http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20100105/DVTONLINE01/100104017/1053/DVTONLINE/Energy+task+force+ponders+its+future

January 5, 2010

Energy task force ponders its future

Bob Challinor, Desert Valley Times

Next Tuesday, Energy Task Force members will discover collectively whether their three-month hiatus has been spent in hibernation or incubation.

Council member Donna Fairchild, task force chair, and former chair Mayor Susan Holecheck both told committee members in October that the group’s charter was expiring. Holecheck encouraged the task force to cut apron strings with the city and set out on its own as a private, non-profit group.

Some task force members, however, thought the city should renew the committee’s charter.

Fairchild suggested that the group take a three-month hiatus to refocus and rebalance and then return Jan. 13 with new committee goals.

“I’ve talked to other members,” said Michele Burkett, who headed the Energy Fair subcommittee. “There has been no consensus. I’ve gone out and talked with people who said the group reached out and made the city much more progressive with a citizen’s committee that talked about energy. It’s hard to find a direction for the committee that makes everybody happy.

“The challenge is to find a new mission, a new purpose. Ultimately, it is the committee’s work trying to bring ideas together.”

“There is still a lot of work that needs to be done,” said council member and former task force member Karl Gustaveson. “It doesn’t have to be just about alternate energy. There’s Toquop and there’s community education about energy efficiency and conservation.”

“I think the city needs to provide a framework in which we would operate,” said task force member Arlis Swartzendruber. “Perhaps a vision. I’m not sure a committee like this can really function without a charge and some parameters. We’ve done quite a bit before, which resulted in BrightSource committing to a site near Mesquite. The committee accomplished quite a few of the goals it set out. We need the city to provide a framework and direction. We can make things happen, but it requires a framework.

“My experience on other committees in other locations is that we need to work hand in hand with the city. What we’d propose would need city approval and support. I have not received any indications about what the vision would be for the city, which includes development or support – infrastructure for the development. I’m not sure a committee could set that.”

Task force members agreed the committee had achieved goals that had been identified three years earlier when the group first formed: take steps to make Mesquite more of a green community, attract an alternate energy project to the area, raise community awareness about energy efficiency and conservation and educate the public about alternate energy options.

The committee also had a subcommittee that investigated possible amendment of city building ordinances to include best construction practices. But the recession arrived, severely curtailing construction and erasing the opportunity to incorporate green building practices and increased energy efficiency measures in construction.

The task force’s Energy Fair subcommittee organized an energy fair in May that attracted more than 15 vendors and more than 250 visitors to the CasaBlanca.

Early last year, the committee seemed poised to take a two-tiered approach, working to attract utility-level alternate energy projects and lead the way locally to increased energy efficiency and conservation in residences and commercial buildings.

But the committee met on fewer occasions, and some wondered if the task force had become rudderless. In October the group accepted Fairchild’s challenge to take three months off and think about setting new goals.

“I talked with (committee member) Bob Stone in passing a couple of months ago,” Fairchild said. “He was excited about the opportunity to start anew. With Michele (Burkett) going to New York and talking about our concerns with coal-fired plants, it gives us something to work with.

“All their experience helps us. I’m excited to see what new direction they want to take. I don’t think that I will guide them; I think the group will guide me. Based on the meeting, we may rewrite the charter. I want to see how often they want to meet and how many people they want in the group. We’ll work on the fine tune details, and then I want to make sure (city attorney) Cheryl (Hunt) has it on the agenda for the second council meeting in January so we can perhaps recommission.”

“Mesquite is an island,” Burkett said. “Even though we like Overton Power District as a provider, we’re still an island in Nevada. Most of the state enjoys the new energy package, including rebates, except for these very small towns. Energy is more important than ever.”

Burkett said an important voice in the community would be lost if the task force disbanded.

“I’m hoping they took the opportunity to refocus,” Fairchild said. “I’ve read some great stuff in the Review-Journal on solar and home weatherization. Those are things we can discuss. BrightSource is running into some roadblocks on BLM land in the Primm Valley. If it falls through, we might have the opportunity to have them build their solar project on Mormon Mesa sooner rather than later. That could be exciting news for us.

“I’m excited about the process. There are some tremendous people involved who are very passionate about renewable energy, going green and preserving resources. I think the group can help guide Mesquite into being smarter in energy use, which is a good thing because it’ll pay off down the road.”

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/2009/12/seasonal-greetings-lumps-of-coal-for-blackstone-and-jpmorgan-chase-ceos.html

Seasonal Greetings: Lumps of Coal for Blackstone and JPMorgan Chase CEOs

From Bruce Nilles, director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. This post was co-written by Tim Wagner of Resource Media

Nearly a year after the Bush administration left office, we’re still dealing with one of their fossil fuel legacies: an attempt to burden our economy and our climate with over 150 new dirty coal-fired power plants.

But of those 150 new plants proposed in Bush’s early years, we’ve seen over 100 of them cancelled or shelved indefinitely for a variety of reasons, including increased public opposition to dirty coal and the economic reality of trying to construct an unnecessary multi-billion dollar (yes, I said ‘billion’) power plant that will emit millions of tons of potentially-costly greenhouse gases every single year for a decades-long lifetime.

In other words, new coal plants in the 21st century make no sense. And yet apparently some giant Wall Street equity firms haven’t quite figured that out – including JPMorgan Chase and the Blackstone Group. Both corporations are funding the construction of new coal-fired power plants across the U.S.  Let’s focus on Blackstone, the firm with the most proposed plants.

As the majority owner and financier behind Sithe Global Power Company, LLC, a private energy developer with a heavy fossil fuels portfolio, Blackstone is willing to drop billions of investors’ dollars into three large and dirty coal plants: the 300-megawatt River Hill waste coal burner in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania; the 750-megawatt Toquop coal burner located just outside the beautiful deserts of Mesquite, Nevada; and the giant 1500-megawatt Desert Rock coal burner on the Navajo Reservation in northwestern New Mexico.

The largest of these dinosaurs, the Desert Rock plant in New Mexico, has had its air permit completely remanded by the Environmental Protection Agency itself after it was issued by the agency in the waning days of the Bush administration. The reason? A completely inadequate environmental analysis as required by the Clean Air Act.

In addition, the 470-mile Navajo Transmission Project needed to transmit Desert Rock’s power to Las Vegas and other markets has also seen its required environmental study and permit remanded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs due to similar analysis inadequacies.

And just last week, the Department of Energy (DOE) denied a $450 million grant request from Sithe Global to make one of Desert Rock’s generating units into a proposed carbon capture and storage pilot project.  The Desert Rock plant simply did not meet the criteria as required by DOE.

What does all this mean for the proposed $4+ billion Desert Rock coal plant, the Blackstone Group and its other coal plants? In today’s economy, where credit has been severely pinched and we have a citizenry that is crying out for more clean renewable energy to help thwart off the worst of climate change and to stimulate our economy, Desert Rock and other new coal plants are a foolish bet.

And while Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman is making these foolish bets, his neighbor down the street Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is financing destructive mountaintop removal coal mining and other risky new coal plants like Desert Rock.

So to get into the spirit of the season, tomorrow, Santa and the Sierra Club need your help to deliver our holiday greetings, complete with stockings full of coal, to Mr. Schwarzman and Mr. Dimon at their companies’ respective headquarters in New York City.  It’s clear they both deserve coal in their stockings.

We’ll be in front of the Blackstone Group headquarters in the morning to ask Mr. Schwarzman to get off our naughty list by ending plans for Blackstone’s three proposed coal plants.

After the Blackstone Group meeting we’ll convene at noon in front of JPMorgan Chase headquarters to encourage Mr. Dimon to stop supporting dangerous mountaintop removal coal mining and risky new coal plants.

If you can’t attend our rally in New York on December 15th you can visit our websites to take action.  Let’s tell these CEOs that our communities don’t want coal for the holidays, and neither should they.

You can also follow along with the day’s events on the @BlackstoneCoal Twitter account or the #nocoal hashtag.

http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/11930-1

No New Year’s Resolution from Blackstone on Coal

Public News Service – NV

December 23, 2009

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – You probably don’t send a thank-you note when you get a lump of coal as a present, so it appears the Blackstone Group won’t be responding to protestors who delivered a chunk of it to their office last week. Sierra Club activist Michele Burkett, Mesquite, traveled from Nevada to New York, where she put on an elf costume and joined a holiday protest in front of the Blackstone Group headquarters.

The protestors delivered a symbolic lump of coal, she says, to urge the company to rethink its backing of the Toqoup Energy Center in Mesquite. The plant will be powered by coal transported to Nevada by rail from outside the state, she adds.

“It seems ridiculous to us that they need to bring the coal all the way from Wyoming, when in Nevada we have this beautiful sunshine. It’s time for a new generation of power – and we’d like to see alternatives.”

The Blackstone Group did not return repeated calls for comment. The company has indicated it still plans to back coal-fired Sithe Global power plants in Nevada and New Mexico.

Santa and his “environment elves” also paid a surprise to visit to Mesquite on Tuesday afternoon, where they asked local residents to sign postcards calling for Blackstone to end its support for the coal plants.

Laurie Goodman, with the New Mexico Native American group Dine Care, says the Navajo Nation in San Juan County already has two coal-fired power plants. Before Blackstone pours money into a third proposed plant, called Desert Rock, she suggests company employees visit the reservation and just try breathing the local air.

“The number of people with respiratory problems and asthma has just gone through the roof, and we have little kids – 3- and 4-year-olds – having to carry oxygen because of the bad air. ”

Sithe Global says it is committed to being a responsible steward of the environment and that Blackstone is raising capital for what it terms a “clean-technology fund.” Goodman counters that respiratory ailments are now the number one reason local residents are admitted to the hospital.

Mike Clifford, Public News Service – NV

http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20091222/DVTONLINE01/91221008/1053/DVTONLINE/New+Yorkers+get+Toquop+message

December 22, 2009

New Yorkers get Toquop messaichele Burkett, left, wears an elf suit as she joins other protesters outside the headquarters of the Blackstone Group in New York. (Justin Wilson / Media Resources)ge

Bob Challinor, Desert Valley Times

Michele Burkett traveled all the way to New York City to give Stephen Schwarzman the Christmas present she thought he deserved – a lump of coal.

The gift was ironic and symbolic. Schwarzman is CEO of The Blackstone Group, the financial behemoth that owns 80 percent of Sithe Global, Inc., the company planning to build the Toquop coal-fired power plant 12 miles northwest of Mesquite. Blackstone also is financing two other large coal-burning plants, Desert Rock in the Navajo Nation and the River Hill project in Pennsylvania.

Burkett, president of Defend Our Desert and a member of the Energy Task Force, has led opposition to the Toquop plant ever since construction plans were revealed for it. Last week she appeared right outside The Blackstone Group’s headquarters.

Dressed as an elf and accompanied by Robert Disney of the Sierra Club, who appeared as Santa Claus, Burkett joined several other representatives and leaders from grass roots groups in a sidewalk protest below Schwarzman’s office. Burkett carried a stocking containing a lump of coal and a post card picturing a little boy breathing through an oxygen mask.

Christmas greeting on the card: “Stephen Schwarzman, there’s a reason you’re getting coal in your stocking this year.”

On the back of the card was another message: “Dear Stephen Schwarzman, If you go through with your plan to pollute our air with more dirty coal plants, we’re all going to have to ask Santa for oxygen tanks for Christmas. Please invest in clean, renewable energy instead.”

The anti-coal activists handed out coal and postcards to passers-by.

“It was an opportunity to tell our story,” Burkett said.

Burkett took advantage of other opportunities in the Big Apple. The hotel where she stayed happened to be next door to a restaurant that featured coal-fired pizza.

“Most pizza is baked in wood-fired ovens,” Burkett said. “This restaurant had coal-fired pizza ovens. We wanted to deliver coal to the CEO of Blackstone so we went to a reasonably-sized store looking for coal brickettes. We couldn’t find any, but we went back to the pizza kitchen and we got pieces of coal.”

Defend Our Desert was joined by activists from the Sierra Club, Diné Care and the San Juan Citizens Alliance who delivered their message to Blackstone.

“That morning we walked down to the Blackstone building on Park Avenue – it was about eight blocks from our hotel – and I was dressed as an elf and Robert was dressed as Santa,” Burkett said. “Most people say that people in New York won’t make eye contact. We had people who not only looked at us but actually said, ‘Santa, I’ve been good.’

“We had a permit to stand on the sidewalk and make noise. We handed out postcards. Police came over and said hello and were very nice. I had only been in New York once, and the reception this time was very unique. I found the city to be very friendly.

“We were there at 7:30 a.m. to catch business people heading into the building who might actually deliver the message. We had several business people at break time, about five or six young executives who approached us and asked what was going on. We talked about the future, how power plants were burning yesterday’s technology for 50 years. People were interested in our story.

“A Sierra Club man from New York said it was unusual to see so many New York people give us this kind of recognition. It really doesn’t resonate to New Yorkers where power comes from. We drive by Reid-Gardner (power plant) every day and see hydrological dams, but in New York people are not aware of what generates electricity.”

During the rally, Burkett spotted a man taking notes and watching the group.

“I approached him, and he was from the Wall Street Journal,” Burkett said. “He heard our story.”

And Daniel Hausmann included what Burkett told him in an article that appeared in the paper. Burkett and Disney said Nevada and New Mexico both have several clean energy options and don’t need to build more coal-fired power plants.

“We do think they have alternatives,” Burkett told Hausmann. “They could finance solar as easily as coal.”

“A Blackstone shareholder walked by our group and saw that we were protesting against Blackstone’s financial support of dirty coal plants,” Burkett said. “She said, ‘I’m Blackstone shareholder. What’s going on?’ She listened to our story and said, ‘I don’t agree with what’s going on. I’m going to write a letter to them.’”

Schwarzman’s financial support of coal-fired plants was a contrast to another corporate CEO’s stance, Burkett said.

“The word we use is corporate responsibility,” she said. “I saw a TV interview with the CEO of Pepsico on trying to do the right thing. When they take water out of the ground, they put it back. They try to ship more efficiently. Right now it’s voluntary to do these kinds of things, but smart companies recognize change is coming before regulation. Smart companies are making changes.”

Burkett also said it was fascinating to meet leaders from other activist groups.

“Lori Goodman of Diné Care is fighting against the Black Rock coal plant,” Burkett said. “She’s going against the Navajo Tribal Council that supports the new plant in New Mexico. San Juan Citizens Alliance leader Mike Eisenfeld said he and his group have watched the continuing pollution of the San Juan River exiting from plants in the Navajo Nation. It was great to meet the leaders of these grassroots groups.”

Burkett said it was most satisfying to connect to others who probably would not have known Defend Our Desert’s fight against the proposed Toquop coal-fired plant.

“I truly think being able to look into the eyes of people who I’ll never meet again and see them give us a nod that said, ‘You’re working on something important,’” Burkett said. “I felt that. I think the elf outfit breaks the barriers. It was an experience that won’t ever happen again in my life. It was quite unique.”

http://pavementpieces.com/holiday-protest-on-park-avenue/

H

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/scrapbook/2009/12/fighting-for-a-clean-energy-future-in-southern-utah.html#more

December 16, 2009

Fighting For a Clean Energy Future in Southern Utah

Before she was an environmental activist, Kai Reed operated her own fitness business, ran world-class ski events for the Park City Mountain Resort, and helped with logistics during the 2002 Salt Lake winter Olympics when she was the Director of Marketing for The Canyons Ski Resort.

In 1998 she and her husband John moved to the rural community of Ivins in southern Utah, near the small city of St. George, where she became a hiking and biking guide. As chair of the St. George Sports & Events Committee, she created the Cactus Hugger 10k running race and the 3-day Cactus Hugging Cycling Festival, and she continues to consult for other event organizers.

These days Reed is the Administrative Director for Citizens for Dixie’s Future, a grassroots coalition of citizens committed to protecting the natural resources and quality of life in Washington County, Utah. (Reed’s husband is on CDF’s Board of Directors.) Among the group’s top priorities are smart growth, clean air, and stopping the Toquop Energy Project, a proposed coal-fired power plant.

“Toquop grabbed our attention about two years ago,” Reed says. “It was originally proposed and permitted as a natural gas plant, but then Sithe Global bought the original company and changed the project to a coal-fired power plant, and they had to start all over again obtaining permits.”

The Toquop site lies near the Utah-Nevada border in Lincoln County, Nevada, near the Toquop indian Reservation and 12 miles north of the town of Mesquite. But St. George, below, is the largest population center in the area and lies downwind of the proposed plant.

Photo by Nick Christensen

“We were also downwind of the atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site,” says Reed, “so this is an incredibly hot-button issue around here.” St. George residents experienced significant spikes in cancer and leukemia rates in the aftermath of the atomic tests.

“Sithe, which is 80% owned by the Blackstone Group, claimed in a public meeting in St. George that they’d done testing and wind modeling and there would be no pollution in St. George,” Reed says. “Locals were incredulous.”

It turns out Sithe conducted its wind studies within a 30-mile radius of the proposed plant, as required by law. St. George, which lies 33 miles away, wasn’t included in the study.

CDF promptly kicked into gear with a “No Coal for Christmas” rally in St. George in December 2007. “We handed out Santa Claus hats, and I brought lumps of coal and pens & paper so people could write to Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons,” Reed syas. “We put a lump of coal in each envelope and sent off about 100 packets.” The event garnered media coverage statewide.

In February 2008 the Nevada Division of Air Quality held a public hearing in Mesquite, so CDF organized an event with a Valentine’s Day theme. Two volunteers from the nearby town of Virgin, Lyman and Stacey Whitaker, got a dozen schoolkids to make valentines that read, “Love Your Air.” A pep rally followed at the Episcopal Church in St. George, where two prominent local physicians spoke against the Toquop plant.

That evening, residents made more valentines, and the next day CDF bussed St. George residents to the hearing. “All the kids who made valentines made the trip, and the hearing was packed,” Reed says. CDF then gathered more than 1,200 signatures opposing Toquop and delivered them to Utah Governor Jon Huntsman.

Next, Reed contacted the Utah Division of Air Quality and got them to schedule a hearing at Dixie State College in St. George. “I promoted the event with emails and flyers, and it was standing room only—more than 250 people on a beautiful Saturday morning.”

The St. George City Council had previously supported the Toquop plant, but by now the opposition was gathering momentum, and at the hearing, the mayor of St. George strode down the aisle, took the microphone, and announced that the City Council had decided to oppose the Toquop plant. They officially did so then and there.

That fall, Reed got wind of a documentary, Fighting Goliath, produced by the Utah-based Redford Center, about a coalition of Texas citizens who successfully beat back 8 of 11 coal plants proposed to be built by TXU Energy. “I got ahold of the film’s producer and told him I wanted to show it in St. George,” Reed says. Through CDF and the Sierra Club, she was able to schedule seven screenings in Utah and Nevada, each followed by a panel discussion with clean energy and public health experts.

The screenings were scheduled less than two months before the 2008 elections, and Reed invited all the candidates for city council, county commissioner, and the state legislature from our district to attend the St. George screening and participate in a discussion about coal, renewable energy, and the Toquop plant. “We learned later that it was the largest audience the candidates spoke to the whole fall campaign,” she says.

This year, Reed arranged for CDF to host screenings of Coal Country and Kilowatt Ours, both sponsored in part by the Sierra Club, at which St. George city officials and representatives from Rocky Mountain Power gave presentations.

Reed also invited the economic development director of nearby Beaver County, Utah, to give a presentation in St. George on the Milford Wind Project, to be built by Baston-based First Wind. The facility will be the biggest wind farm in Utah, and will provide electricity to Southern California. The first phase of the project will include 97 wind turbines with the capacity to power nearly 50,000 homes per year. “More than 50 people came out for the mid-week presentation, which got good coverage in the local paper,” Reed says.

CDF is currently petitioning Sithe and Blackstone to abandon Toquop, and Reed is optimistic it will be stopped. “The BLM and the Nevada Division of Air Quality had planned to issue Toquop’s air permits nearly a year ago, but they haven’t been issued yet,” she says. “Public sentiment has turned sharply against the project over the last two years, and it’s the local issue that’s generated by far the most interest and public support. People realize we need to find alternatives to coal and look ahead to cleaner ways of producing our energy.”

Learn more about Toquop, and what you can to to help stop it.

http://www.pehub.com/58237/steve-schwarzman-gets-a-lump-of-goal-for-dirty-energy-plants/

Schwarzman Gets a Lump of Coal for Dirty Energy Plants

Posted on: December 15th, 2009

Blackstone Group

Buyout barons are no strangers to activist ire, although until now, it’s mostly been from the likes of the SEIU in relation to tax loopholes.

But today Blackstone Group and Steve Schwarzman have been singled out from a new group of protesters. As I type, a New Mexico-based group dressed as Santa (Roy Disney, Las Vegas and his elf, Michele Burkett, Mesquite, NV)  is paying the BX headquarters an unwanted visit.

The reason? Blackstone’s investment in Sithe Global, a coal company the firm acquired 80% of in 2005. Reservoir Capital which retained 20% ownership.

The activists, who hail from New Mexico, planned to deliver a lump of coal to Schwarzman because they oppose Sithe’s plan for three new dirty coal-burning power plants in their region, including one on a Navajo Reservation. The activists oppose the plants, saying they will impact the air quality and health of their communities. They’re calling for Sithe to build renewable energy plants instead. After all, why else did Blackstone form a cleantech group to advise portfolio companies on renewable energy strategies?

The most compelling part of the activist’s message, I think, is the comparison of Blackstone and Schwarzman with the communities being affected by Sithe’s decisions. For example, the per capita income in Mesquite, Nevada, population 9,389, was $20,191 as of the latest census (1999). The median family income was $42,941 in the same year. In contrast, Schwarzman in 2008 earned almost $1.4 billion; Blackstone manages $94.56 billion. It’s not comparing apples to apples (particularly given the years of the data) but it shows the balance of power here. That’s just my take and sadly, I’m not sure how much of a difference the little guy can make in this situation.

What might resonate more with Blackstone and financial types is the activist’s message about returns and strategy. The group writes, “Investors don’t want bad investments surrounded by uncertainty.” It may seem obvious, but if we had more detailed data on why dirty coal is a bad investment surrounded by uncertainty, Blackstone’s LPs might pay attention. And let’s face it, at the end of the day, money talks. Blackstone’s LPs are the only people the firm really has to answer to.

http://blogs.wsj.com/privateequity/2009/12/15/a-christmas-wish-for-blackstone-from-environmentalists/

December 15, 2009

Private Equity Beat

A Christmas Wish For Blackstone, From Environmentalists

Daniel Hausmann for Dow Jones

Santa and his elves have a wish for Blackstone Group this holiday season: less coal, please.

About 10 members of Sierra Club, Western Clean Energy Campaign, Dine Care and San Juan Citizens Alliance, most arriving in town Sunday from Nevada and New Mexico and some dressed in holiday costumes, protested for about two hours outside Blackstone Group LP’s headquarters Tuesday morning.

Their target was Blackstone portfolio company Sithe Global, which has coal plants either in operation or planned in Nevada and New Mexico, among other locales. The group thinks the two Western states have a glut of available clean energy options versus what they see as a potential pollutant.

The main attraction of the protest was Father Christmas himself, as played by Sierra Club senior regional representative for Nevada Rob Disney. “All the rest of the energy firms in Nevada are investing in renewable energy,” Disney, of Las Vegas, said. “I’m out here to ask [Blackstone Chief Executive] Steve Schwarzman to jump on the bandwagon with everyone else.”

“We do think they have alternatives, they could finance solar as easily as coal,” Michele Burkett, of Mesquite, Nev., said. Burkett was dressed as an elf; her hometown is about 11 miles south of Sithe’s Toquop Energy Project, a proposed 750 megawatt coal-fired power plant.

Santa was prepared for a ‘no’ answer, carrying a red mesh stocking with a lump of coal at the ready. But he didn’t get the chance to pose his question, as there were no Schwarzman sightings before the group dispersed at around 10 a.m.

So the group instead occupied itself by handing out about 250 postcards to passers-by in front of a banner that read “Keep Your Dirty Coal Out Of The Air We Breathe.”

One passerby, Meredith Sirna, said she has held stock in Blackstone since the firm’s 2007 initial public offering. Sirna said she supported the protesters and would be writing a letter to the firm.

“I think they should be doing alternative energy, there are plenty of green power sources, from windmills to the other stuff,” Sirna said. (For the record, Blackstone has been raising a $500 million clean-technology fund.) “I would have to look at the whole picture, it does affect my decision (to be a stockholder).”

Blackstone and Sithe declined to comment. Blackstone, along with Reservoir Capital Group, committed to invest up to $1.5 billion in Sithe in 2005 and owns 80% of the company. Environmental groups started their offense on Sithe in the summer; Blackstone has previously said that it is committed to being a responsible steward of the environment.

Friday, November 6, 2009
Blackstone/Sithe Global more dirty coal power plants

Contact: Mark Kresowik, Sierra Club, 202-675-7914, or 319-627-7393
Mike Eisenfeld, San Juan Citizens Alliance, 505-325-6724, or 505-360-8994

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/11/blackstonesithe-global-more-dirty-coal.html

BLACKSTONE REPORTS 3Q PROFITS BUT CONTINUES

WITH RISKY COAL PLANTS

Citizens: ‘Bring us clean energy, no dirty coal’

Photo: Navajos protest Sithe Global in New York. Blackstone cofounder Stephen Scharzman is a 1969 member of the Bush elite secret society Skull and Bones.

FARMINGTON, N.M. – As the Blackstone Group executives proudly hyped their new found profitability in today’s third quarter earnings call with financial reporters, the one component of their equity portfolio they failed to discuss was their misaligned ownership of the energy developer, Sithe Global, Inc.

Sithe is proposing to develop three large dirty coal power plants around the county, including the River Hill waste coal project in Pennsylvania, the Toquop coal plant near Mesquite, Nevada, and the Desert Rock coal plant near Farmington, New Mexico. All three of the plants have met stiff opposition from locals, including the Mayor of Mesquite, Susan Holecheck, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and several groups within the Navajo Nation where Desert Rock would be located.

None of the plants have the needed permits from local and state regulators. The air permit for Desert Rock was issued in 2008 by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Bush Administration but was remanded by the agency in August over significant concerns of inadequate environmental analysis.

Sithe’s attempts to construct the plants come at a time when building coal plants has fallen out of favor in the financial world. Over 100 of 150 such plants proposed in the early days of the Bush administration have been shelved permanently or indefinitely due to financial difficulties, market uncertainties, increasing public support for cleaner energy and opposition to coal, and the strong likelihood that Congress will enact some type of accountability for carbon-based fuels in order to address global warming.

In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency has already initiated new rules for further reductions of mercury, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants, as well as implementing regulations for the control coal ash waste disposal sites.

“We find it amazing that even as Blackstone returns to profitability and restructures some of the companies they own, at least one of their holdings continues to throw roughly $7 billion dollars at these incredibly risky and unnecessary projects,” says Mark Kresowik, Corporate Accountability Representative for the Sierra Club. “It would seem that someone at Blackstone might want to do a little more due diligence.”

The Desert Rock plant, a proposed 1500 MW coal burner, has come under increased scrutiny this year after it was determined that the permit was issued without the necessary environmental oversight, hence the permit remand. In recent months, Sithe has attempted to make the project appear green by extolling the plant as a possible site for a carbon capture and sequestration pilot project. But that concept has been met with local skepticism.

“Sithe has said all along that Desert Rock can not be made into a CCS project simply because the process has yet to be proven on a large commercial scale,” said Mike Eisenfeld, of the San Juan Citizens Alliance in Farmington. “We know this to be true, and besides, Sithe even states this on their web site.”

In addition, Eisenfeld said that the geology in the area may not be suited for carbon storage, particularly at the volume that would be produced from Desert Rock. He said that the plant would produce over 10-12 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.

“In order to deal with the complexity of CCS, they first have to go through an entire new permitting process for this plant both through the EPA and the Department of Interior,” said Eisenfeld. “We’re convinced that, first of all, Blackstone doesn’t understand the financial boondoggle they’ve assumed, and second, the entire discussion about CCS with Desert Rock appears to be a green wash in order to convince investors that the plant will have minimum impact. They should come down here and see the area for themselves.”

Tim Wagner
Program Director
Resource Media
150 S. 600 E., Suite 2B
Salt Lake City, UT 84105

Office – 801-364-1668
Mobile – 801-502-5450
tim@resource-media.org

http://www.resource-media.org/

Posted by brendanorrell@gmail.com at 12:51 PM

For Immediate Release
Contacts:
Mike Eisenfeld, San Juan Citizens Alliance 505 360-8994
Lori Goodman, DINÉ Care (Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment) (970) 259-0199
Janette Brimmer, staff attorney, Earthjustice – (206)343-7340((206) 343-7340206) 343-7340

EPA REMANDS PERMIT FOR DESERT ROCK COAL PLANT

Groups Praise Environmental Protection Agency Oversight

San Francisco (CA) – The long-contested air permit for the controversial Sithe Global Desert Rock coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Reservation was officially revoked by the Environmental Protection Agency today due to confirmed deficiencies in the permit’s environmental analysis.

The appeal was filed in August of 2008 with the Environmental Appeals Board in Washington DC by attorneys for DINÉ Care, Environmental Defense Fund, Grand Canyon Trust, Natural Resources Defense Council, San Juan Citizens Alliance, Sierra Club, and WildEarth Guardians. Alleged in the appeal were “numerous significant substantive and procedural errors” in the environmental analysis of the permit process.

In a rare move, the EPA’s Region 9 office in San Francisco requested in April of this year that the EAB voluntarily remand the permit, before the Board had fully reviewed the appeal. In it’s motion, Region 9 stated, “Given the number of the issues in the appeal that Region 9 seeks to reconsider and the prior withdrawal of a portion of the permitting record by Region 9, a complete remand of the Final PSD Permit and administrative record will promote efficiency in the Agency’s decision-making and potentially enable Region 9 to resolve several disputed issues.”  Among the issues are inadequate analysis of Desert Rock’s particulate matter, mercury, ozone precursor, and carbon dioxide emissions, and failure to consult with other agencies on the permit.

Today’s decision to officially remand the permit brought praise for the appellants.

“We’ve been saying for a long time that the Desert Rock permit process was flawed from the start due to existing adverse environmental and human public health conditions,” said Lori Goodman with DINÉ Care. “This situation would be worsened by the addition of Desert Rock. We are thankful that EPA has now stepped up to uphold the law and look out for the health of the people of the Four Corners Region, including the Navajo Nation.”

“This is a coal plant that should never be built,” said Mike Eisenfeld with SJCA. “It’s time for Sithe Global to consider some of their expertise in siting renewable energy in the region rather than continuing to bankroll the Desert Rock project that has insurmountable issues.”

“We firmly believe that the EPA has accepted and acknowledged their responsibilities to evaluate Desert Rock under the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act,” said Janette Brimmer with Earthjustice in Seattle, attorneys for several groups including Dine’ Care and San Juan Citizens Alliance. “Given this remand, we now have a chance to ensure that EPA fully complies with all legal requirements and properly applies good science in order to fully protect the air and all the residents of this beautiful region of the county.”