Students in Westerly, RI spearheaded a program to turn waste cooking oil into home heating fuel. (image: w-i-n.ws)

For seven Rhode Island middle schoolers, “TGIF” has nothing to do with the weekend. Their “Project TGIF—Turning Grease into Fuel” aims to reduce carbon emissions and donate heating fuel to low-income families by turning waste cooking oil into biodiesel. Project TGIF has been such a success that the EPA has awarded the students the President’s Environmental Youth Award, reports the environmental news website SolveClimate.

Biodiesel blended with heating oil, often sold under the trade name Bioheat, is a cleaner-burning heating fuel than 100-percent petroleum based heating oil and is fully compatible with existing heating systems. Some state legislatures have passed laws mandating that all home heating oil contain a percentage of biodiesel, and the heating oil industry has taken the lead in making biodiesel blends the green heating fuel of the future. These Rhode Island students helped raise awareness of this green option in home heating and proved that turning a waste product into a valuable fuel is not just feasible but a win-win situation for all parties concerned.

The sixth-graders from Westerly, RI persuaded the town council to install a waste cooking oil container at the local transfer station to collect used cooking oil from residents, and convinced 64 restaurants to donate their used cooking oil. Having secured the grease, the students partnered with a delivery company and a biodiesel refinery to turn the grease into heating fuel. So far, Project TGIF has collected 36,000 gallons of waste oil, enough to produce 30,000 gallons of biodiesel. According to the EPA, that biodiesel has eliminated 600,000 pounds of carbon dioxide that would have otherwise been emitted into the atmosphere.

But the students were not content with only their environmental contribution. An article in the local newspaper about the difficulty that many families had paying for home heating oil spurred the students to action. They teamed up with local charities to donate 4,000 gallons of Bioheat to 40 families in need of heating assistance.

The students traveled to Washington, DC on Thursday to accept their award from the head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson. The Westerly group was one of ten groups, each from a different region, to win the award. The administrator of the EPA’s New England region, Curt Spalding, spoke about how “impressed” he was with these students:

We have serious environmental problems, but with the creativity and commitment displayed by these students, we can find ways to effectively work toward a cleaner and healthier world.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that the EPA would regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. (image: nationalpost.com)

This afternoon, the Environmental Protection Agency released a landmark statement concerning climate change and the impact of carbon emissions on the environment. Signaling a major shift in the US stance on the issue brought about by the Obama administration, the statement, delivered by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, declared officially that: “the threat [of climate change] is real … Polar ice caps crumbling into the oceans, changing migratory patterns of animals and broader ranges for deadly diseases, historic droughts, more powerful storms, and disappearing coastlines.”

The agency has released an endangerment finding that declares greenhouse gases a threat to public and environmental health. As to the US government response to this crisis, she announced that “there are no more excuses for delay,” perhaps trying to sway the Senate’s recent debate about stripping funding for environmental protection, or prodding it into action on the climate bill. Said Jackson:

[The EPA] is now authorized and obligated to take reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants under the Clean Air Act. This long-overdue finding cements 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began seriously addressing the challenge of greenhouse gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform. In less than 11 months, we have done more to promote clean energy and prevent climate change than happened in the last eight years.

The EPA’s plans for greenhouse gas abatement include a national reporting system for greenhouse gas emissions, which has already been established and will be fully operational by 2011. The system will require that large emitters submit publicly available information that allows for more effective tracking of greenhouse gases, as well as show where opportunities exist to increase efficiency through new technologies or products. They will also be required to use the best available greenhouse gas limiting technologies in any new construction or expansion. Jackson said the finding also lays a legal foundation for the proposed clean cars program.

While it is unlikely that any amount of pressure from the EPA would push climate legislation through Congress while health care reform is still in debate, the EPA finding will give President Obama a much stronger position going into the UN Climate Change Talks in Copenhagen this week. The Wall Street Journal quotes US lead negotiator James Pershing saying that “the US is currently responsible for one-fifth of global emissions”, so while a US commitment to these issues won’t solve a global problem, it certainly accomplishes a sizeable portion of the goal.

The Wall Street Journal also addresses the concerns of the business community in regards to the extra costs that widespread carbon monitoring may entail. The EPA intends to “tailor” Clean Air Act regulations to first target the aforementioned large emitters of greenhouse gases—those who release more than 25,000 tons of gases per year—and then further amend the rules in five years. This tailoring may have legal ramifications, as it would open the EPA up to challenges from environmentalists who want to see a more expanded program, or from business who want to halt the process altogether. As we have reported previously, there may be some small price increases to businesses and consumers as new technologies come online, but in the long-run, lower emissions and lower demand for carbon-intensive fuels such as oil and natural gas will drive down prices, which seems like a win–win situation for all.

(image: washingtonindependent.com)

The biggest obstacles to the most important legislative issues of our day? Political maneuvering, says David Roberts at Grist.com.

Roberts writes that in the House, the climate bill’s legislative process was orderly and progressed smoothly through committees en route to final approval. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey introduced their bill in a special committee and made some necessary concessions, but never lost control of the process. Their goal was to negotiate the bulk of the issues behind closed doors so that when the resulting bill was brought up on the floor, it could pass uneventfully. And that’s what happened.

Unfortunately, the Senate has a different playbook. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chairman of the Energy & Public Works (EPW) Committee, wanted to replicate the House’s orderly process with the Senate version, the Kerry-Boxer climate bill. She tried, says Roberts, repeatedly expressing her desire to work with others and welcoming feedback and an open dialogue. But it’s not working because politics is getting in the way. Boxer is not particularly popular, partly because of her very liberal stances. Various Democratic committee members within the Senate began marking up the Boxer bill, and two Republicans, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and George Voinovich of Ohio, called for stalling committee debate on the bill.

This prompted a boycott of the EPW committee vote by all Republican members that led to a bill passed out of committee without any GOP involvement.

According to the Associated Press, Boxer said that advancing the bill is a necessary step on the road to garnering the needed 60 votes, and she was pleased that despite the Republican boycott, the Democrats have had the will to move this bill forward.

But Boxer’s influence is waning, says Roberts. Between the Senate Democrats’ predilection for not going along with all Democratic initiatives—as opposed to the strong party discipline found in the House—and the fact that an extremely liberal and combative female Senator was shepherding the bill, it is bound to fail.

As a result, some of the Senate’s centrists came in to open a “dual track” of negotiations. John Kerry (D-MA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) rebuked their colleagues on the EPW Committee for not participating. But on the other hand, Graham also asked EPA Chief Lisa Jackson for more time – five more weeks of study, which an EPA official testifying to the EPW said would be expensive, time-consuming, and unnecessary.

In their need to purge the bill of anything Boxer-ish, Kerry and Graham felt they had to draft another one. The final bill will, like most important legislature in Washington, be hashed out in the White House, behind closed doors.

Despite winning committee passage for her bill, Boxer’s attempts to build some bipartisan support have failed, whether fairly or not. According to Roberts, in the Senate it’s every man (or woman) for himself.

Passage of a climate bill in the near future? Don’t hold your breath.