Tag Archives: Legal Action

PLEA Network

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

PLEA Network

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

PLEA Network

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

PLEA Network

10 June 2016, Environmental justice Australia, Victorian climate change laws: A state stepping up. The Victorian government today released their intentions to change Victoria’s climate change laws. Climate change is real, and it’s happening now. The devastating bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef due to warmer water is not something that can be dismissed or hidden, despite the best efforts of the Federal government – and yet Australia is still ticking off on new coal mines. With the federal election just around the corner, there’s a very real possibility that we’ll get another three years of Turnbull government tinkering around the edges of the real, lasting changes we need to make to avoid the worst climate change scenarios. But we do not need to wait for federal government action. State governments can take on the role of action on climate. Today the Victorian government are promising to do just that. Their plans for Victoria’s climate laws draw heavily on Environmental Justice Australia’s proposed Climate Charter. A report by the Independent Review Panel suggested that the government embrace many of our proposed measures. They include emissions targets enshrined in law, and provisions that mean climate change will need to be taken into account in a whole range of government decision and policies – embedding climate change considerations throughout the Victorian Government. Read more here