This upgrade involves no new lines

You said in your remarks, “Our founders believed that those of us in a position of power are elected not just to serve as custodians of the present, but as caretakers of the future.” I write to you now as both a custodian and a caretaker who has balanced those responsibilities for many years.

In 1985, as a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I held one of the first hearings in the Senate on the threat of climate change. Five years later, I had the privilege of writing and passing the first overhaul in 13 years of the law that governs clean air in America.

The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act were a culmination of ten years of work on the most pressing problems of the day: smog choking our cities, acid rain ruining our forests and lakes, and an ozone hole causing skin cancer around the world. The bill monopolized the Senate’s time for months. It finally passed 89-10. It is one of my proudest accomplishments.

Unfortunately, it was also the last overhaul of the Clean Air Act. Since then, Congress has tried repeatedly and failed repeatedly to amend the law again to address climate change and other challenges. I remember clearly that we debated in 1990 whether to set standards for carbon dioxide emissions. I remember just as clearly that there was not enough agreement to do so. Regulating greenhouse gases would have sunk the bill.

 We did take major steps to reduce emissions, most notably by eliminating chlorofluorocarbons like Freon that both deplete ozone and trap heat. But to my disappointment, Congress has never come up with another major clean air bill that could pass. I have worked on proposals that I supported because they balanced tomorrow’s needs with today’s. I have opposed proposals that I thought struck the wrong balance, sacrificing the present to [for?] the future.

Legislating is difficult. There are no shortcuts. But lasting laws are the work of the branch of government closest to the people. As a public servant who believes deeply that the Constitution gave Congress, and only Congress, the power to regulate commerce, your decision troubles me.

Yet I respect the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2007 that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the meaning of the law I helped write. The Court has validated your authority. Furthermore, 23 years of gridlock on clean air legislation has exposed Montana to profound risks from a warmer planet. I have fought to secure and improve Montana’s economy and outdoor heritage for 40 years, and I see that lifetime of work at risk.

The 12 hottest years on record have all been in the last 15 years. In the past 50 years, the average U.S. temperature has risen more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit and the fraction of precipitation falling as rain has increased. The snowpack in the Rockies — our natural reservoir — has decreased 20 percent since 1980. Spring runoff in Montana now occurs 1 to 4 weeks earlier in the spring. Our wildfire season is now 11 weeks longer. We are beginning to experience fires in forests killed by mountain pine beetles whose voraciousness has been driven by warmer winters. Devastating floods like those in 2011 are likely to become more common.

When it comes to energy: Montana has it all, and it’s important that any national policy on climate change is responsive to Montana’s unique landscape. kapton tape The priorities outlined below are a reflection of Montana’s strong commitment to protecting our outdoor heritage while developing Montana’s energy potential and supporting jobs. I look forward to more details about your plan. In the meantime, I make the following recommendations based on its first draft:

Approve the Keystone XL pipeline: In your remarks, you said that the pipeline should be built “only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.”

The State Department, in the third draft environmental impact statement it has completed in five years for the pipeline, concluded that “there would be no substantive change in global greenhouse gas emissions” associated with the pipeline.

This upgrade involves no new lines, but in one fell swoop it would make possible 600 megawatts of new wind power in Montana.

The Bonneville Power Administration needs to review the environmental impacts of adding a single substation, but there is no firm timetable for completing this modest review. You should prioritize this review for completion by the middle of 2014.

Fund carbon sequestration: I applaud the $8 billion loan guarantee solicitation you have announced for advanced fossil energy projects. But don’t forget existing projects.

Yet your budget this year threatened to cut the legs out from under this and other regional demonstration projects by slashing sequestration funding by 43 percent and shifting it to carbon capture projects. That is a recipe to cut out coal states like Montana from our energy future. You should fix that.

Cut red tape for carbon sequestration permits: The Environmental Protection Agency has created a long list of regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act in anticipation of widespread commercial carbon sequestration. It is good the agency is ahead of the curve in protecting groundwater.

But EPA is also jeopardizing the viability of federally-funded projects like Montana State’s Kevin Dome project by insisting that small non-commercial demonstration projects follow the same stringent rules. You should fix that.

Yet your budget this year called for slashing the hazardous fuels program by $116 million dollars. Montana’s mills are facing a supply crisis because of injunctions on federal harvests. The lack of management is directly resulting in overgrown, beetle-vulnerable, and fire-prone forests.
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