Page 29 - Flathead Beacon // 10.7.15

CLOSING RANGE DAVE SKINNER DANCES WITH GROUSE
GUEST COLUMN JERRY W. ELWOOD
EXPORTING MONTANA COAL AND IINCREASING CO2 EMISSIONS
N A RECENT GUEST COLUMN Also, Brown implicitly assumes that entitled “Lift the Chokehold on the quality of Montana coal in terms of Shipping Coal,” Dee Brown mistak- its energy content is greater than that of
ON SEPT. 22, JUST DAYS BEFORE a court-mandated deadline, the federal government announced the greater sage grouse was “not war- ranted” for listing under the Endangered Species Act.
Good news? No, just crazy political dancing.
Expect more lawsuits. The grouse listing decision was mandated in 2011 by a legal “multi-species settlement” that bound only signatory parties to its terms – mainly the sue-crazy Wild Earth Guardians and Center for Biolog- ical Diversity.
Another group, Western Watersheds Project, refused to join in the settlement, as was their right. WWP instead sued for a listing before federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Idaho. Over the years, Win- mill has built a record much like that of Montana’s Judge Donald W. Molloy, very, um, “sympathetic” to environmentalist pleadings.
However, in WWP’s case, Winmill decided to hold off on hearing or dismiss- ing the case until after the Feds ruled on listing. What next? It’s almost certain WWP will press its complaint as soon as possible.
While I would normally bet Win- mill will begin proceedings promptly, he might dismiss. Why? Well, as Oregon rancher Bill Wilber told the Bend Bulle- tin, a listing “would have been the equal of the spotted owl and what it did to the logging industry.” As BLM fire guy Ron Dunton put it to the Associated Press, “If [grouse is] listed, I tell people it will be the spotted owl times 50.”
Without question, listing the spotted owl was an unmitigated economic disas- ter for timber-dependent communities in the Northwest. Hundreds of thousands lost their jobs, jobs which will never be replaced. And the spotted owl is still in trouble.
The grizzly bear has been Montana’s version of the spotted owl here. Griz- zlies were listed as threatened in 1973, but it wasn’t until the mid-1990s when the Swan View Coalition hit the jack- pot in the Ninth Circuit Court, using the Endangered Species Act, that the ham- mer really fell. Had we known then what we know now – or what courts would decree – what might turn out differently?
With experience, more and more Americans are learning firsthand the
noble goal of saving nature comes with a painful price. Force enough people to pay a price they think is too great, they’ll revolt – or at least find a way to change the government (and then, the laws) to their liking.
The revolt is already underway. Liti- gation delays over wolf delisting nearly moved Congress to directly delist through legislation. Congress is today considering directly delisting the lesser prairie chicken, and delaying sage grouse listing for 10 years.
How many more revolutionaries might be created by listing grouse and imposing grizzly-style restrictions on 165 million acres of historic sage grouse habitat in 11 western states, including 98 million acres of private land – potentially “criti- cal habitat” after an appropriate amount of litigation? Well, as retired New Mex- ico agriculture secretary Frank DuBois wrote for his Westerner news site:
“The reaction of the majority in Con- gress and the potential impact on the future of the ESA had to be considered. Besides, you know some of the DC Deep Thinkers were saying, ‘Hey, why anger the Congress, threaten our budget and the Act, when more than likely the courts will throw out the plans for not being restrictive enough anyway?’”
Therefore, the federal government “compromised” to save the Endangered Species Act – unilaterally amending 98 federal land use plans covering 67 million acres in August to impose restrictions lit- tle different from what a full-blown list- ing would impose.
Even Montana Gov. Steve Bullock joined seven of 11 western governors in protesting the amendments, which hon- estly big-footed “cooperative” and “col- laborative” state plans, for failing to “take proper and legally required cogni- zance of Montana’s interest.”
House Natural Resources Committee chairman Rob Bishop was more direct: “The announcement not to list the sage grouse is a cynical ploy. With the stroke of a pen, the Obama Administration’s oppressive land management plan is the same as a listing.”
In other words, the decision to not list sage grouse was far more about saving the Endangered Species Act than it was about saving any bird.
enly claims that both carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and the amount of car- bon in the atmosphere from coal com- bustion would be lowered if Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan simply replaced, according to her, the poor-quality coal they now import from Indonesia with higher quality coal from Montana. She uses that claim to argue for certifying the construction of deep-water ports with coal loading terminals in Washing- ton state so that more Montana coal can be exported to countries in Asia.
But Brown’s claim is simply not sup- ported by the facts about either the qual- ity of exported coal from Montana com- pared to that exported from Indonesia or how differences in the quality of coal from those two sources would affect CO2 emissions and the amount of car- bon in the atmosphere. It also reflects her misunderstanding about the rela- tionship between CO2 emissions, the absolute amount of carbon in the atmo- sphere and its rate of increase.
Brown is correct in saying that less CO2 would be emitted to the atmo- sphere if higher quality coal in terms of its energy content was used in place of lower quality coal to produce a given amount of electricity. While that would help reduce the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere due to coal combus- tion alone, it would not lessen its abso- lute amount already present. What Brown appears not to understand is that until annual CO2 emissions to the atmosphere from all human activities, including fossil fuel combustion, are reduced globally to a level equal to its rate of removal by natural processes, it will continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, thereby committing the cli- mate to warm even more in the future. Replacing low quality coal with that of a higher quality won’t change this reality.
the primary types of coal exported from Indonesia to countries in Asia and that switching to higher quality coal will, in her words, lessen the carbon in the atmosphere. But neither her assumption nor her assertion is valid.
In terms of its energy content, the average quality of most Indonesian coal exported to Asian countries is actually higher than that of the two major types of coal mined in and exported from the Powder River Basin in eastern Mon- tana. Since it is this coal that would be exported to Asia, this means more coal would be burned and more CO2 would be emitted to produce a given amount of electricity at coal-fired power plants in Asia if Montana coal replaced the Indo- nesian coal now used at those plants. As a result, both the absolute amount and the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmo- sphere would be higher, not lower.
Thus, Dee Brown’s claim about the beneficial effect of replacing Indonesian coal with Montana coal on CO2 levels in the atmosphere is simply not true. Her attempt to claim otherwise as a partial justification for certifying the construc- tion of more coal terminals in Washing- ton state to export more Montana coal has no basis in fact. If she is genuinely interested in ways to effectively lower CO2 emissions and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, she should advocate for both leaving most of the remaining coal reserves in eastern Montana in the ground and increasing the implemen- tation and use of carbon-free and car- bon-neutral energy technologies. But her stated opposition to CO2 emission standards indicates that her real inter- est is only in exporting more Montana coal rather than in lessening green- house gases emissions and their effect on climate.
“THE REVOLT IS ALREADY UNDERWAY.”
Mike (Uncommon Ground) Jopek and Dave (Closing Range) Skinner often fall on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to political and outdoor issues. Their columns alternate each week in the Flathead Beacon.
“ADVOCATE FOR BOTH LEAVING
MOST OF THE REMAINING COAL RESERVES IN EASTERN MONTANA
IN THE GROUND AND INCREASING
THE IMPLEMENTATION AND USE OF CARBON-FREE AND CARBON-NEUTRAL ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES.”
Jerry Elwood lives in Kalispell
OCTOBER 7, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
29