WARMING: A THREAT TO TRANSPORTATION
New study highlights global warming’s impact on the nation’s transportation systems, including Great Lakes shipping

A report released this week by the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council concludes that global warming will affect every type of transportation in the U.S. due in part to rising sea levels, increased storm damage, and lower lake levels. The study warns that flooded roads and weakened bridges may be the unfortunate "wave of the future" with unchecked global warming.

The nation’s aging transportation system was built for local conditions based on historical weather data. However, as new weather extremes increase, that weather data may no longer be accurate. “The time has come for transportation professionals to acknowledge and confront the challenges posted by climate change and to incorporate the most current scientific knowledge into the planning of transportation systems,” said Henry Schwartz Jr., chairman of the report committee.

The National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, also notes that drier conditions would result in lower water levels throughout the Great Lakes. An expected consequence of global warming, reduced lake levels would result in reduced freight capacity for the shipping industry, producing a potentially serious economic blow to the entire Midwest region.

COAL TAKES ANOTHER DIRECT HIT
Department of Agriculture joins banks in refusing to fund new coal plants

The federal government announced this week that it will suspend a major loan program for coal-fired power plants, following last month's decision by several major banks to require coal plant developers to factor the future cost of regulating global warming pollution into their financing decisions. The Department of Agriculture (DOA) has provided more than $1.3 billion in loans since 2001 but has announced it will issue no new loans this year and likely none in 2009. The DOA cited increased material and labor costs and uncertainty over future regulation on global warming pollution as reasons for the suspension.

A spokesperson for the Rural Utilities Service, a branch of the DOA, said the building costs for new coal plants have been rising 30 percent every year as utilities struggle to project the future costs of mandatory controls on global warming pollution. Those uncertainties prompted the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to ask that any new loans to coal plants be put on hold until the financial risks due to impending global warming regulation can be better quantified.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Urge your legislators to support the Green Solutions Act of 2008

Six Midwest governors, including Governor Pawlenty, are already negotiating a regional program to limit and lower global warming pollution. With an aggressive timeline due November 15, 2008, it is critical that Minnesota establish strong guiding principles for policies that will help us reach the 80 percent emissions reduction goals called for in Minnesota statute, starting in 2015. With Minnesota’s interests in mind, a regional "cap and trade" program to limit and lower emissions must include these principles:   

• Polluters should be required to pay for their emissions allowances in an auction, creating a pool of publicly-controlled financial resources that can be used to ease the transition from polluting technologies and to soften the impact of rising energy costs. 100 percent of allowances should be auctioned in a successful cap and trade program, with the revenue accruing to the public benefit.
• The cap should cover as many sectors of the economy as is administratively feasible, capping carbon "upstream," or where it enters the economy. If emissions from a sector can be measured, they should be limited under the cap.
• Neither offsets nor measures that would allow more pollution at a certain price level should be allowed. Both undermine the ability to actually achieve emissions reductions goals and make the program unnecessarily complicated and expensive. 

The Green Solutions Act of 2008 (SF 2818/HF 3195) supports the development of a strong regional program to limit and lower global warming emissions, provides funding and direction to study the economic and social impacts of a cap and trade program in Minnesota, and would retain the legislature’s constitutional authority in adopting the regional plan currently being negotiated by the Governor and other appointed stakeholders.

Please contact your state legislators TODAY and urge their support of the Green Solutions Act of 2008 (SF 2818/HF 3195).

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