Clean
Car Standards
The Rollback That Automakers Don't Want.
According to E&E News, “The White House held a call with automakers last month urging them to publicly support its rollback of Obama-era clean car rules, multiple news outlets reported
yesterday. Joining the call were senior officials from EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who told automakers to support the rollback or risk angering President Trump by siding with California’s more stringent tailpipe emissions rules.
But since the call, not one automaker has issued a statement of support. That begs the questions: If the automakers don’t want the rollback, who does? And how did things get to this point? The answers are complicated, and they illustrate the perils of peeling
back regulations without adequately consulting the main industry that stands to be affected.” [E&E News,
3/8/19 (=)]
International
Gas Scarcity Could Turn Crisis To Catastrophe.
According to E&E News, “Marin Mendez leaned a shoulder into his rusty Chevy Malibu, rolling it forward each time the line of cars inched closer to the pump. Waiting hours to fill
up, he says, is the high cost he pays for gasoline that’s nearly free in socialist Venezuela. ‘You line up to get your pension, line up to buy food, line up to pump your gas,’ an exasperated Mendez said after 40 minutes of waiting in the sweltering heat in
Maracaibo — ironically the center of the country’s oil industry — and expecting to be there hours or days more. ‘I’ve had enough!’ Lines stretching a mile (kilometer) or more to fuel up have plagued this western region of Venezuela for years — despite the
country’s status as holder of the world’s largest oil reserves. Now, shortages threaten to spread countrywide as supplies of petrol become even scarcer amid a raging struggle over political control of Venezuela. The Trump administration hit Venezuela’s state-run
oil firm PDVSA with sanctions in late January in a sweeping strategy aimed at forcing President Nicolás Maduro from power in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaidó. Doomsday predictions immediately followed — mostly fueled by Maduro’s opponents and U.S. officials
— that Venezuela’s domestic gasoline supplies would last no more than a week or so.” [E&E News,
3/8/19 (=)]
Congress
Lawmakers Prepare To Reauthorize Diesel Emissions Program.
According to E&E News, “Amid a generally dismal outlook for environmental endeavors on Capitol Hill, one EPA program has enjoyed rousing bipartisan support in recent years. And after
recently getting another big budget boost, the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act grant program will be the subject of a reauthorization hearing Wednesday by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The panel will be discussing legislation sponsored
by ranking member Tom Carper (D-Del.) to renew the program through fiscal 2024. As of Friday, Carper had not introduced the bill. While the proposed funding levels were also not available, Carper previously sought $100 million per year in a 2017 measure that
did not pass (E&E Daily, June 28, 2017). The program’s last authorization expired at the end of fiscal 2016; while passage of a fresh reauthorization measure would not guarantee future funding, it would give Congress the opportunity to tweak the program’s
operating rules. In a report accompanying Carper’s 2017 bill, EPW Committee staff said that ‘minor changes to the program are appropriate to make implementation more equitable across the country.’” [E&E News,
3/11/19 (=)]
Electric Vehicles
Some Fear Wave Of EV Fees Might Swamp Emission Goals.
According to E&E News, “Few issues bridge the partisan divide in American politics in the same way as potholes and crumbling roads. Just ask Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer,
whose ‘fix the damn roads’ mantra helped fuel her November election win. But highway funding can be a tricky issue, fraught with arguments over who picks up the tab. And the increase in electric vehicle sales and forecasts for the sharply higher penetration
is adding to the debate. Across the country, state lawmakers are proposing a new round of fees intended to offset declining gasoline taxes. But EV supporters argue that some of the proposals go too far and discourage adoption of plug-in vehicles — a technology
shift seen as a key to curbing transportation sector carbon emissions. The statehouse debates come as the fossil fuel industry and its allies continue a push in Congress for legislation to kill the federal EV tax credit and impose a new fee on EV drivers.
The same groups, too, are weighing in at state utility commissions to push back against ratepayer-funded charging infrastructure (Energywire, Oct. 25, 2018).” [E&E News,
3/11/19 (=)]
Elon Musk Twitter Fight Heads To Court Again.
According to E&E News, “Elon Musk is about to urge a judge to go easy on him for tweets that U.S. regulators contend violated a court order, though legal experts say the pugnacious
billionaire will have a hard time avoiding some kind of punishment. The founder of electric-car maker Tesla Inc. is in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission over statements last month to his 25 million Twitter followers about the company’s
vehicle deliveries. The SEC says the missives violate terms of an earlier settlement prompted by his misleading August tweets about taking Tesla private. ‘The SEC will press hard on this,’ said Stephen Crimmins, a former agency enforcement lawyer who is now
a partner at Murphy & McGonigle. ‘Disobeying an order of the court is an insult to the court and the judge. So the court has to take this seriously.’ At the SEC’s request, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan ordered Musk to explain by Monday why
he shouldn’t be held in contempt of court. In an earlier settlement over his August tweets, Musk was fined $20 million, forced to give up his job as Tesla chairman, and required to consult a so-called Twitter Sitter before posting statements about the company
on social media.” [E&E News,
3/11/19 (=)]
Tesla Investors File Suit To Stop Elon Musk's Tweets About The Electric Car Company.
According to Fortune, “That’s the message a group of institutional investors in Tesla is sending the electric-car maker and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk in broadening its claim
against him Thursday, saying his ‘repeated misstatements’ continue to harm the company and its shareholders. Their new lawsuit, filed in Delaware Chancery Court, seeks to permanently block Musk’s ‘unchecked use of Twitter to make inaccurate statements about
the company,’ lawyers for one of the investors, the Laborers’ District Council and Contractors’ Pension Fund of Ohio, said in a statement. After tweeting last year that he had secured funding for a plan to take the company private, Musk allegedly stepped over
the line again in February by estimating on Twitter that Tesla would produce about half a million vehicles this year. The suit complains that Musk and Tesla directors have breached their duties to investors.” [Fortune,
3/11/19 (=)]
Chad Ellwood
Research Associate
202.448.2877 ext. 119