climate commission files report

After some delay, the Alaska Climate Impact Assessment Commission has finished its final report. It's available online at the commission's Web site. Just from a skim, it's well-written and got some interesting stuff I really hadn't known much about -- impacts on insurance coverage, international competition on shipping routes, etc. It uses strong language about many of the impacts happening, but doesn't blame them on human activities or recommend any kind of mitigation strategies -- it's all about adaptation, as the commission said all along. The group had the option of continuing its work, but chose to pass the ball to the gov's sub-cabinet. Also included in the report are written comments from individual departments, which should be interesting. In terms of legislative recommendations, there are a few specific ones, but no dollar figures. And, with less than 30 days left in a busy session, I can't imagine there will be much attention paid to them.

california, canada, and massachusetts!

OK, so I promised I'd write something about what's going on in Massachusetts, which is funny because I don't really know squat about what's going on in Massachusetts, except that I sort of grew up there. What I do know is there's a group called Massachusetts Power Shift (MAPS) that's putting on a big event next month at BU, Boston Commons, and the State House with a bunch of big deal enviros (or so says their Web site). I'd sure go if I wasn't 2,876 miles away and busy.
One of the big climate things going on there is a bill moving through the General Court (the Legislature) that would limit emissions in the state to 90 percent of the 2002 level by 2020. It's called the Global Warming Solutions Act, and language in the bill claims it would be the only such effort aside from California's. It sets some tight deadlines, but would basically leave it up to the state's department of environmental protection to come up with ways to meet the reduction. Market-based system? Sure. Alternative compliance mechanisms? Why not. Look what California, Canada, and the E.U. are doing, says the bill.
That said, there does seem to be a lot of thought put into the bill. It has protections aimed at ensuring environmental justice, for instance, and making sure that emissions reductions made in Massachusetts don't just cause increases in some other state. It has a severability clause, and it gives the gov the authority to push back the compliance date in the event of "extraordinary circumstances."
According to MAPS, the bill passed the Senate last week. It's a Senate bill, so I'm assuming it still has to get through the House, which seems to have a gazillion people in it. One thing I noticed is different about MA and AK is the ratio of Democrats to Republicans. Our Senate is 9-11. Theirs is 35-5.

when you're too young to vote, lobby

A group of teenagers is in the Capitol this week lobbying lawmakers on environmental issues. They're with the group Alaska Youth for Environmental Action (created by some teenagers in 1998), and they're from all over the state. This afternoon, they gathered around a long table in the governor's conference room and talked about plastics, renewable energy, and pollution with the governor's special assistant, Joe Balash.
They also talked politics.
A bill banning mixing zones ("dilution is the solution") in salmon streams has been stuck in House Resources, said Megan Waggoner, an 11th grader at Palmer High, and support is growing for a ballot initiative that would ban mixing zones in all streams. So would Gov. Palin support the bill -- as a lesser of two evils -- to get the initiative off the ballot?
"Um," Balash replied, thinking. "I think that one would come down to the role of the initiative process."
Balash said he'd encourage anyone looking at the initiative to consider the economic consequences it would have, and added that Palin probably wouldn't support something she opposed, even if it was the lesser of two evils. "She tends to stick by her guns on issues."
Megan, who's 17, asked another question. If you're not old enough to vote, what's a good way to leverage lawmakers and have a real impact on policy. "What would you suggest would be the best way for us?"
"Well, um, one of the easiest things for you to do is go find earned media," Balash said, adding that a member of the media was sitting right next to them (me). Fundraisers, rallies, and other events can all bring attention to an issue.
Balash smirked and looked my way. "Sometimes you have get creative to get the attention of cynical reporters."
Another student asked him what he did when he didn't agree with the governor on an issue.
Um.
A few minutes later, Balash went and got the governor, who came in beaming and walked around the table shaking hands and gathering names. One girl was from Wasilla, where Palin is from.
"What's your last name?" she asked. "Oh, I know you!"
"Nice to meet you," she said to Megan, "Love your glasses."
Palin said down and asked them about their visit. "It's great that you're down here. Y'know, most Alaskan students have not seen their capital."
She asked Balash what they'd talked about and Balash mentioned the last question.
"What did you tell them!?" said the governor.
That he doesn't often disagree with her positions, he said.
Palin offered that her staff's greatest challenge was probably dealing with her impatience.
"I'm much more impatient than they are when I see something that needs to be done for the good of the state," she said. "I'm like, 'Let's go do it.'"
Megan, in a white blouse and heels, went to present the governor with an award for stepping up on renewable energy. Palin wants to create a $250 million fund that would spin off money for renewable energy projects, and she asked the students to help win support for the idea
"Make sure to tell Senator Stedman to get with it," said Balash, referring to one of the Senate Finance co-chairs.
Other students gave the governor a reusable shopping bag. "Someone should start marketing -- right now -- some really cool grocery bags," Palin said. The one they gave her was highly compressible and bright red. "Very cool, you guys."
The students talked about various efforts around the state and world dealing with restrictions on plastic shopping bags -- in Southeast villages, San Francisco, China, and Australia.
Then Aviva Hirsch, 14, chimed in.
"It's not really paper or plastic," she said. "It's really disposable versus sustainable."
Students gave the governor some signed postcards dealing with the mixing zones. Then they all posed for a picture, and Palin helped hold up their banner.

spring comes to juneau

Wish I had my camera.
I know it's technically a ways off, but it sure feels like spring here in Juneau. It was in the 40s today and the sun was hiding just behind the clouds, even poking through. I got up early and rode over the bridge to Douglas, north on the highway past a trio of bald eagles, and up the climb to our little ski area. There's still a good bit of snow in the woods and higher up, and there's plenty at the ski area. I reached the top faster than I thought, then flew down the hill with the sun to my back and thick mossy woods all around, with near-freezing water splashing up into my face. By the time I reached the bridge again two hours later, it was clear enough over the channel to see where it was raining and where the sun was winning out.

weatherization update

Sen. Lyman's Hoffman's weatherization plan is moving ahead. The full Senate just passed the supplemental budget with the $300 million in it. The head of the House, Rep. John Harris, told me yesterday that House leadership doesn't have a problem with the idea. And Palin's and her new energy czar Haagenson both said today they thought it was a good idea. "I think it's great," said Haagenson.
The weatherization outfit in Fairbanks loves the idea of being able to help more people, and the state corporation that would handle the funds is on board, too.
So there you go. Hoffman's staffer yesterday noted that $200 million for weatherization, $100 million in energy efficiency incentives, and another $200 million chipped in by newly incentivised homeowners, comes to $500 million. Sometimes it's easy to have MEGO with budget numbers, but that's the whole sum of the state's promised contribution to a gas pipeline project, or half what the state spends on K-12 education across Alaska.

"if you want to dream . . ."

Gov. Palin appointed Steve Haagenson today as the state's energy czar. When I asked him about climate change, he said he anticipated working "fairly closely" with Palin's sub-cabinet on climate change.
"One of the goals we'd like to have is reduction of CO2 as a gas from electric and any generation," he said, "and I think we have a path to achieve that -- actually, reduce it more than any other region in the world."
Haagenson mentioned the big hydro-power project on the Susitna River that people are talking about again, gasification technologies, and biomass.
There are problems making biomass work, including getting the costs down and dealing with delivery issues, he said. "[But] If you could get there, you could actually be CO2-neutral in the next, let's say, 20 years, which is more aggressive than anybody else in the nation I've heard talking."
"If you want to dream, you can dream," he added.
Big talk from a guy on the job for less than an hour? In any case, climate change seems to be on the radar, even if it's overshadowed in the energy debate by another reason to get off fossil fuels -- the high cost.
BTW, Haagenson is a Fairbanks guy, having worked at the member-owned Golden Valley Electric Association, including as president, for 32 years.

immediate action group takes action

A work group of Gov. Sarah Palin's sub-cabinet on climate change is meeting today in Anchorage and hoping to flesh out its recommendations to the whole sub-cabinet. There's lots of info on the group's Web site. I haven't read enough to know what's planning and what's action, and where the $1.1 million budget request plays in and what other kind of money the state will ask for. Another work product is analyses of the needs of six communities identified as being in serious trouble.

$300 million for insulation

Without any mention of climate change, Alaska could soon take a huge step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
State Senator Lyman Hoffman of Bethel is quietly pushing a huge, one-time boost in funding for home weatherization and energy efficiency programs. In recent years, the state has put $3 million into low-income weatherization. Hoffman wants $200 million. In recent years, the state has not put any money into an energy efficiency rebate program. Hoffman wants $100 million.
Both programs are overseen by the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., a public corporation. The weatherization program works by funneling money through regional non-profits that do the actual work. With the $3 million in state funds and $1.8 million in federal funds, the program reaches about 600 households a year.
That's way below the income limit, which is set by regulation at 60 percent of the Alaska poverty line. A 2005 Information Insights study estimated 45,000 homes were eligible out of the roughly 260,000 in the state.
Hoffman figured a 10-time increase in funding would still only cover a fraction of the homes that qualify -- about 4,200. The $200 million he wants would be about a 42-time increase and would cover about 17,400 homes, which works out to about $11,500 worth of work per home.
The other program would provide rebates of between $2,500 and $5,000 for improvements in home energy efficiency, based on how many steps homeowners increase in Energy Star Ratings. (One step gets you $2,500; five or more gets you $5,000.)
That program is not dependent on income.
(Info is mostly from Hoffman's office.)
I don't really have any figures on greenhouse gas reductions from something like this, but consider the following.
-Any reduction in the use of heating fuel or electricity (from fossil fuel-fire power plants anyway) also reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
-Energy conservation is widely considered the cheapest, most effective measure (compared to renewables, for example).
This might sound like a pipe dream -- another rural lawmaker is struggling to get a $10 million state match for LIHEAP -- except that Hoffman is co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and the money
is already in the supplemental budget the committee approved.
The Housing Finance Corp. is apparently on board, but I'm not sure about the gov.
A bill that may or may not be needed to make the plan work is up for its first hearing today.
Stay tuned.

where's the money?

Sorry for the somewhat dull budget notes here. (The skiing this weekend was amazing...)
For anyone wondering, I just asked Sen. Lyman Hoffman about the CCS money. He’s a co-chair of the finance committee for the Alaska Senate and the one in charge of the supplemental budget. He said things that weren’t in the last version weren’t there because there wasn’t agreement from the four co-chairs of the House and Senate committees, and he added that most of the stuff that was cut would get put into the state’s operating budget instead. (Lawmakers this session have been critical of the gov’s budget process.)
I claimed earlier that this would be the first money the state appropriated to deal with climate change. That might not be quite right, depending on how you look at it. I think the state has already put money toward coastal erosion projects, but I guess without the explicit mention of climate change as the driver.

more on CCS

When I first wrote about the Center for Climate Strategies last November, after they made a pitch to the state's climate change sub-cabinet, I got a lengthy response from someone at a conservative think tank called the John Locke Foundation challenging the group's claims of economic reductions in GHG emissions and its overall approach. When I mentioned it last week in a post, I got another response.
I'm not really in a position to judge, so here's a little more info on CCS, the charges against it, and maybe a few thoughts at the end.
CCS is a non-profit that helps states develop responses to climate change through a stakeholder process. It's currently working in 16 states, according to its Web site.
The John Locke Foundation is a conservative think tank that tackles all kinds of issues. It criticizes CCS for developing plans that raise taxes and dig into personal freedoms. Here's a Web site it developed specifically against CCS, and here's an example of a column written by an editor there, Paul Chesser, who contacted me last November.
As for comments made in the comment about the cost of the CCS process, I got my information from a public notice issued by the state, which said the $180,000 contributed by the state would amount to about 16 percent of the total cost of the project.
I certainly don't have enough information to judge the accuracy of CCS's claim that many of the recommendations typically made under its stakeholder processes actually save money, but the criticisms levied by Chesser and others don't really prove otherwise. They attack CCS is an activist group "Funded by wealthy liberals" and challenge that climate change is even an issue worth addressing. But I'll let you form your own opinion.
For now, the state money to get the project moving is gone from the budget anyway.