Environment Archives - Page 50 of 106

Geophysicists link fracking boom to increase in earthquakes

By SEAN COCKERHAM

McClatchy Washington Bureau May 1, 2014

WASHINGTON — The swarm of earthquakes went on for months in North Central Texas, rattling homes, with reports of broken water pipes and cracked walls and locals blaming the shudders on the hydraulic fracturing boom that’s led to skyrocketing oil and gas production around the nation.

Darlia Hobbs, who lives on Eagle Mountain Lake, about a dozen miles from Fort Worth, said that more than 30 quakes hit from November to January.

“We have had way too many earthquakes out here because of the fracking and disposal wells,” she said in an interview.

While the dispute over the cause remains, leading geophysicists are now saying Hobbs and other residents might be right to point the finger at oil and gas activities.

“It is certainly possible, and in large part that is based on what else we’ve seen in the Fort Worth basin in terms of the rise of earthquakes since 2008,” William Ellsworth, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist, said in an interview Thursday.

Ellsworth said the Dallas-Fort Worth region previously had just a single known earthquake, in 1950.

Since 2008, he said, more than 70 have been big enough to feel. Those include earthquakes at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport that scientists linked to a nearby injection well.

Ellsworth briefed his colleagues on his findings Thursday at the Seismological Society of America’s annual meeting in Anchorage.

Researchers also are investigating links between quakes in Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio and elsewhere to oil and gas activities. USGS seismologist Art McGarr said it was clear that deep disposal of drilling waste was responsible for at least some of the quakes in the heartland.

“It is only a tiny fraction of the disposal wells that cause earthquakes large enough to be felt, and occasionally cause damage,” McGarr said. “But there are so many wells distributed throughout much of the U.S., they still add significantly to the total seismic hazard.”

While causes are under debate, it’s established that earthquakes have spiked along with America’s fracking boom. The USGS reports that an average of more than 100 earthquakes a year with a magnitude of 3.0 or more hit the central and eastern U.S. in the past four years.

That compares with an average rate of only 20 observed quakes a year in the decades from 1970 to 2000.

Regulators in Ohio found what they said was a probable connection between small quakes in the northeast corner of that state and the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which high-pressure water and chemicals are pumped underground to break up shale rock and release the oil and natural gas inside.

But the USGS considers it very rare for fracking itself to cause earthquakes. Far more often the issue is quakes caused by the disposal of the wastewater into wells.

Fracking produces large amounts of wastewater, which companies often pump deep underground as an economical way to dispose of it. Injection raises the underground pressure and can effectively lubricate fault lines, weakening them and causing quakes, according to the USGS.

USGS seismologist Ellsworth said that near Fort Worth, two disposal wells were close enough to the earthquakes to be responsible. He said more research was needed.

Ellsworth and his colleagues, including seismologists from Southern Methodist University, in their presentation Thursday ruled out the idea that the falling level of a nearby lake might be contributing. But he said they couldn’t entirely reject the possibility of other natural causes — despite earthquakes being virtually unheard of in the region before 2008, which matches the start of the fracking boom.

Hobbs, of Eagle Mountain Lake, Texas, said she’d lived in the area since 1967 and never even considered the possibility of earthquakes.

“It’s spooky,” she said.

Climate Change is Real, Let’s Fight It Together

Quinault Nation Press Release

President Fawn Sharp of the Quinault Indian Nation says she is happy to participate on the Carbon Emissions Reduction Task Force Governor Jay Inslee created by executive order yesterday [April 29], but advises that “genuine state-tribal cooperation, communication and government-to-government relations will be essential to the success of any effort to address the many challenges posed by climate change.”

Sharp, who is also President of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, encompassing six Northwest states, and Area Vice President of the National Congress of American Indians, is the only tribal member of the Governor’s task force.

President Sharp said, “Climate Change is the greatest environmental disaster of our generation and its impacts are felt both near and far. The fact is that tribes have preceded other governments in addressing climate change issues, and it is time for our words to be heard, our warnings to be acknowledged and our programs to be recognized.”

She said the reason tribes have moved forward with programs to address the effects of climate change while other governments have been stymied is that it is embedded in the tribal culture to care for the land in a sustainable manner. “Stewardship of our natural resources and environment is something we learn at a young age. We understand the big picture—the economic, policy, environmental and cultural values of sustainability and the responsibility we all have to our children and future generations. Those are the values that must be prioritized if we are to meet the climate change challenge.”

In signing the order, the Governor outlined a series of steps to cut carbon pollution in Washington and advance development and use of clean energy technologies, and said, “This is the right time to act, the right place to act and we are the right people to act. We will engage the right people, consider the right options, ask the right questions and come to the right answers — answers that work for Washington.”

“Whether it’s the warming of the Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Sandy, the tornadoes across the country or the Oso landslide, the melting of our Mt. Anderson Glacier or the breaching of our Taholah seawall, the link to climate change is clear to us. It has been for a long time. And so is the absolute need to take action,” said Sharp.

“It’s a primary reason why I have agreed to work with the Governor on his Carbon Emissions Reduction Task Force. It’s a key reason why we have taken a strong stand against the proposal to build oil terminals in Grays Harbor and substantially increase the number and frequency of oil trains and tankers. It’s why we are reaching out to strengthen alliances with neighboring communities and entities of all kinds and it’s why we have been so heavily engaged in the effort to resolve the climate change challenge for many years — through political, education and habitat-related programs.

“Quinault is a nation of people who, like their ancestors for thousands of years, fish, hunt and gather. The core of our economy is based on health and sustainable natural resources—a clean and vibrant ecosystem. We are also a nation blessed with thousands of acres of forest land. We do not manage our forests to the detriment of our fishing and hunting, but the other way around. Managing holistically, with respect for our descendants, and their needs is the key. These are the lessons of our ancestors, lessons that oil tycoons and timber barons never learned to appreciate.

We are a people who are determined to practice good stewardship. Sometimes that means doing habitat work in the Quinault River, something we have done extensively for many years. Sometimes it means taking part in international climate change summits—providing a leadership role in such efforts as the United Nations’ Conference of Parties (COP 14) in Poznan, Poland in 2009 or the First Stewards Summit in Washington D.C.,” said Sharp.

Quinault Nation established a comprehensive set of climate change policies in 2009, before Congress considered introducing its national policies. We have advocated and advanced our climate change-related interests locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. “We have asked the President and Congress to understand the connection between climate change and such impacts as the decline of our Blueback salmon run and the destruction that is now occurring with shellfish and other species in the ocean due to acidification and hypoxia. Other tribes have worked alongside us, pushing for action by the State of Washington, the United States and the United Nations, for many years. It is our heritage, and right, to do so,” said Sharp.

“We believe it’s time to call to end the nonsensical debate in the Legislature and in Congress about whether it exists. It does, and it is very serious.

“Year in and year out we are all facing the deadly consequences of a century of environmental contempt, and ignoring that fact will not make the challenge go away. It is time for people to treat our natural environment with the respect it deserves,” she said.

Wash. Port Releases New Lease Details For Oil-by-Rail Terminal

The Columbian

The Port of Vancouver on Wednesday released an updated version of its lease for the Northwest’s largest oil-by-rail transfer terminal, featuring fewer censored details but maintaining redactions of key issues the port considers sensitive.

The port released the updated version of its lease (429 pages in electronic format) with Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies in response to multiple requests made in April by various parties, including the Columbian and The Oregonian newspapers, Theresa Wagner, the port’s communications manager, said Wednesday.

In the original version of the lease, the port had kept secret a total of 22 pieces of information. In the updated rendition, the port revealed 11 of those 22 pieces of information, Wagner said.

One revelation: The port is allowed to terminate the lease if Tesoro and Savage fail to launch construction within four months after both parties are presumed to have fulfilled certain other contractual obligations.

Previously, the port had censored the companies’ construction timeline.

Still kept a secret, however, are the number of months — since the effective date of the lease — the port and companies have to cancel the lease early if either party fails to meet their contractual obligations.

Exactly how those obligations, known as “conditions precedent,” work isn’t entirely clear. An obvious allowed reason for cancelling the deal is if Tesoro and Savage fail to obtain permits from state regulators.

The companies submitted their permit application to the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council on Aug. 29, seeking to handle as much as 380,000 barrels of oil per day for eventual conversion into transportation fuel. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has the final say over the project.

Another disclosure the port made Wednesday: If Tesoro and Savage move a certain average volume of oil per day for 30 months after they start making rent payments to the port, then the companies get to keep exclusive rights to run an oil terminal at the port.

The port, under that scenario, wouldn’t be able to lease property to a new tenant who also wants to handle crude oil.

Previously, the port had censored how long the companies would have to maintain certain oil volumes to keep their exclusivity rights.

However, the oil volumes — and the date on which the companies start paying rent to the port — are still unknown, because the port kept them redacted in the updated version of its lease.

The port also maintained redactions of the amounts of wharf and dockage fees it will charge Tesoro and Savage. Those unknown fees are in addition to lease revenue that’s already known: The agreement involves 42 acres and is worth at least $45 million to the port over an initial 10 years.

The port is maintaining certain redactions under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, saying that if certain pieces of information were made public, it would harm the port in various ways, including damaging its competitiveness and its ability to negotiate

Wagner said the port chose to reveal certain pieces of information because they’ve either become known from the Tesoro-Savage permit application or by way of public presentations given by the companies.

However, a Vancouver city attorney has questioned the port’s redactions. In a Feb. 18 email to the port, two weeks after he’d received and reviewed the lease, Bronson Potter, chief assistant city attorney, wrote that it’s “doubtful that any of the information redacted would qualify as being a ‘trade secret.’?”

The port’s lease also gives Tesoro and Savage first rights on leasing additional property to expand if the average amount of oil moved by the first facility exceeds certain barrels-per-day targets. Those targets remain unknown, because the port kept them secret in the updated version of its lease.

Tesoro and Savage would have to seek another round of permits to expand or build another facility.

Swinomish Tribe measures changes to shellfish over decades on Kukutali Preserve

Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.com

Apr 29th, 2014

The never-realized plans to build a nuclear power plant on Kiket Island has a legacy that’s proven useful to the Swinomish Tribe.

The 1969 power plant proposal attracted researchers to study the island’s ecology. Among these was then-graduate student Jon Houghton, who established permanent transects around Kiket Island to study intertidal ecology and measure, among other things, clam density and biomass. In 2011, Swinomish shellfish biologist Julie Barber worked with the tribe’s water resources program to survey the same transects as Houghton to quantify ecological change over the past four decades.

Tiffany Hoyopatubbi, water resources specialist, uses a quadrat to sample shellfish species on the beach on Kukutali Preserve

In the decades since the power plant plans were scrapped, Kiket Island was privately owned. For at least the past two decades, tribal members were discouraged by upland owners from harvesting on the tribally owned tidelands. This long-term lack of harvest pressure now provides Swinomish with the unusual opportunity to study unharvested clam populations.

In 2010, the Swinomish Tribe and the state of Washington purchased the island and now jointly manage it as the Kukutali Preserve.

At the time of Houghton’s surveys, butter clams were the preferred shellfish harvested on Kiket Island. Since no one had been harvesting there for two decades, Barber was not surprised to learn that the number and size of butter clams has increased substantially since the 1970s.

The biomass of native littleneck clams, on the other hand, has declined significantly, and researchers don’t know why.

Comparing the data from Kiket Island with other nearby beaches shows that the littleneck clam decline appears to be a trend. The increase in butter clams is believed to be a trend on these other beaches as well, but Barber doesn’t have enough data yet to know for sure.

Barber is working with other tribes and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to compare data throughout the region. Her eventual goal is to create a Puget Sound map that shows the temporal change in bivalve biomass by bivalve management region.

“That would help us at least map out where these changes are occurring,” she said. “You can’t easily find out why this is happening until you know where these changes are happening.”

Swinomish staff who assisted in the surveys included Todd Mitchell, Tiffany Hoyopatubbi, Tanisha Gobert, Courtney Greiner and Jennifer Ratfield.

For more information, contact: Julie Barber, shellfish biologist, Swinomish Tribe, 360-466-7315 or jbarber@skagitcoop.org; Kari Neumeyer, information officer, NWIFC, 360-424-8226 or kneumeyer@nwifc.org.

U.S., Canadian, tribal leaders discuss Salish Sea’s environmental, economic concerns

April 30, 2014 By ELLIOTT SMITH

As featured in The Bellingham Herald

This isn’t breaking news, but salmon and orcas don’t stop at the border. They don’t show passports and clear customs or shop at the duty-free store.

The environment doesn’t stop at the border and neither does the economy. A healthy economy depends on a healthy environment and we must work across the border with our Canadian and tribal/First Nations partners to ensure both.

Salish Sea and tribal nations. Map source: Seattle University

This week in Seattle, Western Washington University is the proud lead organizer of the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference bringing together about 1,200 of the top marine science professionals, First Nations and tribal leaders, industry executives and policymakers who make decisions about resource management on our shared waters. The Salish Sea encompasses all of the inland marine waters of southern B.C. and Western Washington, from the Johnstone Strait at the top of Vancouver Island to the bottom of Puget Sound near Olympia. The Salish Sea also includes the Georgia Strait in Whatcom County and B.C., as well as the San Juan Islands, Hood Canal and the Strait of Juan de Fuca out to the Pacific Ocean.

Our region’s future demands that we have serious conversations across international and jurisdictional boundaries about the decisions before us in marine resource management. Since the 1970s, Western has reached beyond the Canada/USA border with our research and teaching on environmental and economic issues. WWU’s Huxley College of the Environment and Center for Canadian-American Studies have been leaders in thinking, and acting, across the border with common sense solutions for over 40 years.

This week, we live it.

This is not underwater tree hugging. The Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference is an important dialogue about the future of our marine waters and the jobs that depend on them.

We cannot just yell at each other about coal trains and jobs. We must sit down at the table together and weigh the pros and cons of decisions that will affect our children’s health and economic well-being for generations to come.

This week, Western provides that table, and the forum for the exchange of information that will lead to intelligent decisions. More than 450 scientific presentations will be delivered this week at the Washington State Convention Center by scientists from both sides of the border. The goal is, quite simply, to provide the best scientific and policy research that can lead to decisions that will foster the long-term health of the Salish sea and the economy that depends on it.

It is crucial that we work with our neighbors and partners to understand the latest scientific research, so we can make the smartest decisions for our region’s future. Western Washington University’s mission is to serve the people of our region by encouraging learning. This week, we proudly carry that mission forward as lead organizer of the Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference.

Bellingham is at the heart of the Salish Sea, and WWU is proud to be at the heart of this important conference.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elliott Smith is the 2014 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference Administrator at WWU. Find him on twitter at @soundslikepuget.

Empowering Tribes to Address Energy Needs and Development Opportunities

U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, April 30, 2014

U.S. SENATE – Today at a U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing Chairman Jon Tester and Vice Chairman John Barrasso called for increased energy development on tribal lands.

The hearing was held to consider ways to improve the ability of Indian tribes to responsibly develop their natural resources, including the Indian Tribal Energy Development and Self-Determination Act Amendments of 2014 (S. 2132). This bill is intended to remove the burdensome and lengthy approval processes that currently cause potential development partners to look elsewhere for energy projects.

In 2005, Congress enacted legislation to allow tribes to develop their energy resources without the Secretary of the Interior’s approval of individual projects, provided the tribe had an approved Tribal Energy Resource Agreement (TERA).

“Sadly, however, the Energy Policy Act has not been successful,” said Kevin Washburn, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Washburn added that since promulgation of the Department’s TERA regulations in 2008, the Department has not received a single TERA application.

Tester, who is working to revive the recently expired Indian Coal Production tax credit said, “Energy development has the potential to provide stable economic environments for tribes, their members and surrounding communities. There is no entity better qualified to oversee and manage tribal resources than the tribes themselves. We need to simplify and expedite the TERA process, but also further promote the development of alternative energy sources such as solar, biomass and hydroelectric projects.”

Barrasso said, “Energy development on tribal lands is critical for economic growth and job creation in Indian Country. By streamlining the approval process, this bill will give folks in Indian Country the tools they need to spur economic growth and create good paying jobs in their communities.”

James M. “Mike” Olguin, Acting Chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council, said, “The tragic consequence of no approved TERAs and a continued reliance upon federal supervision has been the incredible lost opportunities to develop Indian energy resources during the period between 2005 and today.”

Michael O. Finley, Chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, said, “Potential partners and development capital sit on the sidelines because it takes years to get anything approved by the Department of the Interior. Indian Country needs an institutionalized answer to the ongoing challenge of burdensome bureaucratic processes and delay of tribal energy leasing and permitting.”

Bird Group Sues Over Federal ‘Take Permits’ Allowing Eagle Deaths At Wind Farms

A national bird conservation group is going to sue the federal government over a 30-year permit it will issue to wind farms. | credit: Flickr Creative Commons: ahisgett

By Courtney Flatt, Northwest Public Radio

It’s essentially a fight between conservation-minded groups. On one side, renewable energy companies want to build wind farms. On the other side, bird advocates don’t want those giant, blade-spinning wind turbines to harm bald and golden eagles.

Now, a national bird conservation group is going to sue the federal government over a 30-year permit it will issue to wind farms.

The permit will allow wind farms to legally kill a certain number of eagles. The birds are shielded by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Matthew Stuber, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 1 eagle permit coordinator, said take permits have been an important management tool since 2009.

“A permit allows an activity to happen that needs to happen. And in doing so, it gets the best possible thing for the eagles. We’re actually able to get conservation, and hopefully in the long run, prevent that nest from begin disturbed at all by that activity.” Stuber said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service originally wanted to grant five-year permit. West Butte Wind Farm in Central Oregon was the first facility in the nation to apply for a five-year “take” permit.

But the wind industry complained that five years was not enough time to find financial backers and get the project up and running. It wanted more continuity.

Now, to provide that continuity for wind farms, the service has extended the permit to 30 years. Permits must be reviewed every five years.

The American Bird Conservancy is suing the U.S. Department of Interior over the 30-year rule.

Michael Hutchins, the American Bird Conservancy’s bird-smart wind energy coordinator, the 30-year permit will make the process less transparent.

“Data on things like bird fatalities at a particular institution might be hidden from us, and therefore, it would be very difficult to do a legitimate review of what is exactly going on at any one of those facilities,” Hutchins said.

For its part, the Fish and Wildlife Service says this 30-year permit means regulators will have to anticipate more problems ahead of time.

“Before we issue a permit, since it’s a lot longer time frame, we need to try to foresee more possible situations and have a better, what we call, adaptive management plan as a part of these permits. That way, when we come in for the five-year check-in, we have things on paper of what we’ll do to respond to certain situations,” Stuber said.

Companies mitigate for eagle deaths upfront. One way to do that is to retrofit existing power poles, where historically, a lot of eagles have been electrocuted when their wings touch two power lines at the same time.

Fish and Wildlife officials say they can quantify how many eagles will be saved be retrofitting a certain number of power poles.

Hutchins said the American Bird Conservancy is not against wind energy. He said wind farms need to be sited properly to not disturb or kill eagles, even if they are producing green energy.

“It’s just a really big price to pay. I don’t think that we can see these resources as collateral damage to try to win the fight on climate change,” Hutchins said.

Bird Mortality at Wind Farms

Growers Tell Congress Pesticide Ban Won’t Solve Bee Problems

Oregon growers testified in Congress that the government should take a scientific approach to banning pesticides. | credit: University of California-Davis

By Eric Mortenson, Capital Pres

Instead of banning the neonicotinoid class of pesticides, Congress should follow Oregon’s example and use a collaborative and science-based approach to improving honeybee health, the executive director of the Oregon Association of Nurseries said.

OAN director Jeff Stone told a congressional subcommittee that the state’s nursery industry depends on pollinators, but also relies on chemical agents to kill pests and protect plant health.

“This chemical class, when used properly, is vital to the success of our industry,” Stone told members of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Horticulture, Research, Biotechnology and Foreign Agriculture.

The subcommittee, which includes Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader and Washington Rep. Suzan K. DelBene, invited testimony on pollinator health — a hot topic as honey bees have been decimated by colony collapse disorder.

Some researchers believe hive loss could be caused by a combination of parasites, nutrition problems or the stress of being moved long distances. Many beekeepers truck hives across farming regions each spring, pollinating crops in rotation as the season advances.

Others conclude heavy pesticide use — especially neonicotinoids — disrupts bee behavior, kills them outright or weakens them to the point they are susceptible to illness or infection. Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenaur last year introduced legislation that would ban neonicotinoids, a synthetic pesticide.

Stone said there are alternatives, and described how Oregon handled spraying incidents in which thousands of bees were killed in 2013. The Oregon Department of Agriculture temporarily restricted the use of dinotefuran and imidacloprid, both neonicotinoids. An education campaign told people not to use the sprays on flowering linden and basswood trees.

Other speakers testifying included Dan Cummings, an almond and walnut grower in Hamilton, Calif., and chair of the Almond Board of California Bee Task Force.

Cummings said about 1.6 million honeybee colonies — approximately two thirds of all the commercially kept honeybees in the United States — are needed to pollinate California’s almond orchards. The orchards are completely dependent on honeybees for pollination, he said.

The Almond Board of California funds honeybee research, spending $2.3 million in health projects since 1995, Cummings said. “Without honeybees, there would be no crop,” he said.

Jeff Pettis, lead researcher at the USDA’s bee lab in Maryland, said a parasite called the varroa mite is wreaking havoc on honey bees. It’s full name is “Varroa destructor,” he said, “and it is perhaps the most aptly named parasite to enter this country. Varroa destructor is a modern honey bee plague.”

When Varroa destructor was first detected in the U.S. in 1987, beekeepers managed more than 3 million colonies for crop pollination and their winter hive losses ranged from 10 to 15 percent annually, Pettis told the committee. Beekeepers now have about 2.5 million colonies and winter hive losses average more than 30 percent per year.

“The economic sustainability of beekeeping is at the tipping point,” Pettis said.

Researchers Detect Fukushima Radiation in Albacore Tuna Caught off Oregon Coast

Researchers check albacore tuna caught off Oregon Coast radiation from Fukushima, Japan. | credit: Oregon State University | rollover image for more — Researchers check albacore tuna caught off Oregon Coast radiation from Fukushima, Japan. | credit: Oregon State University

By Angela Kellner, KLCC

Researchers at Oregon State University have found trace levels of radiation from Fukushima in albacore tuna caught off the Oregon coast. Results of the study are being published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was destroyed by the earthquake that hit Japan in 2011. Radiation has made its way into the Pacific Ocean, raising concerns about exposure to Cesium-134 and 137.

Two OSU researchers, Jason Phillips and Delvan Neville, looked specifically at albacore tuna. The large fish migrate far distances and are near the top of the aquatic food chain. The study found detectable levels of Fukushima radiation in the 4-year-old fish. The majority of age 3 fish had no detectable level of Cesium-134. Neville said the amount found is very small compared to the radiation people are exposed to everyday.

“A year of albacore, which for the average American is about 16 pounds, at the highest concentration we saw is the same dose you’d get by spending 23-seconds in a stuffy basement,” Neville said.

Other authors of the study were Richard Brodeur of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, and Kathryn Higley of the OSU Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics. The study was supported by OSU and NOAA, with continued support from the Oregon Sea Grant.

Neville said the next round of research will study a larger number of albacore. For his dissertation, Neville will examine the near-surface food web along the coasts of Washington, Oregon and Northern California.

Wash. Gov. Inslee Signs Executive Order On State Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions

Ashley Ahearn, KUOW

SHORELINE, Wash. — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday signed an executive oder aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The order creates a task force and charges it with deciding how to tax and cap carbon emissions at the state level. The task force will present a plan to the state Legislature at the beginning of 2015.

The executive order also calls on state agencies to work on phasing out coal power, improving energy efficiency in buildings and exploring the impacts of a low carbon fuel standard – among other things

The first-term Democrat surrounded himself with symbols of the green-tech future he’d like to bring about: he signed the document at a table made out of a solar panel with electric cars parked nearby. Along with politicians, the event was witnessed by the next generation of automotive techs looking on at Shoreline Community College’s Automotive Training Center.

“Today I’m signing an executive order that will determine how we reduce carbon pollution in our state because our grandkids won’t care much for our preamble or our speeches,” Inslee said during the event. “They will care about what is true and what we did.”

Inslee stressed the need for buy-in from business leaders in developing the plan.

Ada Healey, a vice president with Vulcan Real Estate Group, will serve on the task force. She said the company’s chairman, billionaire Paul Allen, and CEO Jody Allen are behind the push to address climate change.

“It’s troubling to them, as well as all of us, that we’re still debating whether climate change is a real concern rather than pulling together and deciding what we’re going to do about it,” Healy said.

Instituting a tax or cap on carbon emissions will require the approval of the state Legislature. That’s been hard to get so far.

Last year Inslee convened the bipartisan Climate Legislative and Executive Work Group. It was supposed to pursue the same agenda as that set by the governor for his new task force. But Democrats and Republicans on the work group failed to reach an agreement.

Democratic members of the panel issued a report that recommended many of the same strategies the governor is now pursuing through executive order.

Republicans on the panel issued their own minority report. It recommended incentivizing more hydropower generation in Washington, embracing nuclear power and promoting research and development of new energy technologies. Throughout the CLEW process, the Republicans cautioned that strategies to reduce carbon emissions in Washington could drive up the cost of energy and hurt the state economically.

Olympia environmental attorney Jay Manning was the head of the Department of Ecology from 2005-09 and then served as chief of staff for former Gov. Chris Gregoire. He said Inslee’s experience as a state and federal representative means he knows it will be tough to get a carbon tax or cap through the state Legislature.

“I don’t think anybody thinks it’s going to be easy but that’s how the process works. So I applaud the gov for putting together this process and then there will be a lively debate, without a doubt in the 2015 session,” Manning said.

So far, Washington is not on track to meet emissions reductions goals set by the state Legislature back in 2008.

Inslee’s order calls on his budget office to conduct a feasibility study of a California-style low-carbon or “clean fuel” standard. This is a requirement that transportation fuels like gasoline be blended with lower-carbon ethanol. According to Inslee’s office, transportation accounts for 44-percent of Washington’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

In recent months, Washington Republicans and the oil and gas industry have sounded the alarm about a low-carbon fuel standard, warning it would drive up the cost of a gallon of gasoline. Oregon is currently in the process of writing its own rules for a similar standard.

Washington, with its abundant hydropower, is considered a low greenhouse gas emitting state. In 2010, total emissions were 96.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, according to the state’s consultant. Washington’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is from gasoline burned by cars and trucks. Electricity from coal is the second largest source.