The problem facing GPIC, as it is known, is one with which I confess I was not familiar. According to the statistics from the Energy Information Administration:

Over the past 20 to 30 years, every important building component has improved in energy performance. From air conditioners to lighting to windows, construction crews today have an array of green technologies at their disposal. 

Once they're put together, though, the finished building performs no better than its predecessors of two or three decades ago. The parts have gotten better, but not the whole.

It’s not clear why this happens, but the theory is a combination of lack of coordination among different members of design teams, and a set of incentives that almost inevitably lead each individual component to be substantially overdesigned and thus incapable of taking advantage of the efficiencies provided by new technologies.

I have to say that this conclusion is sufficiently startling that I am skeptical. The EIA reports that, from 1986 to 1999, energy use per square foot of building did not change. Apparently, 1999 is the last year for which EIA has data. (Which of course is also troubling, in its own way.) It would be interesting to know if energy efficiency has increased at all since 1999.

Even if the situation is better than the EIA data suggest, it would not be surprising if the problem  does exist, at least to some extent. If so, it raises some very interesting issues regarding government regulation of building efficiency. States such as California and Massachusetts are likely to start regulating building efficiency at some point as part of their broader plans to attain GHG emissions targets. Will they be able to do so in a way that actually leads to decreased energy use per square foot? Based on this article, simply requiring use of more efficient components may not lead to the outcomes the states want. On the other hand, regulations that actually affect the design process will be considered by building owners to be unreasonably intrusive. 

This is definitely one to continue to watch.

Yesterday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a notice of availability for the Environmental Assessment it prepared in connection with the issuance of leases for wind energy development off the coast of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The EA includes a Finding of No Significant Impact, or FONSI. In other words, BOEM concluded that the issuance of leases does not require a full blown Environmental Impact Report. 

The EA also addresses the individual site assessment plans, or SAPs, that will have to be performed by each leaseholder. While BOEM retains the flexibility to determine whether the implementation of the SAPs is covered by the EA, there is certainly the suggestion that SAPs may be not require separate NEPA analysis.

The FONSI is of course not a full green light for wind development off the Mid-Atlantic coast. Once BOEM starts awarding leases, each lease-holder would ultimately have to prepare a Construction and Operations Plan, which would be subject to NEPA review and it would be quite surprising if individual wind projects were not obligated to prepare full EISs before proceeding to construction. 

Even so, establishing this process, and obviating the need for EISs prior to issuing leases and performing at least some SAPs, can only be helpful in getting siting of wind energy in this area off the ground.

As those who have followed the progress of the MACT rule know, EPA has allowed a basic compliance period of three years. EPA has also provided for a one-year extension in some cases. Beyond that, EPA has provided that facilities which cannot comply within 4 years and which are critical to electric system reliability may seek a further extension through an administrative order. EPA also provided that it will take comment from experts, including FERC, on applications for such further extensions.

The White Paper sets forth FERC staff’s views on how FERC should handle such requests for comment. The process would be as follows:

• AO requests would be filed with the Commission Secretary (It is important to note that all AO requests must include a “concurrence with the reliability risk analysis” by the relevant “Planning Authority”, such as an ISO, or an explanation as to why such concurrence cannot be provided.)

• Requests would be treated as informational filings.

• Intervention would not be allowed.

• FERC review “should be whether, based on the circumstances presented, there might be a violation of a Commission-approved Reliability Standard” in the absence of the extension.

• The White Paper reserves the question regarding whether FERC review will be de novo or grant some deference to the analysis provided by the Planning Authority.

The White paper notes that it is specifically seeking comment regarding both the scope of its review of AO requests and the level of deference, if any, to give to the Planning Authority analysis. Comments may be provided by February 29, 2012, at the eFiling link on the FERC web site.

conditional registration of a nanosilver-based antimicrobial agent

just the most recent example in a long line of decisions that treats [sic] humans and our environmental as guinea pigs for these untested pesticides.

As noted in my prior post, there is a difference between regulating in spite of uncertainty – which can frequently be justified – and regulating because of uncertainty, which is deeply troubling. Nanomaterials hold great promise in a wide number of fields, including many uses – such as antimicrobials – focused on protecting public health and the environment. 

What is the basis for keeping these materials off the market just because we haven’t proved that they don’t pose a risk?

Fracking fluids will get greener, water use will get down, all because the industry, quite frankly, will do it, must do it, and will feel the public pressure -- not the EPA pressure -- to do this in a responsible way.

Does she really mean it? Notwithstanding current pronouncements by the GOP Presidential candidates, neoclassical economics has a clear role for government regulation. If economic activity – such as fracking – imposes costs on society that are not internalized to the company doing the fracking, then regulation is appropriate. I think that fracking is of net benefit to society, but it certainly appears to impose at least some externalities that have not to date been internalized to the drilling companies. Thus, government regulation seems to be warranted – and logic tells us that those externalities will not be accounted for in the absence of regulation.

If Lisa Jackson believes that fracking’s externalities will be eliminated by public pressure, that would truly represent a sea change in the government’s view of how environmental problems should be solved. If public pressure is enough to clean fracking, then why wouldn’t public pressure be enough to clean toxics from utility air emissions?  What distinguishes fracking from all of EPA's regulatory programs? Why do we need EPA at all?

Perhaps the GOP candidates have it right.

although the rule may lead to the retirement or derating of some facilities, almost all of the capacity reductions will occur in areas that have substantial reserve margins. Two areas that may have difficulty meeting reserve margins, Texas and New England, will experience few plant retirements and deratings, according to industry data. Furthermore, to address the reliability concerns expressed by industry, the final rule includes provisions aimed at providing additional time for compliance if it is needed to install pollution controls or add new capacity to ensure reliability in specific areas. As a result, it is unlikely that electric reliability will be harmed by the rule.

Absent some surprises, I’m done with the subject. Let me know if the lights go out.

I hope that that’s the way the report will be read, but I’m worried. Perhaps I just have too many NIMBY-related scars. Whatever the reason, I am worried about the report’s statements that there

is limited epidemiologic evidence suggesting an association between exposure to wind turbines and annoyance.

and that

whether annoyance from wind turbines leads to sleep issues or stress has not been sufficiently quantified.

and that there

is limited scientific evidence of an association between annoyance from prolonged shadow flicker (exceeding 30 minutes per day) and potential transitory cognitive and physical health effects.

Can’t you see opponents of wind turbines latching on to these statements and urging the MEPA office to require that wind project developers fill in these “data gaps” before being allowed to proceed in Massachusetts? So climate change is threatening life as we know it (allow me a rhetorical flourish), EPA believes that fossil fuel plants result in significant morbidity and mortality, even aside from climate change, and Massachusetts, which wants to lead the nation in moving to an economy based on renewable energy, is going to get itself tied into knots evaluating claims that wind turbines annoy people? I sure hope not.

I do love that the report acknowledges that “annoyance ‘per se’ is not a biological disease.” Oh, really? That’s good; otherwise, I’d be feeling diseased right about now. We’ve known for years that Bill Koch is annoyed that Cape Wind will be in the view shed from his lovely house on Nantucket Sound (and, to be non-partisan, that the Kennedys are also annoyed). 

On the scales of cost and benefit, I just pray that MassDEP, the MEPA office, and the Massachusetts legislature (which is still reviewing wind siting legislation), give concerns about annoyance exactly as much consideration as they deserve.

The long-term picture in these cities is no prettier than that of East Boston. The specifics don’t matter so much as the scope, though there are some similarities. In Portsmouth, one concern is that the causeway leading to New Castle will be submerged. In New Hallandale, a recent analysis indicated that 893 miles of roads from Miami to Palm Beach will be under water at high tide if sea level rises by three feet. In Portsmouth, there is concern about what will happen to sewers containing combined storm and sewage flows – now that’s a pretty picture – while in Hallandale Beach, the concern is that encroaching salt water will impact current fresh water supplies. 

The real question is when to start planning, and how. How much planning should be focused on changing standards for new development and how much on protecting existing infrastructure? Of course, as an alternative, there’s always the approach of one of my favorites, Graham Parker, in his song Stick to the Plan.

The big question is whether a decision against EPA would be so broad as to make it clear that EPA’s order authority under other statutes, such as CERCLA, would be similarly affected. Here, speculation really is difficult, because the Supreme Court could invalidate EPA’s CWA authority several different ways, with differing impacts on other statutes. Readers who want to explore the issue in more depth than a blog post can review an article I did in the ABA Superfund and Natural Resource Damages Litigation Committee Newsletter.

As long as I am speculating, I’m going to go out on limb and predict that the Court’s decision will not be easily limited to the CWA. I think EPA’s order authority is in trouble across the board.

The next big question is when lower courts are going to actually start paying attention to what the Supreme Court says about environmental cases. I’m tired of this pattern. A series of cases are decided by lower courts, almost universally in EPA’s favor. Indeed, one of the striking things about Sackett is that the Supreme Court took the case without a circuit court split – EPA had won before every circuit court that had reached the question. The Supreme Court applies principles that are broadly accepted outside the environmental arena, but which for reasons unknown to everyone but the lower court judges have been thought inapplicable to environmental cases, and EPA loses. The next several years are spent with EPA, DOJ, and the lower courts merrily constructing some new edifice which allows EPA to continue to win – until the Supreme Court takes another case and says “No, we really meant it.”

There is a lesson here for lower courts, if they would but listen. Environmental cases are not sui generis. EPA does not necessarily win just because it is protecting the environment. General principles of corporate, administrative, and constitutional law apply. Under this framework, EPA will still win most of the time. That’s the nature of administrative law. Expert agencies receive a lot of deference from the courts in interpreting their organic statutes and applying their expertise. But they don’t win all the time, and they don’t win just because they are EPA.

Rant over. Let’s see what the Supremes actually do.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that East Boston is a waterfront community. Indeed, arguments have long been made that, with the cleanup of Boston Harbor and the revival of other areas of the waterfront, East Boston should not be left behind. In that sense, the waterfront is, of course, a benefit.

The question now is of course what happens to the waterfront in fifty years. Will it still be waterfront or will it be land under the ocean? Today’s Globe story includes a map developed for The Boston Harbor Association, which purports to show the potential impacts of rising sea levels on Boston’s waterfront communities. It’s not a pretty picture. (Well, actually, it is, but you know what I mean.) Some East Boston residents want the potential impacts of sea level rise addressed before significant projects are built in East Boston.

As we noted last fall, the Commonwealth, as part of its implementation of the Global Warming Solutions Act, is trying to address adaptation comprehensively. The Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs issued the Climate Change Adaption Report in September 2011 (It also has a pretty picture, shown here, on the impact of sea level rise.) However, while the Adaptation Report includes much discussion, none of its recommendations have been operationalized to date and a lot of work will have to be done before regulations or – dare I say – guidance is issued.

Thus, for some time, these issues are going to be addressed on an ad hoc basis in the context of individual projects. At a certain level, I understand the concern and I’m all in favor of reasonable foresight. On the other hand, is ad hoc decisionmaking a way to decide how close buildings can be built to the water, or whether they need to be built on stilts? The state MEPA office is going to face this issue with increasing frequency in the coming years. Since I don’t believe in preemptive rants, I’ll hold off until we see how MEPA actually starts to handle these types of projects. They do have a lot of discretionary authority.

This really is a stay-tuned situation. All I can say now is that those who put their heads in the sand are likely to drown.

It took the DOH four years to do so, but, in November 2010, the DOH concluded that selective non-catalytic reduction, or SNCR, constitutes BACT for the MRY facility, which has unusual technology involving cyclone-fired boilers combusting North Dakota lignite, rather than bituminous or sub-bituminous coal. EPA wanted SCR identified as BACT and pursued dispute resolution under the consent decree to get it. 

Unfortunately for EPA, the decree provided that the determination by North Dakota would be binding unless EPA “demonstrates that it is not supported by the state administrative record and not reasonable in light of applicable statutory and regulatory provisions.” As the court noted, the consent decree language was not unique; it “mirrors the standard of review” for challenges to state BACT determinations even outside the consent decree context.

The crux of the case was whether cyclone fired boilers combusting North Dakota lignite were sufficiently like other coal-fired boilers that determinations for such boilers that SCRs constitute BACT should essentially be binding here. The North Dakota DOH compiled an extensive record demonstrating that such other coal-fired facilities are not sufficiently like the MRY facility, and the court deferred to DOH’s judgment, based on the record.

Perhaps the most telling evidence was that DOJ engaged an expert consultant, which issued an request for proposals to install SCR at the MRY facility. DOJ in fact obtained two proposals with performance guarantees. The availability of such guarantees is extremely probative of whether a technology constitutes BACT. However, DOJ’s consultant failed to provide in its RFP sufficient detail regarding the specific characteristics of the MRY facility – and when the companies responding to the RFP learned the details, they withdrew the guarantees, almost certainly leaving EPA and DOJ in a worse position than if they had never gone through the RFP process. One might also infer that the court thought that DOJ was trying to pull a fast one, which certainly did not help.

Yesterday’s Cape Wind decision, together with this case, even though involving totally different statutory and regulatory regimes, provide a useful joint reminder of the importance of building the record in administrative cases.

As to this case, would the outcome have been different if EPA had made the BACT decision? Would a decision to impose SCR as BACT have been upheld if the burden were on the person challenging that decision? We’ll never know, but I could see it happening. Burdens do matter.

On the merits, the decision is pretty much a standard nuts-and-bolts review concerning whether there was substantial evidence to support DPU’s decision. The SJC made frequent reference to the deference given both to DPU’s application of its expertise and to its interpretation of statutes it is charged with implementing. 

Going forward, the most significant aspect of the decision is probably the SJC’s finding that, in the absence of a statutory definition of the term “cost-effective,” the DPU was within its authority in in considering

All costs and benefits associated with [the PPA], including the non-price benefits that are difficult to quantify, and including costs and benefits of complying with existing and reasonably anticipated future federal and state environmental requirements.

Similarly, the SJC agreed with the DPU that analysis regarding whether the contract is in the public interest need not be limited to whether lower-priced alternatives exist. The SJC found that there was substantial evidence in the record supporting the DPU’s conclusion that Cape Wind would provide “significant and special advantages by virtue of its location near an area that uses high levels of electricity and the advanced state of the permitting process for the facility.” 

In short, the decision not only affirms the DPU’s decision here, but makes clear that, so long as an appropriate record is compiled, DPU is going to have significant discretion with respect to similar projects going forward.

MassDEP generally does not intend the guidance to be overly prescriptive. Use of such words as “shall,” “must,” or “require,” however, indicates that the text is referring to a specific regulatory and/or statutory requirement, rather than a suggested approach and/or optional measure. Use of the words “should” or “recommend” indicates aspects of a method or approach that are considered appropriate and protective, based on MassDEP’s experience and/or sound technical practices, but do not correspond to a specific regulatory and/or statutory requirement.

The guidance is not a regulation, rule or requirement, and should not be construed as mandatory. Accordingly, this document does not create any substantive or procedural rights, and is not enforceable by any party in any administrative proceeding with the Commonwealth.

My take? 

I was tempted to say “trust, but verify.” However, to be honest, I think I have to say instead, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

For example, one of the most contentious issues has been how to address potential future vapor intrusion issues when there is currently no building on the site and there are no current plans for a specific building. MassDEP has created a three-tiered approach. Owners of property in Category A, with concentrations below GW-2 standards (GW-2 standards, for readers who are not MCP aficionados, are specifically designed to protect against indoor air exposures), need take no additional precautions prior to building. Owners of Category B sites, with concentrations greater than GW-2 standards, but less than 10 times the GW-2 standards, “should” include the installation of a vapor barrier and an active sub-slab depressurization, or SSD, system. Sites with concentrations greater than 10 times the GW-2 standard will be in Category C.  Buildings on these sites “would be constructed with a vapor barrier and active SSD system” and the site “should” be sampled over a two-year period. 

Don't you just love the artful use of the passive voice here?  Who the heck is actually building the buildings?  Perhaps the the vapor barrier and SSD will build themselves.

Is this a rule or guidance? Time will tell. My prediction? The first time MassDEP varies from its “shoulds” and “woulds” will be one more time than I expect will ever happen. The street-level bureaucracy at MassDEP is still the law west of the Pecos – or at least east of the New York border – and I do not foresee much flexibility. I would be pleased to be wrong.

(And good luck and best wishes to former Foley lawyer Ben Ericson, now Assistant Commissioner for Waste Site Cleanup, as he tries to implement this guidance -- as guidance.)

As seems frequently to be the case with EPA rules, this one, weighing in at 2.4MB and 1,117 pages, cannot easily be summarized here. In fact, the rule is so complicated – and controversial – that EPA had to generate four separate fact sheets to summarize the rule and its impacts: (1) Costs and Benefits (or, as EPA carefully puts it, “Benefits and Costs”); (2) Summary of the Rule; (3) Clean Air and Reliable Electricity (I wonder why EPA thought this one necessary?); and (4) Adjustments from Proposal to Final.

We live in a complex world, so there is not much use in complaining about how overwhelming this rule is, and about the problems inherent in a system in which rules with costs of approximately $10B annually and benefits ranging from $37B to $90B annually are this complicated and are probably truly understood by a very small number of people. As I tell my Libertarian friends, even Jefferson wouldn’t be a Jeffersonian today. Nonetheless, it is troubling.

The issues worth noting in a blog post are probably the changes from the proposal. Significant changes include:

·         Use of filterable PM for the particulate emissions limit, rather than total PM (which would include condensables).

·         Use of work practice standards, rather than emission limits, during start-up and shut-down. This is an important change, which will make life much easier for regulated units.

·         Greater flexibility in facility-wide averaging.

Reliability has obviously been the big issue for EPA. Units will generally have three years to comply. Permitting authorities may grant a 4^th year, if necessary, and EPA has said that they expect the extra year to be “broadly available.” EPA has also provided a mechanism for “units that are shown to be critical for reliability to obtain” a 5^th year to comply – though EPA has said that it does not expect many units to require or qualify for the 5^th year.

My predictions on the rule’s fate and impact?

·         I’ll be stunned if the rule does not survive judicial review. Of course, in an 1,117 page rule, there may be some obscure provision that is struck down, but the basic provisions will be upheld.

·         The sky will not fall. Significant numbers of jobs will not be lost, and the increase in electricity prices will be smaller than predicted. Since I whack EPA often enough, I’ll defend it here – to a limited extent. I don’t think that there has been a single big rule ever promulgated by EPA where the implementation costs haven’t been less than expected. That’s been true for one simple reason. When industry has clear rules to follow (even if they are not the cost-effective rules I would prefer), industrial innovation works to bring down compliance costs in ways that were not imagined, either by EPA or industry, when the rule was promulgated.

·         Of course, if there is a Republican President and a Republican Congress, all bets are off. Of course, when Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts, he supported regulations by MassDEP that were essentially a state version of the Utility MACT rule, notwithstanding his criticism today of EPA for wanting to promulgate job-killing regulations. Of course, Mitt Romney has been known to change his mind. Of course,… oh, never mind. 

This time, the NAHB was challenging the Corps’ nationwide permit, NWP-46, allowing discharges of dredge and fill material into certain upland ditches. The District Court had found that the NAHB did have standing, but ruled against NAHB on the merits. The Court of Appeals didn’t even let them get that far, once more barring the courthouse doors.

Aside from the NAHB’s bad luck in losing in the court of appeals twice in one week, what’s news here? 

The news is that, once again, the Court has provided useful guidance regarding what regulated entities – or their trade groups – must allege to establish standing in these types of cases. The NAHB had asserted that NWP-46 imposes costs on its members because it is ambiguous and leaves members uncertain when they are in fact subject to CWA jurisdiction for filling ditches. Unfortunately for the NAHB, the Court concluded that the Corps has been asserting jurisdiction over upland ditches for years. Moreover, the Court pointed to an acknowledgement by the NAHB VP for Legal Affairs that the Corps had “consistently suggested that at least some upland ditches were subject to CWA jurisdiction.”

In short, the Court concluded that the NAHB’s injury was not traceable to the permit, but was instead traceable to the Corps’ underlying assertion of jurisdiction, which was not asserted for the first time in NWP-46. Indeed, as the Court noted, because the Corps had previously asserted jurisdiction over upland ditches, NWP-46 benefited NAHB members, by providing them a way to comply with the CWA that is less costly than the individual permit process.

As the two NAHB decisions make clear, a trade group asserting standing on behalf of its members – or those members suing on their own behalf – must address the traceability and redressability prongs of the standing requirement with particularity, and must establish both that the specific regulatory action being challenged is the direct cause of their injury and that vacating the agency action will redress that injury.

I’m sure that the third time will be a charm for the NAHB. 

E&E Daily has now reported that, in recent Congressional testimony, EPA Acting Assistant Administrator for Water Nancy Stoner (a law school classmate, I might add) has acknowledged the obvious and admitted that EPA is “behind schedule.” Stoner did not provide a new target for when the rule would be proposed. If I were a betting person, I’d be skeptical that there are any circumstances under which EPA could actually meet the November 19, 2012 deadline for promulgation of a final rule. 

After EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers issued a determination that two reaches of the Santa Cruz River constitute “traditional navigable waters” under the Clean Water Act, the National Association of Home Builders sued. The complaint appears to have attached declarations referring to individuals who own property along tributaries of the two reaches, and who asserted that they are have applied for permits under the CWA. None of this was enough for the Court, which made four important points:

·         The NAHB itself did not have organizational standing. The Court made clear that an organization does not have standing unless it has credibly asserted that the challenged action “’perceptibly impaired’ a non-abstract interest.”

·         NAHB’s effort to assert representational standing for its members generally failed, because it contained no assertions linking this site-specific TNW determination to any broader impacts that would affect developers away from the Santa Cruz River.

·         NAHB’s effort to assert standing on behalf of owners in the vicinity of the Santa Cruz River failed because none of the declarations filed with the complaint alleged any harm specifically tied to the issuance of the TNW determination.

·         NAHB did not have “procedural standing” to challenge the agencies’ failure to provide notice and an opportunity to comment before issuing the TNW determination. Quoting from the Supreme Court decision in Summers v. Earth Island Institute, the Appeals Court stated that “deprivation of a procedural right without some concrete interest that is affected by the deprivation – a procedural right in vacuo – is insufficient to create Article III standing.” As the Court further noted, allegations of procedural violations may be relevant in assessing the redressability issue, but they cannot loosen the requirement that plaintiffs demonstrate that they have suffered a substantive injury traceable to the procedural violation.

The NABH decision appears plainly correct in light of Supreme Court standing jurisprudence. Moreover, it does not substantially narrow access to the courts. In fact, I think it provides a useful roadmap regarding the types of declarations that will be required to establish standing for developers. What it does make clear is that the courts are not simply discouraging environmental plaintiffs in their standing jurisprudence. Instead, the courts are discouraging each side equally – or at least requiring the same demonstrations from developers as well as environmentalists.

As with most of EPA’s big rules, it is too complex to be summarized in a blog post. EPA’s summary fact sheet is here. Very briefly, the rule exempts 86% of industrial boilers and subjects most other boilers to work practice standards rather than emission limits. For those boilers subject to the emission limits, the new rules relaxed limits for CO, PM, and most metals, but increased the stringency for mercury and acid gases.

EPA also made one important change sought by the biomass industry. The rule will allow biomass to be combusted in boilers and CISWI, by defining it as “non-hazardous secondary material,” which can now “be considered a legitimate, non-waste fuel.”

As I have noted with other EPA rules, I expect that this rule will survive judicial challenge. Although no cost-effectiveness analysis was provided, EPA estimates that the benefits of the rules exceed the costs by a factor of more than 10. More to the point, as with other rules, much of what EPA has done is dictated by the CAA.

The real question is whether anyone will appreciate EPA’s efforts to – if I may use the term – tailor the rule as finely as possible. As Greenwire noted, there remain efforts in Congress to pass legislation both delaying and softening the rules. My sense is that we should at least give EPA credit for drafting better rules, because the agency is certainly not getting any political credit. The environmentalists criticize EPA for not having enough gumption, while EPA’s critics still call EPA “the scariest agency in federal government.” 

On this score, I’ll just note one final perspective. In today’s New York Times, David Brooks described Obama – or least Cass Sunstein, director the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs – as a “wonky liberal.” What was the context for this comment? A discussion of the administration’s handling of costly environmental regulations. Brooks conceded that “most people in government are trying to find a balance between difficult trade-offs.” The problem for the administration is that neither the right nor the left today wants balance.

I enjoy criticizing EPA, but I would want to be trying to juggle the issues that EPA is currently statutorily mandated to address.