ominous-winter-leaks-in-greenl-1846592038</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
[Article]<br>
<b>A low-cost method for monitoring snow characteristics at remote
field sites</b><br>
Rosamond J. Tutton and Robert G. Way<br>
Department of Geography and Planning, Queen's University, Kingston,
ON K7L 3N9, Canada<br>
Received: 21 Jul 2020 – Discussion started: 29 Jul 2020 – Revised:
24 Oct 2020 – Accepted: 02 Nov 2020 – Published: 04 Jan 2021<br>
<blockquote><b>Abstract</b><br>
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.<br>
</blockquote>
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, <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1-2021">https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1-2021</a>, 2021...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/1/2021/">https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/1/2021/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[discussing a new paper YouTube]<br>
<b>Imminent Global Ocean Tipping Points: Ocean Warming,
Acidification, and Deoxygenation</b><br>
Apr 3, 2021<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
- -<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
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. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55mFyvWRYZA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55mFyvWRYZA</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[difficult combinations of ocean calamities]<br>
<b>The quiet crossing of ocean tipping points</b><br>
PNAS March 2, 2021 118 (9) e2008478118;
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2008478118">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2008478118</a><br>
<blockquote>Abstract<br>
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.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.pnas.org/content/118/9/e2008478118.short?rss%3D1">https://www.pnas.org/content/118/9/e2008478118.short?rss%3D1</a><br>
Article Figures and SI
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.pnas.org/content/118/9/e2008478118/tab-figures-data">https://www.pnas.org/content/118/9/e2008478118/tab-figures-data</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Dire Reports continuing ]<br>
<b>Weather Service Internet systems are crumbling as key platforms
are taxed and failing</b><br>
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<br>
By Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow<br>
March 30, 2021<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
In addition to Tuesday morning’s outage, the Weather Service has
encountered numerous, repeated problems with its Internet services
in recent months, including:<br>
<blockquote>-- a bandwidth shortage that forced it to propose and
implement limits to the amount of data its customers can download;<br>
-- the launch of a radar website that functioned inadequately and
enraged users;<br>
-- a flood at its data center in Silver Spring, Md., that has
stripped access to key ocean buoy observations; and<br>
-- multiple outages to NWS Chat, its program for conveying
critical information to broadcasters and emergency managers,
relied upon during severe weather events.<br>
</blockquote>
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.<br>
<br>
‘This is not rocket science.’ Years after a fix was promised,
National Weather Service website still unreliable.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
‘Major, national outage’ Tuesday<br>
Tuesday morning’s outage meant the Weather Service’s flagship
website, weather.gov was down, cutting off access to its forecasts
and warnings.<br>
<br>
“There is a major, national outage impacting the distribution of NWS
products,” tweeted the Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center
in College Park, Md.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
The lack of data limited what model data and observations Weather
Service meteorologists could use to make forecasts.<br>
<br>
Meteorologists and Weather Service constituents took to Twitter to
complain about the outage, many noting the chronic issues with its
Internet services:<br>
<blockquote>-- “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.<br>
-- “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.<br>
-- “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.<br>
-- “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.<br>
-- “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.<br>
</blockquote>
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...<br>
[snip]<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/03/30/nws-internet-infrastructure-outages/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/03/30/nws-internet-infrastructure-outages/</a><br>
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<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
April 4, 2002</b></font><br>
The New York Times reports:<br>
<blockquote><b>Executive Order Followed Energy Industry
Recommendation, Documents Show</b><br>
By Don van Natta Jr. - April 4, 2002<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.''<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
''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.<br>
<br>
In January 2000, the association began lobbying the Clinton
administration for a similar law or executive order, but that
administration rejected the recommendation.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
''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.''<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Environmental groups have complained that they had almost no say
in the formulation of the national energy policy.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
''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.<br>
<br>
The council discovered the parallels in language between the trade
association groups' proposals and the two executive orders.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
''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.''<br>
<br>
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.''<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
''It's an important distinction,'' she said, arguing that not
everything the gas association recommended was included in the
executive order.<br>
<br>
The American Gas Association submitted its proposed legislation on
energy policy to the Energy Department on March 22, 2001.<br>
<br>
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.''<br>
<br>
Two weeks later, Mr. Henry sent an e-mail message to Andrew
Lundquist, the executive director of the energy task force.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.''<br>
<br>
The next day, Mr. Bush followed that recommendation, signing the
executive order called ''Actions To Expedite Energy-Related
Projects.''<br>
<br>
Chart: ''FOR THE RECORD -- Two Statements on Energy Policy''<br>
<br>
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:<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
From the executive order signed by President Bush on May 18, 2001:<br>
<br>
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.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/04/us/executive-order-followed-energy-industry-recommendation-documents-show.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/04/us/executive-order-followed-energy-industry-recommendation-documents-show.html</a>
<p><br>
</p>
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