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To:

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Allen, Kara[Kara.Allen@mail.house.gov]

Allen, Kara

Fri 6/27/2014 2:16:35 PM

SEEC

Daily Clips 6.27.14

Sustainable Energy Environment Coalition

Top news stories:

On

the

one-year anniversary

of

launching his climate action plan, President Barack Obama derided

congressional opponents

of

cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

n

most communities across

the

U.S.,

Obama said, it's pretty rare

that

you encounter people who say

that

carbon

pollution

is not a

problem.

Except, he said, in Congress.

The new Pew Political

Typology report

shows huge majorities of all

four

Democratic-leaning

groups

support the development of wind, solar and

hydrogen

alternatives to oil, coal and natural gas.

The families

of

a dozen

of

the

19

elite

Arizona

firefighters

killed last year in

the

nation's

worst wildfire

in

eight decades have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit claiming the state was negligent in its efforts

to

battle

the

massive blaze.

Producers, refiners and pipeline companies are questioning exactly

how

much the Obama

administration has relaxed its position on crude exports after the Commerce Department said June

24

it

had categorized some lightly processed oil as exportable. The

U.S.

has prohibited mos t crude exports for

four decades.

The

2 14

World

Cup in Brazil has been

notable

for more than

hard-fought

matches and stoppage

time

goals; it's also

the first time

official water breaks have been called

due to

excessive heat and

humidity.

And

as

climate change drives

up

not

only

average

temperatures but extreme

heat and

humidity,

experts

say outdoor events like the World Cup could pose a danger

to

the health

of

athletes.

Energy news:

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A

new

advertising campaign

from

a liberal group argues

that

violence in Iraq and

the

resulting effects on

the

oil market expand

the

need

for the

government to increase

the

amount

of

renewable fuels mixed

with

gasoline.

Gasoline's price will increase up to 9 percent, and diesel fuel will rise by up to 14

percent

by 2017

because of the Renewable Fuel Standard RFS) if Congress does

not

repeal it,

the

Congressional Budget

Office CBO) said Thursday.

The

Department

of Energy (DOE) touted the carbon-capture technology it is funding Thursday, saying a

project at

a hydrogen

production

facility in Port

Arthur,

Texas, has now captured more than 1 million

tons

of carbon dioxide.

A California wind farm will become

the first

in

the nation

to avoid prosecution if eagles are

injured

or die

when they run into

the giant

turning blades,

the

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.

Sen. Lisa

Murkowski

(R-Alaska) continued to press for the

administration

to lift a decades-old ban on

crude oil exports Thursday, one day after a Commerce

Department

ruling allowed two companies to

export a form of

ultralight

crude.

Saying it's a side

of the

story

he won't

hear

from

California billionaires, Senate

Minority

Leader Mitch

McConnel l (R-Ky.) is inviting President Obama to visit with coal families to see

the

impact of his climate

rule up close.

The United States is still growing older,

but

the trend is reversing in the Great Plains, thanks to a liberal

application

of

oil. The aging baby boom

generation

helped inch up

the

median age in

the

United States

last year from 37.5 years to 37.6 years, according to data released Thursday by

the

Census Bureau.

Norfolk

Southern Corp. NSC +0.32% has become the first big American

freight

railroad to require its

customers to give the railroad legal

protection

against damages from fires, explosions or the release of

hazardous materials carried in tank cars that

don't

meet

the

rail industry's latest standards.

A federal appeals court yesterday

for the

second

t ime

rejected

the

Federal Energy Regulatory

Commission's

attempt

to divvy up the cost

of

high-voltage power lines in

the

Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.

Pennsylvania

environmental

regulators are wading through more

than

25,000 public comments on a

proposed overhaul of the state's oil and gas regulations.

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The sun is shining on

the

solar industry in Texas. Or

at

least that's the message from the

newly formed

Texas Solar Power Association, which made its

formal

debut this week. Charlie Hemmeline,

the

association's executive director, said solar energy is poised

to

build on recent momentum in

the

state.

A state-owned gas pipeline exploded and burst into flames Friday, killing at least 14 people, destroying

homes and forcing the evacuation of neighboring villages in the southern Indian state of Andhra

Pradesh, authorities said.

The

Department of

Energy

&

Climate Change's contracts with five offshore

wind

farms, two coal-to

biomass plants and a biomass heat and

power

plant may be needlessly generous

to

developers,

according

to

a

report today from

the NAO, which scrutinizes

state

spending on behalf of Parliament.

Analysts say the Chinese Machinery Engineering Corporation's (CMEC) struggle

to

repatriate roughly

1,300 employees highlights China's growing need

to

shift investment and energy deals away from

politically volatile

countries. In

the

past,

national

enterprises in

the

developing

world

have served

as

a

major source of income

for

the People's Republic. But after the

tumult

of the Arab Spring, the costs

have

sometimes

outweighed the benefits.

German lawmakers should back

the government's

revised EEG clean-energy law

when

they vote on

the

bill in parliament

today

because

current

subsidies are excessive, according

to

Economy

Minister

Sigmar Gabriel.

Germany is headed for its biggest electricity glut since 2011 as new coal-fired plants start and

generation

of

wind

and solar energy increases,

weighing

on

power

prices

that

have already

dropped

for

three years.

Climate news:

We're not going

to

be able

to

burn it all. With those 10 words, Barack Obama

uttered

one of the most

stunning, far-reaching statements ever made by a

U S

president. He also completely contradicted his

own energy policy. Yet no one seemed

to

notice.

Natural gas fields globally may be leaking enough

methane,

a potent greenhouse gas,

to

make the

fuel

as polluting as coal for the climate

over

the next few decades, according to a pair of studies published

last week.

Several western lawmakers remain optimistic they can change the way the federal government pays for

fighting wildfires even as the number of legislative days left before the midterm elections dwindles. I'm

pulling out all the stops on it. We've spent a decent chunk of time on

it

this past week, Sen.

Ron

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Wyden, D-Ore., said Tuesday.

NASA has released

some

encouraging images showing a marked decline in air pollution over much of

the

eastern

U.S., including Washington,

D.C.

and

the

1-95 corridor since 2005. The images show

the

change

in concentration of nitrogen dioxide, a

pollutant

linked to adverse effects

on

the

respiratory

system.

There's

a

strong

chance an l Nino weather event will reappear before the end of the

year and shake up

climate patterns worldwide, the U.N. weather agency said Thursday. The El Nino, a flow of unusually

warm

surface

waters from the Pacific Ocean toward

and

along the western

coast

of

South

America,

changes

rain

and

temperature patterns around

the

world

and

usually raises global temperatures.

Here

are

five charts and maps from

the

technical report

that

didn't quite grab headlines, but certainly

spotlight the myriad ways climate change will be a

drag

on

the

nation's economy. Each

one

of them

examines

the

impacts of climate change under a high emissions scenario.

At the first of three public hearings

on

the proposed

changes

Wednesday night, representatives of some

of the state's leading

environmental groups

said the new rules - the first

changes

to coastal

development policy since the

devastating

October

2012

storm - miss a golden opportunity

to

better

protect the coast.

Deep in coal country, the candidates waging

one

of

the

nation's most closely watched House races

are

competing to show who is

the

most outraged by President Barack Obama's environmental policies.

The Senate is engaged in a fruitless battle over a pair of ill-fated energy bills. Again. Senate Minority

Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky.) is calling

on

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to hold a vote

on

a bill

that would force approval of the controversial Keystone

XL

pipeline.

Canada should establish a price for

carbon

emissions to show it's

addressing

climate change

and to

give

President

Barack

Obama

political cover

to

approve TransCanada Corp. (TRP)'s 5.4 billion project,

Trudeau,

leader of Canada's

Liberal Party said

yesterday

in an interview in Fort McMurray, Alberta.

He

said he was agnostic

about

how the price should be set.

o it

turns

out, hope

is

important. Did we

know that

already? We

sort of

knew

that

already. But -

according to a new study put

together

by Yale's Climate Change Communication Project - hope is

particularly critical as a motivator in the very doom-heavy world of climate change activism.

In

Colorado, home

to

some of the

most destructive

floods

and

wildfires of recent years, Republican

climate change

deniers

had a big night at the polls as GOP primary

voters selected nominees

for

governor,

the U.S.

House,

and

a

host

of other offices.

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Europe could coax utilities

to

shift from burning coal

to

cleaner natural gas by quadrupling the price

that

financial markets place on carbon

dioxide

emissions, the head of Spain's biggest

power

generator said.

It starts with Al Gore. When it comes time

to

teach his high school sophomores about global warming,

Wyoming science teacher Jim Stith shows An Inconvenient Truth. The green documentary delivers an

unambiguous

message: Human activity is driving dangerous

climate

change.

A

dramatic night

of

storms

in Toronto on

Wednesday

flooded

subway

stations, turned a

major freeway

into a river and knocked

out power to thousands of

people. On Wednesday,

Environment

Canada issued

a special

weather

warning for heavy rain in

Toronto Wednesday

evening. Some parts of the city received

nearly three inches of rain in just three hours.

Norway s

commitment

of

1 billion in 2010

is

just the

beginning

of

what

is

needed in Indonesia, ranked

as the world s third-largest emitter because of its shrinking forests, said Heru Prasetyo, head of the

agency for Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation, known as REDD .

Environment Health news:

You probably

don t

want

to

dip

your

toes in these dirty waters. According

to the

24th annual report

released by the Natural Resources Defense Council,

one

in 10 U.S. beaches are dangerously polluted -

so

polluted, in fact,

that

they have been deemed unsafe for swimmers.

Levels of particulate matter spike at night inside homes

near

gas wells in Southwest Pennsylvania, the

director of an environmental health

monitoring

project said Wednesday.

The UN responded

after

a

coalition

of activist groups submitted a

report

to

its Human Rights Office of

the

High Commissioner last week,

detailing

water

shutoffs

and

extreme

consequences

for

families in

the

city who can t

afford to

pay

their

bills and have had

to

go

without water.

The final plan and accompanying

environmental

impact

statement

for

the

627 million,

44-project

Phase Ill BP oil spill early restoration plan

were

made available

to

the public on federal and state

websites

Wednesday

(June 25).

A plan by Gov.

Andrew

M. Cuomo and the agency building a new Tappan Zee Bridge to borrow a half

billion dollars provided under the federal Clean

Water

Act has come under fire from nine environmental

and transportation

groups

that argue the money would be

improperly spent

on basic construction, not

enhancing water quality.

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The by-catch problem in the U S isn't just hurting

our

oceans,

but our

pockets too, according

to

a

new

report

by Oceana. The environmental group

estimates

the U S fishing indust ry loses

at

least 1 billion

annually from the staggering amount of seafood that is unintentionally caught (and then discarded) by

fishermen.

On a beautiful

summer afternoon

recently, a handful

of people

across America decided

it was

high

time

to

make

their

feelings known about the

Obama

administration s

most

significant

response yet to

climate

change

-

the

EPA's Clean Power Plan. Here is

what they wrote.

Among more

than

2,500 doctors consulted for the survey, nearly all of them

reported

counseling

patients on factors such as diet, exercise and cigarette smoking. However, only about 20

percent

said

they

addressed environmental exposures. They pegged

their

hesitation to a

number

of factors, from the

fear of

overwhelming

patients

with anxiety-inducing worries

to

limited

appointment time

to

a lack

of

environmental health education.

Residents worried

about

the

spate of earthquakes

that have plagued

parts of

Oklahoma likely

got

little

satisfaction Thursday night

at

a

town

hall on

the

subject, as

experts

said

there is

no way

to

know

their

cause.

Scientists say the aquarium fishery off the

Big

Island

is among

the

best managed

in the world,

but

it has

nevertheless

become

the focus

of

a fight over whether it's ever

appropriate

to remove fish from reefs

for

people

to

look

at

and

enjoy.

The

memorandum

will

spur the

creation, within the next

180

days,

of

a National Pollinator Health

Strategy

that will

lay

out

ways for

the

U S

to better study and better

tackle

the problems

facing

pollinators,

both

wild

and managed.

While

the

plight

of bees

has

gotten deserved attention of

late,

many

species

of

pollinators face

the same threats: habitat

destruction, climate-induced

changes in

flowering

and weather patterns, and in some

cases, pesticides.

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