Just about two years ago, Jared Blumenfeld took charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s largest West Coast office, promising “revolutionary” strides forward. But it’s been a tough slog on the climate front, given the political climate in Washington.

Climate Watch Senior Editor Craig Miller sat down with Jared Blumenfeld, Administrator for EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region, to talk climate, green business and smart growth. Their interview airs this weekend on This Week in Northern California, on KQED Public Television 9. The segment is edited from a longer interview; here’s a clip that’s not in the TV version.

After it airs, we’ll post the segment in our Climate Watch Conversations archive, where you can watch past interviews with experts including California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols, National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis and IPCC scientist and Stanford professor Chris Field.

US EPA

Detail from EPA's interactive map of greenhouse gas emitters.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has just made tracking greenhouse gases a lot easier. The agency has produced its own map of major GHG producers, with fresh data and customizable features.

Two years ago, when we produced our map of California emitters for Climate Watch, we had to cobble it together with raw data from the state Air Resources Board emissions inventory, numbers that were relatively hard to find and infrequently updated. The EPA’s new map allows you to select your state, zoom into specific regions and view emissions by type and volume.

One thing the original Climate Watch map still provides is a visual connection between California and large coal-fired power plants in neighboring states, from which California imports electricity. The EPA map provides visual evidence that greenhouse gases are still on the radar in Washington. In an appearance at EPA this weekto thank staffers for their perseverance, President Obama gave an eleven-minute speech, mentioning climate change only once, in the context of recently-announced fuel economy standards. Obama didn’t mention greenhouse gases as such, but referred to “pollution that contributes to climate change.”

Reed Galin / Lone Tree Productions

Updated Monday, November 28, 2011

For California Air Resources Board (ARB) chair Mary Nichols, pre-Thanksgiving prep meant responding to list of requests from Orange County Republican congressman Darrell Issa and his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

As part of its expanding probe into how the newest Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards were set, the letter asked for information about how California came up with its vehicle emissions standards and what role state officials played in developing the newly announced federal fuel economy standard.

According to documents released by the Air Board just before the holiday, Issa’s letter includes charges that the state of California is “de facto,” setting fuel economy standards, a job legally left to the feds.

In her response, Nichols twice asserts that California is not setting fuel economy standards but has set emission standards, an authority reaffirmed by federal court decisions and supported in the Clean Air Act, which allows states to seek waivers to enact its own pollution standards. “Every federal court that has heard this misguided preemption mantra has soundly dismissed it,” wrote Nichols.

Issa presses the point further by asking Nichols whether she believes that “greenhouse gas regulation is ‘related to’ fuel economy standards.” Nichols calls the claim “a legalistic contortion that defies common sense,” and counters that were that true, “states could not regulate speed limits because such are clearly closely ‘related to’ fuel economy.”

In his letter, Issa mentions that Nichols declined to appear for an October committee hearing and did not offer an alternative person.  Issa said this was “emblematic” of a concern that ARB is “unresponsive” and “unappreciative of congressional priorities,” and he was expanding his investigation because of it.

One of Issa’s 18 queries came startlingly close to the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” category. One asks, “Do you believe that a closed and secretive process is the best approach for regulating an industry that affects nearly every American?” Nichols responds that ARB’s processes are “thorough, transparent and open.” She also notes that it is “standard practice” to confer with overlapping agencies, stakeholder groups and “potentially regulated parties before launching a formal rule-making process.”

Issa mentions a New York Times article that quoted Nichols as saying, “We put nothing in writing, ever.”  The 2009 article Issa quotes is talking about the private conversations between Nichols, presidential energy advisor Carol Browner and auto industry officials. Browner set those talks in motion to work toward a compromise on a single national standard, one that was indeed announced later. Issa skipped over the rest of Nichols’ quote, which read: “…that was one of the ways we made sure that everyone’s ability to talk freely was protected.”

In response to Issa’s request for all ARB communications with federal agencies and automakers about the agency’s involvement in fuel economy standard talks for model years 2012 through 2016, Nichols writes that there were none, since ARB does not set fuel standards. At one point Nichols calls some of Issa’s requests for documentation “unduly broad and overly burdensome” and “declines to produce manufacturers’ confidential business information or other privileged information.” In addition to responses to the committee’s queries, Nichols’ staff included nearly 20 pages of supporting documentation.

Issa is on record supporting alternative fuels, saying the country should ”encourage the development of zero-emission clean energy generation, such as nuclear, hydro-electricity, wind, solar, all of which can meet our energy needs now and replace older and dirtier fossil fuel generation.” He supports increasing fuel efficiency standards and also increasing domestic fossil fuel production, including opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, the outer continental shelf and western states’ oil shale assets. He also states on his website that Congress must maintain “strong oversight” over the agencies that regulate the energy industry.

Gabriel Bouys

In July, when the Obama Administration announced a plan for strict new fuel efficiency standards that would require a fleet-wide average for cars and light trucks of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, the sustainable business non-profit CERES reported the move would create nearly 500,000 new jobs nationwide.

“The new jobs will be related directly to the auto industry, and there will be additional jobs because consumers will have more money to spend because they will be saving on fuel,” said Carol Lee Rawn, director of the transportation program at CERES.

July was a preliminary announcement. The EPA is expected to release official targets later this month.  Final rules are not expected until next July.

In anticipation of the EPA announcement, CERES is making the case that not only will stricter standards benefit the nation as a whole, but they will also spur economic growth in 49 individual states. Only Wyoming may suffer a net loss from the new rules, said Rawn, according to data from  their report “More Jobs per Gallon,” originally released in July.

The picture for California looks particularly good, said Rawn.

“California is a large state, so there are lots of opportunities there,” she said. “And California is a leader in advanced vehicle technology so it stands to benefit that way as well.”

Specifically, the study finds that:

• the 54.5 mpg standard would create more than 57,300 new jobs in California, putting the state in first place in terms of jobs created.
• the 54.5 mpg standard would boost California’s GDP by about $3.67 billion.

Governor Brown has praised the tougher standards proposed by the Administration back in July.

California is playing a major role in developing the new federal standards. Last year the state had been poised to announce its own rules for model years 2017-2025, but in January the Air Resources Board agreed to a shared deadline with the federal government. Since then, officials from CARB have been working with federal agencies, automakers, and environmental groups to develop the new rules.

Remember those national carbon trading bills that were moving through Congress as Barack Obama was setting up shop in the Oval Office? The head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency says: Don’t hold your breath.

ChipSomodeville/Getty

EPA chief Lisa Jackson: "What America's talking about right now is jobs."

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s appearance on KQED’s Forum Wednesday seemed to confirm that her boss is picking his battles carefully. “What America’s talking about right now is jobs,” Jackson told host Michael Krasny. “Green jobs are what we have to be working on with everything we do.” The message seemed to be that environmental goals will take a back seat, unless they can be linked to job creation.

Krasny walked Jackson through the checklist of recent controversies, such as today’s decision to postpone greenhouse gas regulations beyond a September 30 deadline, and to let stand Bush-era standards for ozone pollution.

Jackson wriggled out of directly addressing the backlash against President Obama’s green jobs initiative since the collapse and federal investigation of Fremont-based Solyndra Corp. Jackson said only that this is “an important moment,” and that “We have to double down” on clean energy commitments, rather than retreat in the wake of one corporate calamity. “It’s more important than ever that instead of backing away, we continue to insist on investment by our elected officials in that sector of our economy.”

As to the proposed tar sands pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, a project that has prompted demonstrations outside the White House, Jackson said no decision has been made but that “certainly people are hearing” the public outcry against the idea.

And speaking of outcries, on the recent controversial decision by the President not to tighten ozone standards:

“It was a tough call. I respect it. We have a huge green agenda. It is one decision.”

Asked if a national cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions is “dead:”

“My hope is that reason will return and that–in a reasonable way–business will eventually become the biggest advocate for a mkt-based program. It’s certainly not gonna happen in the near future.”

Jackson said that right now, controlling emissions of mercury from power plants is “Job One.” So what’s “Job Two?” Implementing cross-state air pollution rules, said Jackson.

On Republican claims that her agency is a job-killing machine: “That’s nonsense. It just is.”

James Goldstene, executive director of the state’s Air Resources Board, told members of a House subcommittee that the EPA’s recently released regulations will not create a “regulatory train wreck.”

Goldstene  held up a planned power plant in Northern California to advance his case, saying that the Russell City Energy Plant will stand as an example of how power companies can use the “best available technology” for reducing emissions, as required under a recently issued EPA rule. The plant, to be built on the Hayward shore of San Francisco Bay, is a 600-megawatt plant to be fired by natural gas.

Goldstene’s appearance before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power (part of the Energy & Commerce Committee) was to counter Republican efforts to pull EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, contained in a bill known as the Energy Tax Prevention Act. Goldstene said passage of the bill into law would “send a stark message…that the U-S isn’t serious about being a leader in the future economy.” It would also upstage a ruling by the US Supreme Court affirming the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Goldstene’s full testimony is available as a PDF download.

A lot’s being made of the move by the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s move to start regulating greenhouse gases in the new year, but policy analysts are greeting it as a relative non-event in states like California (and Massachusetts), which are already moving ahead with their own carbon regulation strategies.

“It’s really a complement to what we’re doing with AB 32,” said California Air Resources Board spokeswoman Gennet Paauwe.

The EPA is acting in response to a 2007 US Supreme Court finding that greenhouse gases fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Air Act, and therefore are subject to regulation by the federal agency.

Critics of the EPA’s move, such as incoming House Energy Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich), say it’s a job-killer that will hurt domestic energy production. Other members of Congress, like California’s Barbara Boxer, support the EPA’s action.

The new regulations will affect power plants and refineries, which together produce about 40% of all carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.  Starting January 2, industry will be required to consider new technologies and implement measures to mitigate greenhouse gas pollution for approval of new facilities and “major modifications” to existing ones.

“This is about taking a look at what technologies are available that can cost-effectively achieve reductions in greenhouse gases,” EPA assistant administrator Gina McCarthy told reporters in a recent conference call. “We set the standards, and the industry themselves figure out the most cost-effective ways to achieve those standards,” she said.

Vickie Patton, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, says a similar process is already in place for monitoring many other pollutants, and the new ruling simply adds greenhouse gases to the list.

Existing power plants and refineries will have to address greenhouse gas emissions, too, but not for at least a year.  Draft standards (providing details of the new rules) aren’t expected for power plants until July 2011, and December for refineries.  The agency says those standards wont be finalized until mid-to-late 2012 after a long period of public comment. By that time California’s cap & trade plan under AB 32 will be up and running, barring any legal delays.

The EPA says it will be up to each state to devise it’s own plans for implementing the standards.  And that’s where much of the uncertainly lies.  Texas has already refused to cooperate and sued unsuccessfully to stay the EPA ruling, long before the draft standards have been released or any formal process has been established for implementation.

“We’re really early stage,” said McCarthy. “I can’t tell you what types of reductions we hope to achieve. That’s all going to be driven by the technologies that come to our attention through the public comment period.”

Patton says that despite that state’s high profile objections, most states are on board with the federal process.

“Virtually every state in our country has rolled up its sleeves, prepared for this transition, and is ready to begin carrying out these protections to address global warming pollution, except for Texas,” she said.

Patton said that states like California, which has been a pioneer in both new technologies and in emissions regulation, will have “an important voice” as the standards are being developed.

“In the absence of an effective price on carbon or other incentives for industrial plants to choose clean technology, this is very important and useful tool to help the transition to clean energy and industry in California,” said CARB’s Paauwe. But once the AB 32 program is in motion, she said, this regulation could be redundant, as CARB hopes that the state cap and trade program as well as other market incentives will motivate firms to install the cleanest technologies on their own.

At that time, she said, “We can look at whether a separate clean technology process is necessary.”

Navajo Generation Station. The place of coal in California's energy diet is shrinking, but that's not necessarily true for the rest of the country. (Photo: Alex E. Proimos via Flickr)

Bit by bit, the US Environmental Protection Agency is moving to limit the gases that scientists say cause global warming. Over five years, the agency is limiting auto emissions and is also requiring new industrial plants to use improved pollution controls

Sooooo, US Justice Department lawyers argue, California, seven other states, New York City and three land trusts should not be suing major utilities, demanding that they reduce global warming emissions.

In papers filed with the US Supreme court this week, Justice Department lawyers argue the authority to curb emissions that cause climate change belongs to the Environmental Protection Agency and to Congress.

Congress isn’t doing anything at present about global warming, but the Obama administration argues the case should be dismissed. As do the power companies.

The suit, AEP v. Connecticut, was filed in 2004, against American Electric Power, Duke Energy, Southern Company and Xcel Energy, (none based in California, though Xcel has customers in Colorado and New Mexico), claiming that climate change has damaged state resources.  The plaintiffs want court orders requiring power companies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by three percent a year for 10 years. A federal judge in New York dismissed the suit but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last September that the states could try to prove their case.

At the time, federal lawyers say, the judges felt the “EPA does not currently regulate carbon dioxide.” Since then, the lawyers argue, the Obama administration has finalized several regulations in response to the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which told the agency to decide whether greenhouse gases were pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

In the brief, Acting Solicitor General Neil Katyal writes: “That regulatory approach is preferable to what would result if multiple district courts — acting without the benefit of even the most basic statutory guidance — could use common-law nuisance claims to sit as arbiters of scientific and technology-related disputes and de facto regulators of power plants and other sources of pollution both within their districts and nationwide.”

“It’s hard for me to tell whether this is craven or stupid,” wrote UCLA Law Professor Jonathan Zasloff on the enviro law and policy blog LegalPlanet.  “This represents the administration going above and beyond the call of duty to undermine the chances of a sensible energy policy.  Yes, a comprehensive statute would be better,” wrote Zasloff.  “And you know what?  It ain’t going to happen.”

California’s biggest tie to coal-fired power may be cut without the courts. The (relatively) new head of the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power says he wants to divest its stake in the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona, ahead of schedule – which is to say, sometime before 2019.

Los Angeles tops a new ranking (PDF) of the 25 U.S. cities with the most energy efficient buildings, released by the Environmental Protection Agency.  With 293 Energy Star-rated buildings encompassing 76 million square feet of space, Los Angeles saves $93.9 million and reduces emissions equal that from electricity use by 34,800 homes, according to the EPA.

Washington, D.C. was ranked second, and San Francisco third.  Two other California cities made the top 25: Sacramento (16th) and San Diego (17th).  According to EPA data, San Francisco has 173 Energy Star buildings (including Hotel Nikko and One Embarcadero Center) that save an estimated $69.4 million in energy costs and reduce emissions equivalent to 24,700 homes. Sacramento and San Diego have 61 and 58, respectively.

As of the end of last year, 9,000 commercial buildings had been awarded Energy Star designation since 1999, representing a combined savings in utility costs of $1.6 billion and a reduction in GHG emissions equal to that of one million homes, according to the EPA.

Buildings that qualify for Energy Star are those that score in the top 25%, based on the EPA’s National Energy Performance Rating System, which compares energy use among facilities of similar types on a scale of 1-100.

New EPA regional chief Jared Blumenfeld. Photo: EPA

Yesterday I spoke with Jared Blumenfeld, the former head of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment–aka the guy who brought mandatory recycling to San Francisco and banished the phrase “Paper or plastic?” from the city’s supermarkets–by banning the plastic.

Blumenfeld now occupies a vast corner office in the EPA’s Region 9 headquarters, overseeing a territory that includes four Western states and 20 of the country’s largest cities. Born 40 years ago, just as Region 9 came into being, this week he was briefing reporters on his plans to “revolutionize” the region with a tighter focus on environmental justice, enforcement, and making small businesses more efficient.

What do these things have in common? For one thing, they’re all pretty local: specific communities with specific complaints and needs (a profile, incidentally, that fits Blumenfeld’s first initiative to a “T”).

So what about more sweeping changes on, say, climate? You could argue that it’s not the job of a regional head to get mixed up in Beltway politics. But given all the recent drama in Washington around cap and trade, maybe Blumenfeld’s local focus is intentional.

How, I asked him, has the mood in Washington affected his ambitions for EPA Region 9?

“I was looking at a recent poll that showed how many fewer people understand climate change last year than this year,” he replied. “I think the environmental movement has gotten away from the people. We’ve become overly specialized, jargony, focused on large problems no one person can solve.”

Having made San Francisco a considerably “greener” place, maybe Blumenfeld’s first task is to export small initiatives that–for the moment at least–make environmental problems feel local and solveable.

Amy Standen is the lead radio reporter for Quest, KQED’s multimedia science initiative.