Kate Sheppard

Reporter

Kate Sheppard is a staff reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She was previously the political reporter for Grist and a writing fellow at The American Prospect. She can be reached by email at ksheppard (at) motherjones (dot) com.

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Her work has also been featured in the New York Times' Room for Debate blog, the Guardian's Comment Is Free, Foreign Policy, High Country News, The Center for Public Integrity, the Washington Independent, Washington Spectator, Who Runs Gov, In These Times, and Bitch. She was raised on a vegetable farm in southern New Jersey (yes, they do exist), but has adapted well to life in the nation's capital. She misses trees and having a congressional representative with voting power, but thinks DC is pretty great anyway.

Ag Lobby Condemns Any Effort to Cut Emissions

—By Kate Sheppard

| Wed Jan. 13, 2010 2:04 PM PST

The American Farm Bureau Federation—the powerful agricultural lobby group already waging war on congressional efforts to fight climate change—yesterday adopted a formal resolution condemning both pending cap-and-trade legislation and the Environmental Protection Agency's anticipated regulations of carbon emissions.

The resolution, approved at the AFB's annual meeting, "strongly opposes" cap-and-trade legislation in Congress and "strongly supports any legislative action that would suspend EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act."

The resolution also refers to the "ClimateGate" hacked email controversy as evidence of "just how unsettled the science really is on climate change." It also argues that the emails demonstrate the "unwillingness of many of the world’s climatologists to share data or even entertain opposing viewpoints." Yet the vast majority of climatologists estimate that agriculture is one of the industries that will suffer most from warming global temperatures.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Agriculture estimates that, under the climate legislation passed in the House last year, farmers will receive an additional $75 million to 100 million each year from 2012 to 2016 to reduce their emissions. The market for offsets created by the bill could also generate income for farmers of $1 billion per year between 2015 and 2020, and $15 to 20 billion annually from 2040 to 2050.

AFB's resolution was unanimously approved by the 369 delegates at the AFB's annual summit. The full resolution is below the jump.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

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Chamber Mulls Legal Challenge to EPA's Emissions Rules

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Jan. 12, 2010 2:36 PM PST

Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue indicated on Thursday that the organization is mulling a legal challenge to an Environmental Protection Agency finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and should therefore be subject to regulation.

"Are we going to sue the EPA on the endangerment finding?" Donohue said at a press conference following a speech on the State of American Business 2010. "Maybe."

"There are a number of options and processes available both in the courts and in other parts of government," he added. "We will not stand still and let the endangerment finding, as narrow as it was intended to be, stand, since it has declared now that CO2 is a pollutant."

Donohue maintained that the Chamber isn't disputing the idea that carbon dioxide is a threat to human health (although in the past it has done just that). The Chamber just doesn't think the EPA has the legal ability to restrict emissions (even though the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that it does). The EPA's efforts to curb carbon pollution, he said, amounts to "a retirement program for, amongst other things, class action lawyers." "We're not arguing the science. This is a legal issue, which basically hands the whole thing over, everything companies are doing everywhere, to the trial lawyers, so we will take some constructive steps," he said.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Lobbyists, Ex-Bush Staffers Help Write Murkowski Climate Bill

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Jan. 12, 2010 10:26 AM PST

In her effort to block the Environmental Protection Agency from taking action on climate change, Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski is getting help from some familiar faces: some of George W. Bush's top environmental officials who now lobby on behalf of dirty energy interests.

The Washington Post reports that Bush-era EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation Jeffrey R. Holmstead and general counsel Roger R. Martella, Jr. have worked with Murkowski to draft legislation cutting off the EPA's ability to regulate emissions.

Holmstead now heads the environmental strategies group at Bracewell & Guiliani, which lobbies on behalf of energy giants like Southern Company, Progress Energy, Duke Energy, and the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council. Martella is a partner at Sidley Austin LLP, where he lobbies on climate on behalf of clients like the National Alliance of Forest Owners and the Alliance of Food Associations.

Former Bush EPA officials know plenty about how to successfully avoid action on emissions—they ignored the issue for eight years. But letting lobbyists so explicitly help write legislation also raises some big ethical questions. Kert Davies, director of Greenpeace's PolluterWatch, told the Post that his group will ask the Senate Ethics Committee to look into it.

Murkowski's spokesman argued that there is nothing "improper" about working with "outside experts," and that it is "responsible legislating" to do so. Murkowski was expected to introduce a new bill dealing with EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions next week, but now it seems her measure might be considered at a later date.

Ag Lobby Vows Even More Aggressive Fight Against Climate Bill

—By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Jan. 12, 2010 9:47 AM PST

The American Farm Bureau, the major agricultural lobby group, is calling on farmers to be even more aggressive in their opposition to climate legislation. And in a vehement speech to an AFB conference last weekend, the organization's president, Bob Stallman, set the tone by comparing proposed regulation of the agriculture sector to a policy to attone for slavery following the Civil War. "A line must be drawn between our polite and respectful engagement with consumers and how we must aggressively respond to extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule," said Stallman. "The time has come to face our opponents with a new attitude. The days of their elitist power grabs are over."

Stallman's comments signaled that the farm lobby intends to intensify its already strenuous attacks on any government attempt to curb carbon emissions. Stallman vowed in his speech that his group would fight "aggressively" against "misguided, activist-driven regulation." The conference also included a session disputing the existence of climate change—titled "Global Warming: A Red Hot Lie?" and featuring climate skeptic Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

And the lobby's allies in Congress are taking notice. The Washington Independent reports that Agriculture Committee Chair Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who voted for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in the House, recently told a conservative talk radio show that if a climate bill passes the Senate he wouldn't support its final passage. "First of all, this isn’t going anyplace in the Senate," Peterson said. "But if it did and we ended up with a bill that was similar to what came out of the House and that was going to become law, I would vote no."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Et Tu, California?

—By Kate Sheppard

| Mon Jan. 11, 2010 4:19 PM PST

A Republican from Alaska and a coal-state Democrat are fairly obvious obstacles to EPA regulation of greenhouse gases. But California?

The California Energy Commission last month sent a letter to the EPA asking it to slow down on implementation of regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, after the agency announced that it had finalized its finding that greenhouse gases do in fact pose a threat to public health. The CEC argues that phasing them in too fast could hurt efforts in the state to expand use of low-carbon energy.

"We believe such an approach would avoid the disruptive effect of the current EPA proposal," wrote the CEC in the Dec. 23 letter, noting that the commission thinks the EPA rules would "likely retard, rather than facilitate, reductions in (greenhouse gas emissions) from the electricity sector."

California passed its own climate law, AB32, in 2006. The CEC argues that the introduction of new regulations from the EPA would tie up the state's efforts to reduce carbon, because EPA regulations operate differently from a cap and reduction program like theirs, which is more similar to the type of proposal being considered in Congress. As Reuters explains:

As part of California's plan to build more wind and solar power farms, which generate power sporadically, it would construct a fleet of highly efficient natural gas-fired power plants to back those systems.

The new rules could slow down the permitting process of those new natural gas plants, and, in turn, the build out of renewable energy, the letter said. It would also increase reliance on older, less efficient natural gas plants that are not designed to work with renewable energy.

This seems like a justifiable complaint from California, but it does ignore the fact that the rest of the country is not (much as some might like it to be) California. Most states are still reliant on dirty, aging coal plants with no concrete plan in place for transitioning away, thus the push for EPA regulations.