Olympia Business Watch

AWBTV: Climate Change with Jay Manning

Richard Davis sits down with Jay Manning, Director of the Department of Ecology, to discuss climate change and what it means to Washington state. Richard and Jay discuss what efforts Washington state is making, what other activities are taking place nationally and internationally, and what this means to businesses in here. (A two part series, both posted below.)

For these and other AWB informative videos on everything from Climate Change to taxes to Family Leave, check out our YourTube page at http://www.youtube.com/awborg.

Puget Sound Partnership Business Reps. Appointed

Yesterday at its meeting in Edmonds, the 7-member Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council appointed half of the 27-member Ecosystem Coordination Board (ECB), including the two statutorily required seats for members of the business community. The ECB is the large stakeholder board that provides recommendations to the Leadership Council.

Representing general business interests is Sam Anderson, CEO of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties. Small business interests will be represented by Bill Dewey of Taylor Shellfish Farms. Anderson and Dewey were integrally involved with the blue ribbon panel that comprised the pre-agency Puget Sound Partnership between 2005 and the creation of the PSP last legislative session.

AWB is pleased with the Leadership Council’s appointments. Anderson and Dewey will be strong voices for the business community.

Despite Local Opposition, the Windmills will Turn

Yesterday, Gov. Chris Gregoire approved an EFSEC recommendation to allow the Kittitas Wind Power project to go forward.  Local offficials had opposed the development and Gregoire's action is the first gubernatorial preemption of local government.

Chris Mulick posted the story yesterday on his blog for the Tri-City Herald.

The move comes over the objections of Kittitas County, which had rejected the project last year after it was unable to reach agreement with the project developer over appropriate turbine setbacks from neighboring landowners.

"The record is replete with almost every conceivable position on the project from within the county, and if this decision does not reflect the preferred outcome for some, I assure everyone that their voice was heard and their views considered," Gregoire wrote in her letter to Jim Luce, chairman of the state's Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council.

Warren Cornwall has a good story in this morning's Seattle Times, providing background with responses from proponents and opponents, including Congressman Doc Hastings preemption concerns.

"I fear this precedent will embolden energy companies to bypass local leaders and go to the governor to have projects imposed on communities," U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, whose district includes Kittitas County, said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Also a good account by Mai Hoang in the Yakima Herald Republic.

I wrote a column on the preemption conflict last month and discussed the project with Horizon Wind Energy's Dana Peck and AWB governmental affairs director Chris McCabe in this video podcast.

The governor did the right thing.

Court Rules for Washington Landowners

The Washington State Supreme Court today, in an 8-1 decision, made it clear that Washington's  Growth Management Act doesn’t require local governments to "enhance" critical areas as part of their comprehensive plans. The Washington Environmental Council and the Swinomish Tribal Council had argued that the requirement to protect implies an obligation to "enhance," that is, restore the areas to some earlier, presumably more pristine, condition. In rejecting that interpretation, the Court affirmed that the GMA obligation is simply to protect the critical areas.

The Court also held that the GMA doesn’t require mandatory buffers along water bodies like creeks, streams and rivers.

AWB member Jay Derr of Gordon Derr, LLP represented Skagit County and various agricultural interests against the appeals of the Swinomish and the WEC, who claimed the county hadn’t gone far enough to protect critical areas and fish.

According to Derr, “This is a big win for agriculture interests and Washington  landowners in general."

We agree.

Journalism and Climate Change

Over at Editor and Publisher, Steve Outing thinks newspapers are way too objective when it comes to climate change.

I've ... been thinking about the newspaper industry and global warming. And frankly, I don't think newspapers are doing enough. Indeed, newspapers' fabled commitment to "objectivity" has been a detriment to efforts to combat global warming.

He goes on (and on - it's a long column), but here's his thinking

I have no quibble with the status quo when it comes to controversial issues where there is a significant split of opinion.

... But advocacy in terms of enouraging people to act to alleviate climate change is really a wholly different issue. There's clearly scientific consensus that humans are altering the planet's climate, and that the effect is accelerating. Stronger hurricanes, melting glaciers and sea ice, worse wildfires and longer fire seasons, more severe droughts and flooding, and more frequent bizarre weather events overall.

The few critics of the consensus are a small and shrinking group, who to most observers seem irrelevant. To the mainstream, they may as well be flat-earthers.

He yearns for the good old days of muckraking and advocacy and gives editors some suggestions, including a "behavior-change campaign," contests (my carbon footprint is lower than your carbon footprint), and suggestions for automakers.

Nicely timed is this Wall Street Journal "denier's confession" by Bret Stephens. Here's just one excerpt from an excellent litany. As they say, read the whole thing. If you can't get it online, buy or borrow the paper.

I confess: Denial never solves anything. But neither does sensational and deceptive journalism.

Newsweek illustrates this point by its choice of cover art -- a picture of the sun, where the surface temperature hovers around 6,000 degrees Celsius. Given that the consensus scientific estimate for average temperature increases over the next century is a comparatively modest 2.6 degrees, this would seem a rather Murdochian way of convincing readers about the gravity of the climate threat. On the inside pages is a photograph of a polar bear stranded on melting ice. But the caption that the bears are "at risk" belies clear evidence that the bear population has risen five-fold since the 1960s. Another series of photographs, of a huge Antarctic ice shelf that quickly disintegrated in 2002, suggests the imminence of doom. But why not also mention that temperatures at the South Pole have been going down for 50 years?

He offers an explanation for why, despite what seems to be an already well developed willingness to skirt the demands of objectivity in some media circles, the public clings to some doubts.

if Americans are not fully persuaded of the dangers of global warming, as Newsweek laments, don't chalk it up to the pernicious influence of the so-called deniers and their enablers at ExxonMobil and Fox News. Today, global warming is variously suggested as the root cause of terrorism, the conflict in Darfur and the rising incidence of suicides in Italy. Yet the 20th century offers excellent reasons to be suspicious of monocausal explanations for the world's ills, monomaniacs intent on saving us from ourselves, and the long train of experts predicting death by overpopulation, resource depletion, global cooling, nuclear winter and prions.

I don't think carbon footprint contests will change that.

UPDATE Outing's column generated some comments for E&P.

Brunell on Beatles, and Bugs

Don's column in the Columbian last week took a look at forest management practices.

The Kenai Peninsula may be best known for its world-famous salmon runs, but it is the area's white spruce forests that have captured the spotlight now, underscoring serious problems with our forest management practices.

Bark beetle infestations have turned the Kenai's once rich, green forests into a barren landscape of dead and dying trees. Because these trees are fire hazards, wildfires in Alaska have jumped threefold since 2004 - and Alaskans are bracing for another record fire year.

A related beetle preys on western inland forests. The problem could be managed better.

To deal with these threats, President Bush proposed his Healthy Forests Initiative a couple of years ago. It would create firebreaks, salvage commercially valuable burned timber, and replant the forests outside wilderness areas and national parks. The idea was quickly shot down by folks in Congress who believe that any timber harvesting in national forests is taboo.

 

Given the number of acres scarred by wildfires, Congress should reconsider that policy. ...

Wouldn't it be wiser to log the beetle-killed trees while they have commercial value and put people to work on logging sites and in sawmills?

Wouldn't it be better to thin forests to prevent the devastation caused by beetle infestations and forest fires?

Yes.

Puget Sound Leadership Council Gets New Members

The Puget Sound Partnership, created last session in ESSB 5372, will be governed by a seven-member council chaired by Bill Ruckelshaus. The governor yesterday announced the appointments of the six councilmembers. Ruckelshaus accepted the chairmanship in May.

The Seattle P-I story frames it this way and gives Kathy Fletcher room to critique.

Gregoire has made restoration of Puget Sound a centerpiece of her administration, saying she wants to make the entire Sound healthy enough for swimming and fishing by 2020.

Kathy Fletcher, executive director of People for Puget Sound, an environmental group, reacted cautiously in a news release.

"The easy things have been done. The rest of the job requires courage and toughness," said Fletcher, who ran the state's first save-the-Sound agency in the 1980s but left after bruising battles with business interests. "This is probably our last chance to save the Sound, and this new partnership will need to be bold and results-oriented."

The group has until September 2008 to come up with a plan and a proposed budget for the Legislature.

The Olympian points out:

The Puget Sound Partnership is a government entity that lacks regulatory power. But it can recommend how money is spent and who gets it, based on how well government agencies and local governments perform.

That's enough to get everyone's attention.

Mild Temps Welcome New Heat Stress Rule

It's around 1 p.m. June 18th.  It's 63 degrees in Spokane, 70 in Moses Lake.  It's 73 in the Tri-Cities, 68 in Wenatchee.  Vancouver pushes the mercury the farthest in Western Washington at 61. 

So, today marks an inauspicious effective date for the emergency heat stress rule promulgated by the Department of Labor & Industries to protect workers this summer from heat-related hazards and illnesses.  One assumes, however, it will get hotter. 

The emergency rule (which was in effect last summer as well) requires essentially five things of employers: training, an emergency strategy, water, shade, and formalized written procedures to prevent the occurrence of heat-related illness.  To this end, L&I has a great deal of resources available online.   

The onset of summer is hardly an "emergency" as the architects of our state's Administrative Procedures Act probably meant the term.  An emergency rule goes into effect, for a time, without the normal notice and opportunity to be heard, including small business economic impact statements, etc. 

So far, partly for that reason, the rule has generated, as they say, more heat than light.  Business groups in the industries most likely to be affected have voiced vigorous opposition, both to the substance of the rule and the procedural shortcut behind it.  A workers' comp colleague at the Building Industry Association of Washington tells me this morning they are ready to sue if L&I gets, in their view, too aggressive with enforcement of the rule.

Yet it bears observing there is little new with the rule.  It does have some funny elements to it, such as the mandate on employers to "prevent, control, and correct hazards" outside of temperature-controlled environments (raising the question, for instance, how does the employer control the uncontrollable outside environment?).  But it is really just a furtherance of L&I's practices with respect to Indoor Air Quality in the outside environment.  Also, the rule in a substantially similar form was put into effect last summer.  Affected employers are generally familiar with its requirements.  Still, it goes into effect today, remains in effect for the bulk of the summer, and contains numerous requirements that could catch unwary employers off guard.

AWB's own workplace safety director, Grant Nelson, helped negotiate the final language and narrow the focus to education and training rather than investigation and enforcement.  Employers with questions --how hot is "hot"? Are additional rest breaks required? Can I serve Gatorade instead of water? -- should check L&I's website linked above and give Grant a call.

UPDATE (6/21):  A reliable informant tells me, and I would agree, that I painted a misleading picture in the paragraph just above regarding education and training rather than investigation and enforcement.  Indeed, Division of Occupational Safety and Health director Steve Cant told the WISHA Advisory Committee yesterday that L&I will indeed issue citations to employers found out of compliance with the rule.  If and when that happens in certain industries then we should likely see the validity of the rule challenged in court.

Biofuel Knocking

The Olympian carries an AP report on an environmental conference in Thailand, where there's plenty of green doubt on biofuels.

... where some see a profitable way to wean the planet from gasoline, others see even more damage to the environment.

                        

The rapidly increasing interest in biofuel production is already driving corn prices beyond the budgets of the world's poor and leading to an acceleration of deforestation - one of the causes of global warming - as lands are cleared to grow oil palm in places such as Indonesia, critics say.

We noted earlier and similar discussions here.

 

Ho-Hum, the Public Worries About Global Warming

No disrespect intended - well, not much anyway - but this New York Times report of an emerging bipartisan consensus that the world is getting warmer and something must be done about it says nothing useful. That's not exactly right. Public opinion can and will be used to move public policy in support of a climate change agenda.  The poll is, then, a good gauge of the political climate, but not the, well, global warming climate. (On that, you've got to like the way "climate change" has replaced "global warming" - now it's no longer necessary to predict the direction of the change, just posit that it's changing. Nifty.)

Anyway, here's what the Times reports.

Ninety percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said immediate action was required to curb the warming of the atmosphere and deal with its effects on the global climate. Nineteen percent said it was not necessary to act now, and 1 percent said no steps were needed.

Several recent international reports have concluded with near certainty that human activities are the main cause of global warming since 1950. The poll found that 84 percent of Americans see human activity as at least contributing to warming.

Not that we're inclined to do too much about it.

Respondents said they would support higher gasoline prices to reduce dependence on foreign oil but would oppose higher prices to combat global warming. By large margins, respondents opposed an increase in pump prices of $2 a gallon, or even $1, to deal with environmental and energy-supply concerns.

There's a lot more, so I'd recommend reading the story, keeping this in mind from a recent column by Johah Goldberg.

Huge numbers of Americans don’t know jack about their government or politics. According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, 31 percent of Americans don’t know who the vice president is, fewer than half are aware that Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House, a mere 29 percent can identify “Scooter” Libby as the convicted former chief of staff of the vice president, and only 15 percent can name Harry Reid when asked who is the Senate majority leader.

Any reason to believe they know more about climate change?

Puget Sound Partnership Passes

And, befitting the theme, it's a clean bill, unburdened with restrictions on the Maury Island sand and gravel operation. AWB played a key role in shaping the final outcome.

Here's how the Seattle Times reports the story.

Passage of the bill required an unusual compromise among local governments, businesses and environmental groups. And it had been thrown into doubt by the politicking around the Maury Island issue.

Environmentalists were hoping to score a double-play by stopping the mine expansion and getting the new cleanup agency. But the Association of Washington Business vowed to withdraw support for the bill if it contained limits on the gravel mine.

Finally, after negotiations with House leaders and the governor, [Sen. Erik] Poulsen dropped his attempt to attach the island protections to the Puget Sound bill.

The PI story is here. And here's the  AP report.

It's a good outcome and a major step forward.

Saving the Puget Sound Partnership

Odd things happen in the closing days of a legislative session, as legislators struggle to find ways to revive failed legislation by attaching it to bills that are likely to pass. Sometimes, the grafting takes. Other times,  it doesn't. The Seattle Times this morning reports on an attempt to make a good bill go bad.

The fight over a proposed expansion of a sand and gravel mine on Maury Island is threatening to hold up creation of a new state agency to lead the cleanup of Puget Sound.

... Sen. Erik Poulsen, D-Seattle, has been making a last-ditch attempt to add restrictions on the mine into legislation creating the Puget Sound Partnership. He said he may try to add his amendment to the state budget instead.

AWB environmental lobbyist Grant Nelson supports a clean bill for the Puget Sound Partnership.

"It would take away our support" if Maury Island mine restrictions were added to the Partnership bill, said Grant Nelson of the Association of Washington Business. "We'd be then opposed to the Puget Sound Partnership legislation, which we have worked extremely hard to get passed."

House Democratic leaders don't want the budget bogged down with Maury Island bill, either.

And House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, said Maury Island doesn't belong in the budget, either.

"I do not want to start taking bills that fail and start putting them into the budget," she said.

AWB has opposed the Maury Island legislation. It tosses up new and unnecessary restrictions on a company that has complied with all existing environmental regulations. And it threatens to increase dramatically the costs of highway projects by depriving the region of one of the best sources of the sand and gravel essential for construction. The bill was considered and found wanting. And it should be left at that.

MORE The Seattle PI also covered the controversy.

-- A political storm surrounding the protected waters off Maury Island in west Puget Sound threatens to sink one of the state's most ambitious ecological initiatives -- Gov. Chris Gregoire's $8 billion restoration of Puget Sound.

The effort deservedly faces stiff opposition.

"Business (interests) just told me that if Maury Island gets hung onto that bill, they will no longer support the underlying Puget Sound bill and that would be a shame," said Scott Merriman, Gregoire's legislative aide.

Others share his concern.

"The Maury Island thing has to be debated and decided independent of this (overarching) bill," said Brad Ack, head of the Puget Sound Action Team.

House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, objects to the Senate using the state budget to revive failed policy legislation. She said the Maury Island bill simply didn't have enough support.

Right.

 

Another Skeptical Environmentalist?

In Newsweek, Richard S. Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT, has a nicely upbeat piece on the environment. Gloom may be more popular these days, but Lindzen finds a lot of evidence for a more optimistic view of the world.

There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true. What of it? Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe.

I've wondered about the quality of both the forecasts and the backcasts. Lindzen shares what ought to be widespread skepticism.

The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.

As for history:

Modelers claim to have simulated the warming and cooling that occurred before 1976 by choosing among various guesses as to what effect poorly observed volcanoes and unmeasured output from the sun have had. These factors, they claim, don't explain the warming of about 0.4 degrees C between 1976 and 1998. Climate modelers assume the cause must be greenhouse-gas emissions because they have no other explanation. This is a poor substitute for evidence, and simulation hardly constitutes explanation. Ten years ago climate modelers also couldn't account for the warming that occurred from about 1050 to 1300. They tried to expunge the medieval warm period from the observational record—an effort that is now generally discredited. The models have also severely underestimated short-term variability El Niño and the Intraseasonal Oscillation. Such phenomena illustrate the ability of the complex and turbulent climate system to vary significantly with no external cause whatever, and to do so over many years, even centuries.

It's a delightfully cogent column, closing with a timely warning:

...actions taken thus far to reduce emissions have already had negative consequences without improving our ability to adapt to climate change. An emphasis on ethanol, for instance, has led to angry protests against corn-price increases in Mexico, and forest clearing and habitat destruction in Southeast Asia. Carbon caps are likely to lead to increased prices, as well as corruption associated with permit trading. (Enron was a leading lobbyist for Kyoto because it had hoped to capitalize on emissions trading.) The alleged solutions have more potential for catastrophe than the putative problem.

The best intentions do not guarantee a better result - and they may create problems where none existed.

Skeptical Environmentalist

Five years after release of the English language edition of The Skeptical Environmentalist, the good folks at TCS Daily caught up with the author, Bjorn Lomborg for this interview.

Here's Lomborg on the current debate:

... I think what is happening now is that we are increasingly seeing a tailspin into hysteria over the global warming discussion, where it is almost commonplace to say things are worse than we thought.

 

It's at the stage where people are saying its even worse than we thought yesterday, and that it is going to be catastrophic, and chaotic and disruptive - all these kinds of words. This has actually led to one of the lead modellers in the UK to come out and say it's bizarre that before we had the debate between the climate change skeptics and the scientists, and that now we have the debate between the scientists, who are now becoming the skeptics, and those who are saying it's all going to end in chaos, when it is going to do nothing of the sort ...

He has some profound and provocative thoughts on our environmental priorities.

Global warming is an important issue and one which we should address. But there is no sense of proportion either in environmental terms, or indeed in terms of the other issues facing the world.

If you just take the environmental problem first, it's very clear that what causes by far the majority of deaths is lack clean drinking water and lack of sanitation. Millions of people are dying each year from this. Also taking the new WHO estimates of what really kills people, these are the huge issues.

 

The second biggest problem is indoor air pollution, which probably kills somewhere between 1 and 3 million people each year, basically because people are too poor to use good fuels and end up using dung or cardboard or whatever they can find. Only a very distant third comes climate change, which the WHO puts at 150,000 to die right now.

He's writing a new book, scheduled to come out next fall.

TNT Takes Cautious View of Climate Change Legislation

The News Tribune rightly sees ESSB 6001 as a "shoot first, aim later" legislative fix. They prefer the governor's stakeholder process. So do we.

Any new law, regulations and strategies to accomplish these reductions are likely to have far-reaching implications for the state’s businesses and consumers alike.

The smart way to decide the strategy is to call upon a collaborative effort by representatives of business, tribes, public and private utilities, agriculture, the environmental community and others who all have a stake in the outcome.

That is the process the governor directed, and the work begins today with the first meeting of a 21-member climate-change advisory team.

Editorial page editor David Seago has a follow-up on the TNT blog.

Forestry Making Come Back on Olympic Peninsula

Yesterday, I spoke to the Forks Chamber of Commerce about Washington's business climate.  Forks is 158 miles northwest of Olympia, and the road to Forks takes one through some of the most scenic and productive forestlands in the world.

Forestry is making a comeback on the Olympic Peninsula after being devastated by federal rulings on the spotted owl.  Logging is occurring on private lands and the replanted Douglas fir, hemlock and western red cedar is growing at a record pace.  Often, you can tell how productive forestland is by the tops of trees and young tops (referred to as "leader") are some of the lengthiest I seen.

Very little logging and reforestation occurs on public lands, state or federal.  What is evident along Highway 101 is forests on public lands -- whether they be on state trust lands managed by the Dept. of Natural Resources, the Olympic National Forest or Olympic National Park -- have significantly more blown down than those on private lands.  Many of those older or weakened trees that would be thinned in a managed forest actually fell across Highway 101---the main transportation artery between Hoquiam and Port Angeles.

I'm not saying we should clear cut it all or fail to manage forests for other values, but we should not lock it away and believe it will be there forever to admire.  Forests and trees live and go through life cycles.   There are areas on public lands to log, replant and manage.  There are areas where nature should be left alone and we ought to recognize the risks of doing that -- like trees falling across trails, roads and highways.  When I worked for the Forest Service clearing trail in Montana, these weakened trees were called "widowmakers" for good reason.

Here is one final thought.  If we are interested in biofuels and generating electricity from wood wastes like is happening with a wood-fired generating plant near Kettle Falls in northeast Washington, then there may be enough wood wastes if federal and state lands once designated for forest management --  including harvesting, thinning and replanting -- were put back into the inventory. It would help meet the goal of 15% of our state's electricity from renewables and add many new jobs in a job starved area of our state.

Two View of Fire Retardent Ban

When you're lobbying a complicated issue, it's hard to beat a supportive front-page story in one of the state's larger daily newspapers. The PI obliged supporters of HB 1024 today.

Here's how they frame the issue.

If approved, the new law would ban the sale and manufacture of deca-containing mattresses in Washington beginning next year. A 2005 survey by the Ecology Department found that mattress makers in the state already stopped its use. Deca can be replaced by a safer chemical called melamine or the mattress can be built with a fire-resistant barrier, such as one made of naturally fire-resistant fabrics.

The bigger fight is over a deca ban in upholstered, residential furniture and in computers and TVs. That last item is important because between 45 percent to 80 percent of the deca use is in TVs. ...

They mention us.

Opponents of the legislation -- primarily the PBDE industry and the Association of Washington Business -- object to passing a ban before the deca alternative is identified.

The Seattle Times editorial today agrees.

The bill, House Bill 1024, is full of holes, and for a good reason: The case for doing something decisive has not been made.

Of course, it's not a front page story. But it makes good sense.

Windmills and Water

The Washington Post today carries a story with a Pasco dateline. It's a good piece on the synergy between hydro and windpower in the Pacific Northwest.

... it is in the Northwest where wind power, an often capricious source of electricity, meshes most seamlessly with the existing electricity grid, which relies heavily on hydroelectric dams, power managers say. This meshing of power sources is done in a way that maximizes power reliability while minimizing the grid's need for energy from fossil fuels, which release the greenhouses gases that cause global warming.

"It is synergy on a scale that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world," said Ken Dragoon, research director at the Renewable Northwest Project, a coalition of public-interest groups and energy companies.

It's an interesting read ... perhaps painting too rosy a picture.

"It is an almost ideal land-use situation," said Jeff King, a senior resource analyst for the Northwest Power and Planning Council, a regional group created by Congress to balance electricity production and environmental needs. "We have avoided the aesthetic and environmental controversies that have plagued wind development in other areas of the country."

And there's this.

"For hydro to work well with wind for reliable power production, it needs to release water on a minute-to-minute schedule," King said. "There is going to be a conflict with fish."

That's not such a problem in Nebraska, where they have other challenges, as reported in the Lincoln Journal-Star.

Nebraska could be on the verge of what some people say is the biggest land grab since the Homestead days, when early settlers staked their claims to 160 acres.

But this time, speculators are after thousand of acres of land, not hundreds. And they don’t want the land for growing crops. They want to use it to harvest wind energy.

Hat tip to Stateline.org for the two stories.

 

PI Acknowledges AWB Concerns with Climate Change Legislation

In a Sunday editorial, the Seattle PI applauds Senate passage of Gov. Gregoire's proposed climate change legislation, SB 6001.

Critical global warming legislation is now in the House of Representatives. SB6001, which passed the Senate on a strong 35-13 vote, would put a variety of good ideas into force, helping the state stay somewhat abreast of other areas' measures.

The measure would give the force of law to global warming goals issued by Gov. Chris Gregoire. Although some would like to slow down for more discussion among stakeholders, the goals are modest enough to warrant going ahead.

Now, that's a predictable editorial stance from the PI. Still, we were mildly surprised by this acknowledgment.

As on some other parts of the bill, the Association of Washington Business would prefer waiting on the stakeholder process. There could be a healthy compromise here: a moratorium on allowing the new greenhouse-related investments while the discussions go on.

For an informative podcast on the issue, listen to Mike Hudson's Lobby Lunch interview with Tony Usibelli of the state department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.

Lobby Lunch Podcast: Climate Change

Yesterday's Lobby Lunch speaker was Tony Usibelli. Director of  the Energy Policy Division of the state department of Community, Trade and Economic Development. He joined Mike Hudson for a short podcast interview on the Governor's Climate Change Challenge.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Still more evidence that this biodiesel thing is going to be a little harder than we've been told. Les Blumenthal, for the McClatchey papers, reports on the downside of using palm oil as a fuel.

.... the owners of what will be the largest biodiesel plant in the nation - at a deepwater port on Washington state's coast - are well aware of the environmental consequences of logging and burning some of the most biologically diverse forests in the world to provide the prime ingredient for a much-in-demand clean fuel.

   

"We recognize there are serious deforestation issues," said John Plaza, the founder of Imperium Renewables, which is building the plant in the Port of Grays Harbor. "It's not OK to clear rainforest to put palm down. But to demonize an entire industry doesn't do anyone any good. We need to solve these issues."

Demonizing entire industries has been, well, not uncommon with respect to the oil, coal, and nuclear industries. Here's a bit of insight into "clean" biodiesel from palm oil,

The forests are logged and burned to make way for the plantations, at times producing a thick blanket of smog that can cover parts of Southeast Asia for weeks and release millions of tons of greenhouse gases. The plantations also are moving into peat swamps, which are drained. As the peat dries, it also releases tons of carbon dioxide.

   

The trend is accelerating. Indonesia is already the third-largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world, behind the United States and China. By 2015, an area of Indonesia the size of West Virginia is expected to be covered with palm plantations.

   

"It's absolutely disingenuous to suggest that biodiesel made from palm oil is green or sustainable," said David Waskow, international program director for Friends of the Earth.

There's a place for biodiesel, certainly. And for coal, nuclear, and oil.

 

Climate Change Accord

Hot on the heels of Al Gore's night at the Oscars, five Western governors announced their agreement to work on global warming.

The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state agreed to develop a regional target to lower greenhouse gases and create a market-based program aimed at helping businesses reach the still-undecided goals.

Lisa Stifler in today's PI has more on the agreement, including this from Grant Nelson.

Grant Nelson, governmental affairs director for the Association of Washington Business, was pleased that the business community would have input into the process thanks to a stakeholders group that the governor is forming.

Grant's referring to the process Gov. Gregoire announced February 7 and discussed here.

Brunell on Climate Change

Don's column in today's Columbian takes a measured look at climate change.

In our state, Gov. Chris Gregoire called for a climate change task force to find ways to curb greenhouse emissions. That group needs to recognize the trade-offs of all energy supplies. Whether it be power from wind, solar, biomass, coal, natural gas, hydro or nuclear plants, each has its advantages and disadvantages. ...

As the task force launches its yearlong drive, it would be wise to avoid a stampede to a predetermined solution. Washington can be a leader in climate change while maintaining a strong economy if we apply logic, proven science and balance.

In short, look at all ways to provide energy and strive to make them cleaner and safer. Then we can sell that technology to countries such as China and India, which are building coal-fired power plants at a lightning pace.

Climate Change Initatives Announced

Yesterday, the governor signed an executive order addressing global climate change. She establishes five goals:

• By 2020, reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state of Washington to 1990 levels, a reduction of 10 million metric tons below 2004 emissions;
• By 2035, reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state of Washington to 25% below 1990 levels, a reduction of 30 million metric tons below 2004;
• By 2050, the state of Washington will do its part to reach global climate stabilization levels by reducing emissions to 50% below 1990 levels or 70% below our expected emissions that year, an absolute reduction in emissions of nearly 50 million metric tons below 2004;
• By 2020, increase the number of clean energy sector jobs to 25,000 from the 8,400 jobs we had in 2004; and
• By 2020, reduce expenditures by 20% on fuel imported into the state by developing Washington resources and supporting efficient energy use.

And a stakeholders process:

The Director of the Department of Ecology and the Director of the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development shall include representatives from business, including transportation, forestry and energy sectors, agriculture, local, county and regional governments, institutions of higher education, labor unions, environmental groups and other interested residents as appropriate in the development of Washington Climate Change Challenge.

The group will report back in a year. Here's the policy brief and press release.

Warren Cornwall and Ralph Thomas report on the announcement and various reactions to it in today's Seattle Times.

The announcements, from Gregoire, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, Sen. Erik Poulsen, D-Seattle, and King County Executive Ron Sims, excited environmentalists. ...

On the Republican side, Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, Yakima County, worried that these initiatives could hurt Washington businesses and that Washington could be shouldering more of the burden than other states, or countries such as China.

Lawmakers continue to pursue their own agendas, however.

Meanwhile, the immediate focus in Olympia may be on the most detailed and potentially most controversial idea.

Poulsen said he will introduce legislation effectively barring Washington utilities from building new coal-fired power plants or from signing new long-term contracts for coal power, thereby preventing them from buying dirtier power from out-of-state power plants. That could mean higher rates for some power customers, as utilities are steered away from the cheap coal.

Avista is listed as a conditional supporter of the plan; Energy Northwest objects.

In the P-I, Lisa Stiffler and Robert McClure see the Times characterization of "excited environmentalists" and raise it one.

The announcements -- which followed gloomy projections released last week about the effects of global warming -- caused a practically giddy response from environmentalists, who called the proposals revolutionary.

AWB's Grant Nelson carefully avoids giddiness, providing a good assessment of next steps.

"We're certainly encouraged by Governor Gregoire's approach," said Grant Nelson, governmental affairs director for the Association of Washington Business, the overarching business lobby. "Certainly she set some ambitious goals around which, with involvement by all stakeholders, we can have thoughtful and deliberative discussions."

The governor's approach contrasts with more radical proposals under consideration.

State lawmakers have tackled global warming issues in previous years, including the adoption of California's strict vehicle emission rules, requiring the construction of energy-efficient buildings and requiring that in the future fuel contain at least 2 percent biodiesel and ethanol. ...

It's not clear how widespread the support is for the new rules. Senate Republicans declined comment, saying they needed more time and information. House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, indicated that support might not come until next year.

It makes sense to wait for the stakeholders' recommendations before jumping the gun on an economy-damaging package that fails to accomplish its objective.

Lukewarm? Really?

Yesterday's Seattle Times reported that state lawmakers appear insufficiently hot under the collar when it comes to confronting global warming.

Yet reception to global-warming measures in Olympia this year has been cool so far.

Reporter Warren Cornwall compares Washington's so far measured approach to the more aggressive developments in Oregon and Washington (if you think it's bad here, don't go south for relief). He cites a number of climate change bills that have been proposed in the Legislature.

He gives AWB lobbyist Grant Nelson the last word.

On climate change, environmentalists have set their sights primarily on improving the fuel efficiency of the state motor pool, studying use of plug-in hybrid cars that can switch between electricity and liquid fuel, and spending $13 million to boost biofuel research and production.

That approach has won general support from the Association of Washington Business (AWB), one of the state's most influential lobbying groups. But statewide greenhouse-gas regulations such as California's would hurt Washington businesses and provoke a fight, AWB lobbyist Grant Nelson said.

"The main core of the environmental community is not really pushing those bills," he said. "A smart move on their part, I think."

MORE: George Will takes a look at global warming and its politics in a Newsweek column.

Climate Cassandras say the facts are clear and the case is closed. (Sen. Barbara Boxer: "We're not going to take a lot of time debating this anymore.") The consensus catechism about global warming has six tenets: 1. Global warming is happening. 2. It is our (humanity's, but especially America's) fault. 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways. 4. If it continues we are in grave danger. 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming. 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs.

Only the first tenet is clearly true, and only in the sense that the Earth warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius in the 20th century. We do not know the extent to which human activity caused this. The activity is economic growth, the wealth-creation that makes possible improved well-being—better nutrition, medicine, education, etc. How much reduction of such social goods are we willing to accept by slowing economic activity in order to (try to) regulate the planet's climate?

Good question.

Vesting Rights

Regulatory certainty helps secure property rights. Under current state law, a landowner’s development rights vest when a building permit or subdivision application is applied for. Application costs can be high, with long delays before a local jurisdiction grants final approval.

Last week, AWB's Chris McCabe, joined by several AWB members testified against HB 1463 and SB 5507, legislation that would change our state’s vested rights doctrine so that development rights wouldn’t vest until the permit or subdivision application is “acted on” or approved. Chris sums up our concerns nicely in this statement from his testimony.

Our existing vested rights doctrine strikes an appropriate balance between the authority of local governments to change regulations and the rights of individuals to plan their affairs with reasonable certainty about what will be permitted by the local government.

If a local government can stop a project by changing its code every time it decides that it doesn’t like a project, this undermines the fundamental principles upon which the growth management act and regulatory reform are constructed.

If you share our concerns, please let your legislator know.

Status Report on the Puget Sound

The Olympian reports today on the health of the Puget Sound, as evaluated by the Puget Sound Action Team. It doesn't look good to them.

Fourteen of 25 indicators are headed in the wrong direction, including marine water quality, land consumed by development and toxic levels of PCBs in Puget Sound chinook that were deemed high enough to trigger the first-ever consumption advisory by state health officials in 2006.

The governor, who has championed cleanup efforts through the Puget Sound Partnership, says:

Gov. Chris Gregoire said in a prepared statement: "The report reinforces that we still have work to do. That's why I have proposed aggressive action on Puget Sound before it's too late."

In the current issue of Washington Business, Daniel Brunell writes about the Puget Sound Partnership. Here are a few of his thoughts:

In late December, the Puget Sound Partnership released its recommendations. The plan has received cautious editorial board approval and is the top priority of several environmental groups.

“Cleaning and protecting Puget Soundmust be at the top of our state environmental agenda,” said Governor Gregoire in a recent press release. “But I know from experience that state government can’t do it alone.”

Success will require an effective governing structure to oversee, implement, and steer the effort to clean-up Puget Sound. Developing a structure that accounts for all federal, state, county, city, business, private individuals, environmental groups, and advocates is no small task. This critical bridge must be crossed before we start spending on projects and creating new laws.

Maureen Frisch of Green Diamond Resources, an AWB member and one of the employer representatives in the Puget Sound Partnership effort, says

“Everyone knows that the public will not support additional taxes to restore Puget Sound. The state needs to show a solid structure in place and show the public that we can be successful in these efforts.”

The problems cannot be solved in a single legislative session, with all the money in
Fort Knox, a completely rewriting all the RCW’s, or with all the whiskey in Ireland. But the Legislature can make a good start this year.

By fine tuning a governance structure; reviewing and enforcing existing laws before adding new ones; showing strict accountability for clean-up projects; and using science everyone can agree on we can create a long-term, sustainable structure to make Puget Sound even more beautiful – to everyone’s benefit.

AWB's McCabe On King County Shoreline Management Review

As King County officials begin their first update of shorelines regulations in 30 years, the Seattle P-I  reports they plan to move carefully. AWB's Chris McCabe says that's the right approach.

When it comes to changes that could restrict land use and diminish property values, "we like to see government go slowly and really think about what they're doing," said Chris McCabe, environmental policy expert for the Association of Washington Business.

Green Coal in a Flat World?

Coal plants often get bad press. So this column by Thomas Friedman published in Sunday's Olympian caught my attention. Friedman's book, The World is Flat, is often cited by Gov. Gregoire to underscore the intensity of global competition. Friedman goes to Montana to examine coal's surprising environmental upside.

All environmentalists have their favorite "green" energy source that they think will break our addiction to oil and slow down climate change.  I've come out to Montana to see mine. It's called coal.

Intriguing.

Thirteen Years and $12 Billion

It sounds like one of the sentences handed down in the Enron debacle. But no - it's the projected cost and timetable to clean up the Puget Sound, according to this morning's Seattle Times. The final report of the Puget Sound Partnership, a task force appointed by Gov. Chris Gregoire a year ago, will be released today. The article says the $12 billion amounts to $6 billion already committed by federal, state, and local governments plus $6 billion in new money.

More on this when the final report is posted.