House lawmakers approved spending $50.7 billion last night for a vast rebuilding effort in areas stricken by Superstorm Sandy, deciding with bipartisan support that paying for disasters and projects to avert future damage would be an acceptable increase to the federal deficit.

The aid package provides $17 billion in emergency relief and $33.7 billion to fix ruined infrastructure, like subway systems, roads and scores of federal facilities. Included in that amount is $2.9 billion for new projects, like fortifying beaches, to prevent damage from future natural catastrophes.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.). Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Both measures passed easily. The bill containing $17 billion received 327 votes in support and 91 against. The larger one, in the form of an amendment carrying an additional $33.7 billion, passed by a margin of 228-192; 38 Republicans supported it.

The Obama administration, which sought $13 billion for mitigation efforts, has said that averting unpredictable losses in the future is a form of adaptation to climate change. Yet others believe that elements of the bill could encourage more development along ever-denser coastlines, a factor that is already leading to climbing disaster losses.

One of the most contentious elements of the House debate centered on Rep. Mick Mulvaney's (R-S.C.) amendment seeking to offset $17 billion in emergency aid with across-the-board cuts to discretionary spending. Mulvaney, of the chamber's conservative wing, represents a newer philosophy among Republicans that disaster aid should no longer contribute to the nation's widening deficit.

His amendment failed when 71 Republicans joined Democrats to oppose it. Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.), who chairs the Appropriations Committee, said the measure would "slash and burn" programs providing health care to veterans and endanger troop safety in Afghanistan.

"This amendment goes against the precedent of previous disaster funding," Rogers said, noting that his committee helped trim $100 billion from the federal budget last year without offsetting disaster aid.

The vote reveals a sharp split among Republicans as government spending promises to dominate Washington politics throughout debates on the debt ceiling this winter and automatic sequester cuts scheduled for early March. Yesterday, 151 Republicans supported Mulvaney's amendment to clip 1.63 percent from discretionary spending to pay for the disaster package.

"The time has come and gone in this nation where we can walk in here one day and spend 9 or 17 or 60 billion dollars and not think about who's paying for it," Mulvaney said yesterday on the House floor.

Hitting the disaster 'jackpot'

Conservatives are not the only ones seeking new ways to respond to the nation's growing problem with disasters. The cost of rebuilding is a problem, but so is the message sent to states and homeowners with massive aid packages, some observers say.

Lindene Patton, the climate product officer with the global insurer Zurich Financial Services Group, is concerned that free-flowing disaster aid encourages states and localities to keep weaker building standards. That can help attract developers, and tax revenue, to communities. But it can also help create future losses.

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.). Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

"You don't want to encourage states, for example, to hold down building codes so they can hit the jackpot when the next loss occurs," Patton said, referring to large infusions of federal funding into municipal infrastructure.

Placing conditions on federal aid could be one way to pressure states into requiring tougher structures. It's similar to the historical initiative when Washington threatened to withhold transportation funding for states that failed to raise the drinking age, Patton said. This time, the goal would be economic stability in a period of climbing disaster losses.

"If [states] can't prove that this investment, that they say will last 30 years, or whatever it is depending on the kind of infrastructure, is designed in a way to meet the climatic conditions that will be present by the end of its useful life, then maybe the federal government says, 'No matching funds,'" Patton said.

The Sandy assistance package enjoyed widespread support for its ability to help homeowners and communities recover from the October storm, which heaved record sea surges measuring up to 15 feet across low barrier islands and into stretches of New York City.

Immediate relief overshadows long-term challenges

Still, some of the policies that promise to help communities rebuild might also carry future risk, some observers say. The largest funding package, providing $33.6 billion overall and offered by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), a senior appropriator, gives $16 billion to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for reconstruction in low-income neighborhoods.

That can help battered neighborhoods in the short term, but it might also send a message to families that they don't need federal flood insurance to recover from a storm, said Joshua Saks, the legislative director at the National Wildlife Federation. Saks supports the aid package.

"When we come in post-disaster and use [Community Development Block Grants] to make people whole who didn't buy flood insurance, we're circumventing the program," Saks said. "That's a concern long-term. Will people around the rest of the country want to continue to get insurance? What would that do to the rates? What would that do ultimately to the market signal, and then, ultimately, to the land that protects us? Because, as I always like to tell you, the best flood control money can buy is Mother Nature."

Frelinghuysen's spending package also includes $4 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers to fix existing projects and build new ones, like dunes along vulnerable beaches. Supporters say engineered beaches can protect towns from rising seas. But others say the sand walls are too expensive, because they need frequent replenishing and provide a false sense of security.

Hold back the ocean?

"You're putting sand where you know it's going to be washed away," said Eli Lehrer, president of the R Street Institute, a conservative think tank. "It's like a kid building a sand castle, hoping he can hold back the ocean. That's all that is."

Lawmakers introduced about 100 amendments to the disaster package, but in the end, 13 were permitted by the Rules Committee to be debated on the House floor. One of them, introduced by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and John Campbell (R-Calif.), sought to ensure that the disaster package only waived the requirement that towns provide at least 35 percent of the cost of beach replenishment projects for Sandy-related projects. There was concern that the language could be interpreted to mean that the federal government would pay the entire future cost of those beach projects.

"We need to rebuild," Blumenauer said in a statement. "But we also need to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely, and not on projects that could be ongoing for 10, 20, 50 years and have nothing to do with the damage inflicted by Sandy."

His amendment was accepted.

As deliberations on the aid package took place, the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and conservation groups, urged Congress to approve the funding because it can create jobs and increase resiliency as the climate changes.

The group pointed to concerns yesterday around the country's aging infrastructure -- including energy, water and transit systems -- and urged Congress to rebuild these systems with an eye toward the new climate reality.

"Hurricane Sandy exposed terrible deficits in our nation's infrastructure and the vulnerability of millions of people in the face of climate change," said David Foster, executive director of the alliance.

Reporter Ines Perez contributed.

A new report from a business group promoting energy security and innovation estimates that "advanced energy" products and services generated $1.1 trillion in global economic activity in 2011, making it larger than the pharmaceutical industry.

The report, released yesterday by the Washington, D.C.-based Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), found that in the United States, companies working to build cleaner and more efficient energy systems drove a $132 billion marketplace in 2011, with an estimated 19 percent growth rate for 2012.

When factoring in direct, indirect and induced spending, the report prepared by Pike Research estimated that advanced energy added roughly $145 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product in 2011 and generated $20.6 billion in federal, state and local taxes.

Moreover, the report states that revenues for U.S. firms involved in advanced energy products and applications are expected to have jumped 19 percent in 2012 to $157 billion, riding a wave of high consumer interest combined with declining costs for technologies such as solar panels.

"Advanced energy is what happens when energy meets 21st-century technologies," Graham Richard, AEE's chief executive officer, told reporters yesterday during an online rollout of the report.

For the first time, he said, people tracking energy development trends can learn the precise "size, breadth and scope of the advanced energy industry."

But what exactly is "advanced energy," and what sectors does it include or, perhaps more importantly, exclude?

Coal- and oil-fired endeavors need not apply

According to the group, the advanced energy economy includes seven broad economic sectors -- electricity generation, electricity delivery and management, fuel production, fuel delivery, buildings, transportation, and industry -- that can be further divided into 41 distinct subsegments representing specific technologies, products or services.

Among the seven major segments, electricity generation accounted for the largest market, with $539.3 billion in revenues for 2011, according to the report, followed by transportation, with $325.9 billion.

Within each of those broad sectors, AEE limits its analysis to what it considers "the best available commercial technologies for meeting energy needs today and tomorrow." As such, it excludes traditional energy sources such as coal and oil that have been the dominant global energy sources of the last 100 years.

AEE's electricity generation subsegments, for example, include industries such as hydro, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energy, along with nuclear power and natural gas turbines. Notably absent are all forms of coal-fired generation, including "clean coal" technologies that emit far less pollution than conventional boilers.

Fuels considered part of the advanced energy portfolio include compressed and liquefied natural gas, ethanol and butanol, biodiesel, biogas and bio-oil, and synthetic diesel and gasoline, according to the organization's website.

The AEE report draws on more than 60 previously published studies by Pike Research, one of the nation's leading energy sector consultants, and is informed by additional analysis from experts at Pike's parent firm, Navigant Consulting.

Attempt to 'define a new space'

Bob Gohn, Pike's senior director of research, said the findings present the first comprehensive picture of the emerging energy technologies and services sector, one that is poised to see significant growth both at home and abroad as energy supply and demand challenges become more acute.

In fact, officials said the $1.1 trillion global market estimate probably under-represents actual economic activity because many companies operating in the advanced energy sector have yet to establish production and revenue reporting standards. Also, the U.S. market figures do not account for revenue from export of advanced energy products, and some industry subsegments had no data to report.

Matt Stanberry, AEE's director of industry analysis, noted that all seven of the broad economic sectors included in the analysis experienced positive growth between 2011 and 2012, further demonstrating advanced energy's importance to global commerce in the 21st century.

One of AEE's missions, officials said, is to "define a new space" where companies committed to advancing a secure, clean and affordable energy sector can share ideas and foster collaboration based on a common set of principles. The new Pike Research report helps put real data around how far the advanced energy economy has come and what its prospects are for the future.

"It is time we moved beyond categories like 'clean' and 'dirty' and recognize that advanced energy represents the future of energy," Hemant Taneja, managing director of General Catalyst Partners and a founder and co-chairman of AEE, said in a statement. "This report shows that advanced energy has already established a substantial footprint on the world economy and the U.S. industry is a large and growing part of it."

Click here to download the report.

The first leg of a 350-mile-long underwater transmission line that would run power to and from offshore wind turbines along the Atlantic Coast will be laid in New Jersey, its developers announced yesterday.

The decision marks an important step in the construction of the Atlantic Wind Connection, the "backbone" transmission project that would carry electricity from New York to Virginia. The New Jersey Energy Link, the first phase of the AWC, would run submerged cable over about half that distance, from Jersey City to Atlantic City.

As a stand-alone project, the Energy Link will spur development of offshore wind power off the coast of New Jersey and could also reduce reliability problems in the state's electrical grid, said Robert Mitchell, CEO of Trans-Elect, the company leading AWC.

The first link of the proposed underwater "backbone" that would transmit electricity from offshore wind generation to East Coast users. Drawing courtesy of Atlantic Wind Connection.

"The cost of energy in New Jersey is among the highest in the nation because there's inadequate transmission in the state, particularly in congested areas to the north," he said. "You end up with price spikes" during periods of peak demand.

By distributing power between northern and southern ends of the state, the Energy Link should lower those spikes for a net savings to ratepayers, he added.

Though no offshore wind capacity currently exists in the United States, New Jersey has taken steps to encourage a domestic industry of its own. It is the only state in the nation with a tax credit specifically for offshore wind, which was passed with bipartisan support by the state Senate and signed into law by Gov. Chris Christie (R) in 2010.

The state Board of Public Utilities has yet to arrive on a workable system for those subsidies, however.

Garden State wants more green energy

Without any domestic fuel reserves, New Jersey currently generates more than half its electricity from nuclear power and another third from natural gas. Wind power is a negligible fraction of its energy mix but could grow as some of the state's reactors age out over the next decade.

A robust wind industry would help the state meet its renewable portfolio standard of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020, said Mitchell, while at the same time spurring the growth of local business.

"The point is to create new jobs, but not just the short-term jobs building turbines," he said. "The goal is to attract new industry. You won't get the wind industry excited about coming here if offshore wind development doesn't reach a critical stage."

That is where the New Jersey Energy Link comes in. Unlike most submarine transmission lines currently installed in the United States, the Link, along with the rest of the AWC, will have many converter stations along its length, allowing installations of wind turbines at varying points along the cable. Power hubs connected to the backbone will extend the possible range of installations farther out to sea.

Those converter stations will also give operators greater control to manipulate and redistribute the flow of electricity along the cable, according to Trans Elect.

Once constructed, the New Jersey Energy Link will be able to carry 3,000 megawatts of electricity -- the equivalent output of three large nuclear power plants -- along the length of the New Jersey coast. The AWC will carry twice that.

The project is expected to begin construction in 2015 or 2016, followed by a three-year testing period set to coincide with the establishment of several offshore turbine installations. Both the transmission backbone and the turbines are expected to be operational by 2020.

The project's fate is still to be decided by regional transmission organization PJM Interconnection, which would purchase power from the AWC.

NEW YORK -- Plans to expand commuter rail from Long Island into Manhattan for the first time in a century could improve the island's economy as well as spur construction of smarter living space in a region still reeling from the shock of Superstorm Sandy, says a report by the Rauch Foundation.

The study, called "How the Long Island Rail Road Could Shape the Next Economy," argues that the commuter service has been central to the development of Long Island since it was chartered in 1834 and completed in 1910. A quarter of all Long Island income stems from the line's ability to connect residents to jobs in New York City, the report says.

But expansion is coming for the first time since the LIRR connected into Manhattan's Penn Station in 1910, bringing with it new opportunities as well as challenges. Work is under way on tunnels that will give Long Islanders direct access to Grand Central Terminal on the east side of Manhattan, likely by 2019.

This addition, along with two other local projects (one approved, the other not), would tie Long Island's economic prospects even more closely to New York City's, as well as possibly increase the number of people opting to live on the island. Home values in Nassau and Suffolk counties could rise, as could the number of workers better able to make it into the city.

The projects come with a climate angle, too. The report -- released as part of the annual "Long Island Index" -- suggests the island's ability to "withstand disruptions from extreme weather, flooding [and] attacks" would be improved by three tunnels arriving in Manhattan in two locations rather than all LIRR service ending at Penn Station on the west side.

Yet the expansion and hoped-for boom among Long Island advocates is also likely to mean a sharp escalation in the need for more housing close to rail. That translates into more construction, more homes relying on the embattled Long Island Power Authority and the need for more thoughtful urban management in a region that was among the hardest hit by Sandy.

Keeping future storms in mind

Indeed, much of the island was without power for weeks or months after the storm, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others have suggested that coastal areas should not be rebuilt without sea-level rise and the prospect of future massive storms and storm surges in mind. The Democratic governor has also said he will abolish the Long Island Power Authority and hopes to privatize power generation and delivery on Long Island.

This year's index does not dodge those challenges, though much of its work was completed before the storm hit in late October.

"Municipalities, supported by federal, state and regional actions, will need to adopt land-use and economic development policies that will create jobs and housing around the transit network," the index said. "These will need to include funding for sewers and other critical infrastructure."

Nancy Rauch Douzinas, president of the Rauch Foundation, reiterated those points in an interview. She said the results of the study are more compelling in light of the hurricane, as the aftermath may suggest the need for more clustered living space away from the vulnerable coast.

She added that Sandy demonstrated the need for better transit mobility and evacuation routes in case of future storms.

"I think the fact that Sandy occurred as it did is forcing this issue of how and where we live on all of us," she said. "There are choices, and there are trade-offs. These are big issues."

A 2010 version of the index estimated that 90,000 new homes could be built as a mix of town houses, garden apartments and midrise buildings in and around LIRR stations. To Douzinas, all that could be seen within the larger context of more sustainable planning for the future, which makes more practical sense after Sandy, she said.

How much will be rebuilt on the coast?

"When you look very long term in terms of climate change, there seem to be places where they shouldn't be rebuilding," she said, noting that most of the train stations and surrounding areas are away from the coasts in the middle of the island.

Still, the same Long Island Index released a survey late last year that found about half of Long Island's residents are looking to leave within the next five years because they think rents and mortgages are too high. Both studies were completed before Sandy hit and left the island with billions of dollars in damage to homes, cars and personal belongings.

When asked whether the LIRR expansion was smart policy in light of these developments, an official at the Regional Plan Association, which conducts research and provides advice on urban planning in the New York region, insisted the new rail into Grand Central plus local lines would help the island's municipalities better adapt to the changing climate.

"What we're recommending in this report is very consistent with the type of climate-resilient place one would like Long Island to be," said Chris Jones, an urban planner and vice president for research at the association.

Jones said communities deemed more "climate resilient" are often built with redundancies in mind. Having more than one line into Manhattan, for instance, could be taken as a sign of resiliency because it provides more options.

The index also notes that the other commuter railroads in the region -- Metro-North and New Jersey Transit -- have steadily increased ridership over the last two decades with new services. Jones said communities in New Jersey and Westchester County have flourished as a result of transit investments, which he noted are coming to Long Island for the first time.

Jones added that towns along the coast in Long Island are part of the plan because they are serviced by LIRR, which terminates in Montauk close to the tip of the island. He acknowledged that some structures should be moved away from the coast, but he would not support leaving the coast as the natural buffer it may have been intended to be.

"If we get ourselves caught up in this either-or question, of rebuilding on the coast or not rebuilding on the coast, then we're missing a lot of ground for where some optimal solutions might lie," he said.

The report also concluded that local congestion and air quality would benefit from the addition of the commuter lines.

Click here to see the report.

The globe was unusually warm last year but fell shy of a global record despite chart-topping heat in the United States, according to separate federal analyses released yesterday.

NASA ranks 2012 as the ninth-warmest year for the planet since record keeping began in 1880, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration places it at No. 10.

The two agencies, which conduct separate analyses of global temperature data using slightly different methods, agree that the Earth was about 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer last year than the 20th-century average, in part due to record warmth in the lower 48 United States.

"This past year, unlike the U.S. temperatures, the global temperatures were not a record but they were certainly warm," said Tom Karl, director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.

According to NOAA's analysis, 2012 was the 26th consecutive year of above-average global temperatures. The average worldwide temperature reached 58 degrees Fahrenheit last year, the agency said. NASA arrived at a slightly different figure, 58.3 F.

But experts from both agencies said the above-average warmth last year fit the pattern of increasing temperatures caused by man-made climate change.

Planet moving 'out of energy balance'

"Each decade has been significantly warmer than the prior decade since the mid-1970s, and that warming trend has been conclusively related to the effect of increasing greenhouse gas emissions," said climate scientist James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

According to NASA's analysis, eight of the nine hottest years on record have occurred since 2000. NOAA ranks all 12 years of the 21st century among the 14 warmest in its record.

The pace of warming appears to have slowed somewhat, Hansen said, describing a temporary "standstill" he attributed to the cooling influence of more frequent La Niña weather patterns.

But the scientist, noting that each of the past several decades has been warmer than its predecessor, said he expected the pace of warming to pick up again soon.

"On the decadal time scale, it's going to get warmer because we know the planet is out of energy balance," Hansen said.

In addition to record warmth in the contiguous United States, 2012 saw unusual heat blanket the Arctic, where sea ice cover melted to an annual low last summer, shattering the record set in 2007. The eastern tropical Pacific Ocean was cooler than normal, a sign of the La Niña pattern that was in place as 2012 began and fizzled later in the year.

2012 is the warmest year with a low- to moderate-strength La Niña in NOAA's records, Karl said, bumping 2011 from the top spot.

Energy Department officials said yesterday that developing alternatives to critical materials, like rare earth metals used in solar panels and wind turbines, is crucial to American manufacturing stability and can help the United States circumvent global market pressures.

"There have been some geopolitical tensions around these issues over the last several years," said David Sandalow, DOE assistant secretary for policy and international affairs, in an oblique reference to trade disputes with China over rare earth production.

China has a near-monopoly on these minerals and halted some mining operations last year after prices fell sharply, prompting an investigation from the World Trade Organization.

Such supply bottlenecks can ripple throughout the manufacturing sector, particularly for clean technologies like photovoltaic cells and electric vehicle motors that rely on rare materials. According to DOE's 2011 Critical Materials Strategy report, the United States faces supply challenges for dysprosium, europium, neodymium, terbium and yttrium. Other metals like lithium are teetering on the brink of shortages.

To combat this, the department last week announced the Critical Materials Institute, an interdisciplinary research hub, at DOE's Ames Laboratory in Iowa (ClimateWire, Jan. 9). The program will receive $120 million over five years.

Alex King, director of the new materials hub, said his objectives are to target all aspects of the critical materials supply chain. "I think the short-term objective is to make mining viable no matter what the cost profile looks like," he said, noting that developing mineral resources inside the United States can be difficult due to transportation costs, volatile markets and environmental regulations. "Some of our goals are to help them and other processes to meet those requirements at lower costs," he added.

Another objective is to reduce the demand for some of these critical materials by developing technologies that do not need them or by creating substitutes. The institute will also develop forecasting models so they can anticipate and avoid materials shortages.

Lithium shortage likely to worsen

"Lithium is a near-critical element now," King said, observing that the rise of electric vehicles and their lithium chemistry batteries will create a demand surge for the metal. These problems will only get worse as more renewable energy sources and electric vehicles come online.

Collecting critical materials from turbines, batteries and motors at the ends of their lives is also a challenge. "Recycling from waste streams is usually harder to do than extracting ores from the ground," King said, noting that scraping a few grams of important elements from light bulbs and cellphones may not be cost-effective. "Recycling works in some cases. It does not work in all cases."

Some industry players applauded DOE's efforts. "The ability to acquire materials is critical to keeping the manufacturing process going," said Steven Duclos of GE Global Research.

He noted that GE uses 72 of the first 82 elements on the periodic table and that its own internal analysis shows that rare earths are top elements of concern. "The critical materials hub is a key component of ensuring we have the science done for working on the mitigation portions of these risks," Duclos said.

However, this materials hub is not DOE's first stab at the problem. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy allocated $27 million in 2011 to 14 projects to find alternatives to rare earth compounds in electric motors and magnets. The Critical Materials Institute "is part of a broader strategy. The work here can certainly help American manufacturing," Sandalow said.

Sooty black carbon is a far more potent warming influence on the planet's climate than scientists suspected, according to a new study.

The substance, produced by burning fossil fuels and biofuels like wood and dung, is twice as strong a contributor to climate change as earlier research suggested, concluded a group of more than two dozen researchers who spent four years analyzing black carbon's environmental impact.

That makes black carbon the second-largest man-made contributor to climate change, packing about two-thirds the punch of the strongest warmer, carbon dioxide. The finding surprised one of the scientists who led the comprehensive review of black carbon's role in global warming.

"I wasn't expecting it to be that high," said co-lead author Tami Bond, a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who studies how energy consumption affects the atmosphere and climate. "I expected it would be higher than people had estimated before, because we knew that in some places the observations indicated a lot more black carbon in the atmosphere than the models were showing."

The new report estimates the warming influence of black carbon is twice as high as the figure given by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2007 report.

That could make the substance, which is potent but lingers in the atmosphere for just a few weeks, an attractive target for policymakers seeking to blunt the impacts of man-made climate change.

A 2011 analysis by the U.N. Environment Programme concluded that curbing emissions of black carbon, methane and tropospheric ozone -- all short-lived but potent climate warmers -- could reduce projected warming by just under a degree Fahrenheit by 2070.

A new target for international agreements

"Most international [environmental] agreements ignore black carbon, and this really establishes it as important, that it should not be ignored," said study co-author Mark Jacobson, who studies atmospheric science and energy at Stanford University. "Policy measures should be taken to address it along with greenhouse gases ... not just as a side effect."

Reducing black carbon could also have a significant health benefit, experts said, because tiny particles of black carbon can contribute to or aggravate a host of ailments, including respiratory and cardiac conditions.

Like CO2, black carbon absorbs sunlight and infrared radiation, trapping heat in the atmosphere. When sooty particles fall on snow or ice, their ability to trap heat from the sun helps hasten melting.

Black carbon particles can also promote the formation of clouds that have a cooling or warming influence, depending on their structure and position in the atmosphere.

Complicating the picture, some sources of black carbon also produce substances that can add to its warming impact or counteract it with a cooling effect.

That doesn't mean that cutting black carbon emissions to reduce climate change is impossible, said co-author David Fahey, a research physicist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory. But "it does mean that you have to be very thoughtful about what you're doing," Fahey said.

Diesel engines and cookstoves

The new analysis says the clearest climate benefit would come from reducing emissions from diesel engines, with less certain but likely significant benefits from reducing use of some fuels in residential settings.

That includes cookstoves that burn wood and dung, a potent source of black carbon in emissions in some developing nations, including India.

The cuts could be accomplished with existing technology, said V. Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. His research shows California's black carbon output fell by half over the last 25 years, in large part due to use of particulate traps on diesel engines.

"What is clear is that black carbon and [substances emitted along with it] significantly change the fundamental forces that drive our weather and climate," Ramanathan said. "It's something we have added. And it's also hurting public health in a major way."

DAVIS, Calif. -- California and Australia have both thrown their weight behind carbon trading, but a joint collaboration will be some time off, regulators said at a forum put on yesterday by the two governments.

Linking greenhouse gas markets could lower costs for businesses that have to reduce their emissions, as well as gather momentum for wider acceptance of a cost on carbon, participants said.

Australia's system began in July 2012 with a fixed price of about $24 per ton of emissions levied on its top 350 emitters. In 2015, the government will transition to an auction-based system and will begin linking to the European Union's trading scheme.

California regulators downplayed the significance of talks between the two governments this week. "We're talking about forms of linkage, but we're not in any negotiations about signing anything," said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board. California's program began this month with a cap on the 600 facilities that emit 25,000 tons or more of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. The cap is set to ratchet down until emissions reach 1990 levels by 2020; quarterly auctions began in November 2012 with a price floor of $10 per ton.

"One could exchange offsets without exchanging allowances," she offered as one possibility of a partial link. "I think we're just open to exploring those kinds of ideas with our partners because we all see that that's the next logical step in the programs that we're developing."

But Australian officials said they are eager to explore options.

A period of exploration

"We do think the link [with the E.U. system] will pave the way for other linking to occur, whether it be with state schemes ... or other national emissions trading schemes that we can now see emerging," said Mark Dreyfus, Australia's parliamentary secretary for climate change and energy efficiency. He cited Chile, South Korea and provincial systems in China as potential partners.

Nichols said she expects other jurisdictions to start pricing carbon by 2015, when Australia formally links with Europe and California's system is set to expand to include transportation fuels and natural gas.

"I think there is going to be a bigger market than there is now, but exactly how that will develop and what exactly we'll be trading and with how many partners, I think it'd be a mistake to try to speculate right now," she said. "But clearly we're open to these kinds of discussions, and we're using them as ways to all fine-tune our programs and just to explore what those links could be."

California is preparing to link with Quebec with its proposed regulations currently out for public comment before heading to Gov. Jerry Brown (D) for final approval. Of the seven Western states and four Canadian provinces that had once expressed formal interest in carbon trading, Quebec and California remain the only members of the Western Climate Initiative on track to begin trading in 2013.

Other state representatives urged more linkages. Quebec government representative Alain Houde said he thought the partnership between California and Quebec would attract some WCI jurisdictions back to carbon trading. "It will be a logical step to see some of those members coming back," he said.

"The more entities involved in the market, the bigger the market is, the more efficient will be the pathway to getting emissions down at the least cost," said Justin Johnson, deputy commissioner at the Department of Environmental Conservation in Vermont, which is one of nine states participating in the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Clarification appended.

This week, Google Inc. awarded $2.65 million to a nonprofit that encourages energy efficiency in electricity use.

Google donated the money to the Energy Foundation to focus on three areas: changing electricity rates to encourage electricity customers to generate their own power, pinpointing ways to compensate consumers for cutting energy use, and enacting policies that allow consumers to access their own energy data.

"We've been big fans of [the foundation's] work ... so we felt they were a natural partner for an effort like this," said Michael Terrell, Google's senior policy counsel for energy and sustainability. "It's about making the energy system work more intelligently and doing so in a way that will drive more efficiency, help scale renewable energy and save billions of dollars."

The grant is just a small example of Google's energy investments. Last week the tech company poured $200 million into a wind energy project in Texas.

The company also lobbies on energy issues. In the past year, its lobbying records show an interest in clean energy programs and legislation, smart grid and energy efficiency, and renewable energy policies. Google has rapidly risen among the ranks of lobbying companies, going from lobbying expenditures under $1 million in 2006 to $14.4 million in the first three quarters of 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Influencing energy on a global basis

Although Google could have easily funded its own effort to push people to greater energy efficiency, the company wanted to work with the Energy Foundation. "We have enormous faith in that organization, and they have a 20-year track record of amazing work," Terrell said.

The Energy Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, provides grants to other groups, including the Sierra Club. In 2010, it doled out more than $97 million in grants around the world, according to its IRS filings. About $35 million went to programs and grants in Asia for research and information about energy efficiency and pollution there.

Domestically, the group has funded educational programs about renewable energy and climate change, as well as promoted more environmentally friendly vehicle and building standards.

The foundation came under fire in October when the Center for Public Integrity obtained 2011 records showing a $125,000 grant to the American Action Forum, a conservative group with connections to a more conservative nonprofit and super PAC.

Although the grant was given for "high-level outreach and communications around carbon policy," American Action Forum's website criticizes investing in renewable energy.

"Overinvestment in [Obama's] favorite energy technologies has not created jobs or improved energy independence; instead, it has clouded the energy market and made it more difficult for the private sector to grow. Let's trim the deficit, focus spending in the right places, and leave Pentagon deliberations to the Pentagon," the website says.

Clarification: An earlier version of this story was unclear about the nature of the grants awarded by the Energy Foundation, and all grant recipients are disclosed on the foundation's website.

Negotiations on international climate change legislation are moving too slowly, so individual countries should take separate measures for their own benefit, said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, at a London meeting Monday.

Figueres hopes nations, by mixing "carrots and sticks" -- perks for carbon reducers and punishments for polluters -- will reduce carbon emissions before action is taken on a global scale.

"Nothing is going to be agreed internationally until enough is legislated for domestically," said Figueres, speaking to lawmakers from 70 nations at a meeting of Globe International, an alliance formed to discuss environmental legislation. "We're not doing it from an altruistic point of view, to save the planet. We will save the planet also, but climate legislation at the domestic level must be absolutely grounded in national reality, and it must be for the purpose of national benefit."

Figueres aims to have governments from more than 190 countries, including island nations threatened by rising sea levels and oil-producing Middle Eastern countries, agree to a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2015.

On Monday, Globe International released a study of 33 countries that account for 85 percent of global emissions. Canada regressed in 2012, but 18 other countries made notable progress (Alex Morales, Bloomberg, Jan. 14). -- EH

Utility regulator Todd Snitchler has been bashing renewable energy and questioning global warming via Twitter.

As chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, Snitchler leads a panel that evaluates whether wind and solar projects are in the public's interest. Last week, the panel voted against a proposal from American Electric Power to incorporate power from the Turning Point Solar project into its renewable energy portfolio.

According to The Columbus Dispatch, Snitchler retweeted a story titled "Elites of West have cranked up myth of Global Warming" from the Russian newspaper Pravda, calling it "interesting." He has also made comments on how clean energy aid "racks up losses" and how the Himalayas haven't lost any ice in the past 10 years, "study shows."

While Snitcher's Twitter profile states that his tweets "do not reflect the views of the PUCO," the newspaper reports his posts include PUCO official news and notices of hearings.

According to PUCO spokesman Jason Gilham, all commission members have their own political leanings (AP/Fuel Fix, Jan. 15). -- IP

Blame for U.S. failure on climate action falls on Washington, D.C.-based environmental groups, not on the White House, a study says.

According to Harvard University scholar Theda Skocpol, environmental groups were blind to the extreme polarization of Congress -- where climate issues are concerned -- and underestimated the rising influence of the tea party. Believing they could still win through "insider grand bargaining," they doomed any efforts to get a climate law through Congress and made it much harder to achieve climate action in the future, she said.

Environmental groups such as the U.S. Climate Action Partnership never understood the shift in conservative popular opinion by 2007 and failed to build broad grass-roots organizations needed to push for change, Skocpol wrote.

What's more, she argued, there is little hope Obama will put climate change on the top of his agenda.

"Whatever environmentalists may hope, the Obama White House and congressional Democrats are unlikely to make global warming a top issue in 2013 or 2014," Skocpol wrote.

The study will likely cause a stir among environmentalists hoping to see action on climate change during the president's second term (Suzanne Goldenberg, London Guardian, Jan. 14). -- IP

One of the main contributors to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports has joined forces with Pennsylvania's Democratic lawmakers in an attempt to cut the state's carbon emissions.

Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center joined state Rep. Greg Vitali (D) at a news conference Monday. Vitali is pushing bills to subsidize solar energy and require the state's electric companies to obtain more power from renewable sources. Speaking in support of these bills, Mann said: "One often hears the misleading claim that no single event, regardless of how extreme or unprecedented, can be blamed on climate change. That is like saying that no single roll of a 6 with loaded dice can be blamed on the loading of the dice."

Vitali's bills would set aside $25 million a year to finance solar installations and increase Pennsylvania's alternative energy portfolio standard from 8 to 15 percent by 2023.

Vitali said that though his state is responsible for 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, Gov. Tom Corbett (R) has failed to "even acknowledge the climate crisis."

But Corbett's energy executive, Patrick Henderson, denied this accusation, citing the governor's support of the state's natural gas industry. Corbett recently backed a multistate initiative to transition government vehicles from gasoline to natural gas.

Last year, carbon dioxide emissions nationally reached the lowest point in 20 years, Henderson noted, and this is partly due to energy generators' increased use of natural gas instead of coal.

"Put simply, one of the best things to happen in addressing climate change emissions is the emergence of the Marcellus Shale and other natural gas plays in the United States," Henderson said via email. Henderson called this "market-based approach" better than Vitali's "approach of mandating and subsidizing select energy sources" (Jon Hurdle, New York Times, Jan. 15). -- EH

Will global financial constraints cause businesses to scale back their plans for sustainable investments? During today's OnPoint, Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute, discusses the impact of the financial crisis on green investments. He also explains how rising global coal demand will affect emissions reduction goals. Today's OnPoint will air at 10 a.m. EST.