One of the most common arguments made against progressive reform is "the futililty thesis," the fatalistic contention that nothing will work so there is no reason to try.  (By the way, I recommend Albert O. Hirschman's The Rhetoric of Reaction, which discusses the "perversity," "futility," and "jeopardy" arguments.  In fact, I'd recommend anything Hirschman ever wrote.)  In the climate change "debate," this comes up in the form of "it's too late, there is nothing we can do, therefore we should do nothing."  As Joe Romm points out in his blog, the New York Times has trotted out this argument more than once, but, as Romm explains, there is no scientific evidence to back that up.  All the science tells us that significant action soon can indeed mitigate most of the serious consequences of global climate change. The futility argument is seductive, because it seems so sophisticated, so "realistic."  It's usually wrong.

Mark Gunther makes a compelling argument for eliminating all energy subsidies--for renewables, and also the much larger ones for oil and gas--and then imposing a carbon tax and tariff to address the genuine market failure in our energy economy. Read more here. A lot of work has been done recently that is critical of our reliance on tax credits to promote clean energy, often urging that Congress should instead be levelling the playing field by making certain kinds of corporate governance structures available to oil and gas also available for renewables.  Tax expenditures are notoriously inefficient ways to get anything to happen, yet they are often the one thing politicians feel they can support.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has again reported that, while environmental regulations do impose a cost on business, the economic gains dwarf those costs. Read the report here. The greatest benefit, again, comes from the fine particulate air quality standard.  Getting the soot out of the air has more public health bang for the buck than just about anything else we do.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that, if we keep going with current energy policies, the US can keep its carbon emissions essentially flat through 2040.  Before we celebrate, however, we need to remember that we need to reduce carbon emissions by at least 60% by 2040 to prevent the more dramatic consequences of climate change to occur.  Check out Joe Romm's commentary on the Climate Progress blog.

Let's hope the recent rain and snow keep at least parts of the state out of serious drought conditions.  Minnesotans are not used to thinking about water as a scarce resource, but it is, and government will need to take steps to raise its price and to regulate its consumption.  Check out Ron Meador's piece in today's MinnPost.

Josephine Marcotty has a page one piece in today's Star Tribune on a report that will be released tomorrow by Environmental Initiative on air pollution.  This is the outcome of a year-long process dubbed the "Clean Air Dialogue," where a large group of stakeholders identified potential solutions to our ongoing issues with ground-level ozone and fine particulates. MCEA was an active participant in the Clean Air DIalogue, and has co-chaired (with the Chamber of Commerce) a continuing program called Clean Air Minnesota.

The potential health benefits of further reductions in fine particulates are enormous.  Smithsonian magazine summarized a recent study of 5,500 people, showing the link between this kind of air pollution and thickening of the arteries, which increases the incidence of both heart attacks and strokes.  Interestingly, the study included participants from St. Paul.  Here's a link to the study itself. 

As the StarTribune article pointed out, only a relatively small part of our current problem comes from smokestack industries like oil refining, electric power generation, or taconite production.  The major contributors are the mobile sources, like diesel construction equipment, and the small area sources.  The regulatory tools we have under the federal Clean Air Act do not help us much with those kinds of sources, although that same statute will turn the screws on big business in Minnesota if we should fall into "nonattainment."

The findings of the Environmental Initiative report will be discussed at a public forum tomorrow morning over at the Wilder Center.  Yours truly will be talking primarily about mobile sources and what can be done.

The Center for Progressive Reform has a new report out on an issue that has been a concern of MCEA's for decades--making sure pollution penalties are serious enough that polluters cannot profit from noncompliance with the law. Read the report here. This study focuses on the Chesapeake Bay and analyzes the policies and practices of the surrounding states to determine if they properly assess the "economic benefit of noncompliance" or "EBN."  Not surprisingly, their answer is no.  This has often been a problem with our own MPCA's enforcement efforts as well.

As the comment period expired on Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advised the State Department that it considered its draft supplemental environmental impact statement on the Keystone XL pipeline to again be "insufficient." Read more here. That increases the already considerable odds that the EIS will be successfully challenged in court.

Readers of this blog know that my opinion has always been that the Obama Administration wants to approve the pipeline.  Their argument has been that, although Canada tar sands crude is a greenhouse gas disaster, stopping the pipeline won't help because the oil will just move to market in a different way, probably a pipeline to Canada's west coast.  Interestingly to me, the EPA goes right after that argument in the first few pages of its letter, and it will be very interesting to see how the State Department and White House respond.

Here's a link to the actual EPA comment.

Greenwire reports that yesterday's oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court did not go well for Los Angeles' "clean truck" program.  The Port of Los Angeles has been an air quality disaster because of all the diesel truck traffic and idling.  So the Port began imposing a number of air quality requirements on its contracts for trucks who wanted to use the Port.  The American Trucking Association challenged the program on preemption grounds  (federal law preempts state law on carriers and rates) and apparently several Justices were sympathetic to the argument.  Procurement and supply contract standards are a major tool for environmental protection, and a broad negative ruling from the Court could do damage to those efforts.  Stay tuned.

Check out Josephine Marcotty's article in today's StarTribune.