SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
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Energy industry preparing for limits

Monday, August 28, 2006

By ZACHARY COILE
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

WASHINGTON -- When the head of the American Public Power Association spoke recently to electric utility operators in Minnesota, he had a straightforward message: Federal regulation of greenhouse gases is coming. Get ready for it.

"The issue is no longer whether there is a human contribution to global warming but the extent of that contribution," said Alan Richardson, president and chief executive of the group, whose members supply 15 percent of the nation's power. There is, he added, "an emerging public consensus and a building political directive that inaction is not a viable strategy."

For years, most industry groups have fought any effort to limit carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming, warning of dire consequences for the U.S. economy. But with growing public anxiety about climate change, major corporations are increasingly preparing for -- and in some cases lobbying for -- Congress to regulate emissions of heat-trapping gases.

The industry's response is evolving in spite of opposition by the Bush administration to limits on carbon dioxide.

But businesses are reading the political tea leaves. Legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions is gaining ground in Congress with members of both parties. States, especially California and those in the Northeast, are moving forward with climate-change regulations. Two likely presidential hopefuls for 2008 -- Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York -- have called for reining in greenhouse gases.

"The scientific evidence is real," said Betsy Moler, vice president for government and environmental affairs at Exelon Corp. of Chicago, an energy firm that supports a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions. "When you have the likes of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, a conservative Republican, and he says he has seen the changes in his lifetime in the Arctic, there is just no doubt that something has to happen."

The trend became clear in April, when the Senate called America's top energy companies -- including some of the nation's largest emitters of greenhouse gases -- to testify about new legislation to regulate emissions.

Six leading energy companies went on record supporting mandatory limits on emissions of CO2, including Shell, Duke Energy, Exelon, General Electric, Sempra Energy and PNM Resources, a utility based in Albuquerque, N.M. Even the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, voiced its support for new limits on greenhouse gases.

Only two energy firms testifying opposed new regulation: American Electric Power and the Southern Company, electric utilities in the Midwest and South whose power plants are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the country. Both companies prefer a system of voluntary reductions by industry favored by the Bush administration.

"There is a split in industry -- there are the forward-leaners and the knuckle-draggers," said David Doniger, the top climate change official at the Environmental Protection Agency under former President Clinton, now a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"The forward-leaners are looking realistically at the future. Either they agree that global warming is real and needs to be addressed -- and that means regulation -- or they see it as inevitable that it will happen even if they don't agree," Doniger said. "Then you have the knuckle-draggers who are just trying to use their political force to put it off as long as possible."

BP, formerly British Petroleum, cut its carbon emissions by 10 percent across its refineries and plants. The firm's chief executive, Lord John Browne, set the goal in 1997 when he gave a speech at his alma mater, Stanford University, that marked the first time an oil company chief had acknowledged that the burning of fossil fuels was contributing to global warming.

BP announced plans in February to build a $1 billion plant at its refinery in Carson, Calif., to convert petroleum coke, a byproduct of oil refining, into hydrogen.

The plant will generate 500 megawatts of power, but 90 percent of the carbon emissions will be pumped underground into nearby oil fields -- boosting oil recovery while preventing the release of 4 million tons of CO2 a year into the atmosphere.

Critics have noted the contrast between BP and another oil giant, Exxon Mobil Corp., which has spent millions of dollars funding groups that question global warming science and oppose carbon regulation.

The auto industry also has resisted climate-change legislation and is battling California in federal court over the state's landmark law limiting tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. But, as in the oil industry, there are divisions among the automakers.

In a speech at the National Press Club recently, Jim Press, president of Toyota North America, challenged other automakers to work with Congress to set reasonable goals for boosting fuel efficiency and curbing greenhouse gases.

"It's time for us to stop being the 'against' industry and to come out strong for something important, like a better Earth and a better quality of life," Press said.

Corporations are keenly aware that lawmakers' views on climate change are shifting. For years, hearings in Congress focused on whether global warming was real. But in June 2005, the Senate passed a non-binding sense of the Senate resolution stating that human activity is contributing to rising temperatures and that Congress should enact legislation to "slow, stop and reverse the growth" of greenhouse gas emissions.

While Congress has yet to pass legislation, many states are rushing to fill the void.

Earlier this month, seven Northeast states reached an agreement to cap carbon dioxide emissions from their power plants at current levels from 2009 to 2015 and gradually reduce them by 10 percent by 2019.

California also is considering legislation to require all businesses in the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It's another reason industry groups want federal regulation: They fear a patchwork of state rules, some of which could be tougher than any future federal standard.

© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

 
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Study says Europe's seasons shifting

LONDON, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Scientists say earlier springs and later autumns are proof that global warming is responsible for altering the timing of the seasons in Europe.

The Guardian reported Saturday on what is believed to be the world's largest study of seasonal events, such as the flowering of plants, autumnal leaves falling and insect behavior, that have caused scientists to believe that spring now arrives six-to-eight days earlier across Europe than it did in the early 1970s.

And warmer temperatures have delayed autumn by an average of three days in the past 30 years.

Scientists predict that the shifting of the seasons will threaten plants, birds and insects and urge action to counter global warming.

Countries that have experienced the greatest warming saw the earliest springs, according to the study in the journal Global Change Biology.

"Not only do we clearly demonstrate change in the timing of seasons, but that change is much stronger in countries that have experienced more warming," Tim Sparks, an environmental scientist on the study at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Monks Wood, told The Guardian.

Sparks said the shifting seasons were already disrupting sensitive ecosystems by knocking natural processes, such as pollination, out of kilter.

Scientists from 17 countries took part in the study.