Top News

Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack On Climate Science. According to the New York Times, “President Trump has rolled back environmental regulations, pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, brushed aside dire predictions about the effects of climate change, and turned the term ‘global warming’ into a punch line rather than a prognosis. Now, after two years spent unraveling the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Trump and his political appointees are launching a new assault. In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change. And, in what could be Mr. Trump’s most consequential action yet, his administration will seek to undermine the very science on which climate change policy rests. Mr. Trump is less an ideologue than an armchair naysayer about climate change, according to people who know him. He came into office viewing agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency as bastions of what he calls the ‘deep state,’ and his contempt for their past work on the issue is an animating factor in trying to force them to abandon key aspects of the methodology they use to try to understand the causes and consequences of a dangerously warming planet.” [New York Times, 5/27/19 (+)]

Even Steve Bannon Thinks Trump's Latest Climate Change Plan Is Too Extreme. According to Vanity Fair, “From pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord to rolling back a wave of Obama-era environmental regulations, the Trump administration has always been quick to disavow any efforts to combat climate change. But it turns out they’re just getting started. The New York Times reports that President Donald Trump and his administration are ‘launching a new assault’ against climate change efforts. The anti-environmental effort is being coordinated across a broad swath of agencies: Officials at the National Security Council are being directed to ‘strip references’ to climate change in speeches, and the U.S. Geological Survey is changing its climate models to project the impacts of climate change only through 2040, rather than the previous modeling through the end of the century. The greatest impacts, however, are likely to be felt through the National Climate Assessment, a government-funded climate change document published every four years. The assessment’s most recent release in November 2018 went against the Trump administration’s climate nonchalance by outlining nightmarish projections of climate change’s devastating impact—so naturally, the administration is now trying to ensure future assessments will match the administration’s own viewpoint instead, scientific evidence be damned. Per the Times, the Trump administration will change the climate assessment in future reports by omitting any worst-case scenario projections.” [Vanity Fair, 5/27/19 (+)]

Biden Under Pressure From Environmentalists On Climate Plan. According to The Hill, “Former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to unveil his climate change plan any day now, and he’s under increasing pressure from environmentalists who want him to take a strong position against fossil fuels. The former Delaware senator has touted his decades-long environmental record in Congress and the Obama White House, but progressives argue that his approach to climate change is outdated and his record is anything but spotless. Biden’s position on climate could open him up to further attacks from the left wing of the party and create an obstacle to winning the party’s nomination, especially since the environment is the main concern for liberal voters. ‘Joe Biden or any presidential candidate who wants to win over voters living though climate disasters today has to give us more than something he did 30 years ago,’ said Charlie Jiang, climate campaigner for Greenpeace. ‘Voters are going to be looking for candidates to make bold commitments and a fossil fuel phaseout,’ he added. ‘If all Joe Biden has is to point to his record, that’s not good enough.’” [The Hill, 5/25/19 (=)]

Democrats Push EPA To Collect $124K From Pruitt For 'Excessive Airfare Expenses'. According to The Hill, “Senate Democrats are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make former Administrator Scott Pruitt cough up almost $124,000 for excessive travel expenses from when he was EPA chief. Four senators, in a Thursday letter to the agency, called on the EPA to modify an existing policy so that ‘similar abuses of agency funds are not permitted to reoccur.’ A recent Office of Inspector General (OIG) report found that Pruitt incurred thousands of dollars in ‘excessive airfare expenses ... without sufficient justification to support security concerns requiring the use of first- and business-class travel.’ The OIG last week said the agency should recover thousands of dollars from Pruitt spent on upgraded travel. Democrats say the EPA’s decision not to pursue collection of the funds excuses Pruitt’s behavior contrasts with other agency heads who have paid back funds in similar situations. ‘It is disappointing to learn that the EPA decided not to heed the Acting Inspector General’s findings and recommendations,’ the senators wrote in their letter. ‘These findings and recommendations were based on a meticulous analysis of the EPA’s own records.” [The Hill, 5/24/19 (+)]

Students Around The World Skip School To Protest And Demand Action On Climate Change. According to the Washington Post, “Students in scores of countries around the world skipped school on Friday to stage protests against governmental inaction on climate change and to demand that world leaders address the issue immediately. The coordinated action follows one in March, in which an estimated 1.6 million students from 125 countries protested instead of going to school. It was the latest event in a movement called Fridays for Future, in which young people periodically take action on climate change. The movement was sparked by a Swedish teenage activist named Greta Thunberg, who in 2018 led a solo protest in front of the Swedish parliament with a sign saying ‘School strike for the climate.’ Pictures she posted on her social media accounts went viral, and the movement was born. The protest Friday coincided with current voting for the European Union’s assembly, which ends Sunday and is expected to show growing support for environmentally minded political parties. Mainstream parties have in this election cycle seized on climate change policies as a key issue, in part a reaction to the student protests.” [Washington Post, 5/24/19 (+)]

Green Groups Angered Over EPA's Newest Regulations For Rocket Fuel Chemical. According to The Hill, “Environmental groups are saying the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) isn’t going far enough with its new regulations for a chemical commonly used in rocket fuel. Scientists in various organizations are saying that proposed limits for perchlorate in drinking water were significantly higher than experts recommended. ‘This is enough to make you sick — literally,’ Erik Olson, senior director for health and food at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said in a statement. The NRDC sued the EPA in early 2016 to force it to take action on perchlorate. EPA’s proposed standard for perchlorate released Friday suggests placing the maximum contaminant level at 56 parts per billion (ppb). In addition, EPA proposed requirements for water systems to conduct monitoring and reporting for perchlorate. Yet environmentalists said the standard is 10 to 50 times higher than what scientists recommend for the chemical compound that is widely used by the military. It’s commonly found in solid rocket propellants, fireworks, matches and signal flares. EPA under the Obama administration proposed a safe level of 15 ppb for the compound.” [The Hill, 5/24/19 (=)]

Trump Administration To Pull Out Of Rural Job Corps Program, Laying Off 1,100 Federal Workers. According to the Washington Post, “The Trump administration announced Friday that it will kill a Forest Service program that trains disadvantaged young people for wildland fire fighting and other jobs in rural communities, laying off 1,100 employees — believed to be the largest number of federal job cuts in a decade. The Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers enroll more than 3,000 students a year in rural America. The soon-to-close centers — in Montana, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Virginia, Washington state, Kentucky, North Carolina and Oregon — include hundreds of jobs in some of President Trump’s political strongholds. In Congress, members of both parties objected to the plan. The drawdown of the program, starting in September, will result in the largest layoffs of civil servants since the military’s base realignment and closures of 2010 and 2011, federal personnel experts said. Nine of the centers will close and another 16 will be taken over by private companies and possibly states. The program will be transferred to the Labor Department, which will close some and hand over operations of others. The agency will continue operating its other Job Corps programs in urban areas. Officials said many of the Forest Service operations are low-performing, with inefficiencies and high costs, and that a reboot was necessary.” [Washington Post, 5/24/19 (-)]

EPA

RMP Delay May Suggest Rollback Of Obama-Era Policy ‘Dead In The Water’. According to Inside EPA, “Environmentalists say the Trump administration’s just-announced monthslong delay of its self-imposed deadline for finalizing a rollback of an Obama-era rule tightening facility safety Risk Management Plan (RMP) requirements may suggest the plan is ‘dead in the water’ as it signals ongoing legal doubts about undoing the changes. ‘EPA’s inability to finalize the rule on schedule may signal the agency’s awareness that, as drafted, its proposed rule was blatantly unlawful and had no legal basis,’ an environmentalist attorney says in an email to Inside EPA following details of the delay in the agency’s spring Unified Agenda of pending rules released May 22. ‘The rollback is dead in the water,’ the source adds. ‘Since the chemical disaster rule remains in effect, industry should already be investing in compliance requirements and taking required steps to prevent future disasters.’ In the recent update to the regulatory agenda, EPA delays until August its deadline for issuing the final version of a rule rolling back the Obama administration’s January 2017 final rule strengthening the agency’s RMP facility accident prevention program.” [Inside EPA, 5/24/19 (=)]

Imminent E15 Waiver May Drop Some EPA RFS Credit Overhaul Changes. According to Inside EPA, “EPA is poised for imminent release of its final action allowing summertime sales of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15) ahead of a June 1 self-imposed deadline to authorize the fuel, but the agency might drop parts of a planned companion policy that would overhaul the market for renewable fuel standard (RFS) compliance credits, sources say. An EPA spokesman says, ‘EPA’s final action, which will be signed by the summer driving season, is consistent with the President’s direction last year and will help increase transparency and prevent price manipulation in the RIN market,’ referring to President Donald Trump’s directive to authorize year-round E15 sales. Currently, E15 sales are prohibited from June 1 through Sept. 15 because of federal restrictions on fuel volatility intended to safeguard air quality. Ethanol tends to be more volatile than gasoline, and higher ethanol blends than E10, which is now the national standard, require a waiver. However, ethanol advocates say E15 is no more harmful than E10 for the environment, and have long urged the agency to allow year-round sales.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

EPA Eases Final Cyanotoxins Water Criteria, Citing New Ingestion Data. According to Inside EPA, “EPA has finalized recreational water quality criteria for two cyanotoxins that states can use in developing swimming advisories and water quality standards, raising the acceptable concentrations compared to the Obama administration’s proposal, primarily due to new data on the amount of water children accidentally ingest. While the agency eased the criteria, it nevertheless appeared to preserve its options to set stricter criteria in the future as it rejected arguments from some states and wastewater groups that there is no causal connection between the presence of nutrients and cyanotoxins. And the agency also rejected arguments from one wastewater group that the Clean Water Act limits its ability to set criteria in cases where naturally occurring contaminants are present. The agency is also emphasizing that states are not required to use the criteria at all, as well as the fact that states can opt to just use the criteria for swimming advisories without developing water quality standards for recreational waters, a concern several states raised in comments on the draft criteria. But the agency has yet to develop implementation guidance for the criteria, another concern states and municipal wastewater dischargers raised in their comments, although EPA says it is working on it.” [Inside EPA, 5/24/19 (=)]

Health Groups Jeer EPA's 'Stunningly High' Perchlorate Limit. According to E&E News, “EPA wants to allow perchlorate in drinking water to reach concentrations 10 times higher than standards set by states and three times higher than the agency’s own reference level. In a proposal released yesterday for regulating the rocket fuel ingredient that has been linked to thyroid problems, EPA suggests setting a maximum contaminant level and health-based maximum contaminant level goal of 56 parts per billion. That’s orders of magnitude higher than standards set by the two states that have regulated perchlorate. Massachusetts’ standard is 2 ppb, while California is considering lowering its standard of 6 ppb to 1 ppb. EPA’s proposal is three times higher than its own 2008 ‘health reference level’ of 15 ppb. EPA is also asking the public to weigh in on a number of other options beyond its own proposal. Those include setting standards at 18 ppb or 90 ppb. Moreover, the agency is asking whether it should regulate perchlorate at all and if it should withdraw a 2011 determination on the chemical.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

Pruitt

Democrats Seek Payback For Pruitt's 'Excessive' Travel Costs. According to E&E News, “Democratic senators are calling on EPA to recoup former Administrator Scott Pruitt’s costly luxury travel expenses. The request by Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) comes in the wake of last week’s EPA inspector general report that found several of Pruitt’s first-class flights were not warranted by security concerns and often not properly approved by staff. The agency watchdog estimated EPA spent nearly $124,000 on ‘excessive airfare’ for Pruitt’s travel from March 2017 through the end of that year. The senators said EPA should follow through on the IG’s recommendations, which included having the agency review travel costs by Pruitt and other officials considered unjustified and determine whether they should be recovered. ‘Failing to heed them essentially writes Mr. Pruitt a blank check for his lavish travel,’ they said in their letter, dated yesterday, to Administrator Andrew Wheeler. While EPA seems unlikely to pursue Pruitt’s travel costs deemed excessive by the IG, the senators noted other federal agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have required that such expenses be paid back by senior officials.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (+)]

Wheeler

Dems Say Wheeler Misled Congress On Rule Rollback. According to E&E News, “Congressional Democrats overseeing EPA say Administrator Andrew Wheeler has contradicted his own staff on the proposed rollback of automobile fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards. In a letter sent to Wheeler yesterday, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said the EPA chief’s congressional testimony on the proposed Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient, or SAFE, Vehicles rule stands in opposition to information provided by career employees. ‘We are concerned that you have made numerous public statements, including statements to Congress, that directly conflict with the information and analyses prepared by EPA’s career experts,’ the lawmakers said. ‘We understand that you and Bill Wehrum, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, are well aware of, and have received briefings about, this information and analyses.’ Carper and Pallone pointed to one answer Wheeler gave at his confirmation hearing this January saying the proposed rule will save a thousand lives per year, while EPA career staff found earlier that the measure would lead to more deaths instead.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

White House

Trump Donor Who Sought Nuclear Deal Under Investigation. According to E&E News, “Real estate mogul Franklin Haney contributed $1 million to President Trump’s inaugural committee, and all he’s got to show for the money is the glare of a federal investigation. The contribution from Haney, a prolific political donor, came as he was seeking regulatory approval and financial support from the government for his long-shot bid to acquire the mothballed Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in northeastern Alabama. More than two years later, he still hasn’t closed the deal. His tale is a familiar one in Washington, where lobbyists and wealthy donors use their checkbooks to try to sway politicians. It’s a world Haney is accustomed to operating in and one that Trump came into office pledging to upend. Yet Trump has left in place many of the familiar ways to wield influence. Haney’s hefty donation to Trump’s inaugural committee is being scrutinized by federal prosecutors in New York who are investigating the committee’s finances. Their probe is focused in part on whether donors received benefits after making contributions.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

AGs Blast Trump Energy Orders. According to E&E News, “A coalition of state attorneys last week took aim at the Trump administration’s efforts to limit states’ ability to block Clean Water Act approvals for pipelines and other projects. Led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, 16 Democratic state lawyers decried EPA’s ‘procedurally deficient’ process to solicit public comments on President Trump’s recent set of executive orders on energy (Energywire, April 11). ‘New York will always defend the right to ensure the people of our state have access to clean water, period,’ James tweeted Friday. Trump’s April orders included instructions for EPA to review and potentially revise guidance for implementation of Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, which gives states a ‘reasonable timeframe’ for certifying that projects meet water quality standards. State reviews for some projects can go on for several years after an application is filed as states request more information. During his speech unveiling the orders, Trump highlighted one such New York energy project. ‘In New York, they are paying tremendous amounts of money more for energy to heat their homes because New York state blocked a permit to build the Constitution [natural gas] pipeline,’ he said to an audience of union workers in Crosby, Texas.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (+)]

Earthquake Shakes Parts Of Tokyo Before Trump Arrival. According to The Hill, “An earthquake hit Japan on Saturday shortly before President Trump arrived for his 4-day state visit, CNN reported. The epicenter of the magnitude 5 earthquake was in Chiba, around 48 miles east of Tokyo, according to the country’s metrological agency. Chiba is close to where Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are scheduled to play golf on Sunday. The quake could be felt in Tokyo and caused buildings to shake, according to local media, but there is reportedly no visible damage and no threat of a tsunami. Trump’s plane landed just before 5 p.m. local time at the Haneda Airport, with the president and first lady Melania Trump greeted by multiple U.S. and Japanese officials on the tarmac, according to White House pool reports. The president then headed to a reception with more than two dozen Japanese business leaders at the U.S. ambassador’s house. Trump is also scheduled to attend a sumo tournament on Sunday after golf. He is expected to offer a branded trophy, roughly 54 inches tall and weighing at least 60 pounds, to the champion.” [The Hill, 5/25/19 (=)]

Trump Administration Proposes Closing 9 Civilian Conservation Centers. According to The Hill, “The Trump administration on Friday announced a proposal to close nine Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers (CCCs). The Labor Department said in a statement that the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service will no longer operate CCCs and that the 16 CCCs not expected to close will continue under a new contract operator or partnership. The Forest Service program trains low-income, rural students in firefighting and other jobs, according to The Washington Post. The National Federation of Federal Employees, a union representing Forest Service employees, said that the change could result in more than 1,000 layoffs, according to CNN. ‘This is a politically motivated attack that oddly enough, offends both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and in communities across the country,’ NFFE National President Randy Erwin said in a statement. ‘This is a coordinated attack on the most vulnerable populations in the country: Rural and urban low-income young people hoping to succeed in life.’ The Labor Department, however, said that it was ‘modernizing and reforming part of the Job Corps program.’” [The Hill, 5/24/19 (-)]

National

Older People Are Contributing To Climate Change, And Suffering From It. According to the New York Times, “When it comes to discussing climate change, older people may have one advantage: They have watched it happen. In the nine Northeastern states, for instance, where average winter temperatures climbed 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit between 1970 and 2000, they have seen fewer snow-covered days, and more shrubs flowering ever earlier. And they have experienced hotter summers. In New York City, daily summer temperatures at La Guardia Airport have risen 0.7 degrees per decade since 1970, according to the city’s Panel on Climate Change. Older Americans also are significant contributors to climate change. A just-published study has found that residential energy consumption rises as a resident’s age increases. Buildings, and residential buildings in particular, are the world’s largest energy consumers. Two researchers recently analyzed federal data on household energy usage that was gathered from 1987 to 2009, and involved nearly 30,000 owner-occupied units. Distinct patterns emerged by age. Usage was lowest among young adults, who typically occupy smaller households, said Hossein Estiri, a computational demographer at Harvard Medical School and an author on the paper.” [New York Times, 5/24/19 (=)]

Guardian Spurs Media Outlets To Consider Stronger Climate Language. According to The Guardian, “The Guardian’s decision to alter its style guide to better convey the environmental crises unfolding around the world has prompted some other media outlets to reconsider the terms they use in their own coverage. After the Guardian announced it would now routinely use the words ‘climate emergency, crisis or breakdown’ instead of ‘climate change’, a memo was sent by the standards editor of CBC, Canada’s national public broadcaster, to staff acknowledging that a ‘recent shift in style at the British newspaper the Guardian has prompted requests to review the language we use in global warming coverage’. Senior CBC management told staff they were able to use the terms ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency’ when covering the wide-ranging impacts of temperature rises around the world. ‘Neutrality is an important principle in our journalism,’ said Paul Hambleton, standards editor of CBC News. ‘We recognise that ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency’ are increasingly common expressions in debates over what to do about global warming.” [The Guardian, 5/24/19 (=)]

Congress

Lawmakers, Trump Agencies Set For Clash Over Chemicals In Water. According to The Hill, “An aggressive push by Congress to pass bipartisan legislation addressing cancer-causing chemicals that are leaching into the water supply is setting the stage for a fight with the Trump administration. The chemicals, commonly abbreviated as PFAS, are used in items ranging from food wrappers and Teflon pans to raincoats and firefighting foam. But studies have found that as they break down and find their way into drinking water, they can cause a variety of negative health effects. PFAS has been linked with kidney and thyroid cancer along with high cholesterol and other illnesses. Contamination has spread to 43 states, and a 2015 study found 98 percent of Americans tested now have the chemical in their blood. But the bipartisan push to tackle the problem is setting up a clash with agencies, in particular the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Pentagon, that have been resistant to regulating the chemicals. Members of Congress have introduced at least 20 bills this session to address PFAS in some form, a record number and a sign of the growing concern.” [The Hill, 5/27/19 (=)]

GOP Criticizes Its Own On Climate. According to E&E News, “As some Republicans inch toward climate policy for the first time in years, those in the party who reject climate science are getting nervous that a more permanent shift is coming. And they’re going on the attack against their former allies. A group called Energy & Environment Action Team recently sent a 16-page pamphlet to every member of Congress encouraging lawmakers to reject all climate policy and connecting concern about global warming to political losses. In bold letters across the top, the pamphlet stated, ‘The Plan is ... No Plan! Why the GOP shouldn’t do anything on climate.’ ‘There is absolutely no reason for any Republican to offer a plan to ‘combat climate change,’’ the pamphlet continued. ‘Such a plan, if enacted would accomplish nothing good for America or the climate.’ A growing number of Republican lawmakers, including some who have disputed climate science for years, are not only now acknowledging global warming but also putting forward climate policies. But some worry that their colleagues are simply shifting to climate action because they have been spooked by the popularity of the Green New Deal.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Cornyn Bill Targets Emissions Of Gas-Fired Power Plants. According to E&E News, “Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) yesterday introduced his planned legislation to spur research and development of carbon capture technologies for natural-gas-fired power plants. The bill — co-sponsored by Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — is the latest in a line of Republican-led Senate proposals looking to infuse additional research money in technologies that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the electric sector. Republicans like Cornyn have argued that innovation would represent a better approach to addressing climate change than progressive ideas like the Green New Deal (E&E News PM, May 16). ‘Instead of a one-size-fits-all mandate that would bankrupt our country, this bill encourages the continued use of natural gas so we can protect the environment and remain a global leader in energy innovation,’ Cornyn said in a statement. The legislation would authorize $50 million a year from fiscal 2020 until fiscal 2025 for the Department of Energy to launch and conduct a research program into the capture of carbon from the use of natural gas. Natural gas has supplemented coal-fired power plants as the nation’s No. 1 electric producer.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

House Republican Blocks Disaster Aid. According to E&E News, “A Texas Republican blocked a long-awaited $19.1 billion bipartisan disaster aid package this morning, possibly delaying passage until next month. The House was hoping to approve the bill by unanimous consent this morning a day after the Senate overwhelmingly passed the emergency spending legislation, 85-8. But Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) objected before a nearly empty House chamber — with most lawmakers already home for recess — citing fiscal concerns and the lack of humanitarian aid tied to the ongoing border crisis. The White House and House Republicans had been pushing for border money through months of negotiations on the measure, but it was kept out of the Senate-passed disaster package. ‘I am here today primarily because if I do not object, Congress will have passed into law a bill that spends $19 billion of taxpayer money without members of Congress being present here in our nation’s capital to vote on it,’ Roy said on the floor. Lawmakers struck a deal late this week on the measure, which would cover a wide range of recent national disasters — including California wildfires, Midwest flooding and the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (-)]

Lone Republican Blocks Disaster Aid Package On House Floor. According to Politico, “Rep. Chip Roy became the man who delayed $19.1 billion in disaster aid to communities throughout the country on Friday. House leaders tried to pass a multibillion-dollar disaster assistance measure, H.R. 2157 (116), by unanimous consent, but the Texas Republican objected on the floor. Since House and Senate lawmakers have already left town for their Memorial Day recess, the objection likely causes a 10-day holdup in delivering aid that has already been delayed for five months amid cross-party sparring. The Senate passed the measure Thursday, with President Donald Trump’s blessing. The House could still pass the bill by unanimous consent next week, if no lawmaker comes to the floor to object. Communities still severely damaged by wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, lava flow and even typhoons have waited for this assistance as the president battled with Democrats about money to help Puerto Rico continue to rebuild following the Category 5 hurricanes that hit the U.S. territory in 2017.” [Politico, 5/24/19 (=)]

Green New Deal

Green New Deal Backers: 'Find The Votes. Not The Money'. According to E&E News, “The daylong workshop was billed as a discussion on how to pay for the Green New Deal. But rather than produce a step-by-step plan, supporters of the proposal spent much of their time Friday refining a different message — that Congress should approach federal funding of the Green New Deal no differently than it does on spending for missiles, highways or anything else. And in fact, they argued, it would be a political trap for Green New Deal supporters to do differently. Opponents are ‘counting on those things so upsetting us that we give up,’ said Stephanie Kelton, an economic adviser to Green New Deal supporter and 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) So she suggested that Green New Deal backers take a cue from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who was asked recently how she would fund the plan’s vision of fighting climate change with a massive, government-led jobs program. ‘She said, ‘We pay for it like we pay for everything else,’’ Kelton said. ‘We don’t do something different to pay for the Green New Deal. Congress will authorize the funding in the same way that it authorizes funding for defense or infrastructure or anything else.’ For that reason, she argued, it’s more important to win the political debate than to draft an economic white paper.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Election 2020

Democratic Presidential Hopeful Klobuchar Proposes Revamping EPA Ethanol Rules. according to Reuters, “Democratic presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar on Saturday called for revamping the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rules governing how small refineries are exempted from the nation’s biofuel laws, a proposal aimed at boosting her standing in the politically critical state of Iowa. Part of a series of farm policies that also addressed access to capital and bankruptcy assistance, Klobuchar, a U.S. senator, said EPA waivers that allow small refineries to avoid the requirements are ‘misguided’ and said financial institutions are manipulating the biofuels credit trading market. She called for new compliance standards and additional oversight. Klobuchar is one of more than 20 Democrats vying for her party’s presidential nomination. If she is going to be successful, her campaign needs to galvanize support in the agriculture-focused state of Iowa, which holds the first primary contest in the nation. Iowa grows most of the country’s corn, which is used to produce ethanol. Klobuchar, who represents Minnesota, another agriculture powerhouse bordering Iowa to the north, in the U.S. Senate, has been trailing in polls on the Democratic presidential field.” [Reuters, 5/25/19 (=)]

Meet The 2020 Candidate Who’s Running On Climate Change. According to VICE News, “For Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee, the Democratic campaign trail is best described as a mix of serious climate policy discussion — and dad jokes. Sometimes it’s both. ‘When there is increased flooding due to climate change, that’s a problem. But when it shuts down a brewery — that’s a national crisis,’ Inslee told Tim Baldwin, the owner of Front Street Brewery, in Davenport, Iowa. The Brewery was damaged during a devastating flood at the end of April. Joke aside, Inslee’s campaign strategy boils down to branding himself as the climate change candidate. And for Inslee, that makes sense. He says he cares about climate change, and he’s got the receipts to prove it. In 2007, Inslee published a book called ‘Apollo’s Fire,’ which discussed a plan that’s similar to the Green New Deal, the current economic strategy backed by most Democrats to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Ten years later, Inslee co-founded the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of American governors who want to stick to the Paris Agreement goals. As governor of Washington, Inslee failed to pass a carbon tax in 2018, but this year, he signed a green energy bill — and even a human composting bill. And now he’s released the most extensive climate plan of any of the current democratic candidates.” [VICE News, 5/25/19 (=)]

Support Surges For A Climate Primary Debate Among Democrats. According to Politico, “Democrats across the ideological spectrum say the party should dedicate one of its presidential primary debates to the issue of climate change and how the candidates would address it. At least five presidential candidates have backed presidential contender Gov. Jay Inslee’s idea, and nearly two dozen Democratic lawmakers added their support in interviews last week, as the issue’s profile rises on the campaign trail and in polling among Democratic voters. Presidential contenders like Beto O’Rourke have released ambitious climate change plans on the heels of pressure campaigns from progressive activists, while others like former Vice President Joe Biden face big questions about how ambitious an agenda they’ll lay out while balancing the needs of organized labor. Though they agree on the need for aggressive action on climate change and bemoan Republicans’ lack of urgency on the issue, a public debate may also force Democratic contenders to confront thorny policy question differences they’ve so far papered over. Those include the role of natural gas and nuclear power in combating climate change, how quickly to pursue decarbonization and how to support a transition in communities reliant on the fossil fuel sector for union jobs.” [Politico, 5/28/19 (=)]

Inslee Says He'll Join Youth Climate Strikers In Las Vegas. According to The Hill, “Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) on Friday said that he plans to join youth climate protesters in September for a general global strike. Inslee, who is among two dozen Democrats vying for the presidency, is presenting himself as the climate candidate, focusing much of his campaign message on the environment. He tweeted that he is ‘proud to be joining strikers in Las Vegas,’ telling Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg: ‘I’ll be there.’ Thousands of youth activists worldwide, inspired by Thunberg’s weekly protest at the Swedish parliament, have led the Fridays for the Future movement by walking out of school to demand their governments take action to thwart climate threats. A global strike is planned for Sept. 20, and activists are asking adults to join them. ‘To change everything, we need everyone,’ they wrote in The Guardian this week. ‘It is time for all of us to unleash mass resistance — we have shown that collective action does work. We need to escalate the pressure to make sure that change happens, and we must escalate together.’ Earlier this month, Inslee unveiled his first proposals on climate policy, including calling for investing $9 trillion in green jobs.” [The Hill, 5/24/19 (+)]

Jay Inslee Hits 65,000-Donor Threshold To Make The Democratic Debates. According to Politico, “Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday all but secured a spot on the Democratic presidential debate stage next month, after collecting the 65,000th individual donor of his campaign. The Democratic National Committee has given candidates two paths to get into its first primary debates in June and July: hitting the 65,000 donor mark or getting at least 1 percent support in three or more qualifying polls. Inslee, who launched his presidential campaign in March, has already passed the polling mark. The DNC has capped participation in the first debates at 20 candidates, meaning some declared Democratic contenders will be left out. But candidates who hit both thresholds will get priority over those who only meet one, and it is extremely unlikely that more than 20 Democrats will meet both the polling and the fundraising criteria. Nineteen candidates have met at least one threshold. Inslee is the thirteenth person to ‘double qualify,’ joining Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang.” [Politico, 5/24/19 (=)]

Courts and Legal

DOJ Makes Novel CWA Argument In Bid To Kill Cities’ Climate Lawsuits. According to Inside EPA, “The Department of Justice (DOJ) is expanding its legal attacks on municipalities’ climate nuisance suits against oil companies, going beyond two well-known Supreme Court climate rulings to now reference a Clean Water Act (CWA) case that DOJ says bolsters its arguments for dismissal, as well as claims that such nuisance cases can only be brought by states. DOJ is raising these arguments in amicus briefs backing oil majors in their efforts to persuade appeals courts to dismiss the suits, rather than send them back to state courts, where the municipal governments originally filed them. The federal government most recently articulated its claims in a May 17 amicus brief in City of Oakland, et al. v. BP plc, et al., where Oakland and San Francisco are urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to overturn a district court decision dismissing their suit, which seeks damages from the companies to pay for adaptation measures the cities made to lessen climate impacts. The cities seek to differentiate their suit from the high court’s 2011 ruling in American Electric Power (AEP) v. Connecticut, in which the justices held that EPA’s Clean Air Act (CAA) authority over greenhouse gases displaces common law claims over utilities’ emissions.” [Inside EPA, 5/24/19 (=)]

Settlement Talks Hit Snag In Major Clean Water Act Case. According to E&E News, “Efforts to settle a major environmental case pending at the Supreme Court reached an impasse last night, as local officials in Maui County deadlocked on the issue. The county council’s Governance, Ethics and Transparency Committee split 4-4 in a vote on whether to advance a resolution that favors withdrawing the pending appeal. At issue is Maui County’s Lahaina wastewater disposal site. Local environmental groups sued years ago after confirming that treated waste injected into the site’s wells mixes with groundwater and ends up in the Pacific Ocean. Lower courts sided with environmentalists, and an appeal is set for Supreme Court consideration this fall to decide whether such discharges trigger the permitting requirements of the Clean Water Act. Some local leaders have pushed Maui to withdraw the appeal, concerned that the case could constrict the Clean Water Act and damage the county’s reputation. But that sentiment failed to receive majority support this week. The governance committee instead opted to defer the issue but indicated it expects to take it up again in the future.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

D.C. Circuit Gives EPA, Refiners Partial Win In Lawsuit Over RFS Waivers. According to Inside EPA, “Appellate judges are giving EPA and refiners a partial victory in their bid to dismiss biofuels advocates’ lawsuit contesting the agency’s issuance of renewable fuel standard (RFS) waivers for small refiners, ruling to reject challenges to EPA’s policy of allowing retroactive waivers but transferring suits over specific waivers to another court. In a May 24 per curiam judgment, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejects biofuels groups’ challenge to EPA’s practice of granting waivers ‘at any time,’ which biofuels groups say allows EPA to unlawfully reinstate RFS compliance credits years after they have expired. Chief Judge Merrick Garland and Judges Thomas Griffith and Nina Pillard signed the judgment. While that ruling is a win for EPA and refiners who support the waivers, the court keeps alive other aspects of the suit contesting individual waivers and transfers that litigation to the 10th Circuit. That court, which covers Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, has recently lowered the bar for refiners to win waivers within its jurisdiction, suggesting biofuels groups might struggle with the facility-specific challenges.” [Inside EPA, 5/24/19 (=)]

D.C. Circuit Hands Biofuels Group A Defeat On Technical Grounds. According to Politico, “The D.C. Circuit handed a consortium of biofuels producers a narrow defeat in its attempt to challenge exemptions granted to small refiners from the Renewable Fuel Standard. In its decision, the three-judge panel moved part of the case to the 10th Circuit and dismissed another part for having been filed too late. Biofuels producers have been furious with EPA for dramatically expanding the number of exemptions it grants to small refiners, and several cases have been filed challenging those decisions. The court said Producers of Renewables United, a coalition of biofuels producers formed to bring this case, should have known about EPA’s expansion of its exemptions program after media reports and SEC filings in April 2018 made the new policy apparent. The court rejected Producers of Renewables’ claim that it only found about the exemptions on June 1, and said its July 31 filing missed a mandatory 60-day window.” [Politico, 5/24/19 (=)]

Climate Protests

Students From 1,600 Cities Just Walked Out Of School To Protest Climate Change. It Could Be Greta Thunberg's Biggest Strike Yet. According to TIME, “Hundreds of thousands of students around the world walked out of their schools and colleges Friday in the latest in a series of strikes urging action to address the climate crisis. According to event organizers Fridays for Future, over 1664 cities across 125 countries registered strike actions, with more expected to report turnouts in the coming days. The ‘School Strike for Climate’ movement was first started by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who began her strike outside the country’s parliament in Stockholm in August 2018 and has said that she will continue to strike until Sweden is aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Since then, her singular action has spread into an international climate movement, organized by young people around the world. This strike followed the last co-ordinated event on March 15, which saw over 1.6 million people across 133 countries turn out at demonstrations according to organizers. Thunberg was recently profiled on TIME’s global cover as a Next Generation Leader, along with nine other people shaping the world’s future. ‘This is not about truancy or civil disobedience, this is about the climate and the ecological crisis, and people need to understand that,’ Thunberg told TIME in Stockholm, a couple of weeks ahead of the global strike.” [TIME, 5/24/19 (+)]

Latest Global School Climate Strikes Expected To Beat Turnout Record. According to The Guardian, “Hundreds of thousands of children and young people are walking out of lessons around the world on Friday as the school strike movement continues to snowball. Climate strikes were planned in more than 1,400 cities in more than 110 countries. Organisers say the number of young people taking part is set to top the 1.4 million people who participated in the global day of strikes in March. The global campaign – inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg – comes amid increasing concern about the unfolding climate crisis, especially among young people. Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg speaks in London. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters Last year, the UN’s leading scientists warned that there were just 12 years to limit climate catastrophe. Earlier this month, another UN report warned that the widespread collapse of ecosystems was putting humanity itself at risk. And just last week it emerged that the Antarctic ice is melting much faster than previously feared and global atmospheric CO2 emissions reached a record level of 415ppm. The school strike movement started in August when Thunberg, then 15, held a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament.” [The Guardian, 5/24/19 (+)]

Schoolchildren Go On Strike Across World Over Climate Crisis. According to The Guardian, “Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren across the world have gone on strike in protest at the escalating climate crisis. Students from 1,800 towns and cities in more than 110 countries stretching from India to Australia and the UK to South Africa, walked out of lessons on Friday, the organisers of the action said. This is the latest school climate strike, inspired by teenager Greta Thunberg, who has become a global figurehead since protesting outside Sweden’s parliament in 2018. The young people are demanding politicians take urgent action to avoid catastrophic ecological breakdown. In London, thousands gathered in the sunshine in Parliament Square chanting, ‘Where the fuck is the government’, and ‘This is what democracy looks like’, before staging a sit-down protest outside the department of education. Ivy, 14, from Surrey, said: ‘I am here because I believe there is no point having an education if there is no future … I am so frustrated the only people who really care about this are the ones who can’t vote.’” [The Guardian, 5/24/19 (+)]

Industry and Business

Oil Sands Project Hits Milestone Early. According to E&E News, “A Royal Dutch Shell PLC-operated carbon capture and storage project in Canada has hit a milestone of sequestering 4 million tons of carbon dioxide about six months ahead of schedule and at a lower cost than estimated, helped by better-than-expected reliability. The Quest facility, which sequesters emissions from the Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton, Alberta, started up in November 2015 and has since run ahead of its target of capturing 1 million tons of carbon a year, said Anne Halladay, a geophysicist who has been an adviser on the project since it was in construction in 2014. That performance has been driven by less unplanned maintenance than projected and more efficient performance, including less chemical usage, she said. While Shell’s carbon storage project has been a success, Halladay sees more of a future for projects that use the sequestered carbon for industrial purposes such as fertilizer, pharmaceuticals and enhanced oil recovery. Halladay said large projects like Quest tend to need large amounts of capital and more regulatory incentives to get built. The Quest facility cost about CA$1.35 billion ($1 billion) to build and received CA$865 million from the Canadian and Alberta governments.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

100% Renewable Pledges Don't Equal Carbon-Free Power. According to E&E News, “In recent years, scores of corporations have made renewable energy pledges. RE100, a corporate initiative aimed at getting companies to commit to purchasing all their electricity from renewables, counts 176 companies among its members, including Ikea, Coca-Cola Co. and Apple Inc. But in many cases, firms aren’t actually consuming renewable energy. They’re signing power purchase contracts with renewable developers. Electricity from the developments goes into the grid. Companies get renewable energy credits, which they use to offset emissions from their power consumption. The dynamic has led to a debate in corporate climate circles in recent years over how to match renewable generation with companies’ electricity consumption. Enter a new study from Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy. The study’s most important finding: A 100% renewable energy commitment does not mean firms’ electricity is completely carbon-free. ‘To guarantee 100% emissions reductions from renewable energy, power consumption needs to be matched with renewable generation on an hourly basis,’ said Sally Benson, co-author of the paper and the institute’s co-director.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Home Solar Advocates Push Against Proposed Charge In Mont. According to E&E News, “Renewable energy activists urged Montana regulators yesterday to reject a utility’s request to add a charge for homeowners who generate surplus electricity from their own solar panels. Over the past two decades, about 2,300 NorthWestern Energy customers in Montana installed their own solar panels. When those panels generate more electricity than a customer uses, the surplus power is fed into the electric grid and earns customers a credit on their bill in a process known as net-metering. NorthWestern spokeswoman Jo Dee Black said the new charge would ensure net-metering customers pay their fair share of service costs. Customers with solar panels already in place would be exempted. But critics told the Montana Public Service Commission the proposal would kill a burgeoning rooftop solar industry, at a time when they said climate change has made it urgent to find less polluting forms of power than coal and other fossil fuels. NorthWestern’s proposal is part of a broader request by the South Dakota-based utility to raise rates in Montana, where it has more than 300,000 residential customers.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

Research and Analysis

The Smithsonian’s Renewed Fossil Hall Sends A Forceful Message About Climate Change. According to the Washington Post, “As a young paleontologist, Kirk Johnson traveled to the Arctic to excavate fossils from 50 million years ago, a time when the air was thick with carbon dioxide and so warm that even the North Pole had no ice. Johnson and his colleagues dug up fossilized crocodiles, turtles, and palm trees. ‘Palm trees!’ Johnson recalled. ‘In the Arctic! . . . It blew my mind that the Earth could change that much.’ Since that expedition in the 1980s, global carbon dioxide concentrations have soared to levels not seen in the history of humankind. New temperature records are set almost every year. Savannah is turning to desert, coasts are consumed by floods, the Arctic is losing ice once more. Those ancient palms are not only evidence of how much the planet has changed in the past, Johnson said. They also are a key to understanding the changes we see today. When the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History took on the absorbing task of revamping its celebrated fossil hall, it was ‘dead obvious’ that this would have to be one of the exhibit’s central themes, said Johnson, who became the museum’s director in 2012. ‘Paleontology is the backstory to what’s happening today,’ he said. ‘We have a responsibility to present that science to the nation . . . and to make clear the implications for the future.’” [Washington Post, 5/26/19 (+)]

Global Climate Goals In Peril As Reactors Close — IEA. According to E&E News, “The world is on track to lose a quarter of existing nuclear capacity by 2025, leaving clean energy and climate goals in jeopardy, according to a report released today. The Paris-based International Energy Agency argues that the 25% of existing nuclear power capacity will be lost in six years and up to two-thirds by 2040. The report marks IEA’s first public assessment of the state of the nuclear power industry in about two decades. Renewable energy builds are unlikely to fill the gap, the agency predicts, meaning nations will probably replace lost nuclear generation with natural gas or coal, thus potentially increasing carbon dioxide emissions by up to 4 billion metric tons per year. The share of nuclear energy in the United States’ electricity fleet could fall from around 20% of power generation today to just 8% by 2040 given current trends, IEA analysts conclude. ‘We expect a steep decline of the existing nuclear fleet,’ IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said during a call with reporters. In language that echoes past arguments made by the Trump administration, IEA is recommending designing electricity markets in ways that reward reliable baseload sources of power as opposed to variable renewables.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Right-Leaning Law Prof On Hiking, Biking, Converting Deniers. According to E&E News, “Jonathan Adler is an outlier among his peers. A prominent expert in environmental law, Adler is more conservative than most in his field. And he’s more interested in the environment than most in his political camp. ‘There’s a broader problem in environmental policy that most people that are really focused on environmental policy have decidedly left-of-center views,’ he said, ‘and most people on the right don’t take environmental policy seriously.’ Energy and environmental newsmakers dish on politics, pet peeves and their TV addictions. Adler has become an ambassador to both worlds, advocating small-government solutions to big problems while pushing fellow libertarians and conservatives to get serious about pollution and climate change. With an active Twitter presence, he’s both a regular sparring partner for environmental advocates and a thorn in the side of GOP-aligned climate deniers. Now a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, the 49-year-old spent many of his early years at top conservative institutions — earning his J.D. from George Mason University, whose law school is now named after the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and going on to work on environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

Extreme Weather

Heat Wave Before Summer Even Starts Grips Deep South. According to E&E News, “A scorching heat wave weeks before the start of summer is gripping the Deep South, with several cities reporting the highest temperatures ever recorded in May. High temperatures were at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday in Florence and Columbia, S.C.; Augusta, Ga.; and Jacksonville and Gainesville, Fla. It was the fourth day of temperatures in that range this week. Savannah’s high of 102 degrees was a record for all of May and hotter than any day so far this year in Phoenix, as the same weather pattern bringing the unprecedented heat to the Southeast also has the desert Southwest in the U.S. unusually cool. While unusual for late May, this kind of heat isn’t unheard of for the Deep South in the middle of summer. Officials did not report a large number of people sickened by the hot weather, even over the long Memorial Day weekend. The above-normal temperatures will continue through the middle of the week, said National Weather Service meteorologist Michael Emlaw in Charleston, S.C. But the record hot May doesn’t mean the whole summer will simmer in the southeast U.S.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Cost Of Buying Out Flood-Prone Homes: $5B And Rising. According to E&E News, “The residents of the small riverside town of Mosby, Mo., have become accustomed to watching floods swamp their streets, transform their homes into islands, and ruin their floors and furniture. Elmer Sullivan has replaced his couch, bed and television. He’s torn up water-buckled floorboards. And he put a picket fence against the front of his house to cover up a gap left when waters washed out part of the stone foundation. ‘I just don’t want to mess with it anymore. I’m 83 years old and I’m tired of it, and I just want to get out of it,’ Sullivan said. Finally fed up, Sullivan and nearly half the homeowners in Mosby signed up in 2016 for a program in which the government would buy and then demolish their properties rather than paying to rebuild them over and over. They’re still waiting for offers, joining thousands of others across the country in a slow-moving line to escape from flood-prone homes. Patience is wearing thin in Mosby, a town of fewer than 200 people with a core of lifelong residents and some younger newcomers drawn by the cheap prices of its modest wood-frame homes. Residents watched nervously this past week as high waters again threatened the town.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Does Harvey Trial Signal New Climate Battlefront? According to E&E News, “When Hurricane Harvey struck the shores of the Texas Gulf Coast in 2017, flooding inundated more than 10,000 homes upstream from two federally owned reservoirs. Hundreds of those flood victims are now suing the government. They claim that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers intentionally kept water in the Addicks and Barker reservoirs to mitigate damages in downtown Houston and nearby areas. It’s a takings case rooted in the Fifth Amendment, which prevents the government from seizing private property without just compensation. To prevail, claimants must prove the government knowingly, through specific action, seized the property in question. Harvey victims made their case during a two-week trial earlier this month in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (Greenwire, Nov. 20, 2017). Climate change wasn’t at issue during the trial. But as weather events continue to increase in their frequency and severity, there is a chance that courts could see more such takings cases coming down the pipeline — and it could add another facet to climate litigation. ‘Fundamentally [climate change] was definitely implicit in the overarching theme of the case for sure,’ said Daniel Charest, an attorney representing the landowners in the Harvey case.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Lawmakers: Yes To Storm Recovery Cash, No To Wind Rollbacks. According to E&E News, “Texas lawmakers wrapped up their first legislative session since Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast by approving $1.7 billion in storm recovery funding and turning back bills that could have disrupted the state’s wind industry. The Legislature in the nation’s largest oil-producing state, which largely steered clear of energy issues in 2017, also tackled policy on radioactive waste and floated ideas on energy storage and electric vehicles this year. The legislative action came down to the end of the session, as the state’s part-time lawmakers tend to finalize the most important priorities in the last few days. ‘Everybody who’s got a big stake in these bills holds out to the very end, hoping the other side will blink,’ said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. ‘But they get religion in the final hours.’ Houston, the fourth-biggest U.S. city and the seat of the national oil industry, was inundated with 50 inches of rain during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The storm shut down about one-fourth of the nation’s refining industry and damaged more than 300,000 homes in the region. The state has been under pressure to come up with funding for repairs and future flood-control costs since the storm hit the Texas coast.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Wildfire Severely Damages Historic Big Bend Complex. According to E&E News, “A wildfire that ignited in Mexico jumped the Rio Grande into Big Bend National Park and severely damaged a historic border ghost town and former Army border post. Posts on the park’s Facebook page say shifting wind gusts Wednesday night blew embers onto the barracks, officers’ quarters, visitors’ center and restrooms at the Castolon Historic District. Firefighting crews from the park, Texas A&M Forest Service and nearby Terlingua Fire and EMS were able to save the officers’ quarters with minimal scorching, but the La Harmonia frontier trading post and Castolon Visitor Center were damaged severely. The park officials’ statements said shade temperatures were near 109 degrees Fahrenheit with single-digit relative humidity when the fire entered the park about 6 p.m. Wednesday.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

International

Climate Change Threatens The West’s Far Right. According to the Washington Post, “The results were largely as expected. By Monday, after the European Union’s 28 nations participated in an election for the bloc’s parliament, the continent’s traditional factions — the Social Democrats and the mainstream right — ended up the biggest losers, deprived of a majority for the first time. Voters drifted in different directions that seemed in line with the broader fragmentation of European politics, opting for Euroskeptic, ultranationalist parties on the right and upstart liberal and environmentalist parties instead of the old center left. The potential rise of the far right dominated news coverage ahead of the vote, and they indeed were significant. In Britain, the newly formed Brexit Party led by anti-immigration gadfly Nigel Farage won the most votes in an election that became a referendum on the country’s painful wrangling to quit the European Union. In France, the party of far-right leader Marine Le Pen narrowly eclipsed that of centrist President Emmanuel Macron. And in Italy, the far-right League of deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini won more than a third of the vote, cementing its place as the country’s preeminent right-wing party. ‘The rules are changing in Europe,’ Salvini declared in Milan on Monday. ‘A new Europe is born.’” [Washington Post, 5/28/19 (+)]

Europe Wakes Up To Climate Concerns After Green Wave In Vote. According to E&E News, “Green parties’ surprisingly strong showing in elections for the 751-seat European Parliament raised hopes — particularly among young voters — that global warming and other environmental issues will get more serious consideration on the continent. Provisional results yesterday showed the left-leaning Greens coming in fourth in the balloting with 69 seats, an increase of 17 from the last election, five years ago. Perhaps more significantly, the results showed how environmental concerns can transcend the political issues that dominate most European Union elections. ‘The European election was a climate election,’ declared Anna Kretzschmar, a German in her 20s who was out in a Berlin park with her young child. Kretzschmar welcomed the lift the Greens received in Sunday’s vote, saying it would give them a stronger voice to raise the alarm about global warming. ‘I think we are more affected by climate change than we realize,’ she added. Among other things, the Green movement has strongly backed scientists’ calls for the 28-nation bloc to end all greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury, a goal that would require an epic shift in Europe’s economy away from fossil fuels” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

National Security

Military Vets' New Mission: Attack Maintenance Backlog. According to E&E News, “In 1995, Mike Najarian became dissatisfied with the lack of maintenance at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. That’s when he hit upon an idea: He called the National Park Service to ask whether he and his friends could help organize a group that would clean the wall each week. ‘There was no schedule, it was just hodgepodge, there was nothing put together,’ said Najarian, a Vietnam War veteran from Silver Spring, Md., who’s now 75. ‘The park ranger was glad to hear from us.’ Najarian and other members of Chapter 641 of the Vietnam Veterans of America in Silver Spring have been making regular treks to the National Mall ever since. They use hoses, soap and brushes to wipe away the dirt and fingerprints that collect quickly on the black granite wall, on the etched names of 58,195 service members who died in the war. Washing the wall is just one of many ways that veterans keep serving their country, long after their deployments end and they begin their transitions back to civilian life. In Hawaii, wounded veterans have been trained to become scuba divers as they study the rate of leaking oil from the sunken battleship USS Arizona, among other things. In Florida, veterans have helped clean up trails and remove invasive Burmese pythons at Everglades National Park.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (+)]

Other Agencies

Energy

Stephen Colbert Mocks Perry Exit Rumors. According to E&E News, “Energy Secretary Rick Perry is in the limelight on late night TV — ironically, because of the claim he has kept a low profile. Last week, ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ featured an eight-minute segment, ‘Finding Rick Perry: The Missing Secretary of Energy,’ that played off the concept that amid scandals and turnover in President Trump’s executive branch, Perry’s tenure has been comparatively unscathed. The show aired as rumors circulate that Perry is planning to exit, which the agency has refuted. ‘There are rumors that Energy Secretary Rick Perry may plan on stepping down — that completely shocks me,’ Colbert said, adding, ‘That he is secretary of Energy. I completely forgot he is in Trump’s Cabinet. He’s been there from the beginning, but you just never hear boo about him.’ Colbert, who often berates Trump, claimed in the spoof that the silence was so suspicious that he decided to recently launch an ‘investigation’ with ‘Stephen Colbert’s Unseen Mysteries of the Hidden Secrets.’ The show cut to footage of Perry’s famous appearance on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ while Colbert’s voice said: ‘How could a man who loves the spotlight so much become as elusive as the mysterious Bigfoot? ... So where is Rick Perry? Let’s find out.’” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Interior

Restarting Coal Leasing Won't Affect Climate — BLM. According to E&E News, “The Interior Department claims that lifting the Obama administration’s coal moratorium would have no real impact on the climate. The Bureau of Land Management is arguing President Obama’s coal ban was only a ‘pause’ — so to restart coal leasing now would change only the timing of emissions, not their cumulative impact. BLM made that assertion last week in an environmental assessment ordered by a federal court. The judge had rejected the department’s argument that lifting the moratorium was a minor action. Green advocates say Interior now seems to be relitigating that in the assessment itself. At stake are potentially billions of metric tons of greenhouse gases, as much as several months’ worth of U.S. emissions, according to the assessment. BLM’s stance amounts to a ‘pernicious form of climate denial,’ said Nathaniel Shoaff, a senior attorney with the Sierra Club. Trump officials acknowledge climate change in environmental reviews, and they agree it’s harmful, he said. ‘They admit all of those things — and then they categorically deny their choices have any impact whatsoever on the climate,’ he added. Environmentalists also rejected the characterization of the moratorium as a ‘pause,’ since it was intended to precede bigger changes.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Interior Asks Court For Redo Of Climate Reviews. According to E&E News, “The federal government is aiming to avoid another unfavorable court ruling over its oil and gas development practices on public lands. Attorneys for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management on Friday asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to hand back — and allow an agency redo of — National Environmental Policy Act climate reviews supporting Obama-era lease sales in Utah and Colorado, instead of waiting for the court to issue a potentially unfavorable decision. ‘This will avoid judicial resolution of issues that may well be resolved upon remand and further study,’ Justice Department attorneys wrote in their Friday motion. Their request follows a March ruling from Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, that scrapped climate reviews for a set of Wyoming lease sales (Energywire, March 20). That ruling was considered a win for environmentalists and concluded BLM should have attempted to predict greenhouse gas emissions linked to drilling and downstream uses of the oil and gas. The March decision was the first of three phases in the court’s resolution of leasing disputes spanning Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. The request from Interior on Friday is tied to the second and third phases of the case.” [E&E News, 5/28/19 (=)]

Interior Advances Major Calif. Wind Project On Tribal Lands. According to E&E News, “The Interior Department today advanced a major new wind energy project on Native American lands, releasing a draft analysis of the proposal and an ambitious timeline that could see it approved by the end of the year. The draft environmental impact statement for the Campo Wind Energy Project analyzed three alternatives, including a ‘full build-out’ proposal of 60 wind turbines capable of producing up to 252 megawatts of electricity — enough to power about 75,000 homes and businesses. The project, proposed by the Campo Band of Diegueño Mission Indians and Terra-Gen Development Co. LLC, would place the 60 or so turbines on about 2,200 acres of tribal lands in California about 60 miles east of San Diego. A 230-kilovolt power line from the wind project on the Campo Indian Reservation would need to use about 500 additional acres of private lands northeast of the reservation — an area identified as the Boulder Brush corridor. The power line would connect with a San Diego Gas & Electric substation/switchyard. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, the lead agency on the project, began the EIS public scoping process last fall (Greenwire, Nov. 21, 2018).” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

Interior Appeals Izembek Ruling. According to Politico, “The Trump administration will appeal a judge’s ruling blocking the land swap that allowed the Interior Department to build an access road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The Interior Department said in a court filing today it will appeal the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for Alaska ruled in March that Interior failed to properly explain why it had performed an about-face on the policy after the Obama administration rejected the road, which would be used for medical evacuations from the isolated town of King Cove in bad weather that makes water travel dangerous.” [Politico, 5/24/19 (=)]

Opinion Pieces

Op-Ed: As Climate Change Gets Worse, So Does Congress’s Ability To Fund Disaster Relief. According to an op-ed by Amber Phillips in the Washington Post, “California wildfires. Severe flooding in the Midwest. A hurricane in the Florida panhandle. Puerto Rico still struggling to recover from 2017′s Hurricane Maria. These are all pressing natural disasters, and most lawmakers agree the federal government should help clean up. Spending money to help communities recover from disasters has long been a central job of the federal government, and it’s becoming more important as climate change exacerbates extreme weather. So why is Congress having trouble passing such legislation? On Friday, a single House Republican held up a $19.1 billion disaster relief bill, which appeared to be on its way to the president’s desk. The bill had already been stalled for months as President Trump wrangled with Congress to try to get funding for his border wall included. (He didn’t ultimately succeed.) There are a few reasons for the politicization of disaster aid, says Molly Reynolds, a congressional expert at the Brookings Institution who carefully follows spending debates: Fewer bills pass Congress these days: At least, fewer bills pass both chambers of Congress, especially in a divided government. The ones Congress does get to are considered ‘must-pass’ legislation that controls spending in some way, like funding the government or raising the debt ceiling or disaster relief.” [Washington Post, 5/24/19 (=)]

Op-Ed: 2020 Is Team Oil Vs. Team Climate Change. There's No Middle. According to an op-ed by Zachary Wolf in CNN, “As Americans gas up for the start of the summer driving season, they’ll pay the highest Memorial Day prices at the pump since 2014. And they’ll have trouble finding any sort of middle lane in the oil wars of American politics. Voters in 2020 can choose President Donald Trump, who brags about oil production -- the fact that the United States is now the largest producer of oil on Earth. Or voters can opt for the Democratic presidential candidate, whoever it ends up being. All of them agree that humans contribute to climate change -- which is nearly universally described as an existential threat -- and that the US must do something about carbon emissions immediately. Nearly every Democrat or Democratic-leaning voter -- 96% in a CNN poll in April -- wants a candidate who will take aggressive action on climate change. It’s a far less important issue for most Republicans. An NBC News poll in December found 71% of Democrats saying climate change required immediate action compared with 15% of Republicans. That’s an incredible split that suggests about half the country believes that the world is on pace for a climate reckoning and the other half is basically meh.” [CNN, 5/25/19 (+)]

Op-Ed: Trump Administration's Attempts To Limit Climate Change Science 'Like Designing Cars Without Seatbelts': Professor. According to an op-ed by Katherine Hignett in Newsweek, “Researchers have spoken out against the Trump administration’s latest attempts to curb the climate science research performed by government agencies. New U.S. Geological Survey boss James Reilly—a former astronaut and petroleum geologist—told the agency to limit the timespan of computer-generated climate models from the end of the century to just 2040, The New York Times reported Monday. But scientists told the publication the most significant impacts of today’s emissions will likely be experienced from 2050 through to the end of the century. Officials and others told the publication that ‘worst-case scenarios’—also known as ‘business as usual’ scenarios—may not end up in important government documents like the next National Climate Assessment. The document should be published in 2021 or 2022. Climate researcher Phillip B Duffy, who was part of a National Academy of Sciences group that reviewed the 2017/2018 National Climate report, likened the government’s behavior to that of the Soviet Union. He told the Times: ‘What we have here is a pretty blatant attempt to politicize the science—to push the science in a direction that’s consistent with their politics.’ But officials said previous iterations of the report relied on ‘inaccurate’ modeling that highlights ‘worst-case’ scenarios over ‘real-world conditions.’” [Newsweek, 5/28/19 (=)]

Op-Ed: The Anti-Corporate Bias Holds Back Climate Change Policy. According to an op-ed by Michael Lynch in Forbes, “Several decades ago, living near Boston, I regularly passed a billboard put up by the state government on my daily commute (before I went car-free for a time). The sign urged citizens to report corporate polluters to a special phone line. Given political attitudes in Massachusetts, it hardly seemed noteworthy, but the bias shown resonates during the current debate over climate change policy. Of course, it could be argued that only corporations are large enough to produce sufficient pollution to require government attention, but that seems a rather dubious argument. Any number of actors, from building contractors to service stations, deal with significant amounts of toxic or carcinogenic material that would be devastating if released into local watersheds. And a university or college with a chemistry department would certainly qualify; my alma-mater M.I.T. produced radioactive waste, including from a small research reactor. (In the early 1970s, the waste was kept in a concrete building near my dorm with banks of green, yellow and red lights and a note providing a phone number for observers to call if the red lights flashed. Ah, the good old days.” [Forbes, 5/28/19 (=)]

Op-Ed: Get Ready As Climate Change Debate Will Go Mainstream In 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Campaign. According to an op-ed by Hersh Shefrin in Forbes, “As campaign season activity intensifies over the next eighteen months, climate change debate will heat up along with the rise in temperature of our planet. Psychology will play an important part in this debate. Psychologically speaking, humans have been collectively acting as if they have been addicted to fossil fuels, but refusing to recognize the extent of their dependence, let alone engaging in any serious rehabilitation. Confronting this reality is about to occur in earnest, as part of the 2020 election campaign. Expect to see important questions being raised about global warming during candidate debates. Do not expect 2020 to be like 2016 when global warming issues received virtually no attention in debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The country is polarized about climate change policy, just as it is polarized about other political issues such as border security and abortion. The Center for Climate Change Communication, based at universities Yale and George Mason, provides reliable survey data on how climate change issues are currently viewed by the American electorate. These data characterize the differences in views between Democrats and Republicans.” [Forbes, 5/27/19 (=)]

Op-Ed: Climate Change Is A GOP Issue, Too. According to an op-ed by Tia Nelson in The Hill, “It’s striking to see how much the Republican Party has changed its tune on the environment. Both Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush led on the issue as presidents, and even more recently, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called on the nation to address climate change. Today, conservatives have largely abandoned environmental causes in a fog of climate change denial set in motion long ago by the fossil fuel industry. But we’re beginning to see some cracks, even from that very industry itself. Recently, a group of CEOs from high-profile corporations — including some oil companies — joined forces with environmental groups to form the CEO Climate Dialogue, which called for U.S. policy that would get the nation on a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent or more by 2050. Those of us who care about the environment need to try to build off this effort, as well as similar ones by other corporations, to generate support among Republicans. For decades, this was a bipartisan issue, and there’s no reason it can’t be again. I consider myself a conservationist, and when I speak to my conservative friends, I remind them that there’s a reason ‘conservationist’ has ‘conservative’ as its root — conserving our natural resources is in fact a conservative value.” [Inside EPA, 5/24/19 (+)]

Op-Ed: 5 Animals You May See At The Beach, Thanks To Endangered Species Act. According to an op-ed by Miyoko Sakashita in The Hill, “Beach season is here. It’s time to frolic in the surf or lie in the sand, contemplating the vast ocean. But as you enjoy your time in the sun, take a moment to appreciate the wildlife that’s still swimming or scampering past you thanks to the protection of the Endangered Species Act. It’s easy to get discouraged by environmental news these days. Our oil addiction is fueling a climate crisis and killing our coral reefs. Plastic pollution is accumulating in our oceans. And the biggest mass extinction in human history is underway — being actively worsened by the Trump administration’s reckless policies. Yet, hope remains alive under the sea, where marine species have fared far better than their terrestrial counterparts. A recent study found that 77 percent of once-imperiled marine mammals and sea turtles protected by the Endangered Species Act are recovering. Of the 31 populations studied, just two species declined after being protected under this landmark law: Hawaiian monk seals and Southern Resident killer whales. Not only were all sea turtle species recovering, but their median population increased a whopping 980 percent, reversing the path to extinction that many species were on.” [The Hill, 5/24/19 (=)]

States

Colorado

Democratic Donnybrook Could Jeopardize Must-Win Senate Seat. According to Politico, “Democrats are struggling to nail down A-list recruits in Senate races across the country. But here in Colorado, they have the opposite problem: A field of candidates so big that the primary is turning into a total free-for-all. In a spectacle that resembles Wal-Mart on Black Friday — or, for that matter, the Democratic presidential primary — nearly a dozen candidates are stampeding to take on Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), probably the most vulnerable Republican incumbent on the ballot next year. Other Democrats are weighing jumping in. And there’s neither a clear front-runner nor consensus among party leaders on the best standard-bearer in the must-win race. The swarm of candidates filled a void left by just-departed Gov. John Hickenlooper, who was courted to run for the seat but decided to jump into the even more crowded race for president instead. National Democrats tried in the past to anoint chosen candidates in key Senate contests to avoid precisely this situation. But that tactic backfired in recent years, when well-known former elected officials blew winnable races in battleground states. So in Colorado, Democrats are opting for a hands-off approach, allowing the primary to play out and hoping someone emerges from a crop of young, mostly untested candidates who is capable of knocking out a skilled GOP incumbent.” [Politico, 5/27/19 (=)]

EPA Taking 1st Big Steps To Clean Up Leaking Colo. Mines. According to E&E News, “EPA will take the first major steps this summer to clean up wastewater flowing from dozens of old mines at a Superfund site in southwestern Colorado, officials said yesterday. The work includes dredging contaminated sediment from streams and ponds, diverting water away from tainted mine waste piles, and covering contaminated soil at campgrounds. The agency first outlined the plan last June and finalized it yesterday. This summer’s work is aimed at reducing the volume of toxic heavy metals that escape from mining sites and into rivers while EPA searches for a more comprehensive solution under the Superfund program. The Superfund cleanup was prompted by a 2015 blowout at the inactive Gold King mine near Silverton. An EPA-led contractor crew was excavating at a mine entrance when it inadvertently punctured a debris pile holding back a flood of wastewater inside the mine. About 3 million gallons of water poured out, contaminating rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The spill worsened a decades-old problem in the region, where millions of gallons of wastewater drains out of old mines every year.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

Florida

Florida Appoints First Chief Science Officer To Take On Climate Crisis. According to The Guardian, “To say Dr Tom Frazer faces a daunting workload as he begins his new job as Florida’s first chief science officer would be an underestimation. From the increasing risk of ever stronger Atlantic hurricanes, toxic algae blooms that have inundated the state’s beaches and inland waterways, and rising sea levels that threaten to leave Florida underwater by the end of the century, the challenges appear immense. But where many see a five-alarm climate emergency laying siege to his state, Frazer, with a measured approach honed from more than three decades’ experience of working in environmental science, sees only opportunity. ‘It’s a very exciting time in the state of Florida,’ he said in an interview with the Guardian and several local reporters as he assumed the role created by the new Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, soon after he took office in January. ‘There’s a clear focus in this state right now on water quality issues, so that is my priority moving forward. Rising sea levels are [also] a priority issue and factor prominently in how we’re looking at some of the other issues we’re dealing with. I don’t know how to say it any clearer than that.’” [The Guardian, 5/28/19 (+)]

Iowa

Iowa Ag Secretary Sees Farmers As Part Of Climate Change Solution. According to The Gazette, “More science, less politics is what’s called for in talking about climate change, according to Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig. ‘I think there’s no doubt that the climate changes, right? And so I think first of all we should ... try to do away with some of the politics that gets injected into this and really look at the facts, which is weather changes, the climate changes,’ Naig said during taping Thursday’s of Iowa Public Television’s Iowa Press. Naig, who was appointed ag secretary in March 2018 when Bill Northey resigned to become an undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and was elected to a full four-year term later that year, also discussed livestock facilities and the spring crop-planting situations on Iowa Press, which can be seen at 7:30 p.m. tonight and noon Sunday on IPTV, at 8:30 a.m. Saturday on IPTV World and online at www.IPTV.org. Farmers, he said, are on the front line of climate change. They have to deal with the change ‘from a standpoint of being resilient, right, in the face of increasingly larger rain events in the spring, which we have been seeing.’ There’s also slight warming as well, he said, adding, ‘by the way, these trend lines don’t continue forever, so we need to watch that data as well.’ More frequent and more intense rain events require farmers to make changes in their practices, said Naig, whose family farms in Palo Alto County in Northern Iowa.” [The Gazette, 5/24/19 (=)]

Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh Breathes Easier After Repairs At U.S. Steel Coke Plant. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Emissions from the nation’s largest coke plant, 15 miles south of Pittsburgh, have dropped sharply after a surge in pollution earlier this year prompted health warnings and widespread complaints of foul smells. The increased emissions of sulfur dioxide, a respiratory irritant, had raised alarm in Pittsburgh, which prides itself on shedding its image as a pollution-choked steel town. After a Dec. 24 fire at U.S. Steel ‘s Clairton Plant knocked out pollution controls, the company’s Mon Valley operations sent far higher levels of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere for roughly three months. Sulfur dioxide emitted by the company reached a daily peak of 135,241 pounds on April 1, including from gases flared on a hilltop, according to emissions data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Days later, levels plunged when the company completed repairs at the coke plant, to an average of 3,160 pounds a day. The company emitted a total of more than 9.3 million pounds of sulfur dioxide between the fire on Dec. 24 and May 11, according to data provided by the Allegheny County Health Department. By comparison, the company’s operations are now emitting sulfur dioxide at a rate of roughly 1.1 million pounds for an entire year.” [Wall Street Journal, 5/26/19 (=)]

Wisconsin

Wis. Lawmakers Take Aim At PFAS. According to E&E News, “Some Wisconsin legislators are pushing to curtail the use of firefighting foams that contain potentially toxic chemicals and establish standards that limit how much of the substances can safely exist in the state’s groundwater, air and soil. Firefighting foam can contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are man-made chemicals that research suggests can decrease female fertility, increase the risk of high blood pressure in pregnant women and lower birth weights. Tyco Fire Products discovered in 2013 that soil and well contamination on its Marinette fire training property contained PFAS. In 2017, the company acknowledged that the chemicals had spread beyond the facility. A month later, the company began distributing bottled water to residents whose private wells may have been contaminated. Traces of PFAS also have been detected in a number of wells in Madison. A 2017 assessment found heavy concentrations of PFAS in soil and groundwater at the Wisconsin Air National Guard’s Truax Field.” [E&E News, 5/24/19 (=)]

Chad Ellwood

Research Associate

cellwood@cacampaign.com

202.448.2877 ext. 119