EPA Finds Compound Used in Fracking in Wyoming Aquifer

The court just said that the EPA should consider ghg under the clean air act. They did not tell it how to enforce it, that was up to the epa. The case happened under Bush's epa, so we can consider the approaches, which seem political to me, and different under both administrations.

+1

Exactly. I don't think congress ever intended the tailoring provisions as the epa has requested. It is up to congress to fix it, if they don't like it. Some in congress want more action on ghg, some no action, but I don't think many are happy with the program being set forth. I would like more ghg reduction and less politics, but that is just MHO.

But this is beside the point. I would like the EPA to concentrate more on clean water and if fracking is causing harm for it to address it. IMHO fracking is better than current alternatives, but it needs to be done with environmental protection. If the EPA does not have the power to reduce water pollution, congress should give it that power, whether it was in the clean water act or not.

 

austin; EPA just handled CO2 the same way they regulate other pollutants under clean air act. It would not make any sense for them to develop completely new way of handling something which is essentially just another pollutant and another check on long checklist.

It is a safe bet on so many different levels, including developing new OMB forms, cost savings, personal handling it, etc.. and not the least political implications for doing "now something completely different" /for flying circus fans/

 

This is completely false. NOx and SO2 are handled one way, particulate emissions a different way, both of these are completely different than the handling of CO2. They did not plug it into a formula.

I am not quite sure if you understand CO2 regulation, but yes it is different and the EPA is treating it that way. The first EPA action was on CAFE standards, fuel efficiency standards for light duty vehicles. But you have completely missed my point that they are spending political muscle here and not regulating more dangerous pollution.

 

...another example of politics is sometimes a region is forced to go to ethanol E10, when it seems the air pretty clean there. I assume the purpose is to increase ethanol demand. Keep in mind, Congress original purpose of ethanol was to reduce emissions (which it does not do). Basically E10 is required in ozone non-atainment areas, even though ethanol does not reduce ozone. Guess they should just throw in the towel and say everyone has to use ethanol just cause we said so.

 

I have to disagree on E10, though I do not like it either. E10 co-insided with MTBE banning and it is a MTBE replacement, E10 is far more safer in case if it leaks and mixes with drinking water, which it did on many occasions.

If you feel like reading horror stories google MTBE + drinking water

 

Very true about E10 being better than MTBE. Carb mandated MBTE, EPA any oxyginator, CARB removed the mandate after MBTE was found to be so harmful.

Now is E10 helpful or necessary, or simply politicis. Even Al gore has changed his mind about the ethanol mandate being good for the environment. The difference is that he is no longer running for president. Congress seemed ready to act against the mandate, but then politics got in the way. Here are some emissions facts

Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center: E10 Emissions

On post 1986 csrs and trucks E10 versus E0 increases

Hydrocarbons, NOx, Formaldehyde, Acetaldehyde, NMHC, and ozone forming potential.

It decreases
csrbon monoxide, particulate mater.

This was different when the oxygenation regulations were first written.

Environmentally its not a good thing, but I would blame congress and the presidents. The primary process goes through iowa and this has made every president pro-ethanol that has gotten elected. I would not blame the epa on this one, but I would love if environmental regulations were more about the environment.

 

What? An independent agency with the power to protect the environment? That's just crazy talk.

 

I know. We the people are definitely in the low power situation when it comes evironmental protection. When some of us locals tried to stop a leaky oil pipeline from being turned back on over environmentally senitive areas, the judge and the epa told us they could do nothing because it was all about interstate commerce :welcome::welcome:

 

Good heavens, no, we can't stand in the way of making money.
(However flawed the definition of profit may be)

If corporations are people, with all of the rights, but none of the responsibilities - let alone a conscience - that pretty much fits the definition of psychopathic. What kind of insane culture are we that puts the psychopaths in control?

 

...you are correct...I was suggesting neither ethanol or MTBE is needed. Basically 1990 clean air act mandated 10% oxygenates in gasoline, to make it burn cleaner (but does not do so). I forget exactly how E10 came in, but yes MTBE had eco-probs, so then ethanol became the whole 10%. Anyways I am off topic.

 

Isn't Ethanol added as an anti-knock agent as it's primary purpose, not for air pollution control?

 

Both. It increases octane and acts as an oxygenate.

Tom

 

Well, if no one's really interested in discussing the long range, big picture stuff, I'll leave y'all to the minutiae.

 

Too bad organized crime didn't realize all they had to do was wave Article 4, § 8 at the EPA and a few judges. Maybe they too could sweep their actions under the umbrella of interstate commerce.

.

 

correct. the ethanol has 100 octane rating and untreated gasoline ~66.

but there is also a mandate to add oxygenate in fuel during summer time to decrease HC and CO in carburated engines. There isn't any carburated vehicle produced and sold, there are very few of them left (mostly classics) and only one currently sold on-road motorcycle is still carb'ed.

MTBE is bad but it is much better then Tetra-ethyl lead it replaced, and ethanol is better then MTBE from environmental point of view, even with all shortcomings.

 

IMHO ethanol did not replace lead (Pb). Rather Congress wanted to mandate ethanol, so they did so, hastily in 1990, because their original rationale of cleaner-burning was becoming false fast, as old cars went off the road. Now today, since ethanol is mandated, probably there is some dependence on its octane value. But the basic job of a refinery is to raise octane from the 66 untreated.

As far as MTBE, the former company Arco was the original champion of adding MTBE as far back as late 1960's I am thinking. So when the Congress mandated ethanol in 1990, oil industry objected and the compromise was MTBE+ethanol. Who knew MTBE was a problem since it was used for decades (in smaller amounts), but such is the risk of making changes.

 

You're still missing the point that EPA is required by law do to certain things. They didn't "choose" to go after Texas. They had to after Texas made (political) decision that they didn't want to regulate GHG. The law does not just grant the EPA the power to promulgate a FIP, it requires them to: "The Administrator shall promulgate a FIP at any time within 2 years after the Administrator finds that.. a plan revision submitted by the State does not satisfy the minimum criteria". So failure to put in a FIP would be dereliction of duty on the part of the Administrator.

I'm also not sure why you think overriding Texas on GHG wouldn't have cleaner air as a result. Most GHG emission reductions are expected to come from efficiency, not add-on controls, and that efficiency translates to lower emission rates across the board.

The EPA can also do more than one thing at a time.

It doesn't really matter what the Congress of 1968, 1970, 1977 or 1990 thought about CO2, because they put a mechanism into the law where EPA could declare new pollutants. Similarly, Congressional intent regarding legislation that did not pass is irrelevant.

On the California waiver, it's rather obvious that the denial was political, not the reconsideration. All relevant EPA staff recommended approval, and according to testimony before a House committee the Administrator himself supported it until he spoke to the White House. It was also widely expected that CA would have prevailed in the courts after Mass v. EPA, so it can be argued that not doing the reconsideration would have been a waste of resources.

 

I think you are still missing my point. EPA chose how they were going to regulate GHG, there was nothing to say the first thing they should do is give CARB a GHG mandate to set CAFE standards, before they did much else in this administration. This act set up a lot of the nasty politics. There is also nothing in the law that says they need to go after point sources and grandfathering instead of caping emissions. There was nothing good about the perry/tceq political response either. Now the EPA has lowered the caps in texas for power plant SO2 and NOx that will likely result in lower percentage of coal and less intensive ghg in Texas, but these reductions can not be counted to offset other point sources of CO2. Can you see how political implementation of a law might be thought of as political? Do the pre 1970s coal plant pollution really deserve to be ignored because the EPA likes Duke Energy continuing to operate inefficient polluting plant more than LCRA's natural gas efficiency modifications.

Does that get through to you?
DO you think that coal mining pollution doesn't count because the coal mines are old? I find it very political to badly regulate based on political favoritism or keeping the old because otherwise people would have to replace the polluting source.

What do you think is better? The last coal power plant texas approved had IGCC and sequestration. The politics says this needs to be approved, but a 1950s coal plant generating 20x the SO2, 12x the CO2, and 30x the mercury can run forever.

 

It seems like you believe that EPA has wider powers under the law than they do, and thus you see decisions as political when they aren't. Obviously with government there's a political element to anything, but most of the political decisions we're talking about were made 20 or 40 years ago, not on January 20, 2009.

To my knowledge there is nothing in the law that allows EPA to set up an emissions cap for GHG. The mechanisms just don't exist (Title IV is very explicit that it only applies to SO2 and NOx). And even if it were capped, in the end you have to regulate points because that's where the emissions occur. So I don't really understand what you're getting at.

In your opinion, how long should Obama have waited to direct the EPA to reconsider the decision? And what is your justification for that delay? I really don't understand your objection here... if something's wrong then you correct it, no?

Grandfathering is also part of the law. I agree that going after old sources would be the most effective method, but EPA can't change that, and Congress won't.

I'm not defending every EPA decision with these posts. I'm just saying that they are constrained by the law.

 

EPA has the right to regulate ghg, and since they are a federal agency I do not think it is illegal for them to regulate cafe standards. They did not need to as one of their first acts reverse the previous EPAs decission and grant california the right to regulate ghg. The discussions didn't start until Feburary '09 weeks after after January 20, '09. They certainly were not forced by the supreme court to violate federal law and approve a carb's law to regulate fuel economy, nor were they compelled by law to make misleading statements about this to congress.

Why Obama Officials Had to Lie to Congress About Fuel Economy Standards | Competitive Enterprise Institute

So no politics at all, just following the law, no distraction. No backfire about politicians going the other way. Right.