Climate Money Watchdog

Ethan Elkind is the Director of the Climate Program at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at Berkeley Law and leads the Climate Change and Business Research Initiative on behalf of the University of California at Berkeley and University of California at Los Angeles Schools of Law. He taught at the UCLA law school’s Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic and served as an environmental law research fellow. He has a background in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), climate change law, environmental justice, and other environmental law topics. In 2005, he co-founded The Nakwatsvewat Institute, Inc., a Native American nonprofit organization that provides alternative dispute resolution services and support for tribal governance, justice, and educational institutions. His book Railtown on the history of the modern Los Angeles Metro Rail system was published by University of California Press in January 2014. Ethan is also a regular host of the weekly call-in radio show “State of the Bay” on the San Francisco NPR affiliate KALW 91.7 FM, airing Monday nights at 6pm PT.

This episode is focused on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which was passed at roughly the same time the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). They were signed by Republican icons Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon respectively.  Mr. Elkind speaks on topics including:

• Successes and failures over CEQA's 40-year history
• CEQA's impact on the schedule of new transmission for renewable energy initiatives.
• The trade-offs between public engagement and the extent to which local, county and state permitting processes can slow projects that help and hurt the environment alike.
• How the US has a problem with doing large projects, especially in large transportation projects and how this is described in his recent report, Getting Back on Track: Policy Solutions to Improve California Rail Transit Projects

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Climate Money Watchdog founders Dina Rasor and Greg Williams recap our first twenty episodes. We cover such issues as:

• Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
  • Every Dollar Spent on CCS is a Waste - Dr. Charles Harvey and Dr. Kurt House
  • CO2 Pipelines and Carbon Capture - Kert Davies
  • How Did DoE Waste Half a $Billion on Carbon Capture? Bob Bauman
• How Community Choice Aggregation can make renewable energy more accessible
  • Community Choice Aggregation at MCE - Jenna Tenney
• How community organizing can stop dangerous and wasteful projects
  • Citizens Challenging Venture Capitalists and Carbon Capture - Mike Eise
• How oversight by government and private citizens can prevent waste
  • Enforcing ESG Claims through the SEC's Whistleblower Program - Poppy Alexander
  • Government Oversight Lessons Learned - Danielle Brian, POGO

See our main web site, our episode listing on Buzzsprout, or wherever you like to get your podcasts for full listing.

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Today we’re joined by Jenn Tenny, Communications Manager for the MCE (originally Marin Clean Energy), a relatively new kind of government organization called a CCA, which stands for Community Choice Aggregation. CCA’s allow individual consumers to choose where they get their electricity, even if it’s delivered over transmission lines that are owned by a single, monopoly utility company.

As a journalist and am MCE customer, Dina Rasor followed MCE's progress for many years, including writing an article about them in Truthout in 2014.

As MCE’s Communications Manager, Jenna works to share messages of MCE’s mission and achievements in the community through various public engagement and press opportunities. These initiatives include not only making renewable energy more available to consumers, but also providing assistance to individuals installing more efficient appliances such as heat pumps and LED lighting, as well as reducing power usage during peak demand hours through their 4 to 9 program.

Prior to her time with MCE, Jenna worked at the California Academy of Sciences and the Bronx Zoo as a public educator. Jenna has a B.S. in Marine Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an M.A. in Climate and Society from Columbia University.

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Dr. Charles Harvey is a professor of environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Kurt House is the chief executive officer of KoBold Metals, a metals exploration company. On August 16th, they challenged the prevailing wisdom that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is key to fighting climate change in a New York Times guest essay titled, Every Dollar Spent on This Climate Technology Is a Waste.

Doctors Harvey and House opinion is driven by their own direct experience starting the  first privately funded company to make use of CCS in 2008. Back then, solar and wind energy were vastly more expensive than generating electricity by burning fossil fuel, even if you added the high cost of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the exhaust. Now, with clean renewable energy cheaper than burning coal, “it’s clear that we were wrong, and that every dollar invested in renewable energy — instead of C.C.S. power — will eliminate far more carbon emissions.” New York times, August 16, 2022

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Dr. Brittany Trang recently made New York Times headlines with an experimental but extraordinarily promising method for turning dangerous "forever" chemicals called PFAS into different, harmless chemicals.

Dr. Trang is a 2022-2023 Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellow at STAT News. Previously, she covered health and science at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Mass Media Fellow. Her freelance work has been published places like Chemistry World, Chemical & Engineering News, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

She has a bachelor’s in English and chemistry from the Ohio State University and a PhD in chemistry from Northwestern University, where she worked with Prof. William Dichtel to develop per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) remediation methods.

PFAS, a class of “forever” chemicals that don’t break down in the environment, are a common problem on military bases and other places where firefighting foam is heavily used.  As part of Climate Money Watchdog’s mission to investigate spending on environmental protection as well as climate change mitigation, we are tracking the $10 billion the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has $10 billion has allocated to addressing the PFAS problem, including $1 billion for advanced research.

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Elliott Negin, Senior Writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Elliott was UCS media director from 2007 through 2011 and now writes about UCS-related topics for a range of news organizations including:. A contributing writer at HuffPost from 2011 through 2017, he has also written articles and columns for Alternet, The Atlantic, Columbia Journalism Review, EcoWatch, The Hill, Live Science, Mother Earth News, The Nation, The Progressive, Roll Call, Salon, Scientific American, The Washington Post and other publications. Prior to joining UCS, Elliott was the Washington communications director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a foreign news editor at National Public Radio, the managing editor of American Journalism Review, and the editor of Nuclear Times and Public Citizen magazines. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

We have invited Elliott to talk about two recent articles – one on ALEC and its funding and one on the long history of Charles Koch funding climate denial and climate disinformation efforts and how this impacts the ability to fund necessary climate change.

In the course of the episode, Elliott encourages listeners to learn more by reading the following works, or about the following topics:

• Charles Koch - Founder of Koch Industries and long-time climate change denier.
• The Libertarian Party
• The Cato Institute
• The Heritage Foundation
• 2024 presidential aspirants associated with Charles Koch:
  • Ted Cruz
  • Ron Desantis
  • Mike Pompeo
  • Rick Scott
  • Mike Pence
• Resources for tracking ALEC activities
  • ALEC Exposed
  • Color of Change
  • Common Cause

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Mark Z. Jacobson is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. Some describe him as the architect of the U.S. Green New Deal. He has authored books, textbooks and articles on transitioning to renewable energy. Recently co-authored the study, “Low-Cost Solutions to Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Energy Insecurity for 145 Countries.

Professor Jacobson came to our attention via his opinion piece in The Hill, “No miracle tech needed: How to switch to renewables now and lower costs doing it.”, which draws heavily on this report. His credentials are impressive:

Director and co-founder, Atmosphere/Energy Program (link), Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, 2004-present.
Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment (link), January 2008-present
Senior Fellow, Precourt Institute for Energy (link), January 1, 2010-present
Co-founder, The Solutions Project (link), July 10, 2011-present.

B. S., with distinction, Stanford University, Civil Engineering, 1988
 B. A., with distinction, Stanford University, Economics, 1988
 M. S., Stanford University, Environmental Engineering, 1988
 M. S., UCLA, Atmospheric Sciences, 1991
 Ph. D., UCLA, Atmospheric Sciences, 1994

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Have you ever dreamed of an approach to carbon capture and sequestration that can be deployed anywhere, and has many years of demonstrated success? It turns out farmers have been employers using this technology – plants – for thousands of years.

Dr. Jeff Creque is a co-founder of the Marin Carbon Project and the Carbon Cycle Institute, where he serves as Director of Rangeland and Agroecosystem Management.  Jeff provides senior leadership on carbon farming and land management, informed by thirty-five years of applied experience and theoretical training. He is an agricultural and rangeland consultant and a Natural Resources Conservation Service certified nutrient management planning specialist and technical service provider.

Jeff’s organizational affiliations include: Founding Board Member, Alliance for Local Sustainable Agriculture (Marin); Co-Founder, Bolinas-Stinson Beach Resource Recovery Project; Agricultural Director, Apple Tree International; Co-Founder, West Marin Compost Coalition.

Jeff holds a PhD in Rangeland Ecology from Utah State University, and is a California State Board of Forestry Certified Professional in Rangeland Management.

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Mike Eisenfeld is San Juan Citizens Alliance Energy and Climate Program Manager

Mike joined SJCA in 2006 following ten years as an environmental consultant in the Four Corners region. Mike works on energy issues including coal, oil/gas, air quality and public lands. He specializes in the National Environmental Policy Act, Federal Land Policy & Management Act, and Endangered Species Act compliance. Mike has a B.A. from Bates College and a M.A. in Environmental Policy and Management from the University of Denver.

Mike's current work and this episode focus on a venture capital backed effort to extend the life of the San Juan Generating Station - a 1.7 gigawatt coal-fired power generation station once scheduled for decommissioning in 2022. As described in a June 29, 2022 High Country News article, this project proposes to implement carbon capture at a scale never before implemented, and to store it underground in areas of questionable geological quality.

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Sarah “Poppy” Alexander is a partner in Constantine Cannon’s San Francisco office.

She represents whistleblowers and government entities in qui tam lawsuits, as well as under the various agency whistleblower programs including those administered by the Internal Revenue Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, The Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Department of Transportation.  Poppy’s practice focuses on issues of international corruption and financial misconduct, with a specialty in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering cases.  She writes and speaks regularly about emerging topics in financial fraud, including sanctions violations, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies or SPACs, and cryptocurrency.  Poppy has been selected to the Northern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars list every year since 2016.

Prior to joining Constantine Cannon, Poppy was an associate attorney at Rosen, Bien, Galvan & Grunfeld LLP, where she worked to ensure prisoners received appropriate medical and mental health care and adequate accommodations for disabilities in jails and prisons.

Poppy maintains an active pro bono practice, with a particular emphasis on protecting the rights of children and adults in detention and protecting communities harmed by corporate bad acts abroad.  Poppy is also a board member for the Impact Fund, an organization devoted to funding and supporting cutting edge civil rights litigation.

Poppy graduated from Harvard Law School, where she was the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and an active member of the Harvard Human Rights Clinic. Poppy spent one of her law school summers at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, fighting for abortion rights and the rights of pregnant women. After law school, Poppy clerked for the Honorable Martha Craig Daughtrey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Nashville, TN.

Poppy holds an M.A. in Political Theory from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. from Yale College.

Further Reading:

• SEC Tip Page
• How the SEC Whistleblower Program Is Changing the Enforcement Landscape, American Constitution Society
• Tell Climate Money Watchdog your story through one of our secure communication channels.

Support the show

Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!