TOP HEADLINES

 

Trump Admin's Refusal To Say 'Climate' Seen As Deceptive

 

Pruitt To Defend Trump Budget In House Next Month

 

Trump EPA Hires Enviro

 

Udall Pushes Pruitt To Cooperate On Phone Booth Probe

 

Trump Budget Would Cut Renewables Lab By More Than Half

 

Greens’ Poll Shows Support For Renewable Energy Transition In Swing States

 

 

White House And Diplomacy

 

Trump Admin's Refusal To Say 'Climate' Seen As Deceptive. According to E&E News, “‘It is evident that this strategic plan fully incorporates future risks from all hazards regardless of cause,’ FEMA Director of Public Affairs William Booher said in an email when asked why climate change doesn’t appear in its planning strategy. That strategy amounts to a dereliction of duty, experts said. Government in stable societies are expected to promote evidence-based, actionable information to preserve lives and reduce damage. Think of how many illnesses might have been avoided by medical warnings to wash hands or get shots during flu season, said Ed Maibach, director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication. Broadcasting that kind of information is not propaganda, nor does it advance government intrusion into daily lives; it’s sharing potentially lifesaving knowledge. Addressing climate change should be no different, Maibach said. The federal government’s role in disseminating that information helps the public key into social and ideological cues from political elites, said Kaitlin Raimi, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. That means the Trump administration’s refusal to name climate change could widen the partisan chasm on the issue. ‘This is what worries me here. It’s one thing for a person on the ground to avoid this language so as to reach out to a neighbor or someone else and get them to act to adapt to climate change without triggering the political identities that ‘climate change’ often does,’ Raimi said in an email. ‘But by the federal government avoiding this language, it sends a message that this is NOT climate change, that the changes people are seeing around them are not part of this larger problem.’” [E&E News, 3/20/18 (=)]

 

Federal Agencies

 

EPA

 

Pruitt To Defend Trump Budget In House Next Month. According to E&E News, “The House Energy and Commerce Committee announced this morning that Pruitt will testify before its Environment Subcommittee on April 26. Full committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Environment Subcommittee ranking member Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) sent a letter earlier this month calling for the EPA chief to testify. Democrats will question Pruitt over the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget plan, which has proposed a roughly 23 percent, or nearly $2 billion, cut in agency funds. The administrator will also likely deal with queries about the agency’s spending on his travel and security as well as outside work done by his aides. Earlier next month on April 12, Energy Secretary Rick Perry will appear before the panel’s Energy Subcommittee. In addition, all five commissioners who sit on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will testify before that same panel on April 17. In a joint statement, Reps. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said, ‘We’re looking forward to hearing from the heads of these three agencies for a much-needed update on their work thus far and to ensure they’re prepared to effectively carry out their missions in an evolving world.’ Walden is the chairman of the full committee, while Upton heads the Energy Subcommittee and Shimkus leads the Environment Subcommittee.” [E&E News, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

Trump EPA Hires Enviro. According to E&E News, “President Trump’s U.S. EPA, known for its roster of aides linked to industry, has recently hired a prominent lawyer from an environmental group. Sean Dixon, formerly senior attorney with Riverkeeper, started at the agency this month as a senior policy adviser to Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, the Region 1 administrator in the Boston office. Dixon spent four years at the environmental organization, which is focused on protecting New York waterways like the Hudson River, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was part of several of the group’s protest campaigns and litigation, including efforts that at times have been aimed against EPA. ‘We do think this is a bold move on Sean’s part, moving over to EPA. He did great work for us at Riverkeeper, and we’re counting on him to do the same thing at EPA,’ Paul Gallay, president of Riverkeeper, told E&E News. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said the agency already has several ‘environmentalists’ on staff as Trump appointees, referring to top aides who came from state regulatory agencies or their representative trade associations. ‘EPA has a number of environmentalists as political appointees, including, but not at all limited to: Region 1’s Alex Dunn was from the Environmental Council of the States and the Association of Clean Water Administrators; EPA’s Office of Water’s Dave Ross served two state environmental protection agencies; and EPA’s General Counsel Matt Leopold came from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection,’ Bowman said in a statement to E&E News.” [E&E News, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

Scott Pruitt

 

Udall Pushes Pruitt To Cooperate On Phone Booth Probe. According to E&E News, “Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) is pressing U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to cooperate with a congressional watchdog’s inquiry about his secure phone booth. Udall today sent a letter, obtained by E&E News, to the EPA chief raising the agency’s lack of response to the Government Accountability Office. GAO has committed to offering a legal opinion on whether EPA appropriately spent funds to build a soundproof communications facility in Pruitt’s office. Yet so far, EPA has not worked with GAO on the probe, according to the senator. ‘My staff has asked GAO for the status of its legal opinion several times only to be informed that, to date, GAO has yet to receive any information from the EPA despite GAO reaching out to the EPA numerous times,’ Udall said in his letter. ‘I am alarmed that the EPA has failed — for nearly three months — to cooperate with GAO’s requests,’ he said. A GAO spokesman confirmed that EPA has not responded to the watchdog office’s questions related to Pruitt’s phone booth. ‘We have not yet received a formal response from EPA on this particular issue,’ GAO spokesman Chuck Young told E&E News. Udall noted a recent report by The Washington Post that EPA spent roughly $43,000 to install the phone booth, including the nearly $25,000 contract for the booth itself.” [E&E News, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

AP | Oklahoma Court Removes Some Language In Pruitt FOIA Ruling. According to The Washington Post, “An Oklahoma appeals court has removed language that was critical of the state attorney general’s office in an Open Records Act case involving communications between then-Attorney General Scott Pruitt and major energy companies as well as the Republican Attorney General’s Association. The Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals ruled Monday the trial judge’s characterization of the office as an ‘abject failure’ in complying with the law was ‘surplus and unnecessary.’ The wording is in a 2017 ruling that ordered the attorney general’s office to provide the Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy with records it had requested in 2015 involving Pruitt, who now heads the Environmental Protection Agency. The court upheld the remainder of the order that the attorney general’s office must provide the records, which it did in February 2017.” [The Washington Post, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

DOE

 

Trump Budget Would Cut Renewables Lab By More Than Half. According to E&E News, “The National Renewable Energy Laboratory would see its funding fall by more than half under President Trump’s budget request for the Department of Energy, according to new documents. A DOE budget outline posted online also shows about a 35 percent slash for the National Energy Technology Laboratory in West Virginia, which focuses heavily on carbon capture and fossil energy research. Previously, the administration had released overall numbers for applied energy offices and announced an intent to focus on early-stage research, but it was unclear how proposed funding levels for fiscal 2019 would affect the national labs directly. The budget request ‘reflects an increased reliance on the private sector to fund later-stage research, development, and commercialization of energy technologies,’ DOE said. The administration said it plans to maintain ‘the most critical core capabilities and infrastructure at DOE National Laboratories related to sustainable transportation, renewable power, and energy efficiency technologies.’ Under the proposal, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory would see about an 18 percent cut in comparison with fiscal 2017 funding levels, while Pacific Northwest National Laboratory would see a roughly 23 percent reduction. Much of the 51 percent decline for Colorado’s NREL would be due to lower funding from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which Trump is targeting for a roughly 65 percent decrease in the next fiscal year.” [E&E News, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

Now Rehear This! Public Utilities, Co-Ops Want Changes To FERC Storage Rule. According to Politico, “American Municipal Power, the American Public Power Association, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association are asking FERC for a rehearing on the energy storage rule it approved last month. The groups say that FERC violated state law in allowing behind-the-meter storage and storage on distribution grids to participate in wholesale power markets, and they say the agency should have allowed an opt-in/opt-out provision.” [Politico, 3/20/18 (=)]

 

 

Ally Groups

 

Greens’ Poll Shows Support For Renewable Energy Transition In Swing States. According to The Hill, “Most voters in a handful of swing states support transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy for their electricity needs, an environmental group found. The Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research poll, conducted on behalf of the Sierra Club in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Colorado, shows that most respondents in each state would back a state policy mandating 100 percent renewable electricity from sources like wind and solar power. The support for the measures also grew in almost all of the states since similar polling last year. While those surveyed who identify as Democrats were more likely to support the measures, a majority of Republican respondents in Ohio and Pennsylvania also support the 100 percent goal. Voters are also more likely to back candidates who support 100 percent renewables, the survey found. The results come as the midterm congressional elections are starting to ramp up and as the 2020 presidential election approaches. They serve as a potential warning to candidates to support renewable-energy policies or face possible voter backlash. ‘The overarching message is that from the Colorado Rockies to the coast of Virginia, the public and the United States is ready for 100 percent clean, renewable energy,’ Jodie Van Horn, director of the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 campaign, told The Hill.” [The Hill, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

Q&A: Greenpeace Chief Finds Hope Amid Devastating Climate Change Impacts. According to USA Today, “Q: After a year of climate-fueled storms, fires and floods, what gives you hope? A: I’d say two things. One is how many individuals there are around the world who are fighting and active, whether it be to try and get solar power into their homes and in their schools, whether it be working to stop a local coal-fired power plant, change what they buy, what they eat. Another thing that gives me hope is the uptake of renewable energy and the fall of prices. That gives me hope that we can scale up, particularly in places where there are no energy sources yet, with renewables rather than fossil fuels. Q: Do you think the world would be doing more to confront climate change if it weren’t for the influence of corporations? A: Corporate influence is a massive obstacle, and I think we’re in a moment where we’re seeing around the world that people are losing their faith in institutions like government. In the U.S., just look at who’s funding the various elections. Even Germany, where you have a revolving door between the auto industry and the government, you can look at the corruption that occurs. It creates a very skewed power dynamic. Q: Is that why you think there needs to be disruption, like the New York City and Oregon lawsuits? A: At this point in time, yeah. What you’re seeing is people and elected officials like mayors taking things into their own hands because they just can’t wait anymore. In the U.S., to wait until the next administration, we just don’t have that time. What you’re seeing is driven by the urgency of the issue, individuals stepping up and doing things that I think wouldn’t be imaginable a few years ago, but now are taken quite seriously. The students in Oregon moved on to the next level in their court case. And we’ll see where the New York case lands and what other cities file lawsuits.” [USA Today, 3/16/18 (=)]

 

Opposition Groups

 

Legislative Pulse: Opposing ‘Cap-And-Swindle,’ ‘Ineptitude,’ Secrecy. According to The Heartland Institute, “Editor’s Note: Oregon state Sen. Alan Olsen (R-Canby) has served two terms in the state Senate. Olsen serves as vice-chair of the Oregon Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and is a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans and Emergency Preparedness and the Legislative Audits, Information Management, and Technology Committee. Burnett: Some Oregon legislators have proposed what they call a ‘cap and invest’ climate bill which would force industry to purchase allowances to emit carbon dioxide. Estimates are the bill would cost Oregon commuters $50 to $125 more per month for fuel and raise the price of electricity for residential ratepayers by as much as 27 percent by 2030, with businesses facing even steeper increases. What are your thoughts on this bill? Olsen: This is not a cap and invest bill but rather a cap and swindle bill. It hampers prosperous, productive companies by limiting their carbon dioxide output, which limits their ability to produce products. When you tack on the cost of the credits, it will artificially drive up prices on goods and services. In other words, the law would swindle people out of their hard-earned dollars so the government can provide funds to the nonproductive under the guise of investments. It is just a giant wealth redistribution scheme, directed by the state government, which will produce very little reduction in carbon dioxide each year.” [The Heartland Institute, 3/20/18 (-)]

 

Industry

 

Some States Block Plans For New Power Plants. According to E&E News, “Natural gas may be the new king of electricity generation, but some states want to knock it off its throne. Gas made up 32 percent of the country’s power generation in 2017, having won a full one-tenth of the market in the span of a decade. But regulators, environmentalists and citizens groups in states like Arizona, Massachusetts and Michigan have blocked the construction of new gas-fired power plants. Regulators in California — where the biggest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., has no plans for future plants and two other projects were recently abandoned — have been especially keen on turning away from gas in favor of renewables. The California Public Utilities Commission directed PG&E earlier this year to take bids for renewables that would replace three gas plants. ‘You’re not going to get anywhere if you are just adding more and more gas,’ said California Energy Commission Chairman Robert Weisenmiller. ‘At some point soon, we’ll be permitting the last gas plant in California.’” [E&E News, 3/20/18 (=)]

 

Industries Set To Request Tariff Carve-Outs. According to E&E News, “The Trump administration has begun accepting applications today from companies hoping to sidestep steep aluminum and steel tariffs that kick in Friday. The Commerce Department laid out a 90-day framework in today’s Federal Register for U.S. individuals and groups hoping to secure carve-outs from President Trump’s 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum. Canada and Mexico were excluded pending trade negotiations. The department in its interim final rule also laid out the process through which individuals and groups can object to such applications. At first blush, the administration’s process appears to be a ‘mixed bag’ for energy producers, Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, told clients in a note today. Potentially bad news for the sector, Book said, is that exemptions are ‘limited, narrow and contestable.’ On the other hand, he said, the process doesn’t appear to reallocate tariffs from exempt countries and excluded products to other imports. An industry source said the administration appears so far to have heard the industry’s concerns, but relief will hinge on how difficult it is for pipeline developers to obtain exemptions and how objections are handled. The American Petroleum Institute, which huddled with President Trump last week to discuss tariffs, released a statement today calling for ‘clarity and flexibility’ in the Commerce process.” [E&E News, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

Industry Battles Loom Over Oil And Gas Data. According to E&E News, “The huge volumes of data generated during oil production are becoming increasingly coveted, setting up future contests for control between explorers and service companies. Information coming from rigs, pipes, pumps and other industry hardware can do much to reveal details about company wells and underground reservoirs. The industry uses only about 1 percent of the data it creates. But companies are now trying to make use of it to maximize production. As servicers try to secure access to what could mean a vast new stream of revenue, explorers are rewriting service contracts to beef up data ownership clauses. ‘There’s no doubt to me, we are producing two resources: the oil and gas, and the data,’ said Philippe Herve, vice president of oil and gas solutions at SparkCognition. ‘The oil and gas is very clear: It belongs to the operator. But who owns the data?’” [E&E News, 3/20/18 (=)]

 

Opinion

 

Op-Ed: Want To Stop Climate Change? Take 'Em To Court!. According to Bloomberg, “The stakes for the government could be high. The process of discovery alone promises to be embarrassing, as lawyers for the plaintiffs seek detailed information showing how long authorities have known about the risks of carbon emissions (probably more than 50 years). If the children win, the court could compel the U.S. to produce and act on a firm plan to decarbonize its energy system. Granted, it’s probably fantasy to suppose such a ruling could survive the conservative Supreme Court, to which the government would almost certainly appeal. Yet the ultimate outcome may be less important than the mere fact that the case has come this far. The spectacle of a trial — or even arguments over whether the government can avoid a trial, and why it wants to — could inspire broader demands for real action, especially among younger people and those most vulnerable to global warming. From civil rights to the environment, meaningful change requires persistent activism, growing public awareness and engagement. This case reflects a larger global trend, in which people are invoking existing law to protect the young. Such cases rest on the notion of intergenerational equity, the idea that the actions of one generation should not be allowed to deprive future generations of similar opportunities. A recent survey found that the constitutions of some 144 nations, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all carbon emissions, have protections against climate change. The challenge is to get courts and governments to enforce the law. If it takes a child to make that happen, then so be it.” [Bloomberg, 3/19/18 (+)]

 

Research And Analysis

 

Climate Change Soon To Cause Mass Movement, World Bank Warns. According to The Guardian, “Climate change will result in a massive movement of people inside countries and across borders, creating ‘hotspots’ where tens of millions pour into already crowded slums, according to the World Bank. More than 140m people in just three regions of the developing world are likely to migrate within their native countries between now and 2050, the first report on the subject has found. The World Bank examined three regions, which between them account for 55% of the developing world’s population. In sub-Saharan Africa, 86m are expected to be internally displaced over the period; in south Asia, about 40m; and in Latin America, 17m. Such flows of people could cause enormous disruption, threatening governance and economic and social development, but the World Bank cautioned that it was still possible to stave off the worst effects. ‘Climate change-driven migration will be a reality, but it does not need to be a crisis, provided we take action now and act boldly,’ said John Roome, senior director for climate change at the World Bank group. He laid out three key actions governments should take: first, to accelerate their reductions of greenhouse gases; second, for national governments to incorporate climate change migration into their national development planning; and third, to invest in further data and analysis for use in planning development. Within countries, the effects of climate change will create multiple ‘hotspots’: made up of the areas people move away from in large numbers, and the areas they move to.” [The Guardian, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

Tougher Climate Policies Could Save A Stunning 150 Million Lives, Researchers Find. According to The Washington Post, “There is an overlooked benefit to greatly lowering carbon emissions worldwide, a new study says. In addition to preserving Arctic sea ice, reducing sea-level rise and alleviating other effects of global warming, it would probably save more than 150 million human lives. According to the study, premature deaths would fall on nearly every continent if the world’s governments agree to cut emissions of carbon and other harmful gases enough to limit global temperature rise to less than 3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That is about a degree lower than the target set by the Paris climate agreement. The benefit would be felt mostly in Asian countries with dirty air — 13 million lives would be saved in large cities in India alone, including the metropolitan areas of Kolkata, Delhi, Patna and Kanpur. Greater Dhaka in Bangladesh would have 3.6 million fewer deaths, and Jakarta in Indonesia would record 1.6 fewer lives lost. The African cities of Lagos and Cairo combined would register more than 2 million fewer deaths. In the United States, the Clean Air Act has improved air quality over the years. Still, more than 330,000 lives in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta and Washington would be spared, according to the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. ‘Americans don’t really grasp how pollution impacts their lives,’ said Drew Shindell, a professor of Earth science at Duke University and the study’s lead author. ‘You say, ‘My uncle went to the hospital and died of a heart attack.’ You don’t say the heart attack was caused by air pollution, so we don’t know. It’s still a big killer here. It’s much bigger than from people who die from plane crashes or war or terrorism, but we don’t see the link so clearly.’” [The Washington Post, 3/20/18 (+)]

 

The Arctic’s Carbon Bomb Might Be Even More Potent Than We Thought. According to The Washington Post, “New research released Monday suggests that methane releases could be considerably more prevalent as Arctic permafrost thaws. The research finds that in waterlogged wetland soils, where oxygen is not prevalent, tiny microorganisms will produce a considerable volume of methane, a gas that doesn’t last in the air much more than a decade but has a warming effect many times that of carbon dioxide over a period of 100 years. ‘What we can definitely say is that the importance of methane was underestimated until now in the carbon studies,’ said Christian Knobloch, a researcher at Universität Hamburg in Germany and the lead author of the study, published in Nature Climate Change. The divergent finding came after Knoblauch and his colleagues conducted a lengthy experiment, more than seven years long, monitoring patches of submerged and artificially warmed soil from Siberia in the laboratory, and gradually seeing sensitive methane-producing microorganisms become more prevalent over time. Knoblauch contends that other studies have not examined waterlogged Arctic soils for as long, and he notes that in some cases it took three years or more for the methane-generating microorganisms to really get cranking. ‘What we saw is that it takes a very long time until methane starts being produced, and the study that we did is really the first one which is so long,’ Knoblauch said. The research was conducted along with colleagues from several institutions in Germany, Sweden and Russia. So much methane was produced in the experiment, the researchers calculated that the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from wet soils, or wetlands, will be higher than from drier soils, where carbon dioxide should indeed be the top gas released. This finding, if further confirmed, could reorient calculations of the overall potential of permafrost to worsen global warming over the coming century.” [The Washington Post, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

 

Arizona

 

Arizona Rooftop Solar Leases Exempt From Property Tax, Court Rules. According to Utility Dive, “The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that customers who lease rooftop solar panels are exempt from paying property taxes, saving major residential solar installers Sunrun and Tesla’s now-defunct SolarCity, who own the systems, millions in potential taxes. The lease model, or power purchase agreement model, was the mainstay of these companies’ business proposition in the beginning. However, the ruling could enable lower courts to decide whether or not counties could assess those panels for potential taxes, the Arizona Republic reports. The case was sparked by a move from the state Department of Revenue in 2013, which said that tens of thousands of customers who leased rooftop solar panels could be on the hook for property taxes. At the time, those solar arrays amounted to $34,000 per system the first year, the news outlet reported, amounting to $152 in taxes that would decline over time.” [Utility Dive, 3/16/18 (=)]

 

Michigan

 

DTE's $1B Gas Plant Reaches Full Boil. According to E&E News, “DTE Energy Co. shared a Kumbaya moment with clean energy advocates in 2016 when utility CEO Gerry Anderson announced the Detroit-based company would shut down eight coal-fired units between 2020 and 2023 as part of a broader strategy to transition to cleaner energy sources. But the next phase of DTE’s strategy — to replace most of the coal capacity with a $1 billion natural gas plant — has set off a bitter fight over the state’s energy future. With the 1,100-megawatt plant, DTE aims to take advantage of cheap gas from the nearby Marcellus and Utica shale formations. But the proposal has met with resistance from environmental and renewable energy groups, which argue that DTE’s big bet on a natural gas future would mean wasting a chance to accelerate Michigan’s clean energy transformation. It’s one, they argue, that would bring cleaner air, more jobs and lower bills. The battle between natural gas and renewable energy is one playing out elsewhere across the country. In Michigan, the battle is about how to fill the void being created by the phaseout of coal-fired power plants. Margrethe Kearney, an attorney for the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC), said Michigan should take a cue from other Midwest states such as Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, which are more quickly ramping up wind and solar development, energy efficiency, and demand response. ‘We need to get rid of the idea that Michigan can’t do the things these other states can do,’ she said. The DTE gas plant case is among the first big regulatory battles looming.” [E&E News, 3/20/18 (=)]

 

Virginia

 

Coal Ash Pollution Case To Be Hard By Federal Appeals Court. According to Associated Press, “A legal battle over the storage of more than 3 million tons of coal ash in Virginia is headed to a federal appeals court in a case closely watched by environmentalists and energy companies. The case pits the Sierra Club against the state’s largest electric utility, Dominion Energy. A federal judge ruled last year that arsenic is illegally flowing from one of the sites where the utility stores coal ash — the heavy metal-laden byproduct of burning coal to produce electricity — and is polluting surrounding waters. U.S. District Judge John Gibney Jr. found that Dominion had violated the U.S. Clean Water Act, but he did not impose civil penalties, saying the discharge from a retired power plant in Chesapeake does not pose a threat to human health or the environment. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments Wednesday. Dominion is appealing Gibney’s finding that it violated the Clean Water Act. The company argues that the federal law regulates discharges into navigable waters, not groundwater. The company said the regulation of groundwater contamination from solid waste such as coal ash is regulated by state laws and the federal Resource Conservation Recovery Act. Gibney found that the landfill and ponds where the ash is currently stored convey arsenic into the groundwater and from there into the surface water, violating federal law.” [Associated Press, 3/19/18 (=)]

 

West Virginia

 

Still Reeling. According to Politico, “National Republicans are beginning to worry about the surprise rise of coal baron and recent federal prisoner Don Blankenship, POLITICO’s Alex Isenstadt reports. Blankenship has skyrocketed in the West Virginia Republican Senate primary and has hit the airwaves with ads assailing his field of rivals as career politicians, leaving senior party officials wrestling with ‘how, or even whether, to intervene,’ Alex writes. ‘Many of them are convinced that Blankenship, who served a one-year sentence following the deadly 2010 explosion at his Upper Big Branch Mine, would be a surefire loser against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin — and potentially become a national stain for the party.’ Discussions have only intensified over the past few weeks: ‘During separate meetings with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, aides to Blankenship’s two primary opponents, Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, pointed to Blankenship’s traction and questioned what could be done to stop him.’ Alex writes.” [Politico, 3/20/18 (=)]

 

Washington D.C.

 

D.C. Councilman Says Jewish Family 'Controlling The Climate'. According to E&E News, “A Washington, D.C., City Council member took to social media in response to a brief bout of snow Friday morning to espouse a conspiracy theory that a Jewish family controls the weather. Trayon White Sr. posted a video on his official Facebook page showing snow flurries through the windshield of his car as he drove on Interstate 695 through downtown D.C. ‘Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man. Y’all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation,’ White says, narrating the snowfall. ‘And D.C. keep talking about, ‘We a resilient city.’ And that’s a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful.’ White was reciting a common anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that claims the Rothschilds, a prominent Jewish business dynasty, control the weather and other world events. It’s one among a wide range of similar theories about the Rothschilds, Rockefellers or other boogeymen that have gained traction online in recent years. Rabbi Daniel Zemel of Temple Micah in northwest Washington said White’s comments add to growing intolerance across the country. ‘This kind of anti-Semitism is unacceptable in any public official. This so diminishes what America is about and adds to the oppressive feeling going on in the country right now,’ Zemel said. ‘We all have to be better. Public officials have to learn not to say the first ignorant thing that comes into their head.’” [E&E News, 3/19/18 (=)]