World leaders last week began their meeting in Paris to address the crisis that will impact the lives of billions: climate change. This week in CIB.

Climate Change Update: UN Conference Has High Hopes

The United Nations Conference on Climate Change kicked off in Paris last week with high hopes for a binding deal that will include increased pledges from developed nations to reduce carbon emissions and major pledges of aid to developing nations to enable them to modernize using efficiency and clean energy.

In one noteworthy development at the beginning of the week, a coalition of leaders from 19 nations (including the U.S.) and 28 corporations pledged a doubling of clean energy spending to $20 billion. (The private parties are the “Breakthrough Energy Coalition” led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.) Negotiators are seeking to shift national investments from fossil fuel subsidies to clean energy investments.

A good summary of key points going into the conference can be found on The Climate Post (sponsored by the Nicholas Institute in North Carolina) can be found here.

League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Board Chair Carol Browner commented in a statement on the start of the conference: “The American people and people around the world are eager for an ambitious agreement that brings together all countries to transition away from dirty energy and toward clean, renewable energy. A Paris agreement can move the world forward on a path that allows us to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and achieves a true clean energy economy.”

Administrative Watch: DEQ Blames EPA for DEQ’s Failures

The NC Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ) last week continued its pattern of blaming someone else for its own failure to require cleanup of coal ash pollution.

DEQ assistant secretary Tom Reeder lashed out at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), claiming that it was “single-handedly” delaying ash cleanup with “delays and interference.”

In fact, responded EPA, it has provided consistent advice on handling of the problem, and it has had to require additional review time because the state’s proposed permit for removal of wet ash from the Riverbend plant site “contains significant changes from previous drafts.” Even Duke Energy seemed to back that up, when its spokesperson told a reporter that the state’s proposed permit has repeatedly changed and that plant operator Duke was “trying to keep up with all the versions.”

What seems to be the problem? Perhaps it’s what citizen conservationists have repeatedly pointed out: DEQ’s failure to require that Duke address groundwater contamination already being caused by seepage from the coal ash pits. According to the Business Journal article, that’s it: “The EPA wants to alter the permit to ensure the seeps are either stopped or to ensure the seeping contaminated water is pumped back into the ponds so that they cannot impact the environment.”

North Carolina’s polluter-friendly DEQ, however, has been unwilling to set such a precedent for requiring actual cleanup of water pollution. Heavens! What would it do to this administration’s “customer-friendly” reputation if polluters were required to clean up all their mess, instead of just cherry-picking their own easiest steps?

This latest eruption tracks the pattern of environmental enforcement under the current state administration. DEQ isalready defending against litigation brought in October by citizen groups seeking to overturn its “sweetheart deal” settlement with Duke over multiple coal ash pollution sites. In the challenged settlement, DEQ fails to require groundwater cleanup at ten other sites.

Our friends in DEQ should take note. So long as you continue to fail to require actual water pollution cleanup, you’re going to face “delays and interference” from EPA, concerned citizen groups, and communities facing the health risks of unattended water contamination across our state.

Washington Watch: Transportation Reauthorization Approved

We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming of endless ‘stupid Congress tricks’ of poor environmental decisions to bring you this rare piece of genuinely good news. Congress has just approved a new transportation program reauthorization bill that protects investment in public transit, Amtrak, and other green alternatives.

The FAST (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation) Act provides a five-year reauthorization of funding for the full spread of surface transportation programs – not just highways, but also public transit, rail (freight and Amtrak), and bike/pedestrian projects. All of those alternative transportation programs have been the target of ongoing defunding efforts by the anti-environmental forces in Congress.

Passage of the bill knocks the legs out from under most of those efforts for the near term at least. The bill also includes language requiring state Departments of Transportation and regional metropolitan planning organizations to consider all roadway users (i.e., pedestrians and cyclists too) in planning and building projects. (This is known as “complete streets” policy.)

Commenting on the FAST Act, some transportation reform advocates bemoan a lost opportunity to push through more comprehensive transportation planning and funding reform, which are not included in the bill. However, most analysts (including CIB) considered such an ideal result to be outside the range of realistic possibilities for the current Congress. We’re relieved to see the bill’s modest consolidation of progress made to date, without loss of funding for alternative transportation modes. In today’s Washington political environment, protecting the opportunity to continue local progress in developing green transportation is nothing to sneeze at.

Education & Resources: Polluters’ Paradise

Last week, NC Policy Watch released an account of the sorry state of environmental enforcement in North Carolina, which it titled “Paradise for Polluters.” The story features narrative description of the decline in enforcement since the current state administration and legislative leadership took office, along with links to interviews with various citizen advocates.

NCLCV’s director of governmental relations Dan Crawford is quoted as observing, “Lawmakers used to use science-based evidence; that gave us the Clean Water Management program and the Clean Smokestacks Act. We were headed in the right direction, doing the right things to protect our air, water, wildlife, so that we could pass our state on in a better condition to future generations. Now that’s stopped. It’s the difference between night and day.”

The entire article can be read here.

That’s our report for this week.