Policy

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• A Good Start for Massachusetts on Clean Energy, but Lots More to Do

  Massachusetts steps up to the climate challenge, embracing a technology neutral approach to its clean energy standard – but the Commonwealth can go further, and must to meet global warming solutions act requirements. Given rapidly changing federal policy on combating climate change, it is all the more important that states…

  Policy, Technology March 7, 2017

• Don’t Let the Senate Waste the BLM Methane Rule!

  On February 3, the House of Representatives passed a resolution under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to kill the Methane Waste Rule — a recent Bureau of Land Management (BLM) effort to restrict the waste of natural gas from oil and gas development on federal and tribal lands.  A companion…

  Policy February 6, 2017

• Clean Power Plan Oral Arguments: After All That – Nothing New

  Seven grueling hours of questioning and debate later (not to mention overnight camping and hours of line-standing for those trying to attend), it can be said that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had studied the briefs carefully and yesterday drained dry the bottle containing all the Clean Power Plan…

  Policy September 28, 2016

• The RFS, the Rebound Effect, and an Additional 431 Million Tons of CO2

  There’s a quirk of macroeconomics known as the rebound effect, and it can be a bit of a drag. When the price of a widely used commodity falls, consumers tend to use more of it. In most cases, that’s a good thing. But sometimes the price drop is the unintended…

  Policy September 13, 2016

• Flying Blind: EPA Can’t Start Fixing the RFS Until It Stops Ignoring the Problems

  Before we dig into the new report on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s failure to conduct “an objective analysis on the environmental impacts and unintended consequences of U.S. biofuel policy,” or how that report echoes the Clean Air Task Force’s long-held position that EPA has not adequately assessed the negative…

  Policy August 19, 2016

• Render Unto Science: Biomass Carbon Emissions Should Be Determined by Science, Not Congressional Fiat

  The Senate Appropriations Committee’s vote to disavow the seemingly indisputable fact that forest biomass-based energy generation emits carbon dioxide is a short-sighted attempt to legislate science. The bill would openly set aside scientific consensus in favor of an edict that the industrial-scale combustion of trees and other biomass is essentially…

  Policy June 16, 2016

• Moving Forward: Final Methane Rule is Progress, But We Still Have Much to Do

  Finally.  After years of information gathering and analysis, EPA recently signed new source performance standards that will address methane and VOC pollution from new and modified sources within the oil and gas sector (“Final Rule”), EPA’s first-ever methane standards.  EPA estimates that this rule is expected to prevent 300,000 short…

  Policy May 26, 2016

• Voluntary Methane Reduction Efforts Will Still Fall Short of Methane Reduction Goal

  On March 30th, at a session of the Global Methane Forum in Washington, DC, the EPA launched its Methane Challenge Program to encourage companies to voluntarily reduce methane emissions in the oil and gas sector. This program seeks to build on the work of the EPA Natural Gas STAR Program…

  Policy March 31, 2016