Spring 2009
Newsroom
- Twin Victories for Cleaner Cars
- Another Chance to Protect Our Food
- Clamping Down on Coal Emissions
- A Forest Solution for Global Warming
- We Challenged—You Responded
- Stumping for Scientific Integrity
- Helping Wind Power, Wildlife Coexist
Twin Victories for Cleaner Cars
White House follows our advice
UCS analysis and advocacy played a significant role in two actions taken by President Obama on January 26, both of which will reduce global warming pollution from passenger vehicles. The first instructs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider its denial of a waiver that would allow California and 13 other states (plus the District of Columbia) to limit heat-trapping emissions from cars and trucks. More than 16,000 UCS activists sent letters to former EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson demanding that he grant the waiver.
The second action directed the Department of Transportation to move forward with setting the “maximum feasible” fuel economy standards passed by Congress in 2007. Because the Bush administration failed to finalize these standards, it is now the Obama administration’s responsibility to do so. The target set by Congress, a U.S. fleetwide average minimum of 35 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2020, could save more than 2.5 million barrels of oil every day by 2030. A 2008 UCS analysis found that a combination of conventional and hybrid vehicle technologies could improve fuel economy even further: to 42 mpg by 2020 and 55 mpg by 2030, saving an additional 2.2 million barrels of oil per day by 2030.
Another Chance to Protect Our Food
UCS helps stall weak biotech rules
In October, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) released a proposal to overhaul its biotechnology regulations. This proposal—rushed through in the waning days of the Bush administration—would weaken oversight of crops genetically engineered to produce drugs and industrial chemicals (so-called pharma crops). Such crops could be dangerous to humans if consumed, yet are being grown outdoors and in food crops including corn and rice—two factors that increase the risk to our food supply.
UCS mobilized more than 14,000 of our members and activists to contact APHIS and demand that the agency reconsider its proposed regulations, particularly those pertaining to pharma crops. Our efforts were rewarded in January, when the agency announced that it was reopening the public comment period and delaying issuance of final regulations. This gives us an opportunity to renew our call for a ban on the outdoor production of drugs and chemicals in food crops, and to point out sensible alternatives—producing drugs in plant cells or non-food crops, for example—that minimize the risks.
Clamping Down on Coal Emissions
Our reports point to cleaner electricity
With momentum growing for policies that would reduce heat-trapping emissions from the electricity sector, UCS published two reports last fall on the risks of coal power—and solutions for minimizing the risks.
Coal Power in a Warming World: A Sensible Transition to Cleaner Energy Options explores the benefits and challenges of using pollution control technology called carbon capture and storage (CCS); UCS supports federal funding for 5 to 10 CCS demonstration projects while putting an immediate end to the construction of new coal plants that lack this technology. The report also describes other policies needed to reduce the dangers posed by coal use (exemplified by last December’s coal ash spill in Tennessee).
Importing Pollution: Coal’s Threat to Climate Policy in the U.S. Northeast shows how increased coal-fired electricity imported into the Northeast threatens the success of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (the nation’s first program to cap carbon pollution from power plants). This report quantifies the potential for additional pollution from existing and proposed coal plants in nearby states, and presents options for countering the threat.
A Forest Solution for Global Warming
UCS analysis shows cost-effectiveness
Because tropical deforestation generates more heat-trapping pollution than every car, truck, plane, ship, and train on Earth, any comprehensive effort to curb global warming must seek to protect tropical forests. In a report UCS released at the United Nations climate change negotiations in Poland last December, we showed that even using a conservative estimate of the timing and costs, reducing tropical deforestation can be a cost-effective way to slow global warming—while also preserving biodiversity and promoting sustainable development.
In Out of the Woods: A Realistic Role for Tropical Forests in Curbing Global Warming, author Doug Boucher, director of the UCS Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative, determined that $20 billion in annual funding could cut deforestation-related emissions in half by 2020. He also assessed the impact that economic and political constraints could have on the extent to which—and the speed with which—tropical deforestation can be reduced. These findings will help bolster our efforts to incorporate forest-related provisions in both national and international climate policies.
| We Challenged—You Responded More than $2 million raised Last year, a group of leading donors gave other UCS members an extraordinary opportunity to increase the value of their gifts, offering to match donations dollar for dollar up to a total of $1,250,000. We are happy to report that more than 7,500 members responded to this challenge and helped us meet our ambitious goal: we now have $2,500,000 in additional capacity to help shape strong, science-based environmental and security policies in the pivotal year ahead. Thank you! |
Stumping for Scientific Integrity
UCS builds support for change
UCS reached out to the scientific community in advance of President Obama’s inauguration to help ensure that the new administration makes it a priority to defend science from political interference. In early December, for example, we attended a regional meeting of the National Science Teachers Association in Cincinnati, OH, and co-sponsored the annual conference of the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) in Washington, DC. Our staff met with hundreds of attendees at both meetings and distributed our recently updated Scientific Integrity Curriculum Guide and 2009 editorial cartoon calendar.
Later in the month we traveled to San Francisco for the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, where we released an updated version of our report Federal Science and the Public Good, which presents specifics steps Congress, the president, and new agency leaders should take to create a thriving federal scientific enterprise. UCS Scientific Integrity Program Director Francesca Grifo presented our recommendations to more than 400 attendees, and also profiled our curriculum guide at a session on science and education. To bring UCS staff or materials to your own scientific society meeting, email rsi@ucsusa.org.
Helping Wind Power, Wildlife Coexist
UCS plays key role in new initiative
Expanding our use of wind power is essential to reducing global warming pollution, but it must be done in a way that best protects wild animals and their habitats. In light of our expertise related to renewable energy and climate change, UCS was invited to help form the nonprofit American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI), which launched last October. The group’s goal is to promote the responsible development of wind energy while ensuring that decisions on specific projects are based on the best available science about the likely effects on local wildlife and the options for mitigating those effects.
The AWWI brings together representatives from the nonprofit, government, and industry sectors. UCS was the first nonprofit to become a founding member; our senior energy analyst John Rogers served as a member of the AWWI’s steering committee until its launch and our director of science and policy, Peter Frumhoff, now serves on the board of directors. To learn more about the organization and its work, visit www.awwi.org.
