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We’re delighted to welcome back Poppy Alexander, a founding partner at the law firm Whistleblower Partners, a law firm dedicated to representing whistleblowers reporting fraud and misconduct in:
HealthcareProcurementSecurities and CommoditiesTaxesMoney Laundering and Sanctions EvasionCustomsEnvironmental RemediationVehicle SafetyPoppy represents whistleblowers and government entities in qui tam lawsuits, as well as under the various agency whistleblower programs including those administered by the Internal Revenue Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, FinCEN, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Department of Transportation. Poppy’s practice focuses on issues of international corruption and financial misconduct, with a specialty in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering cases. She writes and speaks regularly about emerging topics in financial fraud, including sanctions violations, SPACs, and cryptocurrency.
Poppy’s new law firm, Whistleblower Partners. Why Poppy left her old firm to establish this new legal partnership in March 2024. She describes a comprehensive approach to whistleblowers and not just file cases.The laws Whistleblower Partners uses in environmental cases and how they have changed since the episode we published in July 2023. Qui tam False Claims Act, SEC, IRS, Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), and various wildlife protection laws.Examples of Whistleblower Partners victories.Pitfalls of whistleblowing and filing lawsuits and administrative tips programs.
We last spoke with Poppy back in July of 2022 when she had already established an impressive track record representing whistleblowers at Constantine Cannon. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 2012. She was the co-editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and an active participant in the Human Rights Clinic, working on issues related to corporate accountability for human rights violations in Africa and military abuses in Southeast Asia. She was awarded the Dean’s Award for Community Leadership in recognition for her contributions to the school community. Poppy has been named to the Super Lawyers Rising Stars list every year since 2016. Prior to law school, Poppy worked on election reform issues before beginning graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied political and critical theory.
We’ve invited Poppy to talk about her new work, and her new firm, Whisteblower Partners.
Topics Discussed Include:
Mighty Earth vs. JBS in protecting the Brazilian rainforestThe Securities and Exchange Commission’s 90th birthday
Further Reading / Topics Discussed in this Episode:Support the show
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We’re pleased to have as our guest Melissa Valliant, Director of Communications for Beyond Plastics, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending plastic polution. She grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and graduated from Syracuse University with a plan to pursue magazine journalism. Somewhere along the way, she became hooked on environmental conservation and discovered a love for leveraging her communications abilities to make the world a better place. Melissa had her first letter to the editor published in a kids' science magazine at the age of 11 and has since been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, among others. Prior to her role at Beyond Plastics, she managed communications for Oceana's plastics campaign and worked for the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
Topics Discussed Include:
How environmental and health problems are connected with micro plastic and nano plastic particles and why scientists are alarmed.Why only 9 percent of plastic waste recycled.How the plastics lobby/greenwashing industries that were against abatement and reform.How the Fossil Fuel believes they can make up for future oil market loss with plastics production.How plastic manufacturing is highly polluting, where in the country we produce it, and impacts on local communities.What is currently being done to reform and what ultimately needs to be done to start to fix the problem.Further Reading / Topics Discussed in this Episode:
· Consider the positive and aspects of “The crying Indian” commercial on American society.
· How do prominent projects such as “Mr. Trash Wheel” encourage plastics removal/recycling versus reduction of plastics production affect public perception?
· Media Briefing on Polution in Port Arthur, TX
· Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act
· The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act
· Beyond Plastics Affiliates
· Beyond Plastics petitions
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Doug founded Earth Track to more effectively integrate information on energy subsidies. For the past three decades, he has written extensively on natural resource subsidies for organizations such as the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Stockholm Environment Institute. He has analyzed scores of government programs and made important developments in subsidy valuation techniques. He has provided input on subsidy reform legislation, served as a peer reviewer on subsidy papers from all over the world, and has published his own work in major journals and as book chapters. In recent years, his work has focused on subsidies to fossil fuels, nuclear power, and the impact of multi-sector natural resource subsidies on biodiversity and critical habitats.
Working collaboratively with other organizations, Earth Track focuses on ways to more effectively align the incentives of key stakeholder groups and to leverage market forces to help address complex environmental challenges.
He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA in economics from Wesleyan University.
Topics Discussed Include:
Government subsidies - why they are important to think about as we try to decarbonize our economy. How oil and gas subsides work in general and why they are outdated and harmful to climate goals. How taxpayers’ subsidies distort the market for oil and gas produced in Permian Basin.The role of different levels of government in supporting oil and gas and whether there are specific challenges trying to reform state-level policies.How some subsides were passed in the 1920s when oil extraction was a new industry and haven’t been changed to match the times.How three quarters of the subsides support exploration and production, potentially creating a disincentive to phasing out fossil fuel energy.How transparency of information on costs and how is paid is often lackingParticularly egregious subsidies in the federal realm, in Texas, and New Mexico.Examples of federal and state regulations and environmental exemptions that allow the fossil fuel production pollution to walk away from their production pollution and how that is affecting the Permian Basin’s environment for the people.Further Reading:
· The High Cost Well subsidy
· The Good Jobs First organization
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Matt Renner serves as Vice President of Seneca Environmental, a tribally owned and controlled Earth-healing solutions company focused on helping commercial customers achieve ambitious climate goals while supporting the long-term well-being of the Seneca Nation and other Indigenous people. His work focuses on partnership development and customer acquisition to create unprecedented collaboration and profitably accelerate climate action.
Matt has worked as a nonprofit executive in clean energy, climate policy, and journalism for over a decade, focusing on the near-term social and economic impacts of climate change. He was the head of Climate Mobilization and now serves on their board of directors. He began his career as an investigative reporter and later became the Executive Director of the World Business Academy to focus on the transition to a climate-constrained economic paradigm.
Matt has a BA degree in Political Science and Government from the University of California, Berkeley.
Topics Discussed Include:
· How Seneca Environmental is set up and its main goals.
· Why the Seneca Nation set up a specific section to invest in clean climate change solutions.
· How Seneca Environmental made the 2023 Time100 List and what Matt has done to make Seneca Environmental unique.
· An outline of the work Renner has done for the Native American community and for corporate businesses on producing clean energy.
· Why Seneca Environmental’s business model is working for both the Native American community and corporate businesses.
· How Seneca Environmental’s model and efforts can be replicated with other tribes and businesses to help the clean energy movement going forward.
Further Reading:
· The Seneca Environmental web site
· Video overview of the Seneca Nation
· Federal Tax Credits for Businesses
· Department of Energy Loan Programs
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Our guest tonight is Paul Blackburn of Pipeline Fighters’ Hub. Paul provides legal services on pipeline and renewable energy matters. He has worked on crude oil pipeline issues since 2008, and has experience in renewable energy policy and development. Paul represented nonprofit clients in the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline, and in the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission hearing on expansion of Line 67, another Enbridge pipeline. He has provided policy analysis and strategic advice on a variety of pipeline matters and authored reports on pipeline safety and oil spill response.
Paul started his legal career in Washington, DC, at the law firm of Van Ness Feldman, where he assisted clients in renewable energy and coal-fired power plant development, a variety of regulatory, legislative, and litigation matters, and Native American commercial law. After leaving private practice, he began a career in the nonprofit sector, including employment by the Sierra Club, the National Environmental Trust, and Oceana in organizing and media. He also has experience in community wind and solar energy development. Paul holds a B.A. in Biology from Macalester College and a J.D. from Boston College Law School.
In this episode we discuss topics including:
· An overview of the Q45 Carbon sequestration tax credit program
· Who benefits from the Q45 Tax Credit Program?
· How Fossil Fuel companies take advantage of the Q45 program and use it to continue to justify producing more fossil fuel
· Problems with the reporting system for 45Q to the EPA and IRS
For more information, see:
· The Pipeline Fighters Hub web site
· The Congressional Research Service’s page on the Q45 program
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Our guest this episode is Erandi Trevino of Public Citizen, Houston. Erandi grew up in Houston and has been concerned about the pollution in her neighborhood since she was a young child.
Before joining Public Citizen in Houston as a Climate Policy and Outreach Specialist, she was an Advocacy Fellow with the Fulbright Association in Washington, DC, where she worked on education policy, nutrition, and financial regulations. During her time in DC, Erandi also volunteered for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
Earlier in her career, Erandi assisted the Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations in New York. She has a law degree from Fordham University and degrees in International Relations and Latin American studies from Seton Hall University. Following her graduation there, she received a Fulbright Grant to teach English in Belo Horizonte, Brazil where she became fluent in Portuguese.
In this episode we discuss the following topics:
The coalition of companies and other institutions that are partners with this new project called the HyVelocity Hub and their claims to be able to build an “ecosystem” from the existing hydrogen and pipeline industry in Houston to make clean hydrogen.HyVelocity Hub claims that they will be able use carbon capture to make “clean” hydrogen (called blue hydrogen) using existing hydrogen production plants.How credible is Houston’s Clean Hydrogen Roadmap in general?Is HyVelocity’s goal of achieving 2kg CO2 / kg of H2 is realistic?RMI currently estimates 20 kg CO2 / kg H2 with Texas’s current fossil-heavy power grid.How credible is HyVelocity’s vision “to serve disadvantaged communities by providing jobs and higher labor standards, reducing local pollution, and supporting and complying with the Justice40 initiative?Who are the powerful investors in this endeavor and how are they affecting the plans for these plants? Are they listening to local concerns or just greenwashing their environmental challenges?What is Public Citizen doing as a local activist to get some oversight on this HyVelocity Hub project?Resources:
Center for Houston's Future
Houston Healthy Port Communities Coalition
Environmental Defense Fund - Better Hubs - Expring Decarbonizing Industry
Greater Houston Port Bureau's Project 11
On Breath Partnership's "What is Port Houston's Project 11?"
Erandi's Contact Information
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We’re excited to welcome back Mark Z. Jacobson, who joined us last year to talk about a study he co-authored called “Low-Cost Solutions to Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Energy Insecurity for 145 Countries”. He is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy program at Stanford University, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for energy, and also the Co-Founder of The Solutions Project, 100.org and the 100% Clean, Renewable Energy movement.
How does the time taken to construct different types of power plants effect their impact in light of the short timetable on lowering CO2 and other greenhouse gases pollution?How does the amount of waste heat released by fossil fuel compare to that released by renewables? For example, about 65 to 67 percent of energy in oil and coal is released as waste heat, 40 to 60 percent of natural gas energy is also waste heat, 74 percent of biomass is waste heat and 65 percent of the energy in uranium is waste heat.According to Jacobson, “By 2021, the cost of a system consisting of wind, solar, and batteries was already less than that consisting of natural gas. For example, even in 2019, a Florida utility replaced two natural gas plants with a combined solar-battery system because of the lower cost of the later.” How do economics affect transition to renewable energy sources? What are the best and quickest energy source for commercial and military planes and cargo ships?Is the U.S. grid ready for 100 percent clean electricity?What has been the reaction to Jacobson's proposed WWS solution?
We've asked Mark back to see what progress the country has made with his prediction that the US and the world can change to clean energy and meet CO2 goals by only using WWS (wind, water and solar) i.e. clean non burning energy without using coal, gas, nuclear, and carbon capture. Mark released a book in February of this year, entitled No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air. His book brings up more questions about the government and the some climate experts are promoting, such as carbon capture, instead of considering the potential of just using WWS.
Topics covered include:Support the show
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In this episode we welcome Peter McKillop, the founder and CEO of our new partner, Climate & Capital Media.
Peter is the founder of Climate & Capital Media. Climate & Capital Media is a mission-driven information platform exploring the business and finance of climate change.
Climate & Capital delivers original reporting, intelligence and insight from our global network of journalists, researchers, and investors with a focus on climate-related businesses, technology, and public policy, particularly for the emerging generation of economic leaders who will shape tomorrow’s global agenda.
Prior to Climate & Capital, Peter McKillop was a Managing Director at BlackRock, where he was responsible for leading the firm’s strategic communications and messaging for its iShares ETF and Indexing business. He has also held senior communication leadership positions at J.P. Morgan, KKR, UBS, and Bank of America. Before entering the financial communications field, Peter was a senior correspondent and bureau chief for Newsweek in New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
Our discussion ranges across the following topics, among others:
· Why it’s especially important and vital to have good oversight over the hundreds of billions of dollars of climate money about to be spent?
· Our goals for this new oversight collaboration between Climate Money Watchdog and Climate & Capital Media
· How the climate community will react to the idea of needing oversight unemployment money and the need to police itself.
· What we should do as climate money watchers when the climate deniers try to use spending failure and scandals to discredit all climate work.
· How important sources, especially inside sources within the climate effort are to finding out what is going wrong
· Why we are concerned about whistleblowers in the past who have dumped un-vetted, un-redacted into the public arena. How practices of people like Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning can hurt the communities they’re trying to help.
· As a long-time journalists, what concerns us now about the state of journalism, it's sustainability, and its ability to do oversight.
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Michelle Solomon is a Senior Policy Analyst in the Electricity program at Energy Innovation, working to accelerate the transition to a clean, affordable, and equitable electricity sector in the United States. We’ve invited her to talk about their recent publication of the third edition of their report - Coal Cost Crossover – which argues that over 90% of coal-fired power plants in the U.S. could be replaced by renewable energy generation at a net cost savings.
Prior to joining Energy Innovation, Michelle earned her Ph.D. in materials science and engineering at Stanford University, where she studied nanoparticles with applications in purifying chemicals for use in medicine and the environment. During graduate school, she also pursued an interest in energy policy and spent a summer working on electric vehicle policy at the California Energy Commission. After graduating, she transitioned full-time into policy as a Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow. As a fellow, she had the chance to work on energy and environment policy for Senator Ed Markey, focusing on a wide range of issues spanning environmental justice to electric vehicle charging.
Michelle holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. from Stanford University in materials science and engineering. She also completed her B.S. in physics at Boston College.
Further Reading:
· Coal Cost Crossover 3.0: Local Renewables Plus Storage Create New Opportunities for Customer Savings and Community Reinvestment
· Coal Cost Crossover Interactive data visualization
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In this climate fight will Big Fossil Fuel, it is hard and rare to have a clear-cut victory. The last time we did a podcast episode with Mike on 7/12/22, his group was fighting to prevent a closing coal-based power plant in Farmington, New Mexico from reinventing itself to keep open using the questionable technology of Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). This was described a June 29, 2022 High Country News article. A company named Enchant led this effort with the backing of financial groups to force this unproven technology through to keep the highly polluting plant open. Once they could not raise enough money privately, they were trying to get federal money to keep the plant going. However, this did not work out and the activists like Mike kept pushing to stop it. Last month, Enchant abandoned its efforts. We wanted to have Mike back on the program to explain what led to the closing of this plant for good and to explore and celebrate the loss of one less coal power plant.
Mike points out that this project was billed as a “demonstration project”, intended to show the potential of carbon capture and sequestration as an approach to combatting climate change. Back in December of 2021, the General Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report titled, “Carbon Capture and Storage: Actions Needed to Improve DOE Management of Demonstration Projects” which showed essentially no success among demonstration projects. Of eight projects, for which we, as taxpayers, paid $684 million, only one achieved operational status. That one plant operated for only three years, closing due to economic infeasibility.
Eisenfeld questioned when DOE and companies promoting these projects will be held accountable for this poor track record. Within the aforementioned report, DOE was described as addressing this by creating a dedicated Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. After waiting nearly a year, the Biden administration appointed David Crane, the CEO of NRG, the company in charge of Petra Nova, one of the failed carbon capture projects described in the GAO report.
Climate Money Watchdog will be following up on this and other appointments relevant to environmental spending.
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Kayley Shoup is an activist with the Citizens Caring for the Future, an environmental group that is affiliated with New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light in Carlsbad, New Mexico. When she moved back to her hometown, she became alarmed at the increase of pollution from the nearby expanded oil and gas fields of the Permian Basin, and is determined to do something about it. Recently, a NASA satellite from its EMIT program, which is designed to measure and characterize mineral dust sources to find new minerals, found a massive methane leak near the Carlsbad gas and oil fields. Kayley describes how her organization works to inform their community using data from a wide range of sources, including NASA and other non-profits such as Earthworks.
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Dr. Steve McDaniel and Beth McDaniel, JD founded and run Reactive Surfaces, and intellectual property firm that develops and patents paints that do more than turn buildings attractive colors and protect them from the elements: They react to the atmosphere in intentional and desirable ways. They are currently in the running to win the most valuable X-Prize contest ever by creating a paint that captures CO2 from the atmosphere more simply, cheaply and scaleably than any direct air carbon technology before it.
The McDaniels founded Reactive Surfaces in 2001 in response to the events of 911. They wanted to know if they could stabilize an enzyme in a coating to protect surfaces against a chemical weapons attack. This original technology is called WMDtox, and it works to decontaminate organophosphorous nerve gases virtually on contact. From there, they have developed other various functional platform technologies using non-toxic bio-based organisms, such as self-cleaning coatings and coatings that are antimicrobial and antiviral.
Carbon Capture Coatings have the power to significantly reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thereby lessening the impact of global warming. Carbon Capture Coatings are bio-engineered such that, when exposed to sunlight, they capture and fix atmospheric carbon dioxide. These coatings support living cells capable of carrying out photosynthesis, the process by which Nature captures and fixes atmospheric CO2.
Further Reading:
· Carbon Capture Coatings: Next Generation Biomimetic Coatings for Carbon Capture & Removal
· Carbon Capture Coatings: Can Paints and Coatings Save Humanity?
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Ryan Foelske a Carbon Free Electricity Program manager at RMI (previously the Rocky Mountain Institute) decided to put his money where his mouth is by buying a home in Babcock Ranch, a community designed to both reduce human contribution to climate change and to be more resilient to the effects of climate change, especially hurricanes. He tells us about his experience weathering hurricane Ian.
Check out Babcock Ranch on Google MapsRead Ryan's account of hurricane Ian on RMI's web site
Prior to joining RMI, Ryan worked at Deutsche Bank and Brookfield Asset Management as a buy-side equity analyst specializing in global regulated utilities and other publicly listed infrastructure companies. He built financial models, understood and quantified risks, and sought benchmark-beating returns for investors. In addition to his company coverage duties, Ryan helped develop the modeling framework, standardized and aggregated data outputs, and worked on index construction and inclusion.
As we discuss in the episode, resilience is an area of extensive funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. Babcock Ranch has not received any funding under these pieces of federal legislation. Nevertheless we think its resilience measures are worth considering as background for other projects that may receive such funding in the future.
For more information...Support the show
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While pollution mitigation and control is vital to the environment, scientists are finding more and more problems for the humans that live near polluting corporate sites. Unfortunately in the name of jobs and profit, companies have produced pollution while ignoring or hiding the human health from their work, often producing what is known as "sacrifice zones" -- areas where the pollution is dangerous for people who often cannot leave. The Environmental Health Project has taken on the difficult job of using health science discern the short and long term effects of gas fracking and plastic production on local populations. On this week's podcast we welcome Alison Steele, who tells us the good, the bad and the ugly of trying to help communities protect their health from the perils of corporate practices that could affect these communities for generations.
Environmental Health Project (EHP) policy white paper mentioned in the episodeEHP fact sheet pageEyes on Shell, a community awareness web site focusing on the Beaver County cracker plant described in the episode
Alison L. Steele, MBA, is the Executive Director of The Environmental Health Project (EHP), a nonprofit public health organization that assists and supports residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond who believe their health has been, or could be, impacted by shale gas development and other polluting industries in the area.. Alison earned her undergraduate degree in physics from Drew University in Madison, NJ and her MBA in Sustainable Business Practices from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. As part of her graduate work, Alison studied sustainability tools and practices used by leading companies in Europe, performed consulting services for large Pittsburgh-area companies, and published research on organizational behavior techniques used to aid adoption of sustainability initiatives. Prior to starting at EHP, she led policy and education efforts at Conservation Consultants, Inc. and developed the company's flagship grassroots community engagement program, which focused on advancing home health and energy efficiency in low-income Pittsburgh neighborhoods. She joined EHP at the beginning of 2020, and since then, she and her team have been taking advantage of our increasingly virtual world to extend their reach as they work to defend public health in the face of shale gas development.
Some links for further reading:Support the show
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Dr. Surinder Singh’s distinguished career has focused on advancing and incubating technologies that address climate emergency with a focus on fundamentals of science, systems engineering, and business models. He is spearheading Relyion Energy Inc’s strategic business development to create second-life sustainable solutions for Lithium-ion batteries.
Previously, Dr. Singh worked as Director of Engineering and Center of Excellence Leader for NICE America Research (that’s the National Institute for Clean and Low-Carbon Energy), an incubator for China Energy (CE), and a program leader at General Electric. China Energy is the world’s largest overall power producer and renewable power producer by assets. He utilizes system-level thinking to address climate change via clean energy technology developments. He has led initiatives funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Energy, General Electric, NICE, and others on low-carbon technologies such as alternative fuel production for transportation with low greenhouse gas emissions; carbon capture and storage (CCS) including direct air capture and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage for decarbonizing the power sector, biofuels and biochar production, fuel cells, hydrogen, and energy storage. He has led multi-million-dollar programs, developed partnerships with renowned universities and technology developers, and developed calls for proposals for funding programs.
Dr. Singh is mentoring startups in Climate and Energy at Breakthrough Energy, Third Derivative/New Energy Nexus, On Deck, and STEP-TIET Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals Mentor. He has led multiple cross-functional and cross-organizational teams with chemical, mechanical, electrical, electrochemical, chemists, and material scientists backgrounds. He is a seasoned executive who has authored and co-authored 11 publications, and holds more than 40 patents granted and pending in ClimateTech. His scientific work has been extensively cited. He is also an editor for a renowned scientific journal Sustainable Materials and Technologies. He has a Ph.D. from University of California at Riverside. He is cited in Fortune ' s “Unstoppable World’s Business Minds” and “Are Second Life EV Batteries Game Changers for Microgrid Owners and the Grid?”Support the show
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Ethan Elkind is the Director of the Climate Program at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at Berkeley Law and leads the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative on behalf of the University of California at Berkeley and University of California at Los Angeles Schools of Law. He taught at the UCLA law school’s Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic and served as an environmental law research fellow. He has a background in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), climate change law, environmental justice, and other environmental law topics. In 2005, he co-founded The Nakwatsvewat Institute, Inc., a Native American nonprofit organization that provides alternative dispute resolution services and support for tribal governance, justice, and educational institutions. His book Railtown on the history of the modern Los Angeles Metro Rail system was published by University of California Press in January 2014. Ethan is also a regular host of the weekly call-in radio show “State of the Bay” on the San Francisco NPR affiliate KALW 91.7 FM, airing Monday nights at 6pm PT.
Successes and failures over CEQA's 40-year historyCEQA's impact on the schedule of new transmission for renewable energy initiatives.The trade-offs between public engagement and the extent to which local, county and state permitting processes can slow projects that help and hurt the environment alike.How the US has a problem with doing large projects, especially in large transportation projects and how this is described in his recent report, Getting Back on Track: Policy Solutions to Improve California Rail Transit Projects
This episode is focused on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which was passed at roughly the same time the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). They were signed by Republican icons Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon respectively. Mr. Elkind speaks on topics including:Support the show
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Climate Money Watchdog founders Dina Rasor and Greg Williams recap our first twenty episodes. We cover such issues as:
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)Every Dollar Spent on CCS is a Waste - Dr. Charles Harvey and Dr. Kurt HouseCO2 Pipelines and Carbon Capture - Kert DaviesHow Did DoE Waste Half a $Billion on Carbon Capture? Bob BaumanHow Community Choice Aggregation can make renewable energy more accessibleCommunity Choice Aggregation at MCE - Jenna TenneyHow community organizing can stop dangerous and wasteful projectsCitizens Challenging Venture Capitalists and Carbon Capture - Mike EiseHow oversight by government and private citizens can prevent wasteEnforcing ESG Claims through the SEC's Whistleblower Program - Poppy AlexanderGovernment Oversight Lessons Learned - Danielle Brian, POGOSee our main web site, our episode listing on Buzzsprout, or wherever you like to get your podcasts for full listing.
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Today we’re joined by Jenn Tenny, Communications Manager for the MCE (originally Marin Clean Energy), a relatively new kind of government organization called a CCA, which stands for Community Choice Aggregation. CCA’s allow individual consumers to choose where they get their electricity, even if it’s delivered over transmission lines that are owned by a single, monopoly utility company.
As a journalist and am MCE customer, Dina Rasor followed MCE's progress for many years, including writing an article about them in Truthout in 2014.As MCE’s Communications Manager, Jenna works to share messages of MCE’s mission and achievements in the community through various public engagement and press opportunities. These initiatives include not only making renewable energy more available to consumers, but also providing assistance to individuals installing more efficient appliances such as heat pumps and LED lighting, as well as reducing power usage during peak demand hours through their 4 to 9 program.
Prior to her time with MCE, Jenna worked at the California Academy of Sciences and the Bronx Zoo as a public educator. Jenna has a B.S. in Marine Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an M.A. in Climate and Society from Columbia University.
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Dr. Charles Harvey is a professor of environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Kurt House is the chief executive officer of KoBold Metals, a metals exploration company. On August 16th, they challenged the prevailing wisdom that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is key to fighting climate change in a New York Times guest essay titled, Every Dollar Spent on This Climate Technology Is a Waste.
Doctors Harvey and House opinion is driven by their own direct experience starting the first privately funded company to make use of CCS in 2008. Back then, solar and wind energy were vastly more expensive than generating electricity by burning fossil fuel, even if you added the high cost of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the exhaust. Now, with clean renewable energy cheaper than burning coal, “it’s clear that we were wrong, and that every dollar invested in renewable energy — instead of C.C.S. power — will eliminate far more carbon emissions.” New York times, August 16, 2022Support the show
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Dr. Brittany Trang recently made New York Times headlines with an experimental but extraordinarily promising method for turning dangerous "forever" chemicals called PFAS into different, harmless chemicals.
Dr. Trang is a 2022-2023 Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellow at STAT News. Previously, she covered health and science at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Mass Media Fellow. Her freelance work has been published places like Chemistry World, Chemical & Engineering News, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.She has a bachelor’s in English and chemistry from the Ohio State University and a PhD in chemistry from Northwestern University, where she worked with Prof. William Dichtel to develop per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) remediation methods.
PFAS, a class of “forever” chemicals that don’t break down in the environment, are a common problem on military bases and other places where firefighting foam is heavily used. As part of Climate Money Watchdog’s mission to investigate spending on environmental protection as well as climate change mitigation, we are tracking the $10 billion the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has $10 billion has allocated to addressing the PFAS problem, including $1 billion for advanced research.
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