Q&A: Carol Browner, Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy
This is a special online preview of a story appearing in the Spring 2010 issue of OnEarth . Subscribe here to receive our magazine. When he established the senior White House position of assistant to the president for energy and climate change, Barack Obama created one of the most important and politically challenging jobs in his administration. He chose someone with long experience in climate issues and Washington politics: Carol Browner, the highly effective administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 1993 to 2001. Browner’s mandate is to create jobs, enhance energy security, and combat climate change. That means integrating the work of a variety of federal agencies; forging cooperation among federal, state, and local governments; building partnerships with the private sector; and being constantly aware of how changing political dynamics in the nation’s capital affect — and are affected by — the responsibility of the United States to be a global leader on climate change. In a conversation with James Gerstenzang, Browner made it clear that comprehensive energy legislation, with bipartisan support, remains one of the administration’s top priorities. How are you going to get 60 votes for a climate bill in the Senate, given that you have not only opposition from the Republicans but disagreements within your own party? It’s more nuanced than that, because we’ve got John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman leading a bipartisan effort to craft legislation that won’t result in the same sort of squabbles that perhaps have existed previously. If the price of getting 60 votes is to risk weakening the legislation, wouldn’t it be more effective to simply act administratively? Well, because of a 2007 Supreme Court decision, the EPA has authority [to regulate CO2 as a pollutant] under the existing Clean Air Act. The science proves that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. The next steps in the process are the proposed rules, the first-ever greenhouse gas standards for cars. And what the president has said repeatedly is that we’re going to follow the science, we’re going to follow the law. But in the meantime, we want comprehensive energy legislation, because we need all the pieces of the puzzle. The administration’s pitch for climate legislation seems to be based on the economic arguments. When we look at what’s going to stimulate private-sector capital investments in the new energy future, it’s comprehensive energy reform. That’s where we are going to give the business community the predictability that allows them to make those investments. History is a perfect guide. Every time we have a debate, for example, about the Clean Air Act and acid rain, some industry says it absolutely cannot be done. We set a standard, or Congress sets it, or the EPA sets it, and guess what happens? American innovation and ingenuity find a cheaper, faster way to solve the problem. There are lots of people in the business community who will tell you that’s exactly what is going to happen if we put a cap on carbon and set a renewable electricity standard. Then you will see the capital investment. And with that will come the jobs. Any estimates on numbers? Our latest figures show that by the end of 2009 the outlays and tax credits for clean energy saved or created 52,000 clean energy jobs. Rather than retrofitting a coal-fired power plant from the 1950s or 1960s people are going to be making the component parts of a clean energy future, whether it be the batteries for the new generation of vehicles, or the bio-fuels, or the wind turbines, or the solar cells. Those manufacturing facilities have to be profitable here in the United States, and the way to make them profitable, to guarantee them a market, is to set the standards. Germany has a huge percentage of the world’s manufacturing jobs. Why did that happen? Because they had a clean energy policy, and so businesses were prepared to make the investments that created those jobs. And what happens in Congress will also shape the attitude of business. Yes, the second step would be comprehensive energy legislation, so there’s absolute clarity in the business community as to what’s going to be expected of them. I meet with business people every week, and lots of companies say they are sitting on making investments right now because they don’t know what the rules are going to be. We have a lot of folks who believe we are in danger of missing out on the global opportunities for clean energy technology. How much political capital is the president willing to spend on this, with everything else on his plate? You know, you don’t get the job to do the easy work. You get the job to do the hard work. When people said we couldn’t do it in the House, the president went to work and we passed in the House. There were people who said he shouldn’t go to [the U.N. climate conference in] Copenhagen. But he went and he made it a hugely important step forward on the global commitment to climate change. Now we need to do the rest of it and get a binding international treaty. The president has said repeatedly that this is one of his priorities, that it’s absolutely essential in terms of moving our country forward in this global market for clean energy. What’s your overall assessment of Copenhagen, as you look in the rearview mirror? We are very pleased with what we were able to achieve. It was, I think, a direct result of the president’s personal engagement. To me, he really ended up being the person putting the deal together by working with the various groupings of interested countries: China, India, Brazil, South Africa, the coalition of African nations, Europeans. And I think we got things that we haven’t gotten before, for example, commitments on transparency that are hugely encouraging. Jonathan Pershing, the lead U.S. negotiator in Copenhagen, has raised the idea of focusing more on bilateral agreements and less on the U.N. process. Might that not isolate the United States from its natural allies, such as the small island nations, which are at immediate risk from sea-level rise, or the European Union? We need to do both. The U.N. process is important because it gives every country an equal voice. But it’s not our process. At the same time, we worked with China on some important bilateral commitments and similarly with India. The magnitude of the problem and the need for global action is such that we want to take advantage of all appropriate forums, using every tool available to achieve real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In the past, China has tended to take a wait-and-see approach, to see what we would do first. Well, we have taken tremendous actions over the last year. If you look at our domestic agenda, it starts with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A study was just published that shows we may have the best year ever in terms of investments in renewable energy. We recently announced $2.3 billion in tax credits for the manufacture of renewable components. So we’re not just putting up the facilities, building the solar farms, the wind farms, the geothermal plants. We’re also investing in the manufacturing. If you look back at what the administration has done on global warming, what one thing would you change? I think we’ve been very successful in using our executive authority, whether it’s on appliance standards or the work going on around fuels. You have two ways to create change from a broader perspective: one is through the legislative process and the other is through executive authority, and I think we have moved very successfully on both fronts. So no regrets? Well, you always want to do more. If you do six efficiency standards, you want to do twelve. But we have to do these in ways that are defensible. Also, we inherited eight years of inaction. In the first year of an administration, a lot of what you do is framed and set by what the prior administration did. Going into your second year, what’s the one thing you see as essential? Getting Congress to pass comprehensive energy legislation.
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Q&A: Carol Browner, Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy
Obama Budget Plan a Mixed Bag for Environment
The Obama administration’s 2011 budget plan, released this week, includes a lot of things that have the potential to help the environment: more investments in renewable energy (including solar, wind and energy efficiency), some reduction in spending on fossil fuels, and backing for wilderness protection, clean air and water, greenhouse gas regulations and green jobs. The drawbacks, some environmentalists say, include new loan guarantees for the nuclear power industry (with plans to support seven to 10 new nuclear plants), opportunities for more offshore oil and gas drilling, a lack of focus on endangered species protection, and the continuing imbalance between what traditional energy sources and renewable sources would receive. "With this budget, President Obama is starting to usher in a clean energy economy," said Wesley Warren, director of programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Now it’s up to Congress to deliver on the president’s funding priorities for a cleaner, more secure America." In a statement, however, Warren raised concerns about the president’s proposal for additional loan guarantees to the nuclear power industry, calling them a "mistake." "This is a mature industry that generates high-cost, non-renewable energy and dangerous waste," Warren said. "It should not receive additional taxpayer subsidies." The marine conservation group Oceana said in a statement that it "applauds the Administration’s effort to level the playing field for clean sources of energy and to save taxpayers money by cutting tax preferences for dirty fossil fuels," but added: "Expanding offshore drilling for oil and gas would further contribute to the release of harmful greenhouse gas emissions and compromise our clean energy future." Here’s a look at the proposed budgets of some key departments and agencies and what their plans could mean for Americans and the environment: DOE: Support for clean energy, but also for nukes, coal The proposed $28.4 billion Department of Energy budget targets several projects designed to help "green the economy," including $2.4 billion slated for energy efficiency and renewable energy research and development. Solar power gets the largest share of this R&D money ($300 million), followed by wind power ($123 million) and geothermal ($55 million). Those numbers please renewable energy advocates such as Rhone Resch, head of the Solar Energy Industries Association , who predicted that the 22 percent increase in solar funding "will expand the industry’s ability to advance technologies that will create jobs and economic opportunities." The amount, however, is still well short of the $1.4 billion that the Carter administration spent in 1981 on a program to make the United States the world leader in solar power. Many environmentalists are concerned by the administration’s plans to boost funding for nuclear power. Energy Secretary Steven Chu explained that the nearly $1 billion slated for nuclear R&D is needed to "restart the nuclear power industry in the United States" — a goal not shared by many clean energy advocates. Although DOE’s budget eliminates $2.7 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, it also supports coal-burning power plants by calling for $500 million in research on what some call "clean coal technologies." Interior: Solar projects, offshore wind — where’s species protection? Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s $12 billion budget put jobs, energy security, and climate change in the foreground, with some twists to emphasize the department’s breaks with Bush administration practices. Salazar gave clean energy programs the biggest push at the budget rollout yesterday. Interior’s budget request includes $73 million for renewable energy programs, including the assessment of potential sites for 5,000 miles of new transmission lines. The department also hopes to expedite the review of 220 applications for utility-scale solar power projects in the West. By the end of 2011, Salazar hopes to have issued permits for renewable power plants capable of generating 9,000 megawatts of electricity — the equivalent to 25 major coal-fired power plants, the secretary said. Interior is asking for $73.3 million for its renewable energy development programs, which is $14.2 million above 2010 levels. A considerable percentage of that funding — $34.9 million — would go to the Minerals Management Service, which oversees development of offshore wind power on the Outer Continental Shelf. The remainder is split between four other agencies within Interior, including $7 million tagged to assessing the impacts of renewable energy development on wildlife. There is also $71 million in the department’s budget for research on climate change. The funds would be used to determine which areas of the country and which species of plants and animals are most at risk from changing weather patterns. One area of disappointment for many environmentalists: there were few specifics on Interior’s plans for wildlife protection under the Endangered Species Act, even though eight years of neglect under the Bush administration has left many species with little or no protected habitat. "It’s good to hear they’ve recognized that assessing the impacts of renewable energy on wildlife is important," said Noah Greenwald with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. "(But) it sounds like in the budget there is not much mention of listing of species, or the listing program at all, even though there are 259 species that are candidates for protection right now." EPA: Funds for protecting health, air, water The 2011 budget request for the Environmental Protection Agency is down 5 percent from last year’s record $10.5 billion, but Administrator Lisa Jackson reminded critics yesterday that the Obama administration increased funding for the agency by nearly 30 percent in its first year. (That doesn’t include an extra $7 billion allocated to programs under the EPA’s purview in last year’s economic recovery act.) Scott Brown with the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) says that although the 2011 budget isn’t perfect, "it’s such a huge improvement that I don’t feel compelled to do an alternative budget for the first time in five years." The budget includes funding to address a variety of health concerns that have been neglected in previous administrations. These include studies of endocrine disruptors and the effects of hydraulic fracturing — a technique used to release underground pockets of natural gas — and to clean up polluted brownfields, particularly in underserved and economic disadvantaged areas. "There is no moving away from a greener, more sustainable economy," Jackson said. "The president has made that clear, and the work EPA does is the backbone of that."
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Obama Budget Plan a Mixed Bag for Environment
Great Lakes’ Asian Carp Crisis Deepens
Concerns about Asian carp invading the Great Lakes have already prompted states to sue each other before the U.S. Supreme Court and led to plans for a White House summit. But those worries were ratcheted up even higher this month with the discovery of Asian carp DNA in Lake Michigan’s Calumet Harbor. The environmental DNA (known as eDNA — more on that later) had already been found in multiple spots between Lake Michigan and the electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal designed to block the voracious invaders and keep them from ravaging the Great Lakes’ ecosystem. With the latest discovery, environmental groups have renewed their calls to sever (ecologically speaking) the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River watershed. The two systems were linked by canal more than a century ago so that Chicago could dump its sewage, diluted with Lake Michigan water, into the Mississippi River and keep the Great Lakes clean. The most effective ecological separation, at least in the short term, would involve temporarily closing the locks between the canals and Lake Michigan and erecting barriers in other waterways without locks in order to impede the carp’s progress. In December, Michigan filed a lawsuit backed by other states demanding emergency closure of the locks until a permanent means of ecological separation can be found. Officials fear for water quality and the $7 billion Great Lakes fishing industry if the invaders reach Lake Michigan. Asian carp have damaged every U.S. waterway they’ve entered, outcompeting native species as they voraciously vacuum up plankton, and injuring boaters with their propensity for powerful leaps out of the water. But on January 19, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Michigan’s request for immediate action without explanation, leading two lawmakers from the state, Republican Congressman David Camp and Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow, to introduce the CARP ACT, which stands for Close All Routes and Prevent Asian Carp Today. It seeks the emergency closure of the locks and additional underwater barriers. The Supreme Court could still act on a broader aspect of Michigan’s request, which demands an end to the so-called "Chicago diversion" of Lake Michigan water. That suit was filed by Great Lakes states in 1922. In its decision at the time to leave the waterway intact, the Supreme Court left open the possibility that it could change its mind if the diversion were shown to cause harm. Michigan resuscitated the suit in December, in the face of strong opposition from the state of Illinois and industry groups that claim closing the canal would hamper shipping and flood control. Skeptics question whether the DNA that’s raising alarm bells could have been transported past the barrier on boats or barges or through Chicago’s sewer system. The Army Corps of Engineers has noted that no actual Asian carp have been found past the electric barrier. But scientists with the Nature Conservancy and University of Notre Dame, who developed the eDNA test, say the discovery of DNA in multiple tests means that Asian carp have indeed breached the barrier. Fish slough off DNA in scales, feces, urine, and mucus. Since last summer, scientists have taken hundreds of 2-liter water samples from the canals, rivers, and harbors connected to Lake Michigan. They can amplify bits of DNA taken from the biological material in the water samples and compare them with Asian carp DNA. David Lodge, the director of Notre Dame’s Center for Aquatic Conservation, says scienctists don’t know how long the DNA stays in water, and the tests can’t tell them how many fish might be in a particular lake or river. "It’s a pretty blunt instrument at the moment," Lodge says. "All it tells us is there were fish here." In the case of the Great Lakes, even that small indication is enough to make officials sweat. The Asian carp crisis has now made it all the way to the Oval Office (which is currently occupied by a Chicagoan, after all). President Obama’s top environmental advisor recently proposed an "Asian carp" summit with Great Lakes governors in early February, and state attorneys general are demanding invitations. The White House has called Asian carp a serious threat — but so far has supported Illinois in the dispute. Closing all of the Chicago-area locks would entail cooperation from the federal Army Corps of Engineers, as well as state and municipal governments. NRDC Midwest program director Henry Henderson said policymakers should take this opportunity to re-engineer an outdated shipping system that is economically inefficient and environmentally dangerous. NRDC recommends replacing the canals with a new intermodal facility that would transfer cargo from barges and ships to trucks, trains and other barges. "Looking at Asian carp as the problem instead of the alarm bell unnecessarily truncates the solution," Henderson said. "It’s not like two species of Asian carp are the problem — this 19th century canal system has been revealed to be unambiguously a highway for invasive species."
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Great Lakes’ Asian Carp Crisis Deepens
What Ever Happened to the Climate Bill?
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, is one of more than a dozen swing votes needed to pass a climate bill this year. To get her off the fence and into the climate bill camp, Sen. Barbara Boxer wanted to take Stabenow into the wilds of Alaska this summer, to show her first-hand the devastation wrought by warmer temperatures — drying wetlands, dying forests, disappearing glaciers and more. But the tour never happened. Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death forced Boxer and her colleagues to cancel the trip to attend his memorial service. Stabenow remains on the fence. The trip cancellation was yet another disappointment for advocates of climate change legislation, which has become the hapless victim of unrelated delays and deviations all summer. Kennedy’s passing, the protracted health care debate, even Sen. John Kerry’s hip surgery have pushed back committee debates and a floor vote — which advocates had hoped would come in September — to sometime later this fall. Kerry, for instance, chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one of six committees that claim some jurisdiction over climate legislation, and is co-authoring the Senate version of a climate bill with Boxer, so his input was essential. Now, as President Obama prepares to address the United Nations on Tuesday and assure the world that the United States is getting serious about climate change in advance of important December talks in Copenhagen, some backers fear that consideration of a bill by the full Senate will slip to next year — into the witch’s brew of midterm election politics when little significant work gets done. "The Senate is a lot about time management. You have to take into account how much time your priorities take," said Paul Bledsoe, director of communications and strategy for the National Commission on Energy Policy. "It looks like we could be running out of time to get Senate floor consideration before Copenhagen." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stoked those fears last week when he told reporters that health care and regulatory reform may dominate the rest of this year’s session, meaning there would likely be no time for clean energy legislation. A delay could embarrass the Obama administration. Obama has said that he wants the U.S. delegation to show up at Copenhagen with legislation that has passed both chambers of Congress. The first half of that goal was achieved in June with narrow passage of cap-and-trade legislation by the U.S. House, but the Senate has yet to act on that bill or consider its own version. Here are three factors that could stand in the way of a climate bill’s passage in the Senate this year - and three things that might help it succeed: OBSTACLES Health care reform : Until Senate leaders deal with Obama’s No. 1 domestic priority, which currently dominates the Senate schedule and the national conversation, nothing else will get done. Success would benefit the rest of the president’s agenda, giving him momentum and prodding reluctant Democrats into backing the administration on climate change. A failure on health care could give moderates more reason to abandon the president while seeking to shore up their own re-election bids. Annual appropriations bills : The Senate still needs to pass a bevy of spending bills to fund the government for the coming year. Each of these eats up time in committees and on the Senate floor. At some point, the climate bill may simply get crowded out of the schedule because other legislation just can’t wait. Fence-sitting Democrats : Michigan’s Stabenow and at least nine other Rust Belt Democrats are worried that climate change legislation will raise costs in the manufacturing sector and send jobs overseas. Other Democrats are worried about the cost of the bill. Others want to drop the cap-and-trade provisions altogether. If the House bill is any guide, wavering senators can extract a high price for their vote. Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat from rural Virginia, brokered a deal that gave the coal industry billions of dollars in concessions. Senate Democrats may be forced to make similar unsavory agreements to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster. BRIGHT SPOTS EPA action : In gathering votes, Democratic leaders have gotten help from an unlikely source: John Roberts’ Supreme Court. Two years ago, the court ruled 5-4 that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The agency has recently been taking steps to that end. The EPA action allows climate bill backers to use a carrot-and-stick approach, suggesting that their undecided colleagues get involved in crafting a compromise bill to address greenhouse emissions — or risk having the EPA do it without their input. "It’s either act, or have the White House act," said Daniel Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress. "That will make the choice clearer for members of the Senate Green lobbying : Environmentalists and their allies recently launched their biggest lobbying push yet on climate change. The Clean Energy Works Campaign allots a reported $20 million for advertising outside the Beltway, making the fundamental argument that climate legislation will create new jobs in the clean energy sector and boost the U.S. economy while reducing greenhouse gas pollution. The campaign aims to counter a rival assault from a pair of business groups, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Federation of Independent Business, which ran ads in 13 states denouncing a cap-and-trade system as a "huge tax on energy." New York climate meeting : The president will have a chance to reframe and reinvigorate the climate debate on Tuesday when he addresses a one-day climate conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York — part of the run-up to Copenhagen. In an approach somewhat reminiscent of his recent health care speech before a joint session of Congress, Obama will try to jumpstart progress with a speech to the nation. In this case, he will also be speaking to the international community, walking a tightrope between reassuring skittish swing-vote Democrats at home and demonstrating abroad that he is still serious about climate change. "There are no stages as big as when the president of the United States addresses the world," said Jeremy Symons, a senior vice president at the National Wildlife Federation. "It’s the president stepping out in a big way. It should take this fight to the next level. "The time to do it is right now. That’s our game plan."
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