Pruitt tells climate deniers he’ll stop counting value of lives saved for new rules

ThinkProgress

Pruitt tells climate deniers he’ll stop counting value of lives saved for new rules

Scott Pruitt plans to stop tallying the co-benefits of cutting pollution.

By Philip Newell, Nexus Media April 13, 2108

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Credit: Gage Skidmore/

Scott Pruitt, still clinging to the helm of President Trump’s EPA, met with allies at the Heritage Foundation Wednesday for what one attendee described as a “deniers’ convention,” according to E&E News. Pruitt told attendees that he is planning to stop counting the co-benefits of environmental protections, The Daily Caller reported.

If Pruitt hangs on to his job long enough to implement the proposal — and it survives inevitable legal challenges — it could be prove critical to his efforts to discredit the science underpinning numerous environmental protections.

In doing cost-benefit analyses of new rules, experts account for auxiliary benefits of those rules. For example, the goal of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan — a target for Pruitt — is to reduce heat-trapping carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants. But, in prompting utilities to switch away from coal to cleaner energy sources like wind and solar, the measure would also reduce emissions of particular matter, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants, saving thousands of lives. These saved lives are counted as co-benefits.

Federal agencies must assign a monetary value to a human life when performing cost-benefit analyses. That valuation varies slightly from agency to agency, but the rough consensus is that an American life is worth a little more than $9 million. That is significant when considering a new rule’s impact on industry. The Clean Power Plan, for example, would cost the coal sector billions of dollars, but it would save the country billions more by guarding public health.

Under Pruitt’s proposal, the EPA wouldn’t deny that the Clean Power Plan could save around 4,500 lives each year — a fact it currently acknowledges. Rather, when tallying up the benefits of reducing pollution, those lives simply would not count. In short, the man charged with protecting Americans’ health believes that, when performing a cost-benefit analysis, the EPA should not consider the value of saving American lives.

The proposal comes on the heels of Pruitt’s plans to prevent the agency from using certain scientific research in issuing new rules. Pruitt’s efforts to restrict the EPA’s use of science draw on plans championed by conservative commentator Steve Milloy, who attended Wednesday’s meeting at the Heritage Foundation. Milloy has close ties to the fossil fuel and tobacco industries.

In recent weeks, Pruitt has come under attack for several potential ethics violations. This week’s announcement could be intended to shore up support among conservative allies, who will pressure Trump not to fire the embattled EPA Chief. Pruitt appears eager to make friends with co-benefits.

Phil Newell writes for Nexus Media, a syndicated newswire covering climate, energy, policy, art and culture.

HuffPost

Former EPA Aide Accuses Scott Pruitt Of ‘Unethical, Potentially Illegal’ Behavior

Alexander C. Kaufman, HuffPost April 12, 2108

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt directed staff to book travel that allowed him to personally accrue more frequent flier miles, insisting on flying first class on an airline not on the government’s approved list and staying in pricey hotels, according to a bombshell new letter released Thursday by congressional investigators.

The allegations come from Kevin Chmielewski, a lifelong Republican and former Trump aide who served as the EPA’s deputy chief of staff until he was removed for raising alarm over Pruitt’s spending, and are detailed in a six-page letter signed by two senators and three House members, all Democrats. The lawmakers ―Reps. Elijah E. Cummings (MD), Gerald Connolly (Va.), Donald Beyer (Va.) and Sens. Tom Carper (Del.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) ― sent the letter to Pruitt and President Donald Trump.

“He said that when he refused to approve your inappropriate and unethical spending, he claimed he was marginalized, removed from his senior position and placed on administrative leave,” the letter to Pruitt reads.

It adds: “The new information provided by Mr. Chmielewski, if accurate, leaves us certain that your leadership at EPA has been fraught with numerous and repeated unethical and potentially illegal actions on a wide range of consequential matters that you and some members of your staff directed.”

Pruitt allegedly told staff to “find me something to do” in locations around the country to justify spending taxpayer money, according to the letters. Pruitt “frequently stayed in” hotels that exceeded the allowable government per diem by as much as 300 times the cap permitted in exceptional circumstances. On trips to Australia and Italy, the administrator “refused” to stay in the hotels recommended by the U.S. embassy staff there, instead booking more expensive hotels with less on-site security, bringing his personal bodyguards in tow.

Pruitt was reimbursed for these travel expenses when he personally laid out the money for them, though some of his security detail were not fully compensated for their luxury travel, Chmielewski alleged.

Chmielewski told investigators he overheard Pruitt speaking to his landlord, the energy lobbyist who gave him a sweetheart $50-a-night deal on a room in a Capitol Hill condominium. The lobbyist, J. Steven Hart, whose wife co-owns the building, complained that the administrator had failed to pay rent, and that his adult daughter, McKenna Pruitt, damaged the hardwood floors by repeatedly rolling her luggage though the residence while she stayed there during a White House internship.

“We acknowledge the receipt of this letter from Democrats on Capitol Hill and look forward to responding,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement to HuffPost.

The letters put more pressure on Pruitt to resign as a ballooning scandal over accusations of rampant corruption and runaway spending continues into a third consecutive week. In a testament to just how quickly the disparate controversies have mounted, The Washington Post reported earlier on Thursday that Pruitt used four different email addresses, prompting concerns that he has avoided releasing documents requested in public records disclosures.

The allegations come as the Senate is poised to vote to confirm Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist and Republican congressional staffer, as the EPA’s deputy administrator, putting him next in line to take over the agency should Pruitt exit.

The oceans’ circulation hasn’t been this sluggish in 1,000 years. That’s bad news.

Washington Post – Energy and Environment

The oceans’ circulation hasn’t been this sluggish in 1,000 years. That’s bad news.

By Chris Mooney April 11, 2018

(Levke Caesar/Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)

The Atlantic Ocean circulation that carries warmth into the Northern Hemisphere’s high latitudes is slowing down because of climate change, a team of scientists asserted Wednesday, suggesting one of the most feared consequences is already coming to pass.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has declined in strength by 15 percent since the mid-20th century to a “new record low,” the scientists conclude in a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature. That’s a decrease of 3 million cubic meters of water per second, the equivalent of nearly 15 Amazon rivers.

The AMOC brings warm water from the equator up toward the Atlantic’s northern reaches and cold water back down through the deep ocean. The current is partly why Western Europe enjoys temperate weather, and meteorologists are linking changes in North Atlantic Ocean temperatures to recent summer heat waves.

The circulation is also critical for fisheries off the U.S. Atlantic coast, a key part of New England’s economy that have seen changes in recent years, with the cod fishery collapsing as lobster populations have boomed off the Maine coast.

Some of the AMOC’s disruption may be driven by the melting ice sheet of Greenland, another consequence of climate change that is altering the region’s water composition and interrupts the natural processes.

This is “something that climate models have predicted for a long time, but we weren’t sure it was really happening. I think it is happening,” said one of the study’s authors, Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “And I think it’s bad news.”

But the full role of climate change in the slowing ocean current is not fully understood, and another study released Wednesday drew somewhat different conclusions.

This study, which was also published in the journal Nature, found that the AMOC has slowed over the past 150 years and similarly found that it is now weaker than at any time in more than a millennium.

“The last 100 years has been its lowest point for the last few thousand years,” said Jon Robson, a researcher at the University of Reading and one of the study’s authors. (The study’s lead author was David Thornalley of the University College London.)

The two studies have their differences: The second suggests the slowdown probably began for natural reasons around the time of the Industrial Revolution in 1850, rather than being spurred by human-caused climate change, which fully kicked in later.

But like the first study, the second finds that the circulation has remained weak, or even weakened further, through the present era of warming.

“These two new papers do point strongly to the fact that the overturning has probably weakened over the last 150 years,” Robson said. “There’s uncertainty about when, but the analogy between what happened 150 years ago and today is quite strong.”

The AMOC amok?

The AMOC circulation is just one part of a far larger global system of ocean currents, driven by differences in the temperature and salinity of ocean water. Warm surface waters flow northward in the Atlantic, eventually cooling and — because cold, salty water is very dense — sink and travel back southward at great depths. The circulation has thus been likened to a conveyor belt.

But the melting of Arctic sea ice and Greenland’s ice sheet can freshen northern waters and interfere with sinking. Recent research has in fact confirmed that meltwater from Greenland is lingering on the ocean surface, where it could be interrupting the circulation.

Direct measurements of the circulation are only a little over a decade old. And while those have shown a downturn, that’s too short a time period to detect a definitive trend.

So the new studies sought to infer the state of the circulation from more indirect evidence.

In the first, the authors highlight a curious pattern of ocean temperatures that match what you would expect from a weakening AMOC — namely, a strong warming off the coast of the eastern United States, paired with a cooling south of Greenland, which sometimes been called the cold “blob”:

The cold “blob” was particularly pronounced in the first half of the year 2015. (NOAA)

The research finds that the odd alignment, which has produced regions of record cold and record warmth right next to one another, has been developing since the 1950s and closely matches what a very high resolution climate model predicted would occur.

The study was led by the Potsdam Institute’s Levke Caesar with along with co-authors at institutions in Germany, Greece, and Spain, as well as from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The second study, meanwhile, draws on sediment samples from the deep ocean off Cape Hatteras, N.C., to infer the strength of the current going back well over a thousand years. Because a stronger current can carry thicker sand grains, the study was able to detect a weakening beginning around 160 or 170 years ago when the “Little Ice Age” in the Northern Hemisphere ended. That trend has then continued through the present.

“In terms of this initial drop in the AMOC, it’s very likely that’s a kind of natural process,” Robson said. “It’s very likely, based on other evidence, that human activities may have continued to suppress the AMOC, or maybe led to further weakening.”

Consistent, or contradictory?

Meric Srokosz, an oceanographer at the National Oceanography Center in Britain, noted that the two studies have “somewhat different messages” — but emphasized that neither makes a direct measurement of the circulation.

“Essentially, what view you take of the results depends on how good you believe the models used are and likewise how well the chosen proxies represent the AMOC over the time scales of interest,” he said.

Marilena Oltmanns, an oceanographer at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, went further, saying that the two studies may not be entirely measuring the same thing.

“I think by applying different methods and looking at different time scales, the two studies focused on different components of the ocean circulation,” she said. “Both of them had to use some kind of approximation or proxy, which inevitably results in limitations and cannot give a complete picture.”

But Rahmstorf argued in an email that, given the difficulties and limitations involved in such work, “I think the overall agreement of the various independent estimates is very good!”

Sharp changes off the coast of Maine

A lobster boat heads out to sea off Kennebunkport, Maine, at sunrise on Aug. 17, 2015. Fishermen in northern New England have been catching record numbers of lobsters, but south of Cape Cod, the lobster population has plummeted to the lowest levels ever seen, in a northward shift that scientists attribute in large part to the warming of the ocean. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)

The authors of the first study believe the shift in the circulation may already having a big impact along the U.S. coastline.

“Of all the U.S. waters, this region has definitely warmed the fastest in the last decade,” said Vincent Saba, a marine biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and one of its co-authors.

And that has had major effects on fisheries. The Gulf of Maine, for instance, has seen a giant boom in the local lobster industry and crash of the cod fishery.

“A lot of these changes are happening relatively fast, and our fisheries management is unable to keep up,” Saba said. “We’re trying to figure out how to deal with some of these species shifts that we’re seeing.”

It’s not just fisheries: If the slowdown trend continues, it is expected to drive strong sea-level rise against the Eastern Seaboard. Previous research has already shown that from 2009 to 2010, sea level in the region suddenly shot up five inches, thanks in part to a brief slowdown of the circulation.

This occurs, Rahmstorf explains, because the northward flow of the Gulf Stream pushes waters to its right — which means that the ocean piles up against the coast of Europe. But as the current weakens, some of the water flows back toward the United States’ East Coast instead.

As for the future, Rahmstorf predicts the circulation will only weaken further as climate change advances. It may not be slow and steady: There is great fear that there may be a “tipping point” where the circulation comes to an abrupt halt.

This is one of the most infamous scenarios for abrupt climate change, as it is known: Studies from the planet’s history suggest that such a sudden change in the North Atlantic has occurred many times in Earth’s past, perhaps as recently as about 13,000 years ago. But it’s not clear how close the tipping point might be.

“I think in the long run … Greenland will start melting even faster, so I think the long-term prospect for that ocean circulation system is that it will weaken further,” Rahmstorf said. “And I think that’s going to affect all of us, basically, in a negative way.”

Read more at Energy & Environment:

Why the Earth’s past has scientists so worried about the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation

Climate change is doing some very strange things to the waters off New England

Why some scientists are worried about a surprisingly cold ‘blob’ in the North Atlantic Ocean

For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here.

Chris Mooney covers climate change, energy, and the environment. He has reported from the 2015 Paris climate negotiations, the Northwest Passage, and the Greenland ice sheet, among other locations, and has written four books about science, politics and climate change.

Cities around the world should prepare for running out of water, experts say

CNBC – World Economy

Cities around the world should prepare for running out of water, experts say

Cape Town’s recent water shortage crisis has raised global concern about the threat of water scarcity.

The increasing risks have cast a spotlight on the issue of water theft and mitigation efforts.

Andrew Wong April 11, 2018

It’s called “Day Zero”: when Cape Town, South Africa’s bustling port city, sees its water taps run dry, and its population thrust into a perilous situation.

Originally projected for this year, the impending crisis has been delayed in part by severe measures — the city instituted restrictions that amount to less than one sixth of an average American’s water consumption. Yet despite that effort, “Day Zero” is still projected to arrive next year.

And when it comes, the crisis will see the government switching off all the taps and rationing the resource through collection points.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/03/29/why-water-is-the-only-smart-investment-for-the-future.html

Why water is the only smart investment for the future.

That future isn’t just Cape Town’s. It’s a scenario cities around the globe may face, experts say.

It may be hard to fathom just how cities could be at risk of a water scarcity crisis when approximately 70 percent of the world is made up of the resource. The stark reality, however, is that the percentage of fresh water probably only amounts to about 2.5 percent, according to often-cited assessments.

Morgana Wingard | Getty Images

A public swimming pool, in a suburb of Cape Town has been emptied due to local water restrictions on March 6, 2018.

Even then, a significant supply is locked up in ice and snow, which means just 1 percent of all fresh water is easily accessible to the global population.

Inequality in access to water is also quickly becoming a problem. While the affluent can find ways to get access to water— through deliveries or in-built tanks — poorer populations are left to their own devices.

That situation oftentimes leads to water theft — for profit, for survival, or for both.

A ‘wake-up call’

A nation’s development has frequently come at the cost of undercutting its sources of clean water, Betsy Otto, director of the World Resources Institute’s global water program told CNBC.

“For example, quite a bit of scientific evidence has shown that deforestation changed the hydrological cycle in the Amazon,” she said.

Although water scarcity is a very real and pervasive problem, experts said most cities are not immediately at risk of running out of water.

Still, it is extremely important that water scarcity is acknowledged as a global problem because cities should begin working on unique solutions to local problems now, according to Rebecca Keller, a senior science and technology analyst at intelligence firm Stratfor

“It won’t be the same exact scenario that Cape Town is facing,” Keller said. “It might be pollution, drought, drier climates or significant population growth.”

NurPhoto | Getty Images

An indian woman carries drinking water in steel and plastic containers, walking towards her temporary shelters in Rataiora Village on December 15, 2016.

The troubles faced by Cape Town should serve as a “wake-up call” for other countries about the realities of increasing water stress, Otto said.

Water stress occurs when demand for the resource exceeds the available supply. It taxes the reserves and may lead to deterioration of fresh water resources.

In recent years, California faced a drought that lasted years, Australia survived the millennium drought, and Sao Paulo faced a water shortage crisis in 2015 due to both drought and inefficient infrastructures.

Otto summed up the global state of preparedness for water scarcity, saying: “We’ve either under-invested in measures or allowed existing structures to fall apart.”

Water theft

The United Nations’ 2010 recognition of water as a human right has complicated the issue of water theft, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the foreign policy program at think-tank the Brookings Institution.

“The right to water does not mean the right to free water,” Felbab-Brown explained, saying many people had misunderstood the UN. “In the same manner that people have to pay for food, they should expect to pay for safe water.”

That sentiment hasn’t stopped outright water theft on a large scale in countries like Brazil, India and Mexico. Companies and individuals illegally tap into pipelines and reservoirs, or they find other ways to avoid water meters.

There’s no single solution to the issue, however, as the context of water theft varies between places, Felbab-Brown said. But, she pointed out, better law enforcement, water monitoring, and creating comprehensive databases, are good starting points for governments.

“Governments need to recognize that they can’t just apply law enforcement without providing legal alternatives,” she added.

As of now, water smuggling mostly operates within countries’ borders, but it will eventually occur on an international scale, Felbab-Brown said.

Zacharias Abubeker | AFP | Getty Images

Ethiopian construction workers working on the Grand Renaissance Dam near the Sudanese-Ethiopian border on March 31, 2015.

That could become a point of geopolitical tension between countries dealing with transboundary water issues, Keller said.

For an example of international water tensions, take the construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam in the Nile, a $4 billion hydroelectric project financed by Ethiopia. It’s left Egypt fearing a potential disruption to its fresh water supply.

Controling demand

Mitigating water scarcity has proven to be a tricky political subject because, in many countries, environmental or climate solutions tend to have a hard time gathering enough political support to become a reality.

It is also extremely expensive to build out new water supplies, dams and desalination plants.

“Unless there is an acute event — a severe drought for example — it is the [political] constraints that play out in a long time frame,” Keller said.

Consequently, many governments have done little to guide their citizens on water-efficient behavior. That can be implemented through price controls, Otto said, but it’s rarely a popular measure.

“There should be two tiers of pricing. Conservation pricing, which charges the minimum amount for water that is sufficient for basic needs, should be provided at low rates. Discretionary water use, which is anything beyond the necessary amount, should be charged more,” Otto said.

On a national level, she said, governments should encourage conversation about conservation issues. That is, saving water will always be cheaper than building or drilling for new sources, Otto added.

The good news, experts said, is there will be time for governments to start preparing for a Day Zero scenario.

“It’s not going to be a surprise. The city is not going to run out of water suddenly,” Keller said.

WATCH: Michael Phelps on the quest to ‘Save Water’

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/04/12/michael-phelps-on-the-quest-to-save-water.html

Line 5 oil pipeline in Straits of Mackinac dented by ship

Detroit Free Press

Line 5 oil pipeline in Straits of Mackinac dented by ship

By Keith Matheny, Detroit Free Press April 11, 2018

Sixteen sections of underwater oil and gas pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac were found unsupported on the Great Lakes bottom during 2003 inspections — spans of 140 feet or longer, well beyond state requirements for mooring the pipe. Keith Matheny/Detroit Free Press

(Photo: National Wildlife Federation)

The same “vessel activity” that appears to have damaged submerged electric cables in the Straits of Mackinac last week, causing a leak of 550 gallons of benzene-containing coolant, may have also caused three dents just discovered in the Line 5 oil and natural gas liquids pipeline, also underwater where lakes Michigan and Huron connect.

Canadian oil transport giant Enbridge, who owns and operates Line 5, informed state officials late Tuesday of the dents, characterized as “very small” and posing “no threat to the pipeline,” Gov. Rick Snyder’s office said in a statement Wednesday.

“An anchor strike was the largest risk identified in a previous independent analysis of the Enbridge pipeline, which is apparently what happened in the Straits last week,” Snyder said.

Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy, in an e-mail to the Free Press Wednesday, said the dents were discovered in reviews undertaken following news of damage and coolant leaking from Wisconsin-based American Transmission Co. submerged power cables in the Straits. The cables lie a few hundred yards west of the western-most of Enbridge’s twin pipelines, Duffy said.

“Enbridge took immediate action after learning of the damage to ATC’s cables in the Straits of Mackinac – possibly caused by vessel activity that is under a marine casualty investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard,” Duffy said.

“Following a series of inspections of Line 5 in recent days, we have confirmed dents to both the East and West segments of Line 5. A review of all leak detection systems and available data indicates the structural integrity of the pipelines has not been compromised. We are working closely with the State, the Coast Guard and PHMSA (the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) to provide updates on our inspections and our plans moving forward.”

Duffy added that Enbridge is “taking immediate action to assess appropriate, reinforcing repairs.”

An image from underwater inspections of Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac shows an area of missing protective coating and exposed steel. State officials are concerned, because it appears this damage was caused during the installation of anchor supports for the pipeline, without any repair or reporting of the coating damage. (Photo: Michigan Department of Environment)

Line 5 moves 23 million gallons of oil and natural gas liquids per day through the Upper Peninsula, splitting into twin, underwater pipelines through the Straits, before returning to a single transmission pipeline through the Lower Peninsula and on to a hub in Sarnia, Ontario.

Concerned citizens and environmentalists have called for the decommissioning of the 65-year-old Straits pipelines, stating a spill like the one on Enbridge’s Line 6B pipeline near the Kalamazoo River in 2010 would devastate the Great Lakes, shoreline and island communities, as well as the state’s economy.

“Pipelines do not belong in the Straits of Mackinac, period,” said Sean McBrearty, coordinator of Oil and Water Don’t Mix, a coalition of nonprofit organizations, citizens and businesses opposed to oil continuing to flow through the 65-year-old, underwater lines.

“Our state’s economy, tourism, and way of life revolves around keeping our Great Lakes in a pristine condition. There’s simply too much at stake to keep Line 5 in operation.”

Snyder called on Enbridge to accelerate both identification of anchor strike mitigation measures, as well as evaluation of alternatives to replace the Straits pipelines, measures called for in an agreement between Enbridge and state officials last November.

State officials have appeared supportive of a proposal to create a tunnel beneath the Straits, in which to operate a north-south oil pipeline and remove the lines from the water.

“Assuming studies show a tunnel is physically possible and construction would not cause significant environmental damage, the Governor will move to require Enbridge to construct the tunnel and decommission the existing Line 5 that runs under the Straits of Mackinac,” the statement from the governor’s office Wednesday stated.

Mike Shriberg, executive director for the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center and a member of the state’s Pipeline Safety Advisory Board, questioned that approach.

“For the first time, Governor Snyder has called for the decommissioning of Line 5, which is the right thing to do,” Shriberg said. “However, pushing forward on the tunnel presumes that it is the best pathway for the state. What we know is that Line 5 is not critical infrastructure and that there are alternatives which do not endanger the Great Lakes.”

Enbridge has raised the anger of state officials over the past year with revelations the company knew a section of the required protective coating on its twin, underwater oil pipelines was damaged in 2014 — but did not make state officials aware of it until August 2017.

Enbridge has also failed to maintain an adequate spacing of anchor supports holding the pipeline on the Straits bottom, as required in its 1953 easement with the state. And amid a state-mandated review of anchor supports last year, Enbridge disclosed that of 48 anchor supports it had inspected, the majority had adjacent segments of the pipelines with missing, protective coating.

Lt. Gov. Brian Calley on Wednesday called for state Attorney General Bill Schuette to initiate legal action on behalf of the state against the ship’s owners and anyone else responsible for the cable and pipeline damage.

“There is no excuse for the ship’s actions, which risked devastating environmental harm as well as the loss of vital infrastructure for communications, electrical power and heat for residents of the Upper Peninsula,” he said in a statement.

“I have asked the Attorney General to begin legal action against the ship’s owners immediately to ensure every member of the maritime community understands the no-anchor zone is vital.”

But Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher Yaw said investigators were not yet ready to identify a particular ship responsible for the damage, and couldn’t yet confirm that an anchor strike caused the damage.

“We’re still investigating any causes,” he said. “That’s still being looked at.”

Contact Keith Matheny: 313-222-5021 or kmatheny@freepress.com. Follow on Twitter @keithmatheny.

What Does the New Regenerative Organic Certification Mean for the Future of Good Food?

Civil Eats

What Does the New Regenerative Organic Certification Mean for the Future of Good Food?

Several new labels introduced last week seek to move beyond USDA organic. Can they shore up sustainable practices, or will they sow consumer confusion?

By Ariana Reguzzoni, Farming, Food Policy March 12, 2018

Photo courtesy of The Rodale Institute

Organic is not enough. Or that’s the thinking behind the new Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) that was officially launched at the Natural Products Expo West trade show last week. The Regenerative Organic Alliance, a coalition of organizations and businesses led by the Rodale Institute, Patagonia, and Dr. Bronner’s, have joined the seemingly unstoppable engine propelling sustainable agriculture beyond the term “organic,” or, as some believe, bringing it back to its original meaning.

“[The USDA] Organic [label] is super important—thank goodness it was put into play,” says Birgit Cameron, senior director of Patagonia Provisions, an arm of Patagonia that aims to solve environmental issues by supporting climate-friendly food producers. “The ROC is absolutely never meant to replace it, but rather to keep it strong to the original intention.”

Like other newly proposed certifications—including the “The Real Organic Project,” which was also announced last week—one of the Alliance’s primary goals is to require growers to focus on soil health and carbon sequestration. But, as Cameron explains, it is also an attempt to be a “north star” for the industry as a certification that encompasses the health of the planet, animal welfare, and social fairness.

As producers move up through its tier system (bronze, silver, and gold) they will eventually set an even “higher bar” than any other labels offered right now. According to Jeff Moyer, executive director of the Rodale Institute, this built-in incentive to constantly improve on-farm practices is something the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) organic requirements lack.

“When you play with the federal government, you have to give up some things,” Moyer says. “Organic is a fairly static standard … once you become certified you’re in the club and there’s no incentive to move beyond that.”

Mechanics of a New Regenerative Label

There are still nuances that need to be worked out, but, as it stands now, USDA organic certification (or an international equivalent) is a baseline requirement for ROC certification—a company or farm must at least be USDA Organic certified to earn the ROC label. However, the Alliance—instead of the USDA—will oversee ROC certification. ROC-certified producers must also meet the requirements of one of the existing certifications for animal welfare and social fairness, such as Animal-Welfare Approved or Fair Trade Certified.

And the Alliance’s goal is that ROC will be enforced through the same third-party certifier with whom producers are already working, such as Oregon Tilth or CCOF. Proponents say that requirements will be regularly reevaluated and updated as new practices emerge, and that in this way, it will be a living document.

USDA organic requirements are also meant to be updated through the National Organic Standards Boards (NOSB), a group of farmers, industry reps, and scientists that meets twice yearly in a public setting to discuss and vote on recommendations for the National Organic Program.

The Alliance is part of a growing group of activists and producers disillusioned with the NOSB’s decisions last year to allow soil-free crops–such as those grown using hydroponics–to qualify as certified organic and the withdrawal of a rule that required improvements in animal welfare.

Many view the co-opting of the word “organic” by large corporations and mono-crop farms as more evidence of the label’s erosion. They also worry about the influx of fraudulent organic food being imported into the country. And the fact that the current USDA and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have both moved away from many of the values embraced by the organic movement in the last year seems to be spurring this new movement along.

The groups behind these labels are also slowly introducing the term “regenerative” to the mainstream. While there is not yet one official definition of the term, Kevin Boyer, project director at the newly established Regenerative Agriculture Foundation, an education and grant-making organization, summed regenerative ag up as “any system of agriculture that continuously improves the cycles on which it relies, including the human community, the biological community, and the economic community.”

Boyer says he knows of at least four other regenerative labels that are currently in the works, but ROC is the farthest along. (Not all will use organic certification as a baseline.) This influx of new standards contributes to the urgency the Alliance feels to get out in front of the crowd.

“The more popular it gets, the more vulnerable it is to having someone who is not part of the regenerative agriculture community come in and use it,” says Boyer.

Last year, the Alliance held a public comment period facilitated by NSF International, a certifier with whom they have an established relationship. The certification has also gone through two revisions so far, but the Alliance deliberately chose not to pass it through a large committee of reviewers. Instead, they want to “put a stake in the ground” now by presenting it to the public.

Despite goals that are broadly supported by many people in the sustainable agriculture community, ROC has garnered skepticism among those who believe it is working in a vacuum and further confusing a marketplace where consumers are already overwhelmed by an abundance of third-party labels such as Non-GMO and Rainforest Alliance Certified.

“I think ROC did a really beautiful job in addressing all the things that regenerative agriculture is supposed to care about, but it has to be a conversation with the whole community and built in a way that truly promotes the inclusion the movement has had since the very beginning,” says Boyer.

Adding Confusion in a Crowded Marketplace?

Bob Scowcroft, the retired executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation and a 35-year activist and leader in the organic farming movement, also has concerns about splintering support for organic food. At the Ecological Farming Conference in January, he was dismayed to hear a panel of ROC underwriters tell an audience of successful organic farmers, some of whom undoubtedly spent thousands of dollars on USDA organic certification, that it wasn’t enough.

“I try to remind people … organic is only 4.8 percent of the food economy,” he says. “Ninety-five percent of the economy is still sprayed [with synthetic pesticides] or [made up of] CAFOs, so we’re going to shred each other? We can only afford to do that when organic is 45 percent of the economy.”

Scowcroft welcomes a “certain amount of agitation” within the umbrella of sustainable agriculture and believes that everything can be improved, but he says adding yet another label into the mix—especially one that is wrapped up in a strong marketing platform instead of extensive research—might not make any significant improvements.

“Regenerative agriculture is probably the 262nd term for organic. We really don’t want to do this again,” said Scowcroft.

Rather, he would like to see more energy and faith put into the systems that are already established. He points to the increased awareness within the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service about cover crops and soil runoff as evidence of the shared value for some “regenerative” requirements. And he supports more research on soil fertility, carbon sequestration, crop rotation, and perennial grasses.

As Scowcroft sees it, the finish line of the “30-year march” toward a better food system isn’t even close to being crossed, but there are many important placeholders that have already been set. Programs like the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative and Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education grants have ushered in tremendous positive changes, he says, asking why anyone would want to give up on a system that is still malleable and able to get even stronger.

“The model is already there to bring that language to the National Organic Standard Board to further the conversation on eventual improvement,” Scowcroft says. “There shouldn’t be anything stopping anybody from doing that.”

Photo courtesy of Lee Health.

For other good food advocates, however, the NOSB’s recent decision not to ban hydroponic operations from organic certification was just the latest example of the fact that the board itself is now composed of a number of representatives of large corporations that would like to see the standards further watered down.

“Some folks fought so long and hard to get [federal organic standards] only to see these things trying to displace them,” says Boyer. “I credit the organic movement for creating an atmosphere that even allows this conversation. But, especially here in California, you don’t have to drive very far to see an organic farm that is not fulfilling the ideal organic vision.”

Some ranchers, like Julie Morris of Morris Grassfed Beef in California’s San Benito County, say the organic label has never worked for her family’s operation. Unlike ROC, Morris says the original organic standards were written for fruit and vegetable growers and did not take adequately into account livestock practices. Morris Grassfed’s pastures are certified organic, but their beef is not because they work with smaller butchers who can’t always afford certification.

On the other hand, Morris is excited about the coming wave of regenerative standards because, she believes it will consider more of the practices she and her husband already use on their land, with their animals and their employees. For years they have been “first-person certified”—a term Morris uses to describe how they earn customers’ loyalty by showing them first-hand how they run their ranch. But, as more people seek out these kinds of products she says those direct connections don’t always happen.

“Consumers want to know that we nurture the earth, raise our animals humanely, and pay our workers fairly,” she said. “We will now have a chance to share that and be transparent.”

In the meantime, the Alliance hopes that farmers will also choose to get on board because of the potential market pull and additional premium they could receive for something with the ROC stamp. As Cameron explains, the Alliance is counting on the fact that a significant portion of consumers are already searching for something that exceeds organic.

At this point, however, any premiums are speculative. The Alliance is still in the process of deciding whether the label will be consumer-facing or will just come into play in business-to-business interactions. Patagonia, for example, could say they will only buy cotton from farms that are regenerative organic certified, which would be a boon to the farmers, but not much of a step toward educating the public.

“[Producers] may or may not advertise to consumers,” says Moyer. “If the market says ‘this is confusing me,’ they might not.”

Like Morris, Loren Poncia, rancher and owner of Stemple Creek Ranch in Marin County, California, is intrigued by the possibility that this one certification could help consolidate several of the certifications he already earns. And since his pastures are already certified organic and part of the Global Animal Partnership, Stemple Creek might be a prime contender for ROC. But it will also depend on how laborious the certification process is. It’s a challenge, Poncia says, to manage the ranch, the business, and also keep up with all the certifications.

“Unless customers are coming to me and asking, ‘Are you certified by this?’ it’s probably not going to motivate me to get another certification,” he says.

Another sticking point for some people is the question of specific practices versus outcomes. Right now, ROC, like other certifications, is primarily practice-based rather than measuring specific data-driven outcomes. At first glance, focusing on practices might help regulate the methods (i.e., inputs, tillage, irrigation) a farmer or rancher might employ and get them to their goal more quickly. But Boyer from the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation argues that the opposite tends to happen. He says that a practice-based standard restricts farmers by telling them what they can and cannot do instead of fostering innovation.

“A lot of people are good at ticking the boxes, but nothing new comes out of that,” Boyer says. “That doesn’t grow the movement.”

On the other hand, an outcomes-based standard encourages farmers to “employ their creativity.” It makes loopholes less appealing because there is more freedom for farmers to utilize practices that are specific to their operations and, therefore, more successful.

One thing that everyone agrees on is that the Alliance has more work to do. The next step is to run pilot programs with interested farmers—many of whom are already on their way to reaching the standards.

Juz whaa kine ah Merica da yah wann pepul?

John Hanno, www.tarbabys.com April 10, 2018

Juz whaa kine ah Merica da yah wann pepul?

trump’s bait n switch, 3 card monte, pig in a poke, catfishing presidency, and his cabal of Republi-con enablers, have reneged on every boast he used to scam his desperate supporters. Hood, meet Wink! “I know and will hire the best and brightest people.” “I’ll repeal and replace Obamacare with something much, much better and cheaper on my first day in office.” “I’ll build the best wall and have Mexico pay for it.” “Nobody knows infrastructure better than me.” “I’m the best deal maker; I wrote the best book on the subject.” “I know more than the generals.” “We passed the biggest tax cut in history and it’ll pay for itself.” “I will protect your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, unlike all the other Republicans running against me.” “I will bring back all the jobs.” “Manufacturer’s will no longer take their jobs off shore.” “I’m really an environmentalist.” “I’ll probably never see any of my golf clubs while I’m in office; I’ll never leave the White House because I’ll be working too hard,” “… draining the swamp.”

I could go on and on and on but I just don’t have the time or energy. I don’t think I’m letting the cat out of the bag here; most of us have been on to this flim flamery even before trump’s “greatest” inauguration

It took more than 14 months of catastrophic overreaching, obsessive repeals of necessary environmental and consumer regulations and Obama era achievements, unchecked self enrichment and gross malfeasance, but the donald’s entrenched voters are finally starting to peal off. Unfortunately we can’t say the same for the Republi-con leadership in congress. They never fail to wear their American flag pins on their lapels and champion their constitutional fealty, especially the 2nd Amendment, but then show their true patriotic stripes by ignoring their duty to reign in their party’s morally and ethically bankrupt commander in chief.

No far right political donor wish or demand has gone unfulfilled. Potential administration employees, no matter how unqualified or flawed, were ever rejected as long as they pledged allegiance to the leader. Every undaunted loyalist was rewarded in spades.

trump’s world view is “flat” again. Beware progressive libtards, his idea of new and improved is to return Merica to it’s white Christian roots. The good old Robber Baron era was just fine by the rich and powerful, and black folks were “really happier and better-off during slavery.” No need for civil rights, workers rights, women rights or voters rights. And forget the “Great American Melting Pot;” immigration is passé, especially for black and brown folks. trump knows what’s best for us and will “Make America Great Again.” Believe him!

Forget public education and science and climate change and global warming and facts and figures and by the way, the “truth” is in the eye of the beholder. Evolution is just another unproven theory, no better than Creationism. Just ask his Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos.

The new Evangelicals associated with trumpism have embraced a new paradigm. They’re no longer tethered to a moral compass. They’ve found a new Jesus Christ, one who shuns the poor and downtrodden. They forget the teachings of Jesus and the Bible when its convenient. Women are just another commodity to be used and abused. And greed is actually Godly.

Move over renewable, sustainable energy, there’s a “new” more toxic agenda oozing from the American landscape and environment; like more expensive and unclean – clean coal, and with it a financial boost to black-lung health care professionals, but not to miners pensions. Un-stranding stranded fossil fuel assets held by trump and republican corporate and billionaire donors is job one.

gas2.org

Move aside blossoming and cheaper wind and solar energy, unreliable and toxic tar-sand oil is pulsing through 100’s of thousands of miles of risky pipelines again, Obama and Native American’s be damned. Never mind that America’s precious lakes, rivers and aquifers are necessary for drinking water and vital for our survival. Yes, “Water is Life” Mni Winconi, but their greedy benefactors must be repaid.

Our National Parks and public lands will finally be exploited yall; we will leave no stone or pristine, pastoral vista unturned, undrilled or unplundered. ANWR is just a bunch of letters.

Gunsmoke is not just a legacy rerun on WeTV, Dodge City is back pardner. The wild west is back pilgrim. Step aside Matt Dillon, the new sheriff in town is gunnin for you and your namby pamby gun control rules and ‘regalations’ and he’s packing an AR-15 with high capacity magazines and a bump stock. Snowflake Barack Husain Obama is old school gentlemen, our teachers and preachers are armed and dangerous. Our bartenders will settle all drunken disputes.

This new GOP is also all in favor of Putin and his thievin oligarchs, because well, they’re really just like them. trump and most of his administration is deferential to Putin and the Russians because they all seem to have had previous contacts or business dealings. trump’s advisers admonished him: “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” Putin on his sham of an election win during a recent phone call. trump ignored them and congratulated him anyway. Sure, he’s an autocratic tyrant and leader of the largest criminal enterprise in the world, one who thinks nothing of murdering opponents and members of the press but trump says we do bad things too. During the call, trump refused to discuss Putin’s interference in our election and their poisoning of the father and daughter in the UK. Apparently just collateral damage.

In this new trump world order, you can have all the guns you want, if it gives you a false sense of security or makes you feel safe in a sanctuary city Republi-cons tout as overrun with dangerous Muslims and immigrants….But that won’t protect your children and grandchildren from the young white terrorists bent on reaping as much carnage as their readily available military weapons will afford.

You can support trump’s and his conflicted Climate Denier in Charge Scott Pruitt’s war on our environment and the Obama administration’s clean water and clean air legislation…But that will only increase America’s health care costs and your own health insurance premiums.

You can ignore the corruption and self dealing, rampant in trump’s white house and cabinet…But that won’t give you a living wage or protect your hard earned Social Security and Medicare entitlements.

trump admires and praises profiteering dictators around the world, because he’s on the same wavelength with these tyrants and his goals and ethics are diametrically opposed to democratic principles and our democratic institutions. Will you support a kleptocratic despot or American Democracy?

You can ignore trump’s unabashed self dealing campaign to enrich himself, his family, his wealthy friends, his billionaire donors and his cabinet’s fortunes…but that won’t trickle down to your substandard wages and benefits; we’ve been there done that, time and again. Never worked and never will.

USA Today

trump said he’s “unbelievably” rich, and if you hired him, he would work to make America rich again, make you rich again. But you should have doubted when he refused to show you his audited income taxes; he was probably on the verge of his seventh bankruptcy. You wouldn’t believe Mr. “Government Should Be Run As a Business” has mucked up every business enterprise he’s ever floated. You refused to see through the BS.

But Robert Mueller and his steadfast team of investigators are tightening the noose, having focused the bright lights on trump’s favorite and impolite personal attorney Michael Cohen.

The donald has impulsively fired most of the moral and sensible checks and balances to his presidential derangement. You may be witnessing the end of America’s constitutional nightmare. I’m sure the Vegas line on his impending demise no longer favors the (White) house.

You can still prefer to sate your implied moral and ideological indignation’s, with the diversionary atonement emanating from the trump / Fox News State Press every day…but America’s calamities grow intransigent. You can choose to believe trump and Fox when they call the outraged and determined free press, critical thinkers and skeptics fake news, but the real truth may just set you free. John Hanno, www.tarbabys.com

Trump May Greenlight An $8 Billion Attack On Competitive Energy Markets

Forbes – Energy #Trump’s America

Trump May Greenlight An $8 Billion Attack On Competitive Energy Markets

From The Environmental Defense Fund. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Written by Dick Munson, EDF’s Director, Midwest Clean Energy April 11, 2018

Signage is displayed at the FirstEnergy Corp. Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017. Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg

President Trump may soon grossly distort competitive markets for electricity. Last week, he announced his consideration of a request for “202(c),” by which he means an $8 billion proposal to bail out all merchant coal and nuclear plants in a region that spans across 13 Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic states.

The request comes from FirstEnergy, the Ohio-based utility giant that has sought billions of bailout dollars over the last decade to cover its bad business decisions. Although repeatedly rebuked by federal and state regulators, the company recently asked the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to bail out coal and nuclear units in the PJM-grid operator region by invoking section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act. Using this power would require the Department to find that additional compensation to these plants is necessary due to an “emergency” on the grid. The audacious proposal would bail out not only FirstEnergy’s facilities, but more than 80 coal and nuclear units throughout PJM, the largest grid-operator region in the U.S.

The plea aims to increase electricity bills by a staggering $8 billion annually. It also would insulate old, dirty power plants from competition – protecting them from markets where more affordable resources like solar, wind and natural gas are helping to drive down electricity bills for Americans.

Independent generators and owners of wind farms and natural gas power plants recognize that massive preferences given to coal and nuclear will stifle innovation and modern technologies. According to NRG’s general counsel, the FirstEnergy proposal is “corporate welfare, and it is not something we should tolerate because all it does is make consumers pay more for power plants that should go through belt-tightening or leave the market.”

Manufacturers, farmers, and other consumers of electricity also oppose the plan, objecting to the higher costs for power that would result from the proposed bailout.

Even PJM calculated that FirstEnergy’s clunkers can close and the lights will stay on. In fact, the regional grid operator responded to FirstEnergy’s request with an unequivocal message: “This is not an issue of reliability. There is no immediate emergency.”

FirstEnergy’s proposal is very similar to one unanimously rejected recently by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A DOE assistant secretary also said the agency “would never use” its emergency authority to keep uneconomic plants operating.

Yet such substantial opposition, evidence, and logic do not guarantee the expensive proposal’s demise. FirstEnergy launched its plea with a lobbying frenzy, including two of its high-powered representatives recently dining with President Trump.

America’s competitive energy markets are ushering in a new era of cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient electricity. But FirstEnergy’s dangerous proposal seeks to undermine competition by guaranteeing profits for uneconomic power plants and thwarting innovation and progress. Proponents of open markets need to make their voices heard, and soon.

Inside the killing rooms of Mosul

VICE News posted an episode of VICE News Tonight.

April 10, 2018

EXCLUSIVE: In March, we returned to Mosul for the first time since the war against ISIS was declared over eight months ago.

What we found was horrifying and shocking.

Inside The Killing Rooms Of Mosul

EXCLUSIVE: In March, we returned to Mosul for the first time since the war against ISIS was declared over eight months ago.What we found was horrifying and shocking.

Posted by VICE News on Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The EPA has reportedly spent $3 million on Scott Pruitt’s security but can’t name any death threats for him.

The Week

The EPA has reportedly spent $3 million on Scott Pruitt’s security but can’t name any death threats for him.

Pete Marovich/Getty Images

Three Republican senators criticized embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Sunday’s political talk show, but President Trump seemed to sweep away Pruitt’s many ethics scandals on Saturday night. “While Security spending was somewhat more than his predecessor, Scott Pruitt has received death threats because of his bold actions at EPA,” Trump tweeted. “Rent was about market rate, travel expenses OK. Scott is doing a good job!”

Trump’s tweet followed a report in Politico that Pruitt’s lobbyist landlords had boot him from his $50-a-night sweetheart rental deal and change the locks last year after he overstayed his welcome by four months, plus a brutal Associated Press article on Pruitt’s $3 million in security expenses and counting. AP reached that cost, which includes Pruitt’s large 24-hour security detail and first-class flights, from records and an EPA official with direct knowledge of Pruitt’s security spending.

Pruitt’s schedules show that multiple EPA security agents accompanied him on a family vacation to California, including a day at Disneyland, and to the Rose Bowl and a University of Kentucky baseball game. However, AP says:

On weekend trips home for Sooners football games, when taxpayers weren’t paying for his ticket, the EPA official said Pruitt flew coach. He sometimes used a companion pass obtained with frequent flyer miles accumulated by Ken Wagner, a former law partner whom Pruitt hired as a senior adviser at EPA at a salary of more than $172,000. Taxpayers still covered the airfare for the administrator’s security detail. [The Associated Press]

EPA officials have justified Pruitt’s steep security costs by citing death threats, but “a nationwide search of state and federal court records by AP found no case where anyone has been arrested or charged with threatening Pruitt,” AP says, and the EPA didn’t detail any threats when asked. BuzzFeed’s Jason Leopold tweeted Saturday night that he “filed a #FOIA with EPA for any records of death threats made against Scott Pruitt. EPA said it had zero [records].” Peter Weber

Ex EPA Staffer Speaks Out Against Scott Pruitt

FRONTLINE

April 5, 2018

Betsy Southerland left the EPA in 2017, after working at the agency for over 30 years – under Democratic and Republican administrations. Here’s what she told FRONTLINE about the Trump administration’s EPA: http://to.pbs.org/2fRA7Rp

An Ex-EPA Staffer Speaks Out Against Scott Pruitt

Betsy Southerland left the EPA in 2017, after working at the agency for over 30 years – under Democratic and Republican administrations. Here's what she told FRONTLINE about the Trump administration's EPA: http://to.pbs.org/2fRA7Rp

Posted by FRONTLINE on Thursday, April 5, 2018