Top News

Senators Not Backing Green New Deal Received On Average 7 Times As Much Fossil Fuel Cash. According to the Huffington Post, “The 12 senators co-sponsoring the Green New Deal resolution that Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) unveiled earlier this month have accepted nearly $1.1 million from oil, gas and coal companies since entering Congress. But the 88 senators who have declined to support the measure have collected far more from those industries ― close to $59 million, according to nonprofit Oil Change USA, which analyzed 30 years of data. That comes out to about $670,000 per nonbacker, or more than 7 times what the average sponsor took in. The disparity illustrates what advocates say is a glaring conflict of interest for lawmakers deciding how to move forward on the only proposal yet to emerge that matches the scale of the climate crisis. The donations come from the powerful, deep-pocketed industry with the most to lose from any policy that restricts the sources of planet-warming emissions. ‘The Green New Deal shows the level of ambition that climate and energy policy could have if Big Oil, Gas, and Coal’s grip on Washington were weakened,’ David Turnbull, a spokesman for Oil Change USA, said in an email. ‘The cosponsors of the Green New Deal have by and large bucked the influence of the out-of-control fossil fuel industry, and that shows in their willingness to stand up for bold climate solutions like what we see in the Green New Deal resolutions.’” [Huffington Post, 2/21/19 (=)]

Gina McCarthy: 'Keep Your Asses In Your Seats'. According to E&E News, “Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is enjoying life after serving in the federal government. An exuberant McCarthy returned to Washington, D.C., yesterday to deliver a speech at the Georgetown Climate Center’s 10th anniversary reception that oscillated between crass humor and serious reflection. She began the 15-minute address by noting that she worked for five Republican governors before taking the helm of EPA under President Obama. ‘It did me a fat lot of good during the confirmation process,’ she said. ‘I have the distinction of being the longest-sitting administrator-in-waiting in the history of the United States of America.’ McCarthy then thanked her former staffers at EPA, many of whom were in the room, including former air chief Joe Goffman. ‘There are awesome folks here from throughout EPA,’ said McCarthy, who now works at the Harvard University School of Public Health. ‘You know I love you, I think about you every day. I shout about you every day. I want you to continue to do the incredibly sophisticated message that I left you with, which is to keep your asses in your seats.’ McCarthy then weighed in on Arnold Schwarzenegger. The former Republican governor of California appeared in a video message commending the staff of the Georgetown Climate Center for 10 years of work.” [E&E News, 2/22/19 (+)]

How The Green New Deal Has Played Out Online. According to Real Clear Politics, “Earlier this month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward Markey released their ambitious proposal for a ‘Green New Deal’ to urgently address concerns over climate change. What did the reaction to their proposal look like across Twitter, traditional mainstream news coverage and web searches? Ocasio-Cortez has become the de facto face of the proposed policy, but she is not the first to generate Twitter buzz for a ‘#GreenNewDeal.’ That honor goes to 2012 and 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. The timeline below shows the total number of tweets per day mentioning ‘#GreenNewDeal’ or ‘GreenNewDeal’ or ‘Green New Deal’ from July 1, 2010 (the beginning of the data) through Feb. 17, 2019, using data from Crimson Hexagon. The first slight bump from August 2012 through November 2012 largely centered on posts such as an Aug. 18, 2012 tweet from Stein in which she offered ‘Our #GreenNewDeal will redirect research funds from fossil fuels to research in wind, solar & geothermal. Like? PLS RT.’ Mentions abruptly ended the day after the election. Four years later, Stein managed to sustain Twitter conversation around the #GreenNewDeal for much of 2016 with a series of tweets criticizing fossil fuels, promoting the idea of job creation and noting the impact of climate change on minorities.” [Real Clear Politics, 2/21/19 (=)]

Op-Ed: Miami Battles Rising Seas. According to an op-ed by Ban Ki-Moon and Francis Suarez in The New York Times, “Climate change is not a distant threat for Miami; it’s a daily presence in people’s lives. The city has been fighting to stay above water for decades. It knows that its future as a vibrant international hub for business, tourism, arts and culture depends on making the city more resilient to the impact of global warming. That’s why the city of Miami is moving aggressively to adapt; in 2017, its citizens voted to tax themselves to build resilience against flooding and storm surges by approving a $400 million bond issue that is financing projects across the city. Miami is not alone, of course, in facing these threats. Around the globe, some 800 million people in hundreds of coastal cities are at risk from storm surges and rising seas. We want to share what we have learned in building resilience against the changing climate. One reality we have come to understand is this: Our current efforts to protect coastal cities will fall short of what will be required in decades to come. For in spite of global efforts to rein in carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming, they continue to rise and expose coastal cities like Miami to more extreme weather events and rising seas.” [New York Times, 2/20/19 (=)]

Agencies Pick 8 Sites For PFAS Exposure Study. According to E&E News, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services this year will start studying people in eight sites for exposure to toxic chemicals found in drinking water. ‘The assessments will generate information about exposure to PFAS in affected communities and will extend beyond the communities identified, as the lessons learned can also be applied to communities facing similar PFAS drinking water exposures,’ said Patrick Breysse, director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR. The goal of the studies is ‘to provide information to communities about levels of PFAS in their bodies,’ the agencies said in a press release. The eight sites announced today are all close to current or former military bases. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — linked to cancer, liver damage, thyroid disease and developmental problems in children — have been used in firefighting foams on bases. An ATSDR study previously found that ‘minimum risk levels’ for several types of PFAS should be seven to 10 times lower than EPA’s health advisories of 70 parts per trillion (Greenwire, June 20, 2018).” [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

U.S. EPA Records Highest Level Of Cancer-Causing Gas In Willowbrook Since It Began Testing Near Sterigenics. According to the Chicago Tribune, “The levels of ethylene oxide detected by air monitors near Sterigenics in Willowbook in January were the highest readings since the federal government began testing, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA released new data Thursday suggesting that the concentrations of ethylene oxide gas, a known carcinogen used as a sterilizing agent for medical equipment, were more than 20 percent higher than alarmingly high levels discovered in December. The new measurements were taken between Jan 2. and Jan. 17 at several sites near Sterigenics’ sterilization plant. Since November, the average level of ethylene oxide over 23 days that the EPA monitored for the colorless gas was 2.3 micrograms per cubic meter of air at Willowbrook’s Village Hall and 3.6 at a nearby EPA warehouse. The highest daily average concentration was found Jan. 15 at the EPA warehouse where ethylene oxide levels were found to be 14.3 micrograms per cubic meter of air. By comparison, regular exposure to 2.1 micrograms of ethylene oxide per cubic meter of air could trigger more than six cases of cancer for every 1,000 people exposed, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an arm of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” [Chicago Tribune, 2/21/19 (=)]

Ford Is Investigating Emissions And Fuel Efficiency Data. According to the New York Times, “Ford Motor Company said on Thursday that it was investigating how it tested the emissions and fuel efficiency of its vehicles after employees reported possible flaws with the company’s computer models. The company said it had notified the Environmental Protection Agency about the issue and had hired a law firm, Sidley Austin, to investigate specifications it used in the testing. Kim Pittel, group vice president for sustainability, environment and safety engineering at Ford, said that the investigation had not indicated, so far, that the company reported incorrect data to consumers or regulators. ‘We’re early days into the investigation,’ Ms. Pittel said in a telephone interview. ‘But there has been no determination that this affected fuel economy labels or emissions certification.’ She added that the investigation did not involve hardware or software known as ‘defeat devices’ that are designed to cheat on emissions tests. Volkswagen admitted in 2015 that it had equipped millions of cars with such cheating systems, a scandal that ultimately cost the company more than $32 billion in government fines and legal settlements.” [New York Times, 2/21/19 (=)]

EPA

EPA Urged To Gauge Neurological Price Tag Of Exposure. According to E&E News, “Citing mounting evidence that air pollution can affect brain function and development, a consortium of researchers and health professionals is calling on EPA to formally account for the potential harm in its periodic reviews of air quality standards. Because ‘large lifelong costs’ to individuals, families and society may result, EPA should come up with a way to gauge the health and economic price tag of neurodevelopmental disorders associated with exposure to particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and other ‘combustion-related’ pollutants, the group said in an article published online this afternoon in the American Journal of Public Health. The benefits of reducing exposure could then be incorporated into the regulatory impact analyses that accompany the reviews, the article says, adding that it is ‘critical’ for EPA to do so in its ongoing assessment of the standards for the fine particulates known as PM2.5. Those analyses currently focus on the possible impact on premature mortality, Devon Payne-Sturges, the paper’s lead author, said in an interview today.” [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

States Float Options For Speeding 401 Reviews While Protecting CWA Power. According to Inside EPA, “State governors, legislators and regulators are floating options for speeding state reviews of federally permitted pipeline and other projects under Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401 while preserving states’ authority, pushing back against reports that the Trump administration is planning to curtail states’ power in an effort to speed the reviews. In a Feb. 20 letter to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Army Corps of Engineers chief R.D. James, groups including the Western Governors’ Association (WGA), National Conference of State Legislatures and the Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA) propose a series of steps that agencies could take to speed reviews while still ensuring states keep the statutorily mandated one-year period to conduct their reviews. ‘Curtailing or reducing state authority under CWA Section 401, or the vital role of states in maintaining water quality within their boundaries, would inflict serious harm to the division of state and federal authorities established by Congress,’ the letter says. ‘These proposed reforms represent a good starting point for discussions to improve federal permitting processes while protecting state authority.” [Inside EPA, 2/21/19 (=)]

EPA Agrees To Conduct Years-Late RFS Air Pollution Study. According to Politico, “EPA says it will conduct a long-overdue ‘anti-backsliding’ study of the air pollution impacts of the Renewable Fuel Standard under the partial settlement of a lawsuit with the Sierra Club. In a pre-publication notice issued today, EPA opened a 30-day comment period on the settlement with Sierra Club to conduct the study by March 30, 2020. The laws establishing the RFS require EPA to conduct a study on the air impacts of EPA’s ethanol requirements every three years. EPA issued the first report a year late, in 2011. But it has not issued the second report, which was due in 2013, nor the third, which was due in 2016, according to Sierra Club’s 2017 complaint. The Sierra Club opposes the RFS, arguing that increased corn production to make ethanol damages critical ecosystems and creates both water and air pollution.” [Politico, 2/21/19 (=)]

Revised EPA ‘Ambient Air’ Policy Definition Spurs Fight On Legality, Scope. According to Inside EPA, “EPA’s draft guidance narrowing its policy definition of ‘ambient air’ is spurring a fight between environmentalist critics and industry supporters, with opponents arguing the move is unlawful and will allow facilities to evade Clean Air Act permitting requirements while its backers are urging the agency to further limit air permit mandates. The competing positions are detailed in recently filed comments obtained by Inside EPA on the agency’s unsigned guidance from November that would allow regulators to consider a wider range of physical restrictions on the public from accessing private land when determining what counts as ambient air subject to regulation beyond the traditional definition of private land being behind a fence or public barrier. The revised definition would now include other ‘measures’ that bar access by the public, likely making it easier for facilities to avoid regulation. In 1980, then-EPA Administrator Douglas Costle established the current policy through which EPA excludes areas ‘owned or controlled by the source and to which public access is precluded by a fence or other physical barriers’ from being considered ambient air.” [Inside EPA, 2/21/19 (=)]

EPA Inks Deal On RFS Study With Sierra Club Despite ‘Sue-And-Settle’ Bar. According to Inside EPA, “EPA and the Sierra Club have reached a draft partial consent decree that sets a March 2020 deadline for the agency to complete a long-overdue study to determine if its renewable fuel standard (RFS) has harmed the environment, in a case seen as an important test of former Administrator Scott Pruitt’s bar against so-called ‘sue-and-settle’ practices. Pruitt issued a memo barring ‘sue-and-settle,’ which he said led to ‘sweetheart deals’ between environmental groups and the Obama EPA because groups could file suit, negotiate a deadline on an issue of their choosing, win legal fees and prohibit opponents from participating in the process. The draft partial consent decree will be published in the Feb. 22 Federal Register, according to a Feb. 21 prepublication announcement. The pact will be open for 30 days of public comment. The agreement in the case comes at a highly charged political moment for the RFS, which pits farm states against oil states and has prompted several GOP senators to threaten to vote against the nomination of acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler to lead the agency on a permanent basis. One industry source calls the consent decree ‘important because it shows the fraying nerves of the environmental community with ethanol. They have long been leery’ of its environmental impacts and have become more outspoken recently.” [Inside EPA, 2/21/19 (=)]

Wheeler

Wheeler Brings On New HR Director. According to E&E News, “EPA will have a new head of human resources beginning next month. Mara Kamen starts March 3 as the director of EPA’s Office of Human Resources, according to an internal email obtained by E&E News. The office, which is based in the Office of Mission Support, handles the agency’s human resource programs, such as workforce development, employee benefits and recruitment. ‘She will lead the full spectrum of the agency’s human resources policies, programs and employee services,’ Donna Vizian, principal deputy assistant administrator for OMS, told staff in the email sent today. Kamen led human resource operations at the Small Business Administration. She has also worked in the private sector as well as at the Department of Homeland Security and Office of Personnel Management. Vizian said Hitch Peabody will serve as acting deputy director for the human resources office ‘as we continue the process to fill this position permanently.’ Kamen comes aboard as EPA’s workforce is in decline, now just under 14,000 employees. Under the Trump administration, hundreds of staff members have left the agency either through buyouts or retirement.” [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

Pruitt

Archives Investigation Finds No ‘Secret' Pruitt Calendars Existed. According to The Hill, “A government investigation has absolved former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt of claims that he and his staff tampered with his calendar and kept a secret version hidden from the public. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) found that the claims, originally made in a CNN article from July 2, were ‘unsubstantiated.’ In a letter written Jan. 31 and posted on the Archives website, Chief Records Officer Laurence Brewer wrote that during the review, ‘no information was identified indicating that any calendars other than the Outlook and public calendars ever existed.’ He concluded: ‘Based on this information, NARA considers this allegation of unauthorized disposition to be unsubstantiated.’ CNN published an article in July that reported Pruitt’s meetings and appointments were often altered or deleted from his official calendar. The article claimed that the secret calendars were kept in order to ‘overtly hide controversial meetings or calls with industry representatives and others, according to a former EPA official who is expected to soon testify before Congress.’ The story from CNN pointed to various instances where the public calendar provided by the EPA did not match internal documents obtained.” [The Hill, 2/21/19 (-)]

Archives: 'Secret' Pruitt Calendar Claims 'Unsubstantiated'. According to E&E News, “The National Archives and Records Administration has closed its case on allegations that certain meetings were removed from former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's calendar, finding the claims to be unfounded. Media reports that said Pruitt's aides had scrubbed the ex-agency head's calendar of meetings that could prove to be embarrassing if revealed in the press sparked an inquiry from the National Archives last July. EPA responded to the agency that preserves and manages federal documents, denying allegations that records had been destroyed. The National Archives reviewed EPA's response and decided to move no further. "Based on this information, NARA considers this allegation of unauthorized disposition to be unsubstantiated," said Chief Records Officer Laurence Brewer in a Jan. 31 letter obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act. In an interview with E&E News, Brewer said his agency now considers the matter closed. He said the National Archives is "not an investigative or an enforcement agency for these types of cases" based on its statutory authority. “ [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

White House

Trump Would Flounder In NOAA Climate Class. According to E&E News, “President Trump’s recent tweets confusing weather and climate would have likely earned him an F in a class taught by a NOAA-educated teacher. That’s because NOAA, one of the government’s top scientific agencies, teaches educators there’s a difference between the two. Weather is measured based on changes occurring on short time scales, while climate varies over longer time intervals. The distinction is included in NOAA’s ‘Climate Literacy’ guide, a book designed to equip teachers and communities with the latest knowledge and resources on climate change. It also explains how human activities have contributed to global warming through the burning of fossil fuels — a consensus view among climate scientists that Trump has also rejected. ‘The overwhelming consensus of scientific studies on climate indicates that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the latter part of the 20th century is very likely due to human activities, primarily from increases in greenhouse gas concentrations resulting from the burning of fossil fuels,’ the guide says. Despite Trump’s views on climate change and his administration’s efforts to roll back carbon rules, NOAA continues to use the book to teach climate science. It’s part of NOAA’s broader climate literacy program, an Obama-era effort that’s as busy as ever during the Trump administration.” [E&E News, 2/22/19 (=)]

Refiners, Shipping Firms Oppose Trump Effort To Hinder Ship Sulfur Limit. According to Inside EPA, “Refiners and the shipping industry are opposing the Trump administration’s effort to delay or block a stricter global limit on sulfur in shipping fuel, a measure that the government argues could ultimately cause U.S. fuel price hikes for motorists but that supporters say will provide compliance certainty and boost domestic refiners’ profits. Under International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules agreed by the Obama administration, heavy shipping fuel worldwide will have to conform to a sulfur limit of 0.5 percent from Jan. 1, 2020, requiring a reduction from 3.5 percent in sulfur content of fuel in shipping on the high seas. The United States is among the many members of the IMO, which crafts global agreements on shipping emissions and is debating potential climate controls on ships. Despite the agreement on the sulfur limit, some members of the Trump administration, encouraged by conservatives and some economic analysis, are seeking to block implementation of the limit. In response, a coalition of oil, gas and shipping groups is urging the White House to quickly move ahead with the limit.” [Inside EPA, 2/21/19 (=)]

National

America's Strongest Climate Governor Might Be A Republican. According to E&E News, “During his first run for governor, Charlie Baker sat for a meeting with a group of leading environmentalists in Massachusetts. It quickly turned combative. Baker, a Republican who was challenging Gov. Deval Patrick (D), voiced doubts about the veracity of climate science and the high cost of renewable energy. He singled out Cape Wind as an overpriced offshore wind project proposed for Nantucket Sound. The project died four years later, in 2017. Recounting the meeting to The Boston Globe, the environmental leaders recalled Baker using a whiteboard to lecture them about the shortcomings of their position. The greens were shocked. Baker, a former state budget official, municipal leader and health care executive, had a reputation as a technocrat. They assumed he accepted the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate. He did not. ‘I’m not saying I believe in it. I’m not saying I don’t,’ Baker told the Globe in 2010. ‘You’re asking me to take a position on something I don’t know enough about. I absolutely am not smart enough to believe that I know the answer to that question.’” [E&E News, 2/22/19 (=)]

Congress

Climate Aid Survives In Trump-Signed Spending Plan. According to E&E News, “This month’s bipartisan spending compromise ensured the United States will continue to quietly support international environmental programs — though not the U.N. Green Climate Fund. The House-Senate agreement on fiscal 2019 spending and border security enacted last week doesn’t direct the State and Treasury departments to contribute toward the $3 billion U.S. pledge to the fund, but that’s not surprising. The GCF has been a popular Republican punching bag for years because of its perceived link with the Paris Agreement. What the package does do, however, is provide sometimes-generous funding for other environmental budget lines destined for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, despite skimpier fiscal 2019 funding proposals from the Trump White House. ‘Congress has done a decent job defending against draconian climate funding cuts proposed by the Trump administration,’ Joe Thwaites, a sustainable finance associate at the World Resources Institute, said in a cautiously optimistic blog post on the new law. Funding for the GCF under President Trump was always a long shot.” [E&E News, 2/22/19 (=)]

As Public Opinion Shifts On Climate, So Does Republicans' Rhetoric. According to Politico, “Republicans are facing competing pressures on climate change, leading some to change how they talk about the issue. Moderate GOP lawmakers are growing more vocal about their desire to do something about climate change — even as President Donald Trump continues to deny it’s an issue and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tries to troll Democrats with a vote on their Green New Deal resolution. The rhetorical shift points to a recognition of growing support for climate change among voters who handed control of the House to Democrats in the last election and a desire to chart a proactive alternative to aggressive policies gaining favor on the left. Republicans are increasingly abandoning attacks on climate science and touting their longstanding support for innovation to address the problem, including the deployment of nuclear and carbon capture technologies, as well as massive investment in new energy research. ‘I want us to frame our position, not let the other side tell Americans what we are or are not for through their lens. It’s important for us to speak for ourselves,’ said Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who raised eyebrows last week when he and other committee leaders wrote an op-ed articulating their position on climate change.” [Politico, 2/21/19 (=)]

Graves, Plaskett Reintroduce Disaster Bill. According to E&E News, ‘Louisiana Republican Rep. Garret Graves has reintroduced legislation to reform the Stafford Act, continuing his efforts to reshape the decades-old disaster law. H.R. 1311, co-sponsored by U.S. Virgin Islands Del. Stacey Plaskett (D), would aim to make long-term federal relief money available more quickly in the weeks after a natural disaster. It would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to dole out up to 10 percent of certain grants in the 30 days following a federally declared disaster. The money would go to repairing damaged buildings and providing assistance to households, as well as long-term economic recovery. The measure would also widen the president’s authority to fund permanent housing for disaster victims, which the two co-sponsors said would prevent people from wallowing in short-term housing indefinitely. ‘Bottom line is that we need to get recovery funds into the hands of disaster victims as soon as possible,’ Graves said in a statement. ‘Spending hundreds of millions on temporary housing while waiting on long-term funding is a waste of taxpayer dollars and delays recovery of our communities. The current system is a proven failure.’” [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

Bill Aims To Ban Pesticides Harmful To Bees. According to E&E News, “Two Democratic congressmen said today they’re reintroducing legislation to block the use of pesticides harmful to bees. Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts said their bill, the ‘Saving America’s Pollinators Act,’ would suspend the use of pesticides called neonicotinoids while EPA more closely examines their threat to pollinators, especially bees. The lawmakers will introduce the bill next week, a spokesman said. Similar legislation didn’t advance in the Republican-led House last year. ‘The EPA has a responsibility to get to the bottom of this issue and they must be held accountable,’ Blumenauer said in a news release. ‘We must do more to protect pollinators to ensure our food system is healthy and the agricultural economy remains strong.’ Blumenauer and McGovern are members of the House Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue. Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) wasn’t among the bill’s 46 co-sponsors last year. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced similar legislation, which also didn’t advance.” [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

Green New Deal

A Green New Deal Is Technologically Possible. Its Political Prospects Are Another Question. According to the New York Times, “President Trump derided the Green New Deal as a ‘high school term paper that got a low mark.’ Congressional Republicans mocked it as ‘zany.’ Even Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, called the proposal a ‘green dream,’ and some of the party’s 2020 candidates are starting to describe it as merely aspirational. Yet, despite that disdain, the goals of the far-reaching plan to tackle climate change and economic inequality are within the realm of technological possibility, several energy experts and economists said in recent interviews. Getting there will cost trillions of dollars, most agreed, and require expansive new taxes and federal programs. It certainly could not be accomplished within the 10-year time frame that supporters say is necessary, according to these experts. The Green New Deal, in other words, is an exciting idea for many liberals and an enticing political target for conservatives. But, most of all, it is an extraordinarily complicated series of trade-offs that could be realized, experts say, with extensive sacrifices that people are only starting to understand.” [New York Times, 2/21/19 (=)]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal Is Right About Transforming Transportation — But We Don't Have To Wait For Its More Ambitious Goals. According to Business Insider, “The ‘Green New Deal’ non-binding resolution introduced by Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ed Markey of Massachusetts is exceptionally ambitious. And when it comes to the transportation sector, it’s a combination of wildly futuristic and spot-on. In a nutshell, the proposal would seek to stabilize global warming at a level recognized by the scientific consensus. The plan entails many things, including a broad jobs program. Ocasio-Cortez and Markey have put a decade-long timeframe on the GND, and the language of the resolution compares its implementation to a wartime ‘mobilization.’ Ambition and urgency — two things that are overdue, if you accept the planet simply can’t get warmer if humanity is to avoid a catastrophe. Those two qualities have immediately provoked natural opponents of the proposal to highlight its impracticality. They warn that it would empower the government to take away your large, gas-guzzling automobile, force you to take public transportation, and do away with air travel.” [Business Insider, 2/21/19 (=)]

Green New Deal's Infrastructure Plan Could Cost Trillions. According to Fox News, “Only a week after the roll-out of the Green New Deal, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, threw a wet blanket on a big part of the ambitious resolution. He scaled back California’s high-speed rail project by about 80 percent and appeared to justify keeping the remaining 20 percent only because of money spent. ‘Abandoning high-speed rail entirely means we will have wasted billions and billions of dollars with nothing but broken promises,’ he said. Just as critics feared, the rail project ballooned from a projected cost of $10 billion 10 years ago to $77 billion today. Critics say it’s a symbol for the utopian vision of the entire Green New Deal, which they feel will cost trillions and have no positive effects on infrastructure. ‘I hoped to cofound a Green New Deal about 15 years ago,’ said Michael Shellenberger, president of Environmental Progress, a pro-nuclear fuel group. ‘We did about $150 billion of investment in renewables and other forms of clean tech from about 2009 to 2015 and a lot of that money was wasted, maybe most of it.’ But even if the Green New Deal were to be fully implemented and achieve a drawdown of carbon emissions to net zero in 10 years, skeptics doubt it would have any tangible effect on climate change or carbon emissions.” [Fox News, 2/21/19 (-)]

'Green New Deal' — An Obama Stimulus 2.0? According to E&E News, “In 2009, with the nation’s economy in a tailspin, President Obama signed into law a stimulus package that aimed to give a herculean lift to the cause of clean energy, with $90 billion in investments. Ten years later, the stimulus is being cited as a touchstone for the chief policy planners of the ‘Green New Deal,’ who are exploring ways to ramp up the renewable capacity-building of Obama’s law and fuse it with a far-reaching greenifying of American life. ‘In many ways, we think of our plan as the stimulus that Obama never really gave us,’ said Robert Hockett, a Cornell University law professor and senior adviser to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who spearheaded the plan in Congress. ‘Our view is, this is going to be much bigger than that first stimulus, and it’s going to be more than just a stimulus. We’re thinking of it as a massive national reconstruction,’ he said. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 poured billions in loans, grants and research funds into clean energy. Tesla Inc. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. got nearly $2 billion to finance their all-electric cars.” [E&E News, 2/22/19 (=)]

Nine Key Questions About The Green New Deal. According to the New York Times, “If you’ve heard a lot recently about the Green New Deal but still aren’t quite sure what it is, you are not alone. After all, it has been trumpeted by its supporters as the way to avoid planetary destruction, and vilified by opponents as a socialist plot to take away your ice cream. So it’s bound to be somewhat confusing. We’re here to help. The Green New Deal is a congressional resolution that lays out a grand plan for tackling climate change. Introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, the proposal calls on the federal government to wean the United States from fossil fuels and curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions across the economy. It also aims to guarantee new high-paying jobs in clean energy industries. The resolution is nonbinding, so even if Congress approves it, nothing in the proposal would become law. Variations of the proposal have been around for years. Think tanks, the Green Party and even the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman all have had plans for tackling climate change that they labeled a Green New Deal.” [New York Times, 2/21/19 (=)]

Can The Green New Deal Make It Through Congress? Here Are 5 Things You Need To Know. According to the Washington Post, “Earlier this month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) unveiled a Green New Deal, a decade-long plan to address climate change. Unlike previous proposals to reduce carbon emissions through small cost increases, the Green New Deal outlines the equivalent of a war effort — a coordinated response across society. The plan proposes projects to reduce carbon emissions across the U.S. economy: upgrading buildings so they use less energy, removing carbon from the electricity grid, electrifying transportation, cleaning up heavy industry and working on agricultural emissions. It also aims for 100 percent clean electricity. Some proposed projects involve expanding research and development to create new technologies, while others would use existing technologies. To get these projects off the ground, the government would almost certainly contract with private businesses. The plan also focuses on social policy, such as health care and housing, in outlining principles to guide its ambitious efforts. It is a departure from previous climate efforts, which have focused narrowly on environmental issues.” [Washington Post, 2/21/19 (=)]

Election 2020

New Climate PAC Will Back Inslee For President. According to The Hill, “A new super PAC launching on Thursday will back Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s (D) potential run for president. The group, Act Now On Climate, said it would back Inslee, who has made climate change a cornerstone of his two terms as governor. ‘Climate change is the most pressing issue of our time and the most critical issue the next president will have to address,’ said Corey Platt, a senior adviser to the new PAC. ‘It’s not simply an environmental issue, but also the nexus to jobs and national security.’ Inslee has not formally said he will run for president, but he has said repeatedly that his platform would be based on combating climate change, casting it as an economic and job-creating engine for a new economy, if he launches a bid. The governor has strongly hinted that he will announce his decision in a matter of weeks. ‘We’ll make the decision at the right time. We are actively considering it, and that has been going well,’ Inslee told The Hill in a December interview.” [The Hill, 2/21/19 (=)]

Dem Operative Launches Super PAC Backing Inslee For President. According to Politico, “Close allies of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee have created a super PAC to support his presidential campaign, with Inslee expected to jump into the 2020 Democratic primary soon. The unlimited-money group, called Act Now On Climate, was formed by veteran Democratic operative Corey Platt, former political director of the Democratic Governors Association. Inslee chaired the governors group in 2018, when he traveled the country campaigning for Democratic governors and introducing himself in key states. Platt also served in the role when Inslee ran for reelection in Washington in 2016. The super PAC’s launch illustrates Inslee’s long-shot position in the Democratic presidential field — and how he will focus on the environment to make a mark in the campaign. The primary is already full of candidates who have disavowed big donors and support from outside groups, but Inslee is much less known than many of his 2020 rivals and he does not have the same broad grassroots donor base that candidates like Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, making a super PAC a more alluring option.” [Politico, 2/21/19 (=)]

White hOuse

Bernhardt And Trump Have A Lot To Chew Over. According to E&E News, ‘When acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt dines with President Trump today, he’ll be getting politically invaluable face time as well as, perhaps, a marching order or two. He might also gain some clarity about the timing of his formal nomination to replace departed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Officially, neither the agenda nor the menu is up for public consumption at today’s 12:15 p.m. luncheon scheduled for the White House’s private dining room located near the Oval Office. Reporters aren’t invited to the get-together in this part of the president’s inner sanctum. ‘In this room, the president may have casual meals alone or with staff and catch the news on television or discuss White House policy,’ the White House Museum’s website notes. At the same time, the White House’s inclusion of the Bernhardt luncheon on an updated version of the president’s public schedule sends some kind of signal about the administration official who’s handling high-profile policies as well as symbolic initiatives dear to Trump’s heart.’ [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

Industry and Business

$32T Pushing Fossil Fuel CEOs To Act On Climate. According to E&E News, “Behind Glencore PLC’s decision to limit coal investment is a little-known, but powerful group of investors. Glencore made its decision after facing pressure from a shareholder network known as Climate Action 100+, which has the backing of more than 300 investors managing $32 trillion. The group was founded a little over a year ago but has already extracted reforms from oil heavyweights, like BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC. While skeptics may regard Glencore’s changes as minimal (the company still stands to reap billions from its huge coal business), the announcement still shows the influence that investors hold at being able to push even the most reticent companies to respond to their demands. ‘If Glencore says that it doesn’t see coal having a growing future then other people will stand up and take notice,’ said Edward Mason, the head of responsible investment at the Church Commissioners for England. ‘This is not a easy position for Glencore.’ He was part of the discussions with the company, calling the talks ‘an intensive engagement process.’” [E&E News, 2/22/19 (=)]

Research and Analysis

What The 17th Century’s “Little Ice Age” Teaches Us About Climate Change. According to Quartz, “Once upon a time in Europe, the winters got very very cold and the summers got unbearably hot. ‘The spring of this year was like winter, cold and wet, the wine blossom terrible, and the harvest bad,’ wrote the Swiss theologian Heinrich Bullinger in 1570. Initially, this seemed like a temporary problem, just one bad year. So across the continent, cultivators shrugged off their poor harvests, and vintners sold wine made of sour grapes which consumers drank angrily as they contemplated rising grain prices. But the extreme weather continued, season after season after season, until abnormal became the new normal. As William Shakespeare put it in the 1593 play Richard III, ‘Now is the winter of our discontent.’ In his book Nature’s Mutiny, to be published in March by WW Norton & Company, German journalist Philipp Blom posits that Shakespeare wrote those words as a literal description of the string of difficult winters he’d just endured. This period of extreme weather, which would continue for more than 100 years, is now known as the ‘Little Ice Age,’ and Blom argues that if we look back at its effects in Europe—where they were best documented—we’ll better understand how we got to where we are today and anticipate what’s ahead as climate change increasingly affects our lives.” [Quartz, 2/21/19 (=)]

Extreme Weather

Hurricanes Create Climate Change Labs In Puerto Rico. According to E&E News, “The hurricanes that pounded Puerto Rico in 2017, blasting away most of its forest cover, may give scientists clues to how the world will respond to climate change and increasingly severe weather. Researchers at El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rainforest overseen by the U.S. Forest Service, are running controlled studies on how plants respond to higher temperatures combined — since the cataclysmic blow from Hurricane Maria — with severe weather. Not far away, another group is looking at how hurricanes affect the forest environment. ‘It’s a once-in-a-century opportunity to look at these two aspects of climate change together,’ said Tana Wood, a research ecologist with the Forest Service. Wood heads a team testing how plants themselves respond to higher temperatures. The 2017 hurricane season, with Maria following a lesser blow from Hurricane Irma, has given them a chance, as well, to see how storms affect the recovery of ecosystems already under stress, a key concern in the Caribbean, where scientists say warmer temperatures could lead to more intense hurricanes.” [E&E News, 2/22/19 (=)]

Courts and Legal

Groups Ask A Court To Block Tests That Could Harm Imperiled Atlantic Whales. According to the Washington Post, “Conservation groups fighting the Trump administration’s bid to open the Atlantic Ocean to offshore drilling asked a federal court Wednesday to block companies from conducting seismic tests to determine the location of oil and gas deposits. Five companies are awaiting the approval of final government permits allowing them to start what the environmentalists call ‘ear piercing’ tests that can be disruptive to marine life, particularly mammals such as whales and dolphins that use echolocation to communicate and feed. Claiming the issuance of those permits is imminent, as soon as March 1, the groups asked a judge in South Carolina to issue an injunction that would bar seismic testing until a lawsuit they filed against the administration in December can be decided. The December lawsuit claims the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the Commerce Department, departed from its mission to protect marine life by issuing permits allowing the five companies to kill fish and mammals as they conduct the tests. The service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the permits are a procedural step and that it does not expect any animals to be harmed.” [Washington Post, 2/20/19 (=)]

Endangered Deference Doctrine Could End EPA’s Streak Of Court Losses. According to Inside EPA, ‘EPA could soon end its losing streak in litigation over rollbacks of Obama-era policies as lawsuits shift from procedural challenges to fights over the merits of rules on which courts often defer to the agency, but that outcome faces a growing threat from conservative federal judges who are looking to narrow or even scrap such deference. ‘In the first couple of years of the administration, they tried to move way too fast with a crew of people who didn’t know how to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s, and that got them into a lot of trouble,’ said Robert Percival, director of the University of Maryland Carey School of Law’s Environmental Law Program, in a Feb. 21 interview with Inside EPA. He was referring to early Trump administration moves to delay or undo Obama EPA policies that critics successfully challenged in court cases that focused on procedural flaws in those efforts. But litigation over regulatory rollbacks is now moving into its next stage with a focus on the substance of Trump EPA replacement rules, rather than initial procedural challenges -- such as expected suits over a planned narrower Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction standard to replace a broader 2015 CWA policy, and over a rule to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP) greenhouse gas rule for existing utilities.’ [Inside EPA, 2/21/19 (=)]

Greens Sue To Protect At-Risk Whale. According to E&E News, ‘Environmentalists are heading to court over the Trump administration’s failure to protect the Gulf of Mexico whale under the Endangered Species Act. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Healthy Gulf filed suit today after more than a year passed since NOAA Fisheries proposed listing the animal — a subspecies of the Bryde’s whale — as endangered. The agency determined the marine mammal was in danger of extinction, with only a few dozen individuals remaining. While other types of Bryde’s whales are found throughout the world, the Gulf of Mexico subspecies has distinct characteristics, including different sizes and a unique communication call. NOAA Fisheries determined the animal was threatened by boat strikes, energy development and oil spills. ‘It’s beyond comprehension that these federal agencies will not take action to protect this population of Gulf whales that they admit were impacted by the BP drilling disaster and are at risk of extinction,’ said Cyn Sarthou, executive director of Healthy Gulf, in a statement. ‘These whales that are unique to the Gulf of Mexico need protection now.’’ [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

Opinion Pieces

Op-Ed: Rep. Brendan Boyle Steps Into Radical Territory By Backing New Green Deal. According to an op-ed by Dom Giordano in The Philadelphia Enquirer, “I always thought that U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle was a guy with a great American success story and someone who embodied the Democratic Party’s mantra of fighting for the little guy without resorting to radical class warfare and utopian, socialist manifestos. So, when I saw Boyle fighting for position behind the Democratic Party’s radical superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the announcement of her Green New Deal two weeks ago, I thought maybe a guy looking like Boyle from a progressive outlier district was there basking in the socialist glow of Ocasio-Cortez. Boyle confirmed he was the smiling endorser of the Green New Deal when he tweeted out: ‘Things the Green New Deal Won’t Do ‘- ban cars ‘- outlaw planes ‘- kill cows ‘- criminalize apple pie and the American flag ‘Thing It Will Do: ‘- Finally put us on a path to tackling an existential threat to our planet’ Whom is Boyle kidding? He has willingly pushed a program that will try to eliminate or tremendously reduce cars, air flights, and cows. It would also oversee the environmental renovation of every building in America in a 10-year period. Are you fully hearing this, Northeast Philadelphia?” [Philadelphia Enquirer, 2/21/19 (-)]

Op-Ed: The Lessons Infantile Adults Can Learn From Children Go Far Beyond Climate Change. According to an op-ed by Richard Russell in The Guardian, “The children’s climate strike has become another lightning rod in the never-ending culture war. Those on the left applauded them for their brave moral stand. Jonathan Freedland – not without basis – pointed to the strike as evidence that children were acting more like adults than the adults. But on the right the focus seemed to be on chiding them and telling them to get back to school – from the prime minister’s spokesperson to Toby Young, who saw the children’s behaviour as an argument for raising the voting age to 21. So far, so predictable. And then came the waves of abusive comments and tweets in response. Teachers who ‘support this strike should have their assets confiscated and [be] sent to work down the salt mines’. ‘Oh do shut up you total fucking arse‘ the actor James Purefoy tweeted at Young to his 107,000 followers. With all this discord you wouldn’t blame any child, unsure of what they think about the strike, for wishing that the adults would all stop fighting and just play nicely.” [The Guardian, 2/22/19 (+)]

Op-Ed: School Curriculum Fails To Reflect The Urgency Of The Climate Crisis. According to an op-ed by Edmund Stubbs in The Guardian, “I draw three circles on the board as my class watches. ‘So, what might this gas be?’ ‘CO₂’ ‘Good, but what does CO₂ stand for?’ ‘Oh, carbon dioxide,’ reels off the whole class as one. Secondary students know CO₂. The chemical formula rolls off the tongues of even those who disdain science. Carbon dioxide is frequently mentioned in lessons; as products in reactions, during tests for gases, in the carbon cycle, respiration, photosynthesis and even to explain the greenhouse effect. This common gas, essential for many processes occurring on our planet, is intertwined throughout the secondary school curriculum. But real insight into the impact those two atoms of oxygen and one of carbon will have on my students’ future varies drastically between individuals. I have been following the growing student strikes around the world with fascination. Seeing young people abandon their studies for a day and claim to be taking their future into their own hands should make any teacher uneasy, and it has led me to question my role as a secondary school science teacher.” [The Guardian, 2/22/19 (=)]

Op-Ed: Forget The Green New Deal, The Future Is Batteries. According to an op-ed by Ellen R. Wald in Forbes, “Insufficient battery technology is the greatest impediment to a clean energy present and future. Despite what the Green New Deal says or Tesla claims, we cannot transform our electricity generation until we see a revolution in battery technology. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) (L) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) (R) hug each other as other Congressional Democrats look on during a news conference in front of the U.S. Capitol February 7, 2019 in Washington, DC. Sen. Markey and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez held a news conference to unveil their Green New Deal resolution. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)GETTY We cannot end carbon emissions from power plants until we find a way to efficiently and safely store large amounts of power. We need to master the ability to quickly charge batteries without destroying their lifespans before electric vehicles take over. To truly make a difference, we need to make the creation and disposal of batteries less harmful to the environment and less reliant on mining in countries with exploitative labor practices. We need to find a way to store massive amounts of solar and wind power to be distributed upon demand to make renewable energies viable as baseload producers on the grid. The battery revolution that we need will be a major technological breakthrough. There was once a time when such major innovations were wholly the work of private industrious inventors, but maybe that time has passed.” [Forbes, 2/21/19 (=)]

Op-Ed: How 'Global Warming' Became 'Climate Change' And The Danger Of Euphemisms. According to an op-ed by Victor Davis Hanson in the Chicago Tribune, “The reinvention of vocabulary can often be more effective than any social protest movement. Malarial swamps can become healthy ‘wetlands.’ Fetid ‘dumps’ are often rebranded as green ‘landfills.’ Global warming was once a worry about too much heat. It implied that man-made carbon emissions had so warmed the planet that life as we knew it would soon be imperiled without radical changes in consumer lifestyles. Yet in the last 30 years, record cold spells, inordinate snow levels and devastating rains have been common. How to square that circle? Substitute ‘climate change’ for global warming. Presto! Any radical change in weather could be perceived as symptomatic of too much climate-changing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Suddenly, blizzards, deluges and subzero temperatures meant that typically unpredictable weather was ‘haywire’ because of affluent Westernized lifestyles. Affirmative action originated as a means of making up for past prejudices against the African-American community, which comprised about 12 percent of the population. By the late 1960s, slavery, Jim Crow and institutionalized segregation were finally considered unique stains on the American past, to be redeemed in the present by set-aside programs in college admissions and hiring predicated on racial considerations.” [Chicago Tribune, 2/21/19 (-)]

Op-Ed: Carbon Capture Could Be Key To Decarbonizing U.S. Fossil Fuels. According to an op-ed by Luca Mastropasqua in Axios, “Approximately 49 million tons of CO2 could be cut via carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) in the power sector — equivalent to removing 7 million cars from the roads — by 2030, according to a Clean Air Task Force (CATF) report published this week. Why it matters: The oil and gas industry has experimented with CO2 removal technology since the 1930s to purify process streams from CO2. Now similar technology could be used to ease the transition from fossil fuels to more sustainable energy sources. Show less Background: CCUS is considered an important medium- and long-term means of reducing carbon emissions in fossil fuel–intensive industries. The International Energy Agency (IEA) places 32% of the responsibility of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 — a pledge many governments, including California’s and the EU’s, already support — on CCUS. What’s new: The Trump administration approved a new tax credit in the February 2018 budget legislation for CCUS, which made several changes: Expanded and increased the value of an older credit, from $10/ton of CO2 captured to $35/ton for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) — a process of injecting captured CO2 into an oil field to recover additional petroleum — and from $20/ton to $50/ton for geological storage. Established 12-year credit security for new deployment projects. Reduced the eligibility threshold from 500,000 to 100,000 tons of CO2 captured for industrial applications.” [Axios, 2/21/19 (=)]

Op-Ed: The Green New Deal: Don't Trust Anyone Under Thirty. According to an op-ed by Michael Lynch in Forbes, “Criticism of the Green New Deal proposed by a number of Democratic politicians is widespread, a lot of it of the dog whistle variety (Socialism! Banning Beef!) which should be ignored as political theater--and not the good kind. But there are some points to be made especially regarding the underpinning of the program, which seems to me to be similar to the Republican ‘cut taxes and the deficit will drop’ argument. (That is, vague assertions and wishful thinking.) The comment from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that markets haven’t solved the problem of climate change is illustrative. She said on NPR ‘For 40 years, we tried to let the private sector take care of it. They said, we got this, we can do this, the forces of the market are going to force us to innovate. Except for the fact that there’s a little thing in economics called externalities, and what that means is that a corporation can dump pollution in the river and they don’t have to pay for it, and taxpayers have to pay for cleaning up our air, cleaning up our water and saving the planet.’ Which first brings to mind the saying ‘Don’t trust anyone under thirty,’ usually from people who said don’t trusts anyone over thirty when they were under thirty. Her youth and inexperience shine through that statement in a number of ways, including her apparent belief that the free market has been asked to solve climate change for forty years—or ever.” [Forbes, 2/21/19 (-)]

Op-Ed: The Green New Deal’s Impossible Electric Grid. According to an op-ed by Robert Blohm in the Wall Street Journal, “The Democrats’ Green New Deal calls for a fully renewable electric power grid. Regardless of the economic or political challenges of bringing this about, it is likely technologically impossible. An electric power grid involves second-by-second balancing between generated supply and consumer demand. In the case of a sudden imbalance—such as from the loss of a generator’s output—all the remaining generators on the grid instantaneously pool together. Each one pitches in a small part of the required power to make up for the lost generator fast enough to keep supply and demand balanced. This doesn’t work for wind and solar because you can’t spontaneously increase wind or sunshine. Hydro power is limited and unevenly distributed around the country. And for safety reasons, nuclear power—even if the Green New Dealers accepted it—can’t be cranked up to neutralize imbalances. Nor can consumer demand be suddenly reduced enough. Newsletter Sign-up Fossil-fuel turbines, by contrast, very naturally compensate for sudden supply outages. The inertia of the spinning mass of rotors provides the extra energy needed to compensate for the loss for the first few seconds. (Wind-rotor inertia is too short-lived.) Meanwhile the generators’ on-line reserve capacity kicks in, giving a rapid boost in power output to prevent the turbines from slowing down.” [Wall Street Journal, 2/20/19 (-)]

Op-Ed: Medical Community Must Sound Alarm About Climate Change’s Negative Effects On Health. According to an op-ed by Cheryl L. Holder in the Miami Herald, “Hearing that 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record reminded me of a family I visited a few years earlier. I was with the medical and nursing students of FIU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine NeighborhoodHELP, which provides home healthcare visits to Miami’s underserved communities. This household visit was supposed to be like any other. But when I stepped out of my car in Little Haiti and felt the stifling June heat coming off of the pavement, I knew, unfortunately, what to expect. Miami’s Little Haiti, a 3.5 square mile area , about six miles north of downtown Miami, formerly known as Lemon City, has about 34,000 people, mostly poor Haitian immigrants living in old homes without air-conditioning. My students were excited to meet their first family: a mother and her four children. The mother met us at the door wearing a white T-shirt and cotton floral skirt. She was a tall, thin woman appearing younger than her age, hair pulled back in a neat ponytail and with a smile on a face in need of no makeup. She graciously welcomed us into her home: a tiny, one-bedroom apartment.” [Miami Herald, 2/20/19 (+)]

Op-Ed: EPA Knows This Pesticide Is Dangerous, So Why Did It Reverse The Ban? According to an op-ed by Marc Lame in The Hill, ‘The Environmental Protection Agency is trying to overturn a court-ordered deadline to ban chlorpyrifos, abdicating its mission to protect human health and the environment. In 2016, with over 30 years of data, the Obama administration ordered a ban on chlorpyrifos. But under the Trump administration, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reversed that decision. Last August, a court ordered the EPA to finalize a ban by early October. Prior to that deadline, the EPA filed its appeal allowing the continued use of a pesticide its own scientists said was too dangerous for children and endangered species to be exposed to. Simultaneously, the head of the Office of Children’s Health Protection whose office published a report on the adverse effects of chlorpyrifos was put on leave, the chief of EPA’s research office was replaced with a Koch industry engineer, and plans to eliminate the Office of the Science Advisor were announced — an apparent ‘scorched earth’ approach to silence internal efforts to conduct and report sound science.’ [The Hill, 2/21/19 (+)]

Op-Ed: Renewable Energy Is Not The Political Wedge It Once Was. According to an op-ed by Mark Pischea in The Hill, ‘As the 2020 election ramps up, renewable energy simply isn’t the wedge issue it once was — a trend that’s borne out in recent polling data from a post-election survey of midterm voters by the Conservative Energy Network and CRES Forum. The poll, which was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and WPA Intelligence from Nov. 8 to 12, found that a significant majority of U.S. voters (81 percent) across all party affiliations said they would vote for elected officials who support clean energy development such as wind and solar. While 81 percent of survey respondents also said they would support government action to accelerate the development and use of clean energy in the United States, including over half (54 percent) who said they strongly supported such action, a significant majority (eighty-three percent) favored more competition in energy markets, with the ability to choose the source and type of energy they use. In other words, clean energy, especially innovation brought about by smart market-oriented policies, has gone from a losing issue in Republican circles to something conservative candidates can run on — and win.’ [The Hill, 2/21/19 (+)]

Op-Ed: AOC’s Green Deal Isn’t New — It’s Been A Flop In Germany. According to an op-ed by Liz Peek in The Hill, ‘Sorry, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), that Green New Deal of yours isn’t really very new after all. It’s actually an ‘Old Green Deal,’ a rehash of the environmental platform called Energiewende, or ‘energy transition,’ adopted in Germany in 2010. And, in Germany, the Old Green Deal has been something of a flop. Similarities abound between the German program and the resolution proposed by House freshman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). Like the Green New Deal (GND), Germany’s Energiewende called for a shift to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. Energiewende built upon Germany’s Renewable Sources Act of 2000, which encouraged the use of wind, biofuels, hydropower and solar energy through a system of feed-in tariffs and also grid priority for renewable energy. It was funded by a surcharge on electricity, which cost consumers more than $20 billion per year. The build-up of renewables also benefited from more than $800 billion in subsidies.’ [The Hill, 2/21/19 (-)]

States

Arizona

‘Highly Unusual’ Push Aims To Transfer Income, Not Ownership. According to E&E News, ‘Arizona received nearly $40 million in federal payments in fiscal 2018 to offset the Copper State’s more than 28 million acres of non-taxable public lands — but for critics like state Rep. Mark Finchem (R), that isn’t nearly enough. Instead, Finchem is leading a push to establish a new state Department of Public Land Management that would become the first collection point for fees from all land-use agreements such as grazing fees and rights-of-way grants. ‘This is one solution to see to it that PILT [payments in lieu of taxes] is reset so the state of Arizona might take its portion — depending on the agreement that’s negotiated with the Department of the Interior — and then send whatever the residual is on to the secretary of the Interior,’ Finchem, chairman of the state House Federal Relations Committee, explained at a hearing on his bill, H.B. 2547, earlier this month. He added that Interior and Bureau of Land Management officials are aware of his legislation and are working with a ‘small delegation’ from four states — Alaska, Arizona, Idaho and Utah — on various proposals.’ [E&E news, 2/21/19 (=)]

Maine

Maine Governor Supports Canadian Hydropower Project For Massachusetts. According to E&E News, ‘Democratic Gov. Janet Mills announced her support today for a proposed settlement that would compensate Maine residents for allowing a 145-mile transmission line to run through the state and deliver electricity generated by dams in Quebec to Massachusetts. Mills’ Office of Energy signed onto the deal filed with the Maine Public Utilities Commission, which now must weigh whether to grant the New England Clean Energy Connect project a permit. Hydro-Quebec has partnered with utility Central Maine Power to shepherd the project through federal and state regulatory processes. The proposal has run up against opposition from some environmental and community groups. ‘I believe that the Stipulation presented today to the Public Utilities Commission will require this project to bring substantial and concrete long-term benefits to the people of Maine,’ Mills said in a statement. ‘The agreement today is markedly different from where the discussion started.’ Mills’ backing comes after she made statements in recent months suggesting that CMP and Hydro-Quebec needed to do more to prove that the project would benefit her state’s citizens. The settlement includes millions of dollars in benefits to Maine, including money earmarked for broadband investments and other community benefits.’ [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

Michigan

Gov. Keeps 2 Enviro Panels Intact. According to E&E News, ‘Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer yesterday changed direction — for now — and issued an environmental order that keeps intact two business-backed panels that are charged with oversight of state rulemaking and permitting. The move came less than a week after the Republican-led Legislature took the rare step of rejecting her original order to reshape and rename the Department of Environmental Quality, largely because it would have abolished the two commissions that were created under 2018 laws enacted by the GOP. Whitmer, who contends the committees will add bureaucracy to the regulatory process, noted that she is awaiting Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel’s determination on whether the panels are legal. Nessel’s opinion would bind state agencies unless it was reversed by a court. ‘Every Michigander deserves safe, clean drinking water, and I’m not going to let partisan politics slow down the important work that needs to get done right now to protect public health,’ Whitmer said in a statement.’ [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

Nevada

Snow In Vegas! City Gets First White Stuff In Decade. According to E&E News, ‘Las Vegas is getting a rare taste of winter weather, with significant snowfall across the metro area for the first time in a decade. The National Weather Service said Las Vegas’ half an inch (1.3 centimeters) of snow late yesterday was the first measurable snow on a Feb. 20 since record-keeping started in 1937. Forecasters say the snow accumulation could reach 3 inches by tomorrow on the western and southern outskirts of the city, but rain could reduce accumulation. Las Vegas schools were open today, and the Nevada Highway Patrol said some areas had snow and ice but all freeways were open.’ [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

New Hampshire

Authorities Investigating Mountain Climber’s Death. According to E&E News, ‘The U.S. Forest Service says police are investigating the death of a mountain climber who was hiking up a moderately difficult snowy and icy area on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast. Snow rangers from the Mount Washington Avalanche Center responded to a report of an overdue climber on Sunday, Feb. 10. Volunteer search and rescue teams also assisted to search the terrain above Huntington Ravine. The Forest Service said the climber was attempting to climb an area called Central Gully. The body was found that evening, recovered from the mountain, and released to local authorities. The climber’s name hasn’t been released. The Forest Service said icy conditions following several days of warm temperatures and rain increased the danger of long sliding falls the day of the accident.’ [E&E News, 2/21/19 (=)]

New Mexico

N.M. Weighs New Authority For Regulators. According to E&E News, “New Mexico oil field regulators would recover the authority to directly levy civil fines against well operators that fail to properly maintain equipment or spill waste under proposed legislation backed by the Democratic administration of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Initial committee deliberations were scheduled yesterday on a bill that is being closely watched by the oil industry and advocates for tighter state oversight. State fines against oil field operators in New Mexico have ground to a halt in the aftermath of a 2009 state Supreme Court decision that required the involvement of state prosecutors. The bill from state Sen. Richard Martinez (D) of Espanola would give new authority to the Oil Conservation Division to pursue sanctions directly through administrative hearings or litigation. It would increase potential penalties from $1,000 a day to $15,000.” [E&E News, 2/22/19 (=)]

South Carolina

Trump's Atlantic Oil Search Runs Aground In S.C. According to E&E News, “More than half the registered voters in Republican-controlled South Carolina supported Donald Trump in a poll last month, but there’s at least one area where state leaders are ditching the president to join rival Democrats: a fight against oil exploration off the Atlantic coast. While no new drilling has been approved in U.S. Atlantic waters, the Interior Department said in 2014 the region may contain 90 billion barrels of oil and 300 trillion cubic feet of gas. The Trump administration, eager to promote new sources of domestic energy, cleared the way in November for an essential first step to future drilling: geologic surveys using sound waves to pinpoint potential oil deposits. Permits could be issued as soon as next month. That’s sparked a legal challenge by South Carolina and nine other Atlantic states, some coastal cities and environmental groups, to block a survey method companies have used for decades to scout petroleum reserves all over the world. The plaintiffs say the sound waves are unsafe for marine life, but their goal is broader — to prevent a new energy province off the East Coast that could threaten local tourism and fishing industries.” [E&E News, 2/22/19 (=)]

Chad Ellwood

Research Associate

cellwood@cacampaign.com

202.448.2877 ext. 119