White House

 

White House Releases Latest Regulatory Plans. According to E&E News, “The White House on Wednesday afternoon released its latest plans for rulemaking on energy, the environment and beyond. The fall Unified Agenda emerged roughly two months behind schedule at a time when President Joe Biden faces intense pressure from his base to deliver on critical climate and environmental regulations. The White House Office of Management and Budget said the agenda ‘advances the Administration’s ambitious climate and clean energy agenda with ongoing efforts to promote clean air and clean water, improve energy security and efficiency, and help mitigate the dangers of climate change.’ … At the Interior Department, BLM is looking to finalize proposed regulations on methane waste prevention in the federal oil patch by late fall. The proposal released last November included increased monitoring for leaks and limits on how much gas can be flared because of lacking pipeline capacity to carry that gas to market. In another closely watched action, the Fish and Wildlife Service says it expects to release a proposed permit system in March to allow otherwise prohibited take of migratory birds. Wind power and other energy interests have been weighing in with ideas.” [E&E News, 1/4/23 (=)]

 

 

Congress

 

Despite Speaker Chaos, GOP Has High Hopes For Energy Agenda. According to E&E News, “In one scenario, albeit a remote one, both parties could find common ground in their shared interest in overhauling environmental permitting for energy projects. There remain big disputes, however, over how to do that. Democrats want to consolidate power with the federal government to make it easier to site the major transmission lines needed to deploy clean energy, an idea opposed by many in the GOP. Republicans, meanwhile, want to make larger changes to bedrock environmental laws that won’t fly with Democrats in either chamber. Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), who leads the Conservative Climate Caucus, said he’s holding out hope on that front for bipartisan dealmaking, despite the chaos of the past two days. ‘We can all rally around less emissions is better than more emissions, less pollution is better than more,’ Curtis said. ‘If not careful, it becomes partisan.’ Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) said she’s happy that 2023 will be ‘an implementation year,’ where Democrats will be focused on how the Biden administration handles the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law — their marquee legislative achievements from the 117th Congress. Of the Republicans’ inability to decide on a speaker, Castor acknowledged yesterday, ‘it does not bode well’ for the business of legislating.” [E&E News, 1/4/23 (=)]

 

'McCarthy-Led in Name Only'. According to Politico, “House Republicans’ ongoing struggle to select their leader won’t entirely stymie the GOP’s effort to advance their ambitious energy agenda, even if it delays it from getting off the ground, allies say. But if presumed speaker-in-waiting Kevin McCarthy is eventually forced to fold and does not take the gavel, it could disrupt his carefully laid effort in recent years to develop a GOP energy and climate messaging platform that could compete with Democrats on this issue, with an eye toward winning support from young people. That’s according to House GOP allies and former aides who helped House Republicans craft a strategy released last summer that called for measures to stimulate oil and gas production, ease permitting regulations and seek to reduce reliance on China and Russia for critical materials. ‘There is a clear Republican agenda that has been laid out and it is delayed because of determining who will be speaker,’ Heather Reams, president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a conservative clean energy group, told ME. ‘Just by not being able to organize on time there’s a delay.’ The House GOP strategy was the product of an ‘energy, climate, and conservation task force’ created by McCarthy in 2021 that he tasked with devising a policy agenda to address climate change if Republicans captured the House in the 2022 midterm elections, as they did. The 17-member task force, led by Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), organized its strategy around six pillars that are expected to inform a legislative package to be released this year.” [Politico, 1/5/23 (=)]

 

 

Federal Agencies

 

Department of the Interior (DOI)

 

Haaland Reverses Trump-Era California Irrigation Policy. According to E&E News, “Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in December quietly reversed a Trump-era decision to minimize fees that California irrigators must pay for environmental restoration, more than 18 months after the Biden administration first indicated it would do so. In a Dec. 15 memorandum obtained by California sportfishing advocates, Haaland declared that an eleventh-hour Trump administration policy ending payment requirements for the Central Valley Project Improvement Act ‘has no further force or effect.’ Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had issued that policy on the final day of the Trump administration in 2021, declaring that the federal water project’s restoration and mitigation requirements had been ‘completed’ (Greenwire, July 1, 2021). That decision slashed millions of dollars in payments that water contractors, including the Westlands Water District, had been required to pay in exchange for receiving flows from Central Valley Project, which moves water from California’s wetter north to farmland in its drier south. The Interior Department declined to comment on the memorandum, which Haaland addressed to Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz and Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Tanya Trujillo.” [E&E News, 1/4/23 (=)]

 

National Park Service (NPS)

 

NPS Cut Its Special Agents By Nearly Half, Memo Shows. According to E&E News, “The National Park Service has reduced the number of criminal investigators who handle difficult cases by 45 percent over the last 20 years, and they will spend less time on property crimes and drug cases as a result, according to an internal memo. The memo, obtained by the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), shows the number of criminal investigators declined from 55 in 2003 to 30 in 2022. Due to the cuts, the park service said these special agents would now focus on investigating violent crimes in national parks and ‘complex, felony resource investigations,’ while also taking the lead on cases involving officer shootings or the significant use of force. The agents are a special unit that works with NPS’ law enforcement rangers on cases. ‘This represents a departure from previous support which also included felony investigations of property crimes, and crimes against society such as serious drug related offenses,’ Jennifer Flynn, the NPS associate director of visitor and resource protection, said in the July memo. ‘The intent of this more streamlined service model is to ensure that the most egregious crimes against persons on NPS lands are investigated appropriately, while simultaneously prioritizing the protection of park resources given the importance and nexus to the agency’s mission,’ she added.” [E&E News, 1/4/23 (=)]

 

Department of Agriculture (USDA)

 

Forest Service Plans For Continued Use Of Fire Retardant. According to E&E News, “The Forest Service admitted in legal documents that it spreads aerial fire retardant without a pollution discharge permit from EPA and wants to continue use of the chemical sprays. In a reply to a lawsuit filed by Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, the Forest Service stood by its previously stated position that the agency doesn’t violate the Clean Water Act by applying fire retardant without a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit from EPA, although the spray can be lethal to aquatic wildlife if it gets into streams and rivers. The agency has applied and may continue to apply retardant without such a permit, the Justice Department said on behalf of the Forest Service in the filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana. As an alternative, however, the Forest Service has told FSEEE it plans to seek a ‘general permit’ from EPA, which would allow for the continued application of retardant in multiple settings without the more extensive reviews the organization argues are needed. General permits can be based on certain categories of activities across wide geographic areas and don’t require the project-by-project reviews involved in individual permits under the NPDES system, according to EPA. Andy Stahl, FSEEE’s executive director, said the Forest Service’s plan is questionable based on the risks of retardant entering waterways.” [E&E News, 1/4/23 (=)]

 

 

Courts & Legal

 

Antiquities Act Litigation Threatens Nevada Monument Proposal. According to Bloomberg Law, “Tribes and environmentalists are hailing President Joe Biden’s commitment to use the Antiquities Act to create a national monument in Nevada to protect tribal sacred sites, preserve wildlife and Joshua tree habitat, and block the approval of a wind farm. But legal clouds are gathering in neighboring Utah, where federal litigation aimed at the US Supreme Court seeks to short-circuit the White House’s ability to use the 1906 Antiquities Act to set aside large tracts of environmentally sensitive public lands from development. Biden said Nov. 30 he’d use the act to create the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument championed by southern Nevada local governments and area tribes—a 450,000 acre preserve that would be about five times the size of Las Vegas. The monument would protect land and imperiled wildlife habitat near Spirit Mountain, a peak already protected as wilderness that the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe and nine other area tribes consider sacred. One potential casualty would be Eolus North America Inc., which expects to lose its bid to build the proposed 308-megawatt Kulning Wind Energy Project on federal land within the potential monument’s boundaries if Biden creates Avi Kwa Ame. The land is ‘part of our origin story,’ said Ashley Hemmers, administrator of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe. ‘We’re not against clean energy. It doesn’t have to come at the demise of a sacred site.’” [Bloomberg Law, 1/5/23 (=)]

 

 

States & Local

 

Alaska

 

Manchin's Favorite Federal Offshore Fossil Fuel Lease Sale Flops. According to Gizmodo, “A massive federal offshore drilling lease sale in Alaska has, once again, proven wildly unpopular among fossil fuel companies. Despite at least one lawsuit and fierce opposition from environmental groups, almost a million federally owned acres of Alaska’s Cook Inlet were put up for auction for oil and gas drilling at the end of 2022. That lease sale, numbered 258 and previously canceled, was revived by Joe Manchin. The West Virginia Senator and coal baron made Lease Sale 258 into a bargaining chip, refusing to vote for the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act unless the fossil fuel auction was mandated by the bill. And he got his way. The IRA passed but included multiple provisions tying future expansion of wind and solar energy to the continuation of oil and gas drilling—including the re-opening of Lease Sale 258. In response, multiple conservation organizations sued the Interior Department and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, but the sale went forward anyway.” [Gizmodo, 1/4/23 (+)]

 

Wyoming

 

Federal Government Poised To Lease Swaths Of Mountain West Land For Oil And Gas In 2023. According to Wyoming Public Radio, “The federal government could lease hundreds of thousands of acres in the Mountain West for oil and gas development this year. The Bureau of Land Management announced proposals in Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico this past fall. In total, hundreds of parcels adding up to more than 450,000 acres could be leased to drillers. Many of these parcels are still subject to a scoping and public comment period, but if these leases go through, they would represent a major shift for the Biden administration. Since President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the federal government has leased fewer acres for oil and gas drilling on federal land and offshore than any administration since World War II, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sales would be held quarterly in 2023 and are required if the Department of the Interior wants to greenlight renewable energy development on public land. Per the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, the federal government must lease at least two million acres for oil and gas before any new solar or wind energy projects can be built on public lands or waters. Deputy Interior Secretary Tommy Beaudreau said during a recent Senate hearing that his department is committed to oil and gas, as well as wind and solar.” [Wyoming Public Radio, 1/4/23 (=)]

 

 

 

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