EPA faces legal battles, might take easy confirmation road

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson testifies at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 22, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 31, 2012 10:34am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Regardless of who takes the reins, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will likely face continued legal battles in President Barack Obama's second term as it tries to finalize pollution rules for power plants, analysts said.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who spearheaded the Obama administration's regulation of carbon emissions, said on Thursday she will step down after almost four years.

Her tenure was marked by opposition from industry groups and Republican lawmakers to the EPA's first-ever crackdown on carbon emissions, as well as other anti-pollution measures.

Analysts said whoever succeeds Jackson will probably face a spate of lawsuits to challenge rules that the EPA will finalize governing power plants, industrial sources and oil and gas production.

"This is shaping up to be four years of litigation," said Christopher Guith, vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Energy Institute.

Given the partisan divide, Guith said, legislators would struggle to draft laws that could serve as alternatives to the EPA's pending suite of carbon and air regulation.

"As we look to an even more divided Congress, the action will be in the federal courts," he said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, which hears most challenges to federal environmental rules, is likely to be busy as industry groups and states bring their cases against the EPA's rules after they are finalized.

The court sided with the agency in most of the recent challenges, most notably upholding its decision to use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

David Doniger, policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate and Clean Air Program, said this could bolster the EPA as it tackles rules that may be more controversial than those rolled out under Jackson.

"The agency has a very good batting record on the clean air side. Carbon and climate (regulations) have come through completely unscathed," he said.

CARETAKER ADMINISTRATOR?

After the EPA was a political lightning rod during the first Obama administration, the president is likely to seek out a safe, possibly internal choice as Jackson's successor, or to avoid the confirmation process altogether.

"There are just so many arrows pointed at this agency," said Susan Tierney, managing principal and energy and environment specialist at Boston-based Analysis Group

Bob Perciasepe, deputy EPA administrator, will take over on an interim basis and could continue in that role indefinitely.

He previously worked at the EPA during the Clinton administration, specializing in water and air quality. Before rejoining the agency, Perciasepe was a top official at the National Audubon Society, a major conservation group.

Tierney said she expects the EPA to stay the course on its current agenda, especially as the agency faces some court-ordered deadlines to finalize rules, such as for coal ash, industrial waste from coal-fired plants and ozone standards.

PRIORITY ON CLIMATE CHANGE?

Some environmentalists have criticized Obama for being too timid on climate issues during his first term. But in his acceptance speech on election night in November the president gave a nod to climate change, raising hopes for more activism.

The White House may lean on the EPA to tackle one of the largest sources of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the current fleet of power plants, said Jeremy Symons, senior vice president at the National Wildlife Federation.

"The president has made clear that climate change is one of his top three priorities for the second term, so that means EPA needs to do its job," Symons said.

This, he said, means the agency needs to finalize the rules for new power plants and the standards for limiting carbon emissions from existing power plants.

The NRDC's Doniger said once the EPA meets an April 2013 legal deadline to finalize the greenhouse gas rules for new power plants, it will then have to address standards for existing plants.

The EPA has to start promptly in the beginning of the second term, said Doniger, because the rulemaking process is "a multistep process that will take time."

The controversial task will almost certainly trigger lawsuits because the rules will target a large number of domestic power plants and could jeopardize electric reliability.

"It's high stakes litigation when you are talking about bringing 40 percent of generation under regulations. That's disastrous," the Chamber's Guith said.

Guith said that while the EPA does have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide using the Clean Air Act, its rules are too difficult for industry - forcing the litigation.

"This EPA has been so aggressive in pushing the envelope by way of the compliance timeline that it has made itself more vulnerable to lawsuits," he said.

The EPA may also face legal challenges from environmental groups and certain states. The NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club joined a group of nine states led by New York that threatened to sue the EPA last year to propose air pollution standards for oil and gas drilling.

They said that the drilling, transportation and distribution resulted in a significant release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is not regulated by federal rules.

Doniger said the group is trying to negotiate a timeline with the EPA to set a rule but could sue the agency if it doesn't agree a schedule by February.

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Gary Hill)

(This story was corrected to fix the name of environmental group to Natural Resources Defense Council from National Resources Defense Council in the tenth paragraph)

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Storms on U.S. Plains stir memories of the "Dust Bowl"

1 of 5. Farmer Gail Wright is pictured next to a water pump which he says he is likely to shut down because the Ogallala Aquifer no longer provides adequate water near Sublette, Kansas, November 26, 2012. Residents of the Great Plains over the last year or so have experienced storms reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl. Experts say the new storms have been brought on by a combination of historic drought, a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer underground water supply, climate change and government farm programs. Picture taken November 26.

Credit: Reuters/Kevin Murphy

By Kevin Murphy

LIBERAL, Kansas | Sun Dec 30, 2012 9:16am EST

LIBERAL, Kansas (Reuters) - Real estate agent Mark Faulkner recalls a day in early November when he was putting up a sign near Ulysses, Kansas, in 60-miles-per-hour winds that blew up blinding dust clouds.

"There were places you could not see, it was blowing so hard," Faulkner said.

Residents of the Great Plains over the last year or so have experienced storms reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl. Experts say the new storms have been brought on by a combination of historic drought, a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer underground water supply, climate change and government farm programs.

Nearly 62 percent of the United States was gripped by drought, as of December 25, and "exceptional" drought enveloped parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

There is no relief in sight for the Great Plains at least through the winter, according to Drought Monitor forecasts, which could portend more dust clouds.

A wave of dust storms during the 1930s crippled agriculture over a vast area of the Great Plains and led to an exodus of people, many to California, dramatized in John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath."

While few people believe it could get that bad again, the new storms have some experts worried that similar conditions - if not the catastrophic environmental disaster of the 1930s - are returning to parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas and Colorado.

"I hope we don't talk ourselves into complacency with easy assumptions that a Dust Bowl could never happen again," said Craig Cox, agriculture director for the Environmental Working Group, a national conservation group that supports converting more tilled soil to grassland. "Instead, we should do what it takes to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Satellite images on December 19 showed a dust storm stretching over an area of 150 miles from extreme southwestern Oklahoma across the Panhandle of Texas around Lubbock to extreme eastern New Mexico, said Jody James, National Weather Service meteorologist in Lubbock. Visibility was reduced to half a mile in places, stoked by high winds, he said. At least one person was killed and more than a dozen injured in car crashes.

"I definitely think these dust storms will become more common until we get more measurable precipitation," James said.

'DIRTY 30S'

The Great Plains is a flat, semi-arid, area with few trees, where vast herds of buffalo once thrived on native grasses. Settlers plowed up most of the grassland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to create the wheat-growing breadbasket of the United States, encouraged by high commodity prices and free "homestead" land from the government.

The era known as the "Dirty 30s" - chronicled by Ken Burns in a Public Broadcasting Service documentary that aired in November - was when a 1930s drought gripped the Great Plains and winds carried away exposed soil in massive dust clouds.

Bill Fitzgerald, 87, a farmer near Sublette, Kansas, remembers "Black Sunday" on April 14, 1935, when a clear, sunny day in southwest Kansas turned black as night by mid afternoon because of a massive cloud of dust that swept from Nebraska to the Texas panhandle.

"My older brother and I were in my dad's 1927 or '28 Chevy truck a mile north and a mile west of the house and we saw it rolling in," Fitzgerald said. "It was about 10 p.m. when it cleared enough for us to go home."

Farming practices have vastly improved since the 1930s. Farmers now leave plant remnants on the top of the soil and less soil is exposed, to preserve moisture and prevent erosion.

Irrigation beginning in the 1940s from the Ogallala aquifer, a huge network of water under the Great Plains, also made land less vulnerable to dust storms.

DRYING UP

But the Ogallala aquifer is drying up after years of drawing out more water than was replenished.

Many farmers have had to drill deeper wells to find water. Others are giving up on irrigation altogether, which means they can no longer grow crops of high-yielding and lucrative corn. They will instead grow wheat, cotton or grain sorghum on dry land, which depends completely on natural precipitation in an area that typically gets 20 inches of rain a year or less.

Near Sublette, Kansas, farmer Gail Wright said he would probably give up irrigating two square miles of his land and would plant wheat and grain sorghum instead of corn because of the diminishing aquifer. Drilling deeper wells would cost $120,000 each, Wright said.

"When we drilled those wells in the 1960s and 70s, we were doing 1,500 or 1,600 gallons per minute," said Wright. "Now, they are down to anywhere from 400 to 600 gallons per minute. We probably pumped out 200 feet of water."

Another farmer in Sublette, 79-year-old Lawrence Withers, whose family farms land his grandfather settled in 1887, is resigned to a future without irrigation.

"We have pumped 170 feet off the aquifer, that's gone. There's just a little tick of water at the bottom," he said.

The Ogallala supplies water to 176,000 square miles (456,000 square km) of land in parts of eight states from the Texas panhandle to southern South Dakota. That amounts to about 27 percent of all irrigated land in the nation, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The volume of water in the aquifer stood at about 2.9 billion acre feet in 2009, a decline of about 9 percent since 1950, according to the Geological Survey. About two-and-a-half times as much water was drawn out in the 14 years ended 2009 as during the prior 15-year period, data shows.

The water may run out in 25 years or less in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and southwest Kansas, although in other areas it has 50 to 200 years left, according to the Geological Survey.

Rationing has been imposed on irrigation in the region but it may be too little too late.

"It's a situation where across the Plains the demand far exceeds the annual recharge," said Mark Rude, executive director of the Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District.

RECORD DROUGHT

The worst drought in decades has exacerbated the situation. The semi-arid area around Lubbock, which typically gets about 19 inches of rain a year, received less than 6 inches in 2011, the lowest ever recorded. This year was better but still far below normal at 12.5 inches, meteorologist James said.

Climate change is also having an impact on the region, said atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe, co-director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

"It is definitely hotter in the summer and drier in the summer because of climate change," she said.

The average annual temperature in Lubbock has increased by one full degree over the last decade, according to National Weather Service data, and the average amount of rainfall has fallen during summer months by about .50 inch over the decade.

Some say government policies are making things worse.

Federal government subsidized crop insurance pays farmers whether they produce a crop or not, encouraging farmers to plant even in a drought year.

Another subsidized U.S. government program that pays farmers to take sensitive marginal land out of crop production and put it into grassland is gradually shrinking.

In a possible case of history repeating itself, high commodity prices are encouraging farmers to break up the land and plant crops when the 10-year conservation contracts with the government expire, said environmentalist Cox. This is similar to what happened in the 1920s when vast areas of grassland were plowed up.

The government also has imposed restrictions on how much land can go into conservation reserves to save money at a time of massive U.S. budget deficits, he said.

The amount of land in conservation reserves has declined by more than 2.3 million acres over the last five years in five states of the Great Plains - Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data.

If most of that land is plowed up for crops it could lead to more dust storms in the future.

"I think you are probably going to see increased erosion if that happens," said Richard Zartman, Chairman of the Plant and Soil Science Department at Texas Tech, adding that it was unlikely to get as bad as the Dust Bowl days.

(Additional reporting by Greg McCune and Christine Stebbins; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

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EPA faces legal battles, might take easy confirmation road

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson testifies at a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 22, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON | Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:11am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Regardless of who takes the reins, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will likely face continued legal battles in President Barack Obama's second term as it tries to finalize pollution rules for power plants, analysts said.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who spearheaded the Obama administration's regulation of carbon emissions, said on Thursday she will step down after almost four years.

Her tenure was marked by opposition from industry groups and Republican lawmakers to the EPA's first-ever crackdown on carbon emissions, as well as other anti-pollution measures.

Analysts said whoever succeeds Jackson will probably face a spate of lawsuits to challenge rules that the EPA will finalize governing power plants, industrial sources and oil and gas production.

"This is shaping up to be four years of litigation," said Christopher Guith, vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Energy Institute.

Given the partisan divide, Guith said, legislators would struggle to draft laws that could serve as alternatives to the EPA's pending suite of carbon and air regulation.

"As we look to an even more divided Congress, the action will be in the federal courts," he said.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, which hears most challenges to federal environmental rules, is likely to be busy as industry groups and states bring their cases against the EPA's rules after they are finalized.

The court sided with the agency in most of the recent challenges, most notably upholding its decision to use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

David Doniger, policy director of the National Resources Defense Council's Climate and Clean Air Program, said this could bolster the EPA as it tackles rules that may be more controversial than those rolled out under Jackson.

"The agency has a very good batting record on the clean air side. Carbon and climate (regulations) have come through completely unscathed," he said.

CARETAKER ADMINISTRATOR?

After the EPA was a political lightning rod during the first Obama administration, the president is likely to seek out a safe, possibly internal choice as Jackson's successor, or to avoid the confirmation process altogether.

"There are just so many arrows pointed at this agency," said Susan Tierney, managing principal and energy and environment specialist at Boston-based Analysis Group

Bob Perciasepe, deputy EPA administrator, will take over on an interim basis and could continue in that role indefinitely.

He previously worked at the EPA during the Clinton administration, specializing in water and air quality. Before rejoining the agency, Perciasepe was a top official at the National Audubon Society, a major conservation group.

Tierney said she expects the EPA to stay the course on its current agenda, especially as the agency faces some court-ordered deadlines to finalize rules, such as for coal ash, industrial waste from coal-fired plants and ozone standards.

PRIORITY ON CLIMATE CHANGE?

Some environmentalists have criticized Obama for being too timid on climate issues during his first term. But in his acceptance speech on election night in November the president gave a nod to climate change, raising hopes for more activism.

The White House may lean on the EPA to tackle one of the largest sources of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the current fleet of power plants, said Jeremy Symons, senior vice president at the National Wildlife Federation.

"The president has made clear that climate change is one of his top three priorities for the second term, so that means EPA needs to do its job," Symons said.

This, he said, means the agency needs to finalize the rules for new power plants and the standards for limiting carbon emissions from existing power plants.

The NRDC's Doniger said once the EPA meets an April 2013 legal deadline to finalize the greenhouse gas rules for new power plants, it will then have to address standards for existing plants.

The EPA has to start promptly in the beginning of the second term, said Doniger, because the rulemaking process is "a multistep process that will take time."

The controversial task will almost certainly trigger lawsuits because the rules will target a large number of domestic power plants and could jeopardize electric reliability.

"It's high stakes litigation when you are talking about bringing 40 percent of generation under regulations. That's disastrous," the Chamber's Guith said.

Guith said that while the EPA does have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide using the Clean Air Act, its rules are too difficult for industry - forcing the litigation.

"This EPA has been so aggressive in pushing the envelope by way of the compliance timeline that it has made itself more vulnerable to lawsuits," he said.

The EPA may also face legal challenges from environmental groups and certain states. The NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club joined a group of nine states led by New York that threatened to sue the EPA last year to propose air pollution standards for oil and gas drilling.

They said that the drilling, transportation and distribution resulted in a significant release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is not regulated by federal rules.

Doniger said the group is trying to negotiate a timeline with the EPA to set a rule but could sue the agency if it doesn't agree a schedule by February.

(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Gary Hill)

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China expands pollution monitoring to biggest cities

BEIJING | Sun Dec 30, 2012 12:43am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to release hourly air pollution monitoring data in 74 of its biggest cities starting on New Year's Day, state media said on Sunday, in a sign of increasing responsiveness to quality-of-life concerns among prosperous urban people.

Choking pollution and murky grey skies in Chinese cities is a top gripe among both Chinese and expatriates.

Microscopic pollutant particles in the air have killed about 8,600 people prematurely this year and cost $1 billion in economic losses in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xi'an, according to a study by Beijing University and Greenpeace that measured the pollutant levels of PM2.5, or particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter.

The new monitoring will include not only PM2.5, but also sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and carbon monoxide, the Xinhua news agency said, citing a Friday announcement by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Data will be collected from 496 monitoring stations, it said.

First Beijing, then other cities have become more public about their air quality data since the U.S. embassy in Beijing began publishing hourly data from a pollution monitor installed on embassy grounds in Beijing.

The embassy's monitor often diverged with official air quality readings, adding to public pressure for the city to come clean about the state of its air.

The United States has extended its monitoring program to its consulates in China.

Sunday was a clear and sunny winter day in Beijing, with the levels of ozone and PM2.5 declared "moderate" or "good", according to embassy data. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center (www.bjmemc.com.cn) rated PM10 concentrations as "excellent".

Many Chinese cities have removed belching smokestacks and coal-burning factories from their centers in the past few years, but a rise in the number of cars during the same period has created new air quality problems.

(Reporting By Lucy Hornby; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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After Jackson, EPA faces big decisions on U.S. fracking boom

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, speaks during a news conference in Rio de Janeiro June 20, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino

By Jonathan Leff and Joshua Schneyer

NEW YORK | Fri Dec 28, 2012 12:01am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The past four years of U.S. environmental regulation was marked by a crackdown on emissions that angered coal miners and power companies. Over the next four, the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency will have to decide whether to take on an even larger industry: Big Oil.

Following Lisa Jackson's resignation on Wednesday, her successor will inherit the tricky task of regulating a drilling boom that has revolutionized the energy industry but raised fears over the possible contamination of water supplies.

The controversial technique at the center of the boom, hydraulic fracturing, involves injecting millions of gallons of water laced with chemicals deep into shale rocks to extract oil and gas. It has become a flashpoint issue, putting the EPA -- charged with safeguarding the nation's water -- in the middle of a fight between environmentalists and the energy industry.

Both sides now eagerly await a major EPA research project into fracking's effects on water supplies due in 2014, as well as final rules on issues including the disposal of wastewater and the use of 'diesel' chemicals in the process.

It is unclear who will take the role, but the incoming chief may have a "huge impact" on the oil and gas industry, says Robert McNally, a White House energy adviser during the George W. Bush administration who now heads the Rapidan Group, a consulting firm.

On the one hand, energy industry and big manufacturers are warning the EPA not to impede a drilling boom that offers the promise of decades' worth of cheap energy. Meanwhile, environmentalists are pressing President Barack Obama to ensure the drilling bonanza is not endangering water resources.

"This administration clearly needs contributors to economic growth for its economic legacy as much as it needs to add to its environmental legacy," said Bruce Bullock of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"This appointment could be key in seeing which of those two legacies is more important."

There are many contenders for the role, but no clear front-runner as yet. But Obama is unlikely to win Congressional approval for a heavy-handed regulator, and there is no suggestion of a stringent crackdown.

Even Jackson, who suffered withering criticism from big industry and Republicans for her efforts to curb pollution and limit greenhouse gas emissions, has cautiously condoned the practice as safe, while acknowledging the need for greater study and, in some cases, oversight.

"(Fracking technology) is perfectly capable of being clean," Jackson said in February. "It requires smart regulation, smart rules of the road."

Jackson's successor may now be charged with refining those rules, and both energy companies and fracking critics are anxious about the outcome.

Industry body Independent Petroleum Association of America said the EPA has "hindered development" of oil and gas for four years, and looks forward to a new chief who will promote energy drilling "hand in hand" with environmental regulation.

Executive director of the Sierra Club environmental group Michael Brune says the EPA has "unfinished business" in addressing things such as the release of methane emissions during fracking.

APPETITE TO REGULATE

Some analysts say Obama will not risk the economic stimulus of cheaper, domestic energy by pushing for tougher regulations. The oil sector is one of the few bright spots in the U.S. economy; natural gas prices are near their lowest in a decade, a boon for manufacturers, and U.S. oil output is the highest in 18 years.

"Even before (Jackson's resignation) there didn't seem to be much of an appetite in the White House to regulate shale drilling on a federal level in the next couple of years," says Nitzan Goldberger, U.S. energy policy analyst with Eurasia Group.

But big drillers such as ExxonMobil and Chesapeake who have plowed billions of dollars into shale fields are watching carefully for any sign of new rules or oversight that could drive up costs, or limit access.

While fracking technology has been around for decades, it has only gained widespread use across dozens of states in recent years. The EPA, like many groups, has struggled to keep up with the expansion, according to Government Accountability Office reports released earlier this year.

After years in which states were mostly responsible for regulating onshore drilling, the new EPA administrator will be pressed to take a more central role. A Gallup poll this year showed drinking water contamination is the leading environmental concern among Americans.

A year ago, in the first U.S. government report of its kind, the EPA drew a potential link between water contamination in rural Pavillion, Wyoming and fracking, based on samples of ground water from the area. That study has been contested, and subsequent research has been inconclusive.

A firmer word on the impact may not emerge until 2014, when the EPA is expected to release the first exhaustive in-depth government study on the long-term effects of fracking on drinking water, commissioned by Congress over two years.

DIESEL, WASTEWATER AND FLARING

The debate rages over a diverse range of issues.

While fracking was exempted from the Federal Clean Water Act in 2005, operations that used diesel fuel, which contains a number of toxic chemical compounds, were not exempted.

However, what exactly constitutes "diesel" has been a bone of contention among oil firms and environmental groups.

"The question is how to define "diesel" - broadly or narrowly," says consultant McNally.

"It's a big issue especially for Bakken producers," he said, referring to the region of North Dakota where crude oil output has more than tripled in two years.

The EPA published a draft definition in May, which met with criticism from the industry and some legislators, but it will fall to the new administrator to set a final definition.

Under Jackson, the EPA also said it would begin to regulate the millions of gallons a day of wastewater that is withdrawn from wells after the fracking process, probably in 2014. This is usually trucked offsite and sometimes re-injected elsewhere, although increasingly it is being reprocessed for further use.

And eventually, the EPA could face pressure to backtrack on previous initiatives. In April, the agency relented to pressure from the industry, giving drillers until January 2015 to end the practice of "flaring" excess natural gas from wells that were not connected to pipelines. It had initially proposed that firms cease almost immediately.

For Jackson's successor, a central question is whether the EPA takes a broader role in the industry, or, as Jackson hinted a year ago, allows state officials to call most the shots when it comes to drilling:

"It's not to say that there isn't a federal role, but you can't start to talk about a federal role without acknowledging the very strong state role."

(Additional reporting by Selam Gebrekidan and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Joseph Radford)

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New routes for ships off California may help endangered whales

1 of 2. Researches use heavy machinery to perform a necropsy on a dead finback whale that had washed up on the shore of the Queens borough region of Breezy Point, New York, December 28, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES | Fri Dec 28, 2012 5:26pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Several endangered whale species may get a new lease on life when some cargo shipping lanes off the California coast are shifted next year.

Routes due to be changed by June 2013 are used by ocean-going cargo vessels, tugboats and automobile carriers near San Francisco Bay, the Channel Islands in central California and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, environmental officials said on Friday.

The shipping channels overlap with whale feeding and migration areas, and several blue whales and fin whales have been killed by ships, they said.

"The issue really struck home for us" with those deaths, said Michael Carver, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) deputy superintendent of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary in northern California.

The changes will not reduce the risk to zero, said Sean Hastings, a resource protection coordination with NOAA's Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

Financial incentives to get vessels to slow down on their approach to the California coast are also being considered, Hastings said, adding that boats are now asked to voluntarily slow down but they are not doing it.

The Cordell sanctuary and other protected patches of ocean near San Francisco and the Channel Islands are habitats for blue, humpback and fin whales, which are protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

In 2007, four blue whales were believed to have been killed by ships near the Channel Islands, according to NOAA, and five whales were killed off the coast of San Francisco and in nearby areas in 2010.

This year, a fin whale was struck by a ship and died off the coast of San Francisco and a vessel is believed to have killed another fin whale that washed ashore in Malibu, near Los Angeles, NOAA said.

In November, the International Maritime Organization, which governs shipping worldwide, said it had adopted changes to lanes off the coast of California to reduce whale strikes by ships. One of the proposals, for example, involves moving a shipping lane near the Channel Islands north by one mile to avoid a whale feeding area, Hastings said.

Carver said the U.S. Coast Guard would consult with the shipping industry and the public before the lane adjustments take effect.

(Additional reporting by Dana Feldman; Editing by Tim Gaynor)

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West Antarctica warming fast, may quicken sea level rise: study

This handout satellite image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft shows the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica November 13, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team/Handout

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle

OSLO | Mon Dec 24, 2012 1:56pm EST

OSLO (Reuters) - West Antarctica is warming almost twice as fast as previously believed, adding to worries of a thaw that would add to sea level rise from San Francisco to Shanghai, a study showed on Sunday.

Annual average temperatures at the Byrd research station in West Antarctica had risen 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3F) since the 1950s, one of the fastest gains on the planet and three times the global average in a changing climate, it said.

The unexpectedly big increase adds to fears the ice sheet is vulnerable to thawing. West Antarctica holds enough ice to raise world sea levels by at least 3.3 meters (11 feet) if it ever all melted, a process that would take centuries.

"The western part of the ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought," Ohio State University said in a statement of the study led by its geography professor David Bromwich.

The warming "raises further concerns about the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise," it said. Higher summer temperatures raised risks of a surface melt of ice and snow even though most of Antarctica is in a year-round deep freeze.

Low-lying nations from Bangladesh to Tuvalu are especially vulnerable to sea level rise, as are coastal cities from London to Buenos Aires. Sea levels have risen by about 20 cms (8 inches) in the past century.

The United Nations panel of climate experts projects that sea levels will rise by between 18 and 59 cms (7-24 inches) this century, and by more if a thaw of Greenland and Antarctica accelerates, due to global warming caused by human activities.

GLACIERS

The rise in temperatures in the remote region was comparable to that on the Antarctic Peninsula to the north, which snakes up towards South America, according to the U.S.-based experts writing in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Parts of the northern hemisphere have also warmed at similarly fast rates.

Several ice shelves - thick ice floating on the ocean and linked to land - have collapsed around the Antarctic Peninsula in recent years. Once ice shelves break up, glaciers pent up behind them can slide faster into the sea, raising water levels.

"The stakes would be much higher if a similar event occurred to an ice shelf restraining one of the enormous West Antarctic ice sheet glaciers," said Andrew Monaghan, a co-author at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The Pine Island glacier off West Antarctica, for instance, brings as much water to the ocean as the Rhine river in Europe.

The scientists said there had been one instance of a widespread surface melt of West Antarctica, in 2005. "A continued rise in summer temperatures could lead to more frequent and extensive episodes of surface melting," they wrote.

West Antarctica now contributes about 0.3 mm a year to sea level rise, less than Greenland's 0.7 mm, Ohio State University said. The bigger East Antarctic ice sheet is less vulnerable to a thaw.

Helped by computer simulations, the scientists reconstructed a record of temperatures stretching back to 1958 at Byrd, where about a third of the measurements were missing, sometimes because of power failures in the long Antarctic winters.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Forecaster WSI expects Jan-March cold for northern U.S

NEW YORK | Wed Dec 26, 2012 5:05pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Temperatures across much of the northern half of the United States will be colder than normal during the first quarter, private forecaster Weather Services International said on Wednesday.

"After another unusually warm December across much of the U.S., the pattern is now transitioning to a more normal winter look," WSI chief meteorologist Dr. Todd Crawford said in a release.

The private forecaster also said that above-normal temperatures will likely dominate the southern half of the nation, especially the Southwest, during that period.

In January, WSI expects the Northeast (except northern New England), North Central and Northwest regions to see mostly colder than normal temperatures. Readings in southern tier states are expected to average warmer than normal.

In the release, Chris Kostas, a senior gas analyst at Energy Security Analysis Inc, said natural gas prices were likely to firm during the coldest periods in January, with New England and portions of northern New York possibly experiencing very sharp price spikes due to pipeline congestion.

But he said robust supplies from high inventories and strong shale production were likely to limit price strength.

In February, WSI forecasts colder than normal temperatures for the Northeast and North Central regions, with warmer readings expected across the southern tier and in the Northwest.

WSI expects warmer than normal temperatures to dominate most of the nation in March, except in the Northwest, which could see colder than normal readings.

The WSI seasonal outlooks reference a standard 30-year normal from 1981-2010.

(Reporting by Joe Silha; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

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Nicaragua volcano spews ash cloud, residents evacuated

The San Cristobal volcano spews up large clouds of gas and ash near Chinandegga City, some 150 km (93 miles) north of the capital Managua December 26, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Stringer

MANAGUA | Wed Dec 26, 2012 5:29pm EST

MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaragua's tallest volcano has belched an ash cloud hundreds of meters (feet) into the sky in the latest bout of sporadic activity, prompting the evacuation of nearby residents, the government said on Wednesday.

The 5,725-foot (1,745-meter) San Cristobal volcano, which sits around 85 miles north of the capital Managua in the country's northwest, has been active in recent years, and went through a similar episode in September.

The latest activity began late on Tuesday.

Government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo called on residents who live within a 1.9-mile (3-km) radius of the volcano to leave the area. Around 300 families live near the volcano.

"We have some families who have self-evacuated. ... We ask (the people) to go to a safe place, it's just for a few days during this emergency," she said, adding it was a precautionary measure.

A billowing grayish cloud could be seen drifting sideways from the volcano's peak.

The volcano also stirred in mid-2008, when it expelled gas and rumbled with a series of small eruptions.

(Reporting by Mexico City bureau; editing by Todd Eastham)

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U.S. holiday travel seen difficult as storm hits

1 of 14. An automobile sits upside down in the car lot of Mercedes-Benz of Mobile following a winter storm in Mobile, Alabama, December 20, 2012. The first major winter storm of the year took aim at the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, triggering high wind and blizzard warnings across a widespread area, and a threat of tornadoes in Gulf Coast states to the south.

Credit: Reuters/Jon Hauge

By Mary Wisniewski

CHICAGO | Sat Dec 22, 2012 10:45am EST

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Holiday travel could be a challenge from Michigan to the central Appalachian mountains as a blast of winter weather including heavy snow and high winds hits the region through Saturday, meteorologists said on Friday.

"Right now the Great Lakes are getting hit, from Lake Michigan to the east," said Pat Slattery, spokesman for the National Weather Service. "The big story for most people is it's going to mess travel up completely."

Pittsburgh is expected to take the biggest blow of any major metropolitan area, with 10 to 18 inches possible by Saturday evening. Western New York, including Buffalo, is looking at up to 14 inches, Slattery said.

The weather could be worse next week, with a potentially "really nasty system" that could bring tornadoes along with hail and high winds across the south on Christmas night into next Wednesday, according to Accuweather.com senior meteorologist Henry Margusity. That could stretch from Louisiana through northern Florida.

A "real big snowstorm" is expected for next Wednesday and Thursday, starting in Arkansas and moving north to Maine, with up to a foot of snow in some places. In New Hampshire and Vermont, "There will be snow on the slopes for New Year's Eve weekend," Margusity said.

This week's winter blast is part of the same system that buried parts of Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin in more than a foot of snow on Thursday, shutting down roads and schools.

More than 230,000 homes and businesses remained without power in the eastern half of the United States Friday afternoon, following a series of snow and rain storms, power companies said. The hardest hit states include Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin. This was down from 320,000 earlier in the day.

Friday brought sunny weather to Iowa, and the state's Department of Transportation has "every person and every piece of equipment we have out on the roads," according to state maintenance engineer Bob Younie.

"Salt and the sun is going to be our friend today," Younie said. "I'd like think we're going to get the roads back to pretty drivable conditions."

The storm Thursday contributed to a 25-car accident near Clarion, Iowa, that left three people dead.

The winter storm, named Draco by the Weather Channel, began Tuesday in the Rocky Mountains, marking a sharp change from the mild December experienced by most of the nation. High winds kicked up a dust storm in western Texas on Wednesday leading to one death in a traffic accident near Lubbock.

Chicago got just two-tenths of an inch of snow through midnight, but it was enough to end a record streak of 290 days without measurable snow, according to Accuweather.com.

Other snowfalls set records Thursday, including Madison, Wisconsin, with 13.3 inches, beating a previous record of 4.6 inches for the date set in 2000. Even heavier snow fell in Middleton, south of Madison, which got 19.5 inches, Slattery said.

Also setting a record was Des Moines, Iowa, with 12.4 inches, breaking a record of 4.5 inches set in 1925, according to Accuweather.com.

(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski; Additional reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Richard Chang, Gary Hill)

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Whale stranded on New York City beach dies: official

1 of 13. A deceased beached whale lies on a beach with the skyline of New York rising behind it in the Queens borough region of Breezy Point, New York, December 27, 2012. A 60-foot finback whale that washed up on a beach in New York City on Wednesday has died, a marine rescue official said on Thursday.

Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson

NEW YORK | Thu Dec 27, 2012 1:59pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A 60-foot whale that washed up on a beach in New York City on Wednesday has died, a marine rescue official said on Thursday.

The finback whale had appeared on the beach in New York's Breezy Point neighborhood and marine conservationists had been fearful for its survival. Breezy Point, in the borough of Queens, faces the Atlantic Ocean and was devastated by flooding and fire in superstorm Sandy in October.

"Biologists have confirmed that the whale has died," said Mendy Garron, a marine mammal rescue specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Plans are currently being developed for necropsy and disposal of the carcass."

The finback is the second largest marine mammal species after the blue whale, according to the NOAA Fisheries website. An adult can reach 85 feet and weigh up to 80 tons, although northern hemisphere finbacks tend to be somewhat smaller than their southern cousins. Typical lifespan is 80 to 90 years.

(Writing by Dan Burns; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

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Green group charged with fraud in Greek crackdown

ATHENS | Fri Dec 21, 2012 9:46am EST

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek prosecutors have filed fraud charges against members of an environmental group, court and police officials said on Friday, as Athens tries to show its international lenders that it is cracking down on corruption.

The charges follow an audit of the financing of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) during the debt-fuelled economic boom of the 2000s.

The group, known as "Circle of Patmos" or "Religion, Science and the Environment" organized cruises in places like the Amazon and the Arctic Circle to raise awareness of environmental issues. Those taking part in the trips were mainly Greek Orthodox bishops and some leaders of other faiths.

Fourteen officials from the group were charged with defrauding the state after audits found that up to 5 million euros in public and private donations it received were unaccounted for, court and police sources said.

A court official, who declined to be named, said part of the funding was traced to a London bank account. The group did not immediately return calls to its offices in Athens and London.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who has cut wages and raised taxes to obtain EU/IMF bailout funds, in August ordered a freeze and review of all public funding of NGOs.

(Reporting by Harry Papachristou; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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EPA sets new emission limits on industrial boilers

WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 21, 2012 2:03pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized rules to curb pollution from industrial boilers and large incinerators, revising earlier versions to target only the largest polluters and give them more time to comply.

The agency on Friday formalized standards it initially released in March 2011 for reducing toxic air pollution, including mercury and particle pollution, known as soot, from boilers and solid waste incinerators.

Boilers, which are typically fired by coal, oil, natural gas and biomass, are used to power heavy machinery and provide heat for industrial processes.

The new rules target roughly 2,300 boilers, or less than one percent of the 1.5 million units now operating in the United States, requiring them to meet numerical limits on their release of air toxins.

These large-source boilers, found mainly at refineries, chemical plants, and other industrial facilities, will have three years to comply and can be granted a fourth year if needed to install controls, according to the EPA.

The rule also targets 106 industrial solid waste incinerators, which have five years to comply with the EPA standards.

"The adjusted standards require only the largest and highest-emitting units to add pollution controls or take steps to reduce air pollution, making the standards affordable, protective and practical," according to an EPA factsheet.

Some environmental groups said the EPA's handling of the long-delayed boiler rules signals that the agency's upcoming regulation will be more flexible to industry concerns.

"These watered-down rules suggest the Obama administration will collaborate more with industry in the second term," said Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch.

The EPA first introduced the rule in 2005, but the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated it in 2007.

The rule was re-proposed in June 2010 but industry groups slammed that version, calling its set limits unachievable, prompting the EPA to relax and reintroduce the rule.

"After years of delays, the finalized Boiler MACT standard ends uncertainty and allows businesses to move forward with one standard that applies across the nation, leveling the playing field," said Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center.

"MACT" is an acronym for Maximum Achievable Control Technology.

Despite relaxing the rules, the EPA said the standards will prevent up to 8,100 premature deaths, 5,100 heart attacks, and 52,000 asthma attacks. The agency estimated that Americans will receive $13 to $29 in health benefits for every dollar spent to meet the final standards and create a small net increase in jobs.

Some industry groups were still wary.

"Several billions of dollars in capital spending will be necessary to comply. This is a significant investment for an industry still recovering from the economic downturn, especially in light of the growing cumulative regulatory burden we face," the American Forest & Paper Association, the national lobby group of the forest products industry, said on Friday.

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), an opponent of EPA regulations, said in November that compliance costs for the agency's six air pollution rules, including the boiler rule, could total $111.2 billion by EPA estimates and up to $138.2 billion by industry estimates.

The lobby group said the boiler rule would cost covered sources $2.7 billion in annualized costs in 2013 and $14.3 billion in upfront capital spending - higher than EPA estimates of $1.9 billion in annualized costs in 2013 and $5.1 billion in capital spending.

Other groups that have opposed the rules include the Industrial Energy Consumers of America - representing the chemicals, cement, aluminum and other industries.

Bob Bessette, the President of the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners (CIBO), cautiously welcomed the revised rule but said it is still studying its economic impact.

"Hopefully, the changes EPA has made will decrease the economic and jobs impact on the still-struggling manufacturing, commercial, and institutional sectors and national economy," he said.

(Reporting By Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio)

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US issues framework on study on fracking and water

A natural gas well is drilled near Canton, in Bradford County, Pennsylvania January 8, 2012. Bradford County is currently ground zero for fracking the Marcellus shale in the Northeastern United States.

Credit: Reuters/Les Stone

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON | Fri Dec 21, 2012 1:57pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration issued the framework on Friday of a long-term study on whether fracking for natural gas pollutes drinking water, but will not make conclusions until 2014 about the controversial technique that is helping to fuel a domestic drilling boom.

Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency study, called for by Congress in 2010, complain it does not closely examine the impact of drillers' injecting waste water deep underground, a practice that has been linked to small earthquakes.

The progress report outlined case studies at drilling sites in states including North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas that will inform the final study. For a link to the study click here r.reuters.com/jec84t

It also explained the scientific methods the EPA is using to understand how drinking water supplies are affected by the lifecycle of water used fracking. That cycle ranges from withdrawing the water from ground and surface supplies to treating it in wastewater plants.

Although conclusions are more than a year away, power utilities, chemical companies and other big consumers of natural gas fear the study could lead to more regulations and raise costs as a result. Power generators, including American Electric Power and Southern Co, have been enjoying rock bottom prices for natural gas in recent years.

Fracking involves forcing large volumes of water laced with chemicals and sand deep underground to crack rock and free oil and natural gas. Critics of fracking, including many environmentalists, worry drilling operations near schools and homes can pollute water and air.

The drilling industry and some Republicans in Congress have said the EPA study is overkill because fracking is safe.

The EPA's long-term study will examine the large volumes of water sucked up by fracking operations, surface spills of fracking fluids on well pads, and the drilling itself.

The study will also look at spills of so-called "flowback" water that rushes up from wells when they start producing gas, and how well wastewater treatment plants operate.

But the study does not closely look at the effects of injecting waste water deep underground, a practice environmentalists worry could become a dormant threat to water supplies.

Drillers say they are recycling more and more water used and produced in fracking. But some of the waste is still injected underground.

Ben Grumbles, a former assistant administrator for water at the EPA, said injection of the waste is "legitimate and important concern."

Ohio recently linked the disposal method to a series of small earthquakes and placed a moratorium on the injections but lifted it in November.

Grumbles, who is now president of the U.S. Water Alliance, said the omission of examining the practice was "not a fatal flaw" of the study because he believes a different arm of the EPA is doing research on waste water injection.

"They really do need to look at the issue," he said. "I would hope the offices were coordinating and efforts to review potential risks of large volumes of waste water being injected ... will be looked at, " he said.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Sofina Mirza-Reid)

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Russian anger at energy law blocks EU summit progress

Russia's President Vladimir Putin gestures during a news conference after their meeting with Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul December 3, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Osman Orsal

By Alexei Anishchuk and Barbara Lewis

BRUSSELS | Fri Dec 21, 2012 8:02am EST

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russian anger at an EU energy law blocked progress at talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and European Union leaders on Friday.

Putin, on his first visit to Brussels since his re-election as president in May, was greeted by four topless women, protesting against civil rights curbs in Russia and shouting "Putin, go to hell". They were bundled away by police.

Relations between the 27-nation bloc and Russia, its main external supplier of energy and a key trading partner, have long been poisoned by rows over gas pipelines.

Europe relies on Russia to cover around a quarter of its natural gas needs, but over the past decade Moscow has had a series of disputes with its ex-Soviet neighbors - Ukraine and Belarus - that disrupted its gas exports to Europe.

Those disputes increased the EU's determination to diversify supply away from Russia.

Adding to the grievances are simmering trade disputes over everything from cars to pigs, and European leaders' condemnation of the jailing of members of the band Pussy Riot, seeing it as part of a trend of squashing personal freedoms.

For Russia, which sits on the world's largest natural gas reserves and supplies more than a quarter of the European Union's natural gas imports, energy is the major issue.

In opening comments, Putin referred to EU energy law as "uncivilized".

POTENTIAL

"Of course the EU has the right to take any decisions, but as I have mentioned ... we are stunned by the fact that this decision is given retroactive force," Putin told reporters on the sidelines of a Russia-EU summit in Brussels. "It is an absolutely uncivilized decision."

He was referring to EU legislation to create a single energy market and prevent those that control supply, such as Russia's Gazprom, also dominating distribution networks.

From the European Union side, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said there was "huge potential for cooperation" to the benefit of both sides.

"I think we should in fact be able to transform what is today an interdependence by necessity into an interdependence by choice, a political choice," he said. "That's what requires political leadership on both sides."

Expectations for Friday's talks have always been low, but Russian and EU sources both see the need for continued dialogue.

The EU's executive Commission added to tensions between Europe and Moscow in September when it opened an investigation into suspected anti-competitive market practices by Russia's state-dominated Gazprom.

Trade disputes are also high on the agenda. EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said this month time was running out for Russia to settle trade disputes with the EU on everything from pigs to cars and he threatened to take Moscow to the WTO.

Putin also complained about lack of agreement on travel visas, saying Russia was being unfairly treated compared with other nations.

"I have a long list of states here with me which have a visa-free regime with the EU. There is Venezuela, Honduras, Mauritius, Mexico, seems everyone else is there," Putin said.

(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft and Justyna Pawlak)

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Snow storm makes small dent in drought-stricken crop region

Snow blows across US Highway 218 as near whiteout conditions begin in Waterloo, Iowa, December 20, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Matthew Putney/The Waterloo Courier/Handout

By Sam Nelson

CHICAGO | Fri Dec 21, 2012 9:04am EST

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The first major snow storm of winter did little to ease the worst drought in more than 50 years in the crop growing Central Plains and Midwest, while snarling traffic and hampering feeding and transportation of livestock.

MDA EarthSat Weather meteorologist Kyle Tapley said six to 12 inches or more snow fell from Nebraska into Wisconsin during the past two days, the equivalent of about 0.50 inch to 1.00 inch of rain, that will help ease but not eliminate drought worries.

Tapley said roughly 10 inches of moisture or rainfall would be needed in a large portion of the Plains and Midwest to break the drought of 2012 that trimmed crop production and sapped soil moisture reserves.

"The snow put a small dent in the drought and I don't see any moisture for next week," Tapley said.

Commodity Weather Group (CWG) said the snow favored Wisconsin, far eastern Iowa, far northwestern Illinois and west-central Michigan on Thursday with better than a foot of snow in Wisconsin.

"Another storm over the weekend into early next week will bring rain to the Delta and Southeast and a chance for snow near the Ohio River Valley," said CWG meteorologist Joel Widenor.

Widenor said prospects for more rain or snow in the southern Plains hard red winter wheat producing states were more limited on Friday.

But there could be some light rain or snow in the area on Tuesday but "this would provide only limited additional drought relief," Widenor said.

Winterkill threats for wheat and frost threats for Florida citrus are still limited, despite cooling the next two weeks, according to CWG's advisory on Friday.

(Reporting By Sam Nelson; Editing by Grant McCool)

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Cold snap to hit Florida citrus; freeze warning issued

A protective layer of ice form on oranges in a grove near Dover, Florida December 14, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Scott Audette

MIAMI | Fri Dec 21, 2012 12:37pm EST

MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. government forecasters have issued a freeze warning for parts of Florida's key citrus-growing region as a cold front threatens to carry icy temperatures into the Sunshine State this weekend.

The National Weather Service office in Tampa Bay-Ruskin said in an advisory on Friday that the freeze warning for Levy, Citrus, Sumter, Hernando and Pasco counties was in effect from 2 a.m. to 9 a.m. EST (0700-1400 GMT).

Tyler Fleming, a senior forecaster in the Tampa Bay office, said it was the first freeze warning of the year for the area and that temperatures could dip below freezing for at least two hours.

A freeze watch was also in effect for the same five-county area for late Saturday night through early Sunday morning, Fleming said.

Typically, citrus can be damaged by four hours or more of temperatures below 28 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 Celsius).

Andrew Meadows, spokesman for the state's leading growers association, Florida Citrus Mutual, said the weekend chill was unlikely to be long-lasting or extreme enough to cause any damage to the state's $9 billion citrus industry.

"Actually, this kind of cold event is a good thing because it brings the brix content up in the fruit and helps prepare the tree for any cold weather ahead," Meadows said in an email.

Ray Royce, executive director of the Highlands County Citrus Growers Association in central Florida, agreed that there was no cause for alarm.

"The next two nights will be the coldest nights of the season so far," Royce told Reuters in a phone interview.

"There may be a chance for frost," he said, "but it doesn't appear that there's going to be enough cold to damage wood or to damage fruit."

Royce added a note of caution, however.

"You never know what could happen. You just don't want to get flat-footed and have it all of a sudden be 5 or 6 degrees colder than you're expecting."

Florida's groves yield more than 75 percent of the U.S. orange crop and account for about 40 percent of the world's orange juice supply.

(Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Barge en route to transfer oil from tanker aground in New York: Port

The tanker Stena Primorsk hauling crude oil sits anchored in the Hudson River after loosing its steering and running aground south of Albany, New York December 20, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Hans Pennink

NEW YORK | Fri Dec 21, 2012 11:53am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil trapped in a tanker that ran aground on the Hudson River near Albany, New York will be transferred to a barge on Friday night, the Port of Albany said.

The Stena Primorsk, a 600-foot (182-metre) motor tanker, was carrying 11.7 million gallons (under 280,000 barrels) of light crude oil when it lost steering control on Thursday morning and hit land near Stuyvesant, New York, about 20 miles downriver from Albany, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The light crude oil on the tanker was from the Bakken shale in North Dakota destined for Irving Oil Ltd's 300,000 barrel-per-day Saint John, New Brunswick refinery in Canada, Richard Hendrick, general manager of the Port of Albany said. This was the first such shipment out of the Albany port.

A smaller barge and tug unit is en route to the site of the accident after it left Brooklyn, New York early on Friday, Hendrick said. The barge is expected to arrive around 5:00 PM EST (2200 GMT) Friday, he added.

The U.S. Coast Guard said no pollution was reported related to the incident.

(Reporting by Selam Gebrekidan;editing by Sofina Mirza-Reid)

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Obama administration to expand marine sanctuary off northern California

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES | Thu Dec 20, 2012 8:36pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The administration of President Barack Obama plans to more than double the size of two marine sanctuaries off the northern California coast to guard the near pristine waters from oil drilling in a move that sidesteps potential hurdles in Congress, federal officials said on Thursday.

The proposed expansion would protect nutrient-rich Pacific Ocean waters off the coast north of San Francisco that are home to humpback whales, great white sharks and abundant fish stocks key to commercial fishing and tourism, officials said.

"This area is a national treasure, it needs and it deserves permanent protection from oil and gas exploration," said Representative Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat who represents Marin and Sonoma counties north of San Francisco.

"Believe me when I tell you that no one is going to vacation on the Sonoma coast if they are going to be looking at oil derricks," she said.

The protected zone covers nearly 2,800 square nautical miles, an area slightly bigger than the state of Delaware. From north to south, it ranges from the coast of the town of Point Arena to the waters beyond San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

Amid widespread public opposition in California to offshore drilling, the oil industry says it has no active plans to exploit the designated area.

Woolsey, who is retiring after 10 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, has pushed for the marine sanctuary expansion since 2004, but says Republican opposition in Congress was preventing its passage.

"The plain fact is that the Republican House majority will not debate or pass this bill," Woolsey said.

A House bill passed in 2008 did not get past the Democratic-controlled Senate that year.

Under pressure from Democratic leaders in Washington, the Obama administration's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed expanding two existing federal marine sanctuaries, Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones.

The process will take up to two years as the agency hears from the public, officials said. The two existing sanctuaries cover over 1,800 nautical square miles, according to NOAA.

Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association, said none of the oil companies in his organization have shown an interest in drilling in northern California.

"It's not an area where there is any expectation that additional energy is going to be brought to market," Hull said.

Several Republican members of Congress active on energy issues could not be reached for comment on the plan.

All of California's offshore oil production comes from 32 platforms off the southern coast of the state, and those derricks date from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hull said. Drilling in federal waters off California produces only 54,000 barrels a day, compared to 1.3 million a day in the Gulf of Mexico, according to U.S. government figures.

The proposed waters to be protected in northern California has North America's most intense "upswelling" zone, where nutrient-rich water comes to the ocean surface and feeds many kinds of marine life, according to NOAA.

(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Todd Eastham)

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Oil tanker runs aground on Hudson River in NY state

n">(Reuters) - A tanker carrying light crude oil down the Hudson River briefly ran aground south of Albany, New York, but showed no evidence of a spill, the Coast Guard said on Thursday.

The Stena Primorsk, a 600-foot (182-metre) motor tanker, lost control of its steering on Thursday morning and hit land near Stuyvesant, New York, about 20 miles downriver from Albany, the Coast Guard said. The vessel was later at anchor.

There was no evidence of pollution from the crash, though emergency responders were sent to the site to investigate, the Coast Guard said.

Oil market sources said the vessel was carrying light shale crude from the Bakken prospect in North Dakota destined for a Canadian refinery.

(Reporting by Peter Rudegeair and Selam Gebrekidan; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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First major storm of winter pelts Midwest

1 of 14. An automobile sits upside down in the car lot of Mercedes-Benz of Mobile following a winter storm in Mobile, Alabama, December 20, 2012. The first major winter storm of the year took aim at the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, triggering high wind and blizzard warnings across a widespread area, and a threat of tornadoes in Gulf Coast states to the south.

Credit: Reuters/Jon Hauge

By Mary Wisniewski

CHICAGO | Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:56pm EST

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The first major winter storm of the year hit the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, bringing a blizzard to the Plains and tornadoes to Alabama and Arkansas, and leaving some 133,000 customers without electricity.

Bad driving conditions led to a 25-car pileup on a highway near Clarion, Iowa, that left three people dead, authorities said. Blizzard warnings were in effect in eastern Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Illinois Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.

"It's going to be very windy with considerable blowing and drifting of snow," said Bruce Terry, a senior National Weather Service forecaster at the HydroMeteorological Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. He called the pre-Christmas storm "a major winter snowstorm" for the Midwest and western Great Lakes.

Accumulations of up to a foot of snow were expected in some areas, Terry said, adding there was a potential for severe weather on the so-called "warm side" of the storm in the U.S. Southeast.

Blowing snow led to school closures in parts of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, plus the closure of all state government offices in Iowa.

"Thunder" snow was reported in Iowa Wednesday night, especially in southeastern Iowa, as thunder and lightning accompanied the storm as it surged across the state.

Travel was not advised on Iowa roads for the rest of the day, according to Annette Dunn with the Iowa Department of Transportation.

"We're going to have visibility and drifting problems through midnight," she said.

Late Thursday morning, troopers responded to a 25-car crash which killed three people on southbound Interstate 35 in northern Iowa. Iowa DOT closed I-35 at Highway 30 due to deteriorating conditions.

The Iowa National Guard has deployed about 80 soldiers from across the state to help highway assistance teams cope with the storm.

In Nebraska, portions of I-80 were closed Thursday due to snow-packed and icy road conditions. The entire road was expected to reopen before 4 p.m. local time.

In Chicago, rain was expected to change to snow Thursday night, with wind gusts of as much as 50 miles per hour, the NWS said.

Due to low visibility, airlines at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport were reporting delays of up to 90 minutes and have canceled more than 200 flights. At Midway Airport in Chicago, airlines canceled 150 flights and Southwest Airlines canceled all flights after 4:30 p.m.

A twister near downtown Mobile, Alabama, damaged buildings, snapped trees, downed power lines and flipped vehicles early on Thursday, but there were no reports of injuries, authorities said.

"The potential is there certainly for some isolated tornadoes," Terry said, referring to a broad swath of Gulf of Mexico coast and inland territory stretching from southeast Louisiana through the western Florida Panhandle.

The National Weather Service confirmed on Thursday that a tornado destroyed a mobile home southwest of Sheridan, Arkansas. There were no reports of injuries.

High winds of around 45 miles per hour in Tennessee knocked down trees and power lines.

While the heavy snow in the Upper Midwest will create potentially dangerous travel conditions, meteorologist Jeff Masters said it put an end to this year's "record-length snowless streaks in a number of U.S. cities."

Writing on his website weatherunderground.com, Masters said the storm would also provide "welcome moisture for drought-parched areas of the Midwest."

The winter storm, named Draco by the Weather Channel, began Tuesday in the Rocky Mountains and marked a dramatic change from the mild December so far in most of the nation.

High winds kicked up a dust storm in West Texas on Wednesday, leading to at least one death in a traffic accident near Lubbock.

Power companies reported electrical outages in Iowa, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, with a peak of 400,000 customers without power Thursday morning. That fell to 133,000 by Thursday afternoon.

(Writing by Tom Brown and Nick Carey; Reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago, Eileen O'Grady in Houston, Kaija Wilkinson in Mobile, Alabama and Keith Coffman in Denver, Tim Ghianni in Nashville, Kay Henderson in Des Moines, Iowa, Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Matthew Waller in San Angelo, Texas and Suzi Parker in Little Rock, Arkansas.; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Greg McCune, Tim Dobbyn and Jim Marshall)

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UK's Met Office sees 2013 likely to be one of warmest on record

By Nina Chestney

LONDON | Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:18am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Global temperatures are forecast to be 0.57 degrees above the long-term average next year, making 2013 one of the warmest years on record, Britain's Met Office said on Thursday.

"It is very likely that 2013 will be one of the warmest 10 years in the record which goes back to 1850, and it is likely to be warmer than 2012," the Met Office said in its annual forecast for the coming year.

Next year was expected to be between 0.43 and 0.71 degrees Celsius warmer than the long-term global average of 14 degrees (1961-1990), with a best estimate of around 0.57, it said.

Its forecast is based on its own research as well as data from the University of East Anglia, the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Rising temperatures could be due to the natural variability of the climate and global warming from increasing greenhouse gas emissions, Dave Britton, Met Office forecaster, told Reuters.

A warmer global average temperature does not necessarily mean every region of the world will get hotter, as regional climate variability produces different effects in different parts of the world, he added.

Eleven of the 12 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001, according to data from the World Meteorological Organisation.

Last year is ranked the warmest on record, having been 0.54 degrees above the long-term average, while 2012 is ranked the ninth warmest, with a rise of 0.45 degree Celsius.

Many scientists blame increasing temperatures on man-made greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and say they can lead to rising sea levels and extreme weather events.

Global carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high in 2011, led by China, the International Energy Agency said in May.

This year has already seen several examples of extreme weather events, such as superstorm Sandy which hit the east coast of the United States in October. Parts of the United States also experienced their worst drought in more than half a century this summer.

Britain had been suffering a drought before a record wet spring and early summer.

Last week, a leaked draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed global average temperatures could be more than 2 degrees above average by 2100 and may reach 4.8 degrees.

Low-lying island states and other countries vulnerable to rising sea levels, floods and hurricanes have been putting pressure on developed countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions and keep the rise in temperatures to within a limit of 2 degrees this century.

A U.N. conference aimed at curbing emissions ended this month with little progress.

(Editing by David Holmes)

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Coal export trade raises alarms for Western states

By Patrick Rucker

WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 20, 2012 7:41am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Western states that rely on receipts from coal sales to help fund their governments are concerned the mining industry is dodging royalty payments on lucrative U.S. exports to Asia.

By valuing coal at low domestic prices rather than the much higher price fetched overseas, coal producers can skip a large royalty payout when mining federal land.

The practice could add up to hundreds of millions of dollars in forgone royalties if exports to Asia surge in coming years as the industry hopes, Reuters found.

Wyoming warned federal officials about flaws in the royalty system a year and a half ago. Last week Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer said he will not tolerate the coal industry skirting royalties: "If there's phony baloney going on, we have to get to the bottom of it."

Montana and Wyoming get half of federal royalties on coal from their states.

Asian energy demands mean several million tons of the black rock typically move from the Powder River Basin in eastern Wyoming and Montana across the Pacific each year. Taxpayers have a stake in those sales since the region is mostly on public land.

Powder River Basin sales are uncommonly profitable for miners like Arch Coal, Peabody Energy Corp. and Cloud Peak Energy since coal worth about $13 a ton last year domestically could have fetched roughly 10 times that in China.

Last year less than 5 percent of Cloud Peak coal was shipped to Asia but that accounted for nearly 19 percent of revenue, or about $290 million.

Federal and state officials have said that the mining industry is two steps ahead of regulation as it moves into Asian markets and that the current rules that value coal are open to abuse.

Questions about royalties and taxpayer interests could flavor a dispute about whether coal export terminals should be built in the Pacific Northwest.

Activists in Oregon and Washington have vowed to block coal trains that the mining industry hopes will link the Powder River Basin and Asian markets. Coal export foes say local communities will be harmed by mile-long coal train traffic, and scientists warn that coal power is worsening the impacts of climate change.

VAGARIES OF ROYALTIES

Officials expect coal royalties to be paid on the highest value for the fuel, which is typically the price utilities are willing to pay.

But regulators fret that miners are selling to sister companies at low domestic prices and then pocketing gains when that coal eventually reaches Asian power plants, thus circumventing the higher royalty.

Arch Coal, Cloud Peak and Peabody Energy declined to comment on how they book Asian sales, but they boast to investors about their profitable trade and brokering business.

That business is booming.

About 54 percent of coal export sales from the Powder River Basin was handled by brokers last year while only about 16 percent of such sales east of the Mississippi River was handled that way, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The Office of Natural Resources Revenue, an agency of the Interior Department, has struggled to find the true value of coal when brokered deals and direct-to-utility sales produce different prices for the fuel.

The agency's benchmarks for finding the true value of coal "have proven difficult to use in practice," the agency wrote in May 2011 as it mulled royalty rules that it said were open to abuse.

In a letter supporting tougher rules, the Wyoming Department of Audit beseeched ONRR to "not allow coal producers to create affiliates to reduce the royalties paid."

The mining industry, though, defended the status quo in several letters to regulators.

An ONRR spokesman said officials were committed to collecting every dollar due taxpayers, but he could not comment on when final royalty valuation rules might be proposed.

Autumn Hanna with nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense said the government must quickly put rules in place to protect the public interest on coal sales.

"Taxpayers stand to lose day by day with the existing rules," she said. "The new rules are needed now."

FUTURE EXPORTS

The coal trade has become a controversial issue in the Pacific Northwest where miners want new terminals to allow about 150 million tons of coal a year to be exported from the Powder River Basin.

While politicians spar over whether those ports should be built, there is less friction about what taxpayers are due.

"The Department of the Interior should ensure these companies pay royalties on the full value," said Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, whose staff has met with federal officials in recent weeks to discuss the issues raised by Reuters reporting.

Wyden, a Democrat, will chair the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in the next Congress.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, the ranking Republican on that committee, believes the government should allow coal exports but officials must protect taxpayers' stake in such sales.

"We know Interior is looking at this and we wait to hear what they find," said a Murkowski spokesman, who noted the senator believes Congress should be setting rules on royalty payments.

Montana Governor Schweitzer, who leaves office next month, has roundly supported the coal terminal expansion, but the straight-talking rancher and miner said taxpayers must get a fair cut on those Asian sales.

"We need to collect on the actual value," Schweitzer told Reuters in an interview.

(Reporting by Patrick Rucker; editing by Prudence Crowther)

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EU ministers hail "balanced" fishing quota deal

By Charlie Dunmore

BRUSSELS | Thu Dec 20, 2012 9:38am EST

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union fisheries ministers hammered out a 2013 quota deal on Thursday which they said struck a compromise between protecting over-exploited stocks such as haddock and plaice and safeguarding fishermen's livelihoods.

Ministers agreed to limit the cuts to catches proposed by the European Commission in several North East Atlantic fisheries such as haddock, herring and plaice, but conservation groups accused them of ignoring data on fish stock sustainability.

French Fisheries Minister Frederic Cuvillier welcomed the "balanced deal" reached after two days of quota haggling in Brussels.

"This agreement provides the basis for truly sustainable fishing in the European Union, backed up by indisputable scientific advice," he said in a statement.

A proposed 55 percent cut in haddock quotas in the Irish Sea, Channel and Bay of Biscay was cut back to 15 percent, while North Sea plaice catches would fall by 25 percent next year rather than the 35 percent proposed by the Commission.

EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said the final deal was not as ambitious as the Commission's original proposal, but described the outcome as satisfactory.

She welcomed a huge improvement in scientific data on stock levels, which meant the bloc had clear advice on catch levels for 85 percent of fish species in 2013, compared with just 39 percent for this year.

VIABILITY

The European Parliament has repeatedly backed the idea of fixing quotas on the basis of long-term management plans for the most important stocks.

However, conservation groups accused ministers of ignoring scientific advice for about half of all fish species covered by the quotas, resulting in catch limits being set above levels that guarantee long-term viability.

"Fisheries ministers are not taking scientific advice into account in their decision-making," conservation group WWF said in a statement.

"As a result every year, just before Christmas, it's a 'fisheries frenzy' where ministers spend days arguing about how much fish can be caught."

The European Union has the third largest fisheries sector in the world after China and Peru, with more than 80,000 EU-registered vessels trawling the oceans.

Europe's leading fishing nations are Spain, France, Britain and Denmark, which jointly account for about half of all EU catches.

(Editing by Sophie Hares)

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U.S. drought has tight hold, snow not seen as big help

By Carey Gillam

Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:51pm EST

n">(Reuters) - A snow storm moving through the Plains states into the U.S. Midwest brought much-needed moisture to drought-hit states, but drought has such a tight grip on the central U.S. that more moisture will be needed, according to weather experts.

"The snow is good, but in most instances it was less than one inch of liquid and if the soils are frozen, there will be little infiltration," said Brian Fuchs, climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "Welcomed, yes. A big changer to the overall drought, not really," Fuchs said.

A report issued Thursday by a consortium of federal and state climatology experts said that as of December 18, large swaths of the nation's midsection remained blanketed in extreme and exceptional levels of drought, the worst levels on the measurement scale.

Before the snow storm hit late Wednesday, nearly 27 percent of the High Plains, was considered in the very worst level of drought, exceptional drought. Indeed, "severe," and "extreme" levels of drought also crept higher over the last week, according to the Drought Monitor report.

Severe drought was spread over 86.20 percent of the High Plains, up from 86.12 percent the week before, while extreme drought area was pegged at 59.98 percent of the region, up from 58.39 percent. Exceptional drought was pegged at 26.99 percent, up from 26.91 percent.

Drought conditions were most pervasive in Nebraska, according to the Drought Monitor report.

Overall, roughly 61.79 percent of the contiguous United States was in at least "moderate" drought, a slight improvement from 61.87 percent a week earlier.

The portion of the contiguous United States under exceptional drought expanded, however, to 6.64 percent from 6.49 percent.

The winter storm that hit the region Wednesday night and Thursday brought snowfall of four to eight inches in parts of Nebraska and Kansas, with Iowa and Wisconsin also getting hit.

The storm is expected to move further east across the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, with as much as 12 inches of snow expected in southern Wisconsin.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City; Editing by Alden Bentley)

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KKR joins private equity charge in U.S. water

By Greg Roumeliotis

Thu Dec 20, 2012 7:41am EST

n">(Reuters) - Private equity firm KKR & Co LP on Thursday kicked off a joint venture with Suez Environment to run the water and wastewater systems of a New Jersey city it hopes will become a model for cash-strapped local authorities in the United States.

KKR and Suez subsidiary United Water will pay $150 million to the city of Bayonne for the rights to a 40-year concession, allowing them to collect water and wastewater revenues but also requiring them to come up with another $157 million over the life of the contract to manage and upgrade the systems.

The cost of repairing and expanding U.S. drinking water infrastructure will top $1 trillion in the next 25 years, an expense that is likely to be met primarily through higher water bills and local fees, according to the American Water Works Association, a non-profit think tank.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimated in 2007 that the U.S. must invest $390 billion over the next 20 years to update or replace aging wastewater infrastructure.

But the U.S. water industry, run for the most part by the public sector, remains highly fragmented, comprising about 52,000 water systems - over half of which serve a population of 500 or less - and 16,000 wastewater facilities.

Concessions such as the one awarded by Bayonne are rare due to political opposition or reluctance from local authorities to give up control of what they see as essential infrastructure, especially when they can tap the municipal bond market for their financing needs.

"We are slowly starting to see more cities looking at these partnerships given all the fiscal pressures they're facing. But for every three cities that evaluate these options seriously, at least two ultimately can't get to the finish line," said Brandon Freiman, a principal at KKR's energy and infrastructure team.

"The one that gets to the finish line generally appreciates that these are win-win deals that are good for all constituents. So while we think that there should be more of these deals, progress has been very slow," Freiman added.

Last week, another private equity firm, Table Rock Capital, said it had finalized a 30-year concession worth more than $300 million, in partnership with Veolia Water, to run the water and wastewater systems of the city of Rialto in California.

Bayonne will pay off over $130 million of its debt with the money it gets from KKR and United Water, cutting its municipal debt burden in half. It will see the two firms take over more than 96 miles of water mains and more than 83 miles of sewers serving the city's 63,000 residents.

Consumers and businesses in Bayonne will see an initial 8.5 percent bump in their water and sewer charges, translating to an additional $5 per month for residential users. Rates will then freeze till January 2015 and then rise annually based on an inflation-linked formula.

"The partnership will invest in our aging infrastructure, and provide resources that the Bayonne Municipal Utilities Authority could not otherwise deliver. Simply put, this transaction will result in a more efficient and reliable water and sewer system for today and future generations," the authority's executive director Steve Gallo said.

Infrastructure investments of such kind usually deliver internal rates of return of a little over 10 percent, lower than those typically seen in the buyouts of companies but much safer in their risk profile.

KKR will fund 90 percent of the joint venture with United Water. Two thirds of the investment will be financed with debt on an average interest rate of about 5 percent.

KKR, which has $66.3 billion in assets under management, is making the investment through a dedicated infrastructure fund pool of $2.4 billion, that includes dedicated accounts with some of its investors.

Nassau County, located on Long Island just east of New York City, and among the wealthiest counties in the U.S., is negotiating a similar water and wastewater concession with United Water to help address its budget deficits.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)

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