Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says the environmentally-friendly initiatives in the new Capitol Visitor Center are in keeping with the Capitol’s history. (0:55)

 

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Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) says what it will take to create energy change, and why she believes energy change can be so beneficial. (1:28)

 

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President Bush describes some of the ways transportation in the U.S. is “safer, cleaner, and more effective.” (1:15)

 

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U.S. Representative Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) said the new administration must invest in environmental and energy changes and should “get started in the next six months.”

In order to attain the necessary energy and environmental changes, Solis said it will take “political will,” and “leadership,” but emphasized it will not take a lot of money. She said that it will not be easy to convince Congress of the need for these big changes in environmental and energy policy, saying there are “not a lot of members in the House of Representatives, in my opinion, that grasp this concept.”

Solis advocated “greening our buildings, greening our infrastructure.” She felt this would increase jobs that would “stay here” and would allow for areas to “sustain communities.”

Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Van Jones said the economy is collapsing because the U.S. economic structure over the last 30 years was “not sustainable.” He felt that there are three inherent flaws in the U.S. economy: it has been “based on consumption, not production,” the U.S. can’t “run the economy forever based on debt,” and one cannot run an economy based on “environmental destruction, not environmental restoration.”

Jones claimed that energy change would not be as difficult as it seems because, “We have a Saudi Arabia of wind energy in this country, we have a Saudi Arabia of solar energy in this country.” He also said that energy investment “pays for itself” because it will lower overall energy cost, and will immensely increase available jobs. He claimed that if the government invested $100 billion, “we can have two million new jobs in two years.”

While Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, acknowledges that recent energy legislation has led to reductions in imported oil and emissions, the Senator contends that the achievements are relatively modest compared to the steps that need to be taken to secure the United States’ energy future and provide environmental protection. To meet the remaining needs, Bingaman listed six challenges that the new Congress will need to confront: deploying clean energy technology, improving energy efficiency, maintaining adequate supplies of conventional fuels, increasing energy innovation, making energy markets more transparent, and maintaining a balance between energy and environmental policies.

Regarding the establishment of clean energy technologies, Bingaman described the need for improvement in the electricity sector. “A national renewable electricity standard will enhance the diversity of our domestic electricity generation and it will position the United States to regain the world technology lead in these areas and start preparing our electricity sector for the inevitable requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

In order to address the challenge of improving energy efficiency, the U.S. would need to take an approach that would include the transportation, building, and industrial sectors. According to Bingaman, efficiency could be improved in these sectors by providing incentives for consumers to purchase more fuel efficient cars, adopting modern energy saving building codes, and reducing the industrial sector’s energy intensity.

The Senator pressed for the importance of maintaining an adequate supply of conventional energy, noting that while the goal of energy policy is to move away from the use of fossil fuels, the transition will take time and policy needs to be in place to secure energy supplies in the meantime.

Bingaman said that an increase in energy innovation could be achieved by providing more funding for research. “Our investments in these areas have been totally inadequate for the past decade. We need to boost these levels substantially…One of our challenges in the next congress and for the new administration is to see how we can set up an entity that focuses on protoyping transformative energy technologies that fall between the institutional cracks in the system.”

In regard to the fifth challenge, BIngaman discussed how the fluctuation in energy prices essentially happens outside the view of the public. “We clearly need better data and better oversight of these new market players and forces if we want energy markets to function effectively in the future,” said Bingaman.

He concluded by noting that in environmental terms there is a need for an immediate energy revolution and for the creation of a regulatory regime to spearhead the effort to balance energy policy and environmental policy.

“Yesterday a record number of voters voted for change,” said Gene Karpinski, President of the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), at the National Press Club. Several environmental groups working to elect more pro-environment candidates into office, hosted a news conference on the energy and environment challenges facing President Elect Barack Obama and his administration.

According to Karpinski, voters voted for a not only a change in the White House but also for a new energy future, which will change the past failed energy policies tied to Americas foreign oil dependency. Karpinski underlined that with a new clean environment future the American economy will grow stronger as well as the nations security. “Senator Obama put forward the most comprehensive, aggressive plan to deal with the related issues of energy and global warming,” said Karpinski.

Bob Wendelgass, National Deputy Director for Clean Water Action an organization working in a number of swing states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia agreed with Karpinski saying that this is an “historic occasion to address some really compelling environmental issues in the next four years”.

Basic facts: The Navy performed a number of mid frequency active sonar exercises off the coast of Southern California aimed at detecting diesel electric submarines. Citing irreparable damage to marine life, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) took legal action to prohibit the sonar use.

The District Court for the Central District of California agreed that environmental laws would be violated by the sonar use, but agreed to let the Navy continue under a preliminary injunction that would require a 75 percent power shut down and restrict the Navy from using sonar when marine mammals are detected within 2,200 feet of testing areas.

The Navy sought to remove the injunction by invoking a statement in the National Environmental Policy that allows alternative measures in emergency circumstances. The President and the Council for Environmental Quality recognized the situation as being an emergency and granted the Navy approval to continue without the preliminary injunction.

The District and the Ninth Circuit Court refused on the grounds that there was no apparent emergency and that the alternative means the Navy took were not valid.

The courts deemed that the preliminary injunctions would continue. The Navy brought the case to the Supreme Court to judge if the District Court acted legitimately in prohibiting the Navy’s sonar exercises.

Arguments:

The Navy argued that the District Court made their decision based on an erroneous conception of irreparable injury, and that there is a precedent set by the Supreme Court that when a lower court makes an erroneous assessment the court may intervene.

According to the Navy, there was no clear permanent damage done to marine mammals and that the only disturbances they faced were “Level B”, which means marine mammals would temporarily alter their direction or feeding routines when confronted with mid frequency sonar. Therefore, since there was no permanent damage done to marine mammals, it could not be considered irreparable injury.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg mentioned that the Navy’s environmental assessment estimated that there would be 654 Type A disturbances, implying permanent damage to marine mammals. The Navy responded that this number included beached whales, of which the causes of death were unclear.

The NRDC responded that classifying beached whales as possible Type A disturbances was not a generous policy move by the Navy, but that there is scientific evidence that these deaths are sonar related. The NRDC explained that the sonar disturbed the whales diving patterns, which resulted in whales coming up too fast or too early which would cause “the bends” or embolisms. The NRDC also said that traditionally environmental damages have been considered permanent and irreparable.
There were also questions raised by Justice Antonin Scalia over whether or not the District Court could judge what would constitute as military emergency since they are not related to the armed forces. NRDC responded that the Court gave proper deference to the Navy but still did not find that the evidence matched the declaration of an emergency.

Color:

Justice Stephen Breyer joked that he thought the military trying to get an environmental impact report was absurd since “the whole point of the armed services to hurt the environment” and asked if we made environmental inquiries when we’re dropping bombs. The NRDC responded that none of their restrictions apply to the environment.

The Navy did perform an Environmental Assessment and apparently if there is nothing in the assessment that would make a party believe there needs to be an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) one can be forgone. The NRDC pushed for the Navy to issue an EIS. Antonin Scalia suggested that this shows they hold the Navy in bad faith.

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman says that the next great global industry will be energy technology and that whoever dominates the field will have the greatest economic, national, and energy security (0:26).

 

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Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, discusses strategies for reducing pollution and environmental waste in relation to the Millennium Development Goals.

“When we talk about the green economy,” Steiner said, “it’s not necessarily a mathametic definition we’re kooking at.” He when on to say that in the UN’s analysis, UNEP looks at “where are, in our economy, sectors emerging, jobs being created, investments being mobilized … and essentially restructuring our economy?”

Listen to Audio File (5:18)

 

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According to the Senate Republican Conference, offshore oil drilling will help mend the economy, increase jobs, lower gas prices, and strengthen national security.

“Last year Americans sent more than $700 billion overseas in the form of oil payments, this is the largest wealth transfer in the history of the world,” said Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) during a hearing on domestic energy supplies.

“That is $700 billion in foreign bank accounts that could have been invested in American firms, local communities, and American jobs.”

Associate Director of the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University David E. Dismukes touched upon the potential energy supply, claiming that there are 41 billion barrels of oil and 210 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves in the restricted areas of the outer continental shelf.

Environmental concerns were addressed as well. Group Director for Upstream and Industry Operations for the American Petroleum Institute Doug Morris explained,

“The offshore industry today has an outstanding environmental record. According to the U.S. Minerals Management Service, since 1980 offshore operators have produced 4.7 billion barrels of oil and the total spills equal only 0.001 percent of this amount.”