After more than a year of litigation, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman didn’t need a trial to convince him to rule in favor of the utility. He said the Environmental Protection Agency went to court too soon and needs to collect more data to determine whether improvements at Monroe Unit 2 have caused an increase in emissions.

DTE last year replaced key boiler parts at the plant about 40 miles south of Detroit. The EPA claims the project qualified as a “major modification,” which should have forced the utility to install state-of-the-art pollution controls.

DTE acknowledged the “project may eventually prove to be a `major modification,’” Friedman wrote in a 12-page decision dated Aug. 23. “That determination, however, cannot be made until the completion of the first year for which such measurements are required.”

Monroe Unit 2 emitted 27,320 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 8,205 tons of nitrogen oxide in 2009 and is the largest individual source of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions in the state, according to EPA. The agency said that DTE has predicted that by 2013, Monroe Unit 2 will emit 33,816 tons of SO2 and 14,494 tons of NOX.

EPA had asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, to order DTE to shut down its Monroe Unit 2 until pollution control equipment is installed and requested civil penalties of up to $37,500 per day.

DTE’s Monroe facility produces more than a quarter of Michigan’s total CO2 emissions according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project.

U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner.

“Rep. Gardner’s extremist attacks against the EPA and against science are bad for the economy, bad for jobs, and don’t represent the mainstream values of his constituents,” said Gary Wockner of Clean Water Action, one of the groups that will present a constituent sign-on letter expressing their concerns to Gardner’s office.

Gardner has introduced several pieces of legislation aimed at limiting the authority of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases, although the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled such regulations are within the EPA’s jurisdiction. The federal agency is engaged in a rulemaking that will set limits on carbon emissions by power plants and oil refineries. Gardner has been blasted for being “out of touch” with his Colorado constituency in the 4th Congressional District, where polls have found residents want more environmental regulation by the EPA, not less.

However, on Wednesday, Gardner went after the EPA again, charging the agency is improperly moving ahead with its regulatory framework without considering the impact to jobs in Colorado and around the nation. He maintains attempts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions will cost jobs in traditional fossil fuel industries such as coal and oil and gas extraction.

“To me, not taking into account the impact on jobs would render an economic analysis completely useless,” Gardner said in a release on Wednesday. “It’s frightening that an agency with as much regulatory authority as the EPA doesn’t appear to care about jobs.”

However, some studies (pdf) show the pending EPA regulations will actually result in more jobs. “New Jobs-Cleaner Air: Employment Effects under Planned Changes to EPA’s Air Pollution Rules (pdf),” conducted by Dr. James Heintz of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, found that EPA regulation of greenhouse gases will create 1.4 million jobs associated with installing pollution controls and building new power plants.

“Rep. Gardner is voting to undermine the public’s health in order to benefit the big polluters who donated to his campaign,” said Micah Parkin of 350.org, another one of the groups rallying at Gardner’s office at noon on Friday. The other groups include the Sierra Club — Poudre Canyon Group, Fort Collins Sustainability Group and the Northern Colorado Renewable Energy Society.

Reuters reports:

Republicans, who were able to block a climate and energy bill last year, hoped to pick up support from Democrats in energy-dependent states facing tight elections next year on the measure sponsored by Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
But it got only 50 votes in the Democratic-led 100-member chamber, short of the 60 votes needed to pass.

The Senate also rejected three EPA-limiting amendments offered by Democrats, the Washington Post reports.

One, sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), would have provided exemptions for agriculture and smaller greenhouse gas emitters from the EPA’s permitting process; another, sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), would delay EPA rules for two years; and a third, sponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), would have delayed the rules for two years, exempted agriculture and provided a tax credit to clean energy technology manufacturers.

Sen. Stabenow voted in favor of her own amendment and Carl Levin (D-MI) voted in favor of the Baucus amendment.

Sierra Club Michigan Chapter Director Anne Woiwode called the defeat of the four bills a “short-term victory for Americans who want clean air and safe drinking water” and called on Michigan’s senators to explain their support for measures that would benefit polluters.

Republicans have offered numerous amendments aimed at forcing Democrats to vote on EPA powers.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) offered an amendment that would prohibit EPA from taking any action to address climate change.

Stabenow’s amendment would give coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other industrial sources a two year exemption from new EPA rules that require them to report their greenhouse gas emissions.

Stabenow spokespeople were not available to speak about the amendment.

The Hill reports that a League of Conservation Voters poll of voters in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania this week shows most people support letting EPA regulate carbon pollution.

“Three in five (63%) voters in the three Midwestern states say they trust the EPA more than Congress to decide whether there should be new standards for carbon pollution,” states a summary of the poll, conducted by Hart Research Associates.

Gardner, a co-sponsor of legislation meant to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit the effects of climate change, questioned EPA administrator Lisa Jackson last week during a hearing before the House Energy and Power Subcommittee.

“The reason cap and trade didn’t pass is because it would have been detrimental to our economy and job creation, so for the administration to now try and usurp Congress by using the EPA is just unacceptable,” Gardner said in a release.

The EPA late last year announced it will propose new standards for new and refurbished power plants by July, with final rules coming in May of 2012. New standards for new oil refineries will come out in December, with the final rules expected by November of 2012.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, and in 2009 the EPA release two findings allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. Climate change legislation, including cap and trade, passed the House in 2009 but came up short in the Senate in 2010.

Efforts to undercut the EPA regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act will also likely die in the Senate. Democratic Colorado Sen. Mark Udall has started a petition drive to thwart the anti-EPA push.

“Anti-environment legislators introduced bills to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon — legislation that flies in the face of directives from the U.S. Supreme Court and threatens our progress toward a clean energy future,” Udall said. “I’ll be delivering a petition to the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer, at the end of the month, and we need it to be a strong statement of opposition to these bills.”

A poll commissioned by the National Resources Defenses Council found that 61 percent of those surveyed in Gardner’s largely rural 4th Congressional District in northern Colorado oppose the “Energy Tax Prevention Act” proposal from Michigan Republican Fred Upton “that would block the EPA from limiting carbon dioxide pollution.” Another 55 percent favor “the EPA setting new standards with stricter limits on air pollution,” according to the poll.

The NRDC also found Gardner, a freshman, has taken $29,500 in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies, utilities, coal and mining interests, and that there are more than 80,000 people in his district suffering from asthma, which health care officials say is exacerbated by air pollution.

Jackson told the subcommittee that the Clean Air Act has prevented more than 205,000 deaths since 1990. But Gardner ripped her for claiming “the economy in rural America is strong enough to withstand burdensome regulations.”

“Families in rural areas are facing challenges like everyone else, and I would know because I grew up in a town of only 3,200 people.” Gardner said. “When something becomes more expensive, like the utility bill, it hurts those families most.”

He invited Jackson to visit his district and “familiarize herself with the realities of rural America.” Gardner is a former state legislator with a long history of advocating for the oil and gas industry. Last year, in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he was the beneficiary of a fundraiser hosted by a British Petroleum lobbyist.

And in Colorado in 2008 he signed the Energy Action Plan put out by a pro-energy nonprofit called the Western Skies Coalition. The political advocacy group used petroleum industry dollars in an attempt to elect Republican state lawmakers and retake the state Senate.

Gardner last November beat out incumbent Democrat Betsy Markey, who voted for the climate change bill and was singled out by President Barack Obama as a blue dog Democrat who took a courageous vote in a largely conservative district.

Colorado renewable energy advocates point to the economic upside – in addition to the health benefits – of policies that restrict carbon emissions and reward cleaner forms of energy. Colorado has added 17,000 jobs in the clean-energy sector over the last several years, and a new study by the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute, entitled, “New Jobs – Cleaner Air,” concluded that the new EPA air pollution rules would create up to 1.46 million American jobs (pdf).

“This report echoes what Coloradans already know,” said Gary Wockner of Fort Collins-based Clean Water Action, “Clean air creates jobs and protects the economy and public health; dirty air costs jobs and threatens the economy and public health. Supporting the EPA and the Clean Air Act is good for people, good for our environment, and good for our economy.”

At a heated Wednesday hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power EPA Director Lisa Jackson was questioned for hours about the impact of new Clean Air Act regulations on business.

Since the beginning of the year, EPA has required industry to report their CO2 emissions, and major new sources of pollution are required to conduct an analysis of the “Best Available Control Technology” for reducing CO2 emissions. EPA has also announced that it will propose greenhouse gas standards for utilities and refineries this year and finalize them next year.

“Let’s face it,” said House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), “these regulations and others from EPA amount to a war on domestic coal. Coal is the energy source America possesses in the greatest abundance. It provides half the nation’s electricity and 92 percent in my home state of Kentucky, and it does so because it is affordable.”

Whitfield, together with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) ranking member of the Senate Committee On Environment and Public Works, are the sponsors of the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011.

The bill states:

The Administrator may not, under [the Clean Air Act], promulgate any regulation concerning, take action relating to, or take into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas due to concerns regarding possible climate change.

In her testimony, Jackson called the Clean Air Act a public health measure that has prevented 205,000 deaths since 1990, and she said that the agency move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions was a necessary science-based decision aimed at protecting the country from the public health threat that is climate change.

Jackson also pointed out that EPA’s responsibility to regulate carbon emissions was acknowledged (PDF) by her predecessor in the Bush administration.

“Chairman Upton’s bill would, in its own words, ‘repeal’ the scientific finding regarding greenhouse gas emissions, she said. “Politicians overruling scientists on a scientific question — that would become part of this committee’s legacy.”

But many lawmakers and witnesses at the hearing seemed comfortable with such a legacy.

Any EPA regulation of greenhouse gases will be “all pain and no gain” said Rep. Inhofe. “[I]t is unfair and unacceptable to ask the steel worker in Ohio, the chemical plant worker in Michigan, and the coal miner in West Virginia to sacrifice their jobs so we can reduce temperature by a barely detectable amount in 100 years.”

Nucor Steel environmental manager Steve Rowlan told the committee that uncertainly about greenhouse gas rules caused his company to scale down a new iron facility in Louisiana.

The impact of these new regulations on capital projects is real. We recently received a permit, under the new GHG rules, for a direct reduced iron facility in Louisiana. This is a $750 million project that will create 500 construction jobs and 150 permanent ones. It is a great job-creating investment, particularly in this economy. But this project is not as large as the $2 billion investment we initially intended. Due to the uncertainty created by these regulations, we made the difficult decision to delay the $2 billion investment, also delaying the creation of 2,000 construction jobs and 500 permanent ones.

Rowlan said that his biggest concern is that future EPA carbon regulations could increase the cost of electricity.

“Cheap energy is lifeblood of industry,” he said in an interview with The American Independent. “You always hear people say, ‘We need clean green power’ well we need ‘Clean, green, affordable and reliable power.’”

Steve Cousins, vice president of Lion Oil of El Dorado, Ark., told the committee that he is troubled by the EPA requirement that any expansion of refinery operations involve implementation of best available control technology for greenhouse gas emissions.

“It is unclear what technology constitutes BACT,“ he said. “EPA’s federal guidance on what defines BACT is far too broad and confusing regarding what measures our refinery would be able to employ to control emissions, and whether permits would actually be approved and issued in certain circumstances.”

U.S. Steel Corporation environmental manager Fred Harnack said that EPA carbon rules will not reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Since greenhouse gas emissions are a complex global issue, a simplistic regulatory approach may reduce greenhouse gas emissions locally (in United States) while increasing emissions outside the United States by encouraging companies to move or expand operations to another country. As demonstrated by the United Kingdom’s example, energy-intensive manufacturing activity will decline, but consumer demand for energy-intensive goods will still grow. The net environmental effect of such is actually worse for the environment as goods are sourced from less efficient producers and additional long-distance transportation is required.

In a memo (PDF) to Democratic members of the Energy and Power Subcommittee, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), ranking member of the Energy and Power Subcommittee, said that the Upton bill would threaten implementation of renewable fuel standards and create legal uncertainty about the status of the recent motor vehicle standards adopted by EPA.

An ORC International poll conducted earlier this month found the 63 percent of people — including most Republicans — believe the EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water.

That survey found that only 18 percent of Americans believe that Congress should block the EPA from updating pollution safeguards.

Among the key findings of the poll:

Americans want the EPA to do more, not less. Almost two thirds of Americans (63 percent) say “the EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water,” versus under a third (29 percent) who think the EPA already “does too much and places too many costly restrictions on businesses and individuals.” Well under half of Republicans (44 percent), less than a third of Independents (29 percent) and under a fifth of Democrats (16 percent) think the EPA is going too far today.

Americans do not want Congress to kill the EPA’s anti-pollution updates. Only 18 percent of Americans – including fewer than a third of Republicans (32 percent) — believe that “Congress should block the EPA from updating pollution safeguards,” after being told: “Some members of Congress are proposing to block the Environmental Protection Agency from updating safeguards to protect our health from dangerous air pollution, saying they will cost businesses too much money.” By contrast, more than three out of four Americans (77 percent) — including 61 percent of Republicans – say “Congress (should) let the EPA do its job.”

House Republican leaders are expected today to unveil new legislation aimed at blocking EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Reid said yesterday before the meeting that he was unsure about bringing the proposal up for a vote in the lame-duck session, even though he had promised Rockefeller a vote on the bill before the end of the year. He told reporters yesterday:

It’s real hard just to say, yeah, we can do this, because we have limited time to go through all the procedural motions. But if there’s a way we can do it, I’ll be happy to work with him on that.

But after the meeting, both Rockefeller’s and Reid’s offices were quiet about whether any final decisions were made.

Regan Lachapelle, Reid’s spokeswoman said, “I don’t have a comment from the meeting.” And Rebecca Gale, Rockefeller’s spokeswoman, said simply, “Nothing yet.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency responsible for tracking climate patterns, said yesterday that high ocean temperatures in 2005 led to the worst coral reef damage in the Caribbean on record. The high ocean temperatures resulted in the bleaching of some 80 percent of the coral reef surveyed in the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic. When coral is bleached, essential algae that grow on the coral are expelled. About 40 percent of the coral reef died, according to the new study, which is the most comprehensive on the issue.

NOAA scientists say the bleaching and coral death will have a severe effect on the ocean ecosystem. They also say that the problem is likely to get worse as ocean temperatures rise as a result of climate change.

“Heat stress during the 2005 event exceeded any observed in the Caribbean in the prior 20 years, and regionally-averaged temperatures were the warmest in at least 150 years,” said Mark Eakin, coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Program, in a statement. “This severe, widespread bleaching and mortality will undoubtedly have long-term consequences for reef ecosystems, and events like this are likely to become more common as the climate warms.”

Environmentalists are using this study and other research to call for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the new crop of Republicans entering Congress raise questions about climate science, environmentalists are redoubling their efforts to educate the public on the issue, even as prospects for climate legislation in the Senate and a binding global climate treaty appear unlikely.

In a call sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists last week, Brenda Ekwurze, a climate scientist at the group, pointed to the NOAA data to underscore that “the science remains unequivocal.”

Eakin, who also spoke on the call, said, “Right now, coral reefs around the world are either bleached, dead from bleaching or trying to recover from bleaching.” Eakin added that scientists are seeing wide-scale bleaching in 2010 as well. Early data suggests the bleaching isn’t as severe as in the 1990s, when about 50 percent of the world’s coral reefs were destroyed. But Eakin said, “How bad does it have to be? Is one atomic blast worse than another?”

Another issue UCS is focusing on to build a case for action on climate change is forest fires. New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that continued increases in greenhouse gas emissions will result in never-before-seen instances of global forest fires.

Olga Pechony, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies who conducted the research and spoke on the call last week, said, “If we take care of the base cause of this increase, global warming, this would be something that would help. Reducing the levels of warming would reduce the levels of fire activity.”

Harkin’s comments are certain to rankle environmentalists and many in the oil industry, who have criticized a recent decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to allow higher blends of ethanol in newer vehicles, citing greenhouse gas concerns and ethanol’s impact on engines.

“What’s missing from this bill is any mention of biofuels and what biofuels can contribute to our energy independence in this country,” Harkin, one of the most outspoken proponents of biofuels, said on the Senate floor today.

He continued:

So, while I most certainly will vote for a motion to proceed because I think we should proceed to it, I’ll say at the outset that major changes will need to be made to this bill before it can earn my support on final passage.

Harkin also argued that expanding ethanol use would be cheaper than encouraging natural gas vehicles because it would require fewer infrastructure investments.

But natural gas, every station would have to put in a big compressed tank under a lot of pressure. That would then have to be transferred to a compressed tank, a very strong tank in your car. There would have to be some sort of nozzle to do that. It wouldn’t just be having to put gasoline in an engine. So a whole new infrastructure would have to be built to accomplish this. No new infrastructure would have to be built to put biofuels in your car.

Harkin specifically called for provisions in the bill that would increase the number of flex-fuel vehicles and expand the number of biofuels fueling stations and pipelines.

Here’s the full audio of his remarks.