Tag Archives: Legal Action

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25 August 2016, DESMOG, Landmark Climate Bill Passed By California Legislature. After an intense lobbying spree and threats from Governor Jerry Brown to take the measure directly to voters via ballot initiative should it fail to pass, Senate Bill 32 (SB 32) was approved by the California legislature yesterday. When it is signed into law by Brown, SB 32 will extend the climate targets adopted by the state under Assembly Bill 32 (AB32), the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which required California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The state is well on pace to meet the emissions targets set by AB 32, which is credited with having spurred developments that contributed $48 billion to California’s economy over the past 10 years while creating a half million jobs.SB 32 — together with a second bill that the state legislature just passed and Brown plans to sign, Assembly Bill 197 (AB 197) — will require the state to slash emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, as well as to create a committee to oversee California’s climate programs. The measures will also “prod regulators to take stronger action to cut pollution from refineries and other facilities,” especially in low-income and minority communities, according to the LA Times. “Yesterday, big oil bought a full-page ad in the capital city’s newspaper of record to halt action on climate,” Brown noted. “Today, the Assembly Speaker, most Democrats and one brave Republican passed SB 32, rejecting the brazen deception of the oil lobby and their Trump-inspired allies who deny science and fight every reasonable effort to curb global warming. I look forward to signing this bill — and AB 197 — when they land on my desk.”  Diane Regas, Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund, said that the state of California, in passing the bills, had extended its climate leadership position for another generation. “As major economies work under the Paris Agreement to strengthen their plans to cut pollution and boost clean energy, California, once again, is setting a new standard for climate leadership worldwide,” she said in a statement. Read more here

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2 August 2016, Renew Economy, South Australia takes on networks over soaring grid charges. The South Australia government has decided to take on the monopoly electricity network operator in the state as it continues its campaign against the market dominance of the powerful energy oligopoly, and their ability to pass on huge price increases to consumers that are often blamed on wind and solar. Network costs in South Australia – like most of the country – account for more than half the average household bill. Consumers were hoping to get some relief after the Australian Energy Regulator knocked back some of the planned spending by SA Power Networks, but its ruling is now being challenged in court. Energy minister Tom Koutsantonis says he will send a senior public servant to appear before the Australian Competition Tribunal this week, accusing SAPN of “cherry picking” individual spending decisions from the AER in the hope of boosting its overall spending allowance. It’s a crucial intervention by the state government, and comes amid huge public controversy over its ambitious renewable energy plans, and the already high penetration of wind and solar that could reach 50 per cent by the end of the year. Recent high wholesale electricity prices have been blamed by many in the Coalition, and the Murdoch media, on the state’s reliance on renewables, even though most independent analysts and market regulators blame soaring gas prices, grid constraints, and other factors. South Australia has long had the highest electricity prices in the country, a point underlined by federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg last week, who also pointed out that the recent spikes in wholesale prices used to be a regular event even before the build out of large wind farms and rooftop solar. Read More here

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28 July 2016, The guardian, World’s largest carbon producers face landmark human rights case. Filipino government body gives 47 ‘carbon majors’ 45 days to respond to allegations of human rights violations resulting from climate change. The world’s largest oil, coal, cement and mining companies have been given 45 days to respond to a complaint that their greenhouse gas emissions have violated the human rights of millions of people living in the Phillippines. In a potential landmark legal case, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), a constitutional body with the power to investigate human rights violations, has sent 47 “carbon majors” including Shell, BP, Chevron, BHP Billiton and Anglo American, a 60-page document accusing them of breaching people’s fundamental rights to “life, food, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and to self determination”. The move is the first step in what is expected to be an official investigation of the companies by the CHR, and the first of its kind in the world to be launched by a government body. The complaint argues that the 47 companies should be held accountable for the effects of their greenhouse gas emissions in the Philippines and demands that they explain how human rights violations resulting from climate change will be “eliminated, remedied and prevented”. It calls for an official investigation into the human rights implications of climate change and ocean acidification and whether the investor-owned “carbon majors” are in breach of their responsibilities. Read More here

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22 June 2016, Reuters, Court strikes down Obama fracking rules for public lands. A federal judge has struck down the Obama administration’s rules for hydraulic fracturing on public lands, a victory for oil and gas producers and state regulators who opposed the rules as an egregious overreach. The ruling, which the White House vowed to appeal, halts the administration’s efforts to address what it sees as safety concerns in the industry and reverses what producers had seen as a first step toward full federal regulation of all fracking activity. The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lacked Congressional authority to set fracking regulations for federal and Indian lands, U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl in Wyoming ruled late on Tuesday. BLM’s rules, issued in their final form in March 2015, would have required companies to provide data on chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and to take steps to prevent leakage from oil and gas wells on federally owned land. Fracking, currently regulated by states, involves injection of large amounts of water, sand and chemicals underground at high pressure to extract oil or natural gas. Environmental groups and some neighbors of oil and gas wells have linked fracking to water pollution as well as increased earthquake activity in certain areas. Because most fracking in the United States takes place on private land, the case had little direct effect on existing operations. Roughly 22 percent of U.S. oil production comes from federal lands, with much of that from offshore Gulf of Mexico production, not shale fields. Still, oil producers had feared the new regulations would be a step toward federal oversight of all fracking. “This ruling sends a broad signal about who really does have the jurisdictional authority to regulate this area,” said Ryan Sitton of the Railroad Commission of Texas, which oversees the oil and gas industry in the top producing state. Read more here and here