Update from Ann Bukacek April 26:
Concerned Montanans
Today I got a last minute, three day’s notice that at next Tuesday’s PSC business meeting, we commissioners will be voting on whether or not to continue the probe into making rules that essentially give the PSC environmental regulatory authority if we approve the climate change petition.
Enough is enough. I have studied the proposed rule change extensively, listened to and read every argument on both sides, including scores of emails from Montanans.
I will be voting against this tactical delay and will vote against the PSC taking on environmental regulatory function. I find the arguments against that petition far more compelling and credible.
In voting against it, I am standing up for my constituents with my goal to minimize future increases in their power bills.
Let’s keep the lights on !
Annie Bukacek Public Service Commissioner District 5
Commissioner Bukacek’s reasoning for a “NO” vote on the petition:
Below is a summary of some of the testimony of opponents during the climate change hearing…
testimony compelling and credible for a “NO” vote from me next Tuesday. Let’s keep the lights on! Dr. Annie Bukacek Public Service Commissioner District 5
full testimony of the opponents: MT PSC 2024.03.028 MEIC Rulemaking And Opportunity To Comment (youtube.com)
PROPONENT ARGUMENT #1
Laws and regulations require that the Public Service Commission must compare the costs of renewable energy generation with fossil fuels.
OPPONENTS:
Not true. The Montana legislature, which created the PSC and to whom the PSC is dependent for funding and jurisdiction has excluded the PSC from environmental regulation. And social and economic cost related to job losses will be massive if this climate change petition were to go forward.
- Tanner Avery pointed out the legislature has excluded the PSC from MEPA, and thereby excluded the PSC from speculative MCA portions relevant to this topic. He says the proper avenue is to pursue future legislation “rather than running it by the backdoor of administrative rules.” Multiple Montana legislators weighed in that environmental regulation is not in the PSC’s jurisdiction, jurisdiction the legislature decides. For this reason, some legislators have stated the April 8th Climate Change hearing should have never been held.
- Montana AFl-CIO and other unions opposed this petition for the harm it will do to the workers and their families represented by these unions. It was said, this rule will result in “massive job loss…” that will lead to social harm (such as adverse child development and domestic violence) and loss of the tax base. Adam Haight, treasurer for building trades union discussed the “severe negative impacts,” calling it “a regressive tax that hurts the most vulnerable…” Troy Dykema, representing irrigators, said the increased cost from this rule, if it passed, would “be passed directly onto the consumers…”
PROPONENT ARGUMENT #2:
The petition states man-caused climate change, including rising temperatures, due to greenhouse gas emission from burning fossil fuels, cause catastrophic harm to Montanans and Montana’s environment.
OPPONENTS:
The science is not clear regarding catastrophic harm and dire implications within Montana caused from man-caused climate change from Greenhouse gas emissions.
- Ben Zycher, Senior Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, says temperatures are rising, but the petitioners ignore the distinction between natural and anthropogenic (man-made) effects upon climate phenomena, assuming all observed changes in such phenomena are man-made. Data suggests this is simply false. Furthermore, Mr. Zycher says petitioners misrepresent the findings reported by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s most recent assessment reports that stated their projections were of “low confidence in the direction of change…”
- Dr. Fritz Byron Soepyan, phD in chemical engineering and Research and Science Associate at the CO2 Coalition, states in his introduction that “signatories of this petition are either unaware of, or have willfully chosen to ignore, the voluminous evidence that is contradictory to their claims of man-made climate catastrophes due to emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2).” He then goes on to share data from a long-term geologic perspective that any increase in CO2 is “miniscule” compared to the average throughout Earth’s history.
- James Taylor testified that 20 times more people die of extreme cold than die of extreme heat. James Taylor is president of Heartland Institute, founding director of Heartland’s Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy who organizes international conferences of climate change and has presented energy and environment analysis on every major television network in the United States, and at conferences in the America and Europe.
- Dr. Soepyan, Ben Zycher and James Taylor all state that evidence does not support assertions of a “climate crisis.” Mr. Zycher points to the flaws of the U.S. National Climate Assessment that “offered a discussion of climate science and policy divorced from the data, inconsistent with the dominant climate model employed by the federal government. Dr. Soepyan and Mr. Xycher provide graphs that show over time, there is no increase in heat waves, high temperatures, areas burned by fire, extreme weather events, increased temperature driven mortality, reductions in wild game and fish, climate-driven extinctions. The data source for his graphs include European Environment Agency and NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. In Montana, heat waves and high temperatures peaked in the Dust bowl 1930s in Montana at which time CO2 levels were 100 ppm lower than they are today.
- Dr. Soepyan showed a graph from the EPA (2023) that demonstrate air quality in the U.S. keeps getting better…also shows that there have been increases in global vegetation. He states, “Earth is greening, and CO2 is 70% responsible for this greening.
- Mr. Zycher provides calculations that elimination of all Montana emissions would reduce global temperatures in 2100 by .0021 or 21 ten thousandths of a degree Celsius….climate effects he says are “indistinguishable from zero…”
PROPONENTS ARGUMENT #3:
Renewable sources of fuel are cleaner than fossil fuels and have less of a social cost. Measurement of the Social Cost of Green House Gases (SC-GHG) is stated to provide a quantitative measure.
OPPONENTS:
The SC-GHG metric is considered illegitimate by many. It is at best controversial. Social costs of this rule, if passed, include massive job loss for working Montanans.
- Ben Zycher, Senior Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute discusses at length, including in his summary, what he calls the “fatally flawed” metric of SC-GHG. He calls it “illegitimate analytically…” He also commented that calling solar and wind generation “clean” only works if we ignore the environmental impacts of production and disposal of solar and wind—Their negative impact on wildlife, massive land and water use.
- Tanner Avery of Bozeman, director of New Frontiers of the Frontier Institute, calls the SC-GHC “a metric highly controversial and easy to manipulate.”
- Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, calls SC-GHC “controversial. Travis Fisher has nearly 20 years of experience in energy policy, including leadership roles at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Institute for Energy Research, Department of Energy, Electricity Consumers Resource Council, and Heritage Foundation.
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Earlier request from Commissioner Bukacek:
Please contact the Montana Public Service Commission as soon as possible If this petition Download the legal document here. is made into a rule, the Public Service Commission and the utilities it regulates will be forced to consider climate catastrophe in their decisions. This will negatively impact the economy, environment, and the health and welfare of Montanans. When you contact the PSC, be specific about what you are referring to is the petition for a new rule that forces the PSC to consider climate change as they regulate utilities. Send more than one email if you want to focus on one topic in each. Wherever possible, use your own words, thoughts and information.Talking points:
- The U.S. is not in a climate crisis, in part because fossil fuels have created climate safety. Trying to reduce fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gases without weighing their benefits will create the crisis. Countries that are not industrialized via fossil fuels are the ones hit hardest when there are weather extremes.
- Getting rid of fossil fuel sources of power and pushing unreliable sources like solar and wind will raise your power bills.
- The Montana Public Service Commission does not determine its own scope of responsibilities—the Legislative branch does. The Montana Legislature established the Montana Public Service Commission first in 1907 as the Board of Railroad Commissioners and has been The Montana PSC in its five member board since 1975.
- Forcing climate change into policy will damage health in many ways including stopping the use of forms of power that are reliable and keep us alive.
- Wind, hydrogen and carbon capture projects are being put on hold or abandoned completely. We cannot count on them in the near future, especially in Montana. Say NO to petition for a new rule that forces the PSC to consider climate change as they regulate utilities. Don’t back these costly failures.
- Getting rid of fossil fuel sources of power and pushing unreliable sources like solar and wind will have a huge negative impact on businesses, not only for utility companies but all businesses.
- There have been predicted crises in the U.S. for 50 years and they have so far been wrong in their predictions. Catalytic converters for car engines since the 1970s and other products developed from human genius have brought us cleaner air and water than we have had in decades.