Research Clips: August 3, 2018
Please note: For coverage of yesterday’s announcement on vehicle emissions, please refer to the Cars Clips email. If you did not receive that email and would like a full rundown of clips of the Trump administration announcement, please let me know.
TOP HEADLINES
EPA To Leave 2015 Ozone Standard Alone — For Now.
EPA Watchdog Probing Air-Quality Results Issued After Harvey.
Companies Once Allied With Wheeler Ask His Agency For Help.
Budget Document Silent On Climate, Clean Energy.
POLITICAL NEWS |
Budget Document Silent On Climate, Clean Energy. According to E&E News, “The White House is no longer including ‘climate change’ and ‘clean energy’ in a budget document that steers spending decisions at federal agencies. This week, the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy released annual guidance for research ‘priorities’ in the federal government. While the administration has unveiled similar language before, it has never done so with so many science nominees under consideration, including one for OSTP. On Tuesday, President Trump tapped Oklahoma extreme-weather expert Kelvin Droegemeier to lead the science office, which traditionally plays a coordinating role with agencies. Several Department of Energy nominees who would have jurisdiction over research, including a pick for Office of Science director, are also awaiting action in the Senate. The memorandum from OMB Director Mick Mulvaney and OSTP’s deputy assistant to the president, Michael Kratsios, directs agency planning for fiscal 2020 and establishes a blueprint for Droegemeier, if he is confirmed.” [E&E News, 8/2/18 (=)]
Rare GOP Carbon Bill Got Shrugs From Big Oil. Here's Why. According to EE News, “Political posturing began quickly last week when Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo introduced the first Republican-led carbon tax legislation in nearly a decade. Environmental groups, center-right climate advocates and even some oil companies issued statements of praise for the effort, if not the substance, and conservative organizations promptly bashed the bill as a regressive tax on the poor. It was a remarkable reaction to a bill that observers unanimously expect not to pass. Meanwhile, trade organizations that represent the world’s largest oil companies and manufacturers have stayed silent, stuck in the middle of competing interests and deterred by a Congress that won’t pass much of anything, much less a carbon tax.” [EE News, 8/3/18 (+)]
Trump’s CEQ Has Been Sitting On Sustainability Directive. According to EE News, ‘Federal agencies are waiting for word from the White House before finalizing a rule that would nudge the U.S. government toward prioritizing sustainable products for use in its operations. During the last week of the Obama administration, the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration and NASA offered a rule to change how the government spends its money on the items and services it needs to function. The rule, proposed Jan. 17, 2017, would change the government’s rules on acquisition, and it would ‘improve agencies’ environmental performance and Federal sustainability,’ DOD, GSA and NASA said then. More than a year and a half later, the rule has not been finalized.’ [EE News, 8/3/18 (+)]
EPA Faces Rising Demands To Deal With The Nonstick Pfcs That Contaminate Water, Soil In Colorado. According to the Denver Post, ‘As Environmental Protection Agency investigators turn their attention to Colorado and its perfluorinated chemicals that won’t go away, they face demands to determine how much of an infinitesimally tiny amount is too much. At the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment — where state officials have begun making a list of sites where perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs, may have been spilled — agency chiefs say they will enforce any limit the EPA sets.’ [Denver Post, 8/2/18 (=)]
EPA Watchdog Probing Air-Quality Results Issued After Harvey. According to the Washington Post, ‘An internal watchdog at the Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday it will review whether federal and state officials kept the public appropriately informed last year about potential air quality threats after Hurricane Harvey ravaged southeastern Texas. The office of EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins issued notice of the audit, which will scrutinize the agency’s response following several high-profile accidents and spills following the August 2017 storm and the resulting flooding in the Houston metro area.’ [Washington Post, 8/2/18 (=)]
Companies Once Allied With Wheeler Ask His Agency For Help. According to EE News, ‘Third in a series. Click here to read about Andrew Wheeler’s early days at EPA and here for a story on his work on Capitol Hill. During almost a decade on K Street, acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler lobbied for a bill that would have allowed liquid fuel from coal to be used in a program that addresses climate change by promoting plant-based fuels. Wheeler was also paid to represent companies that public records show currently have business before the agency, which the former lobbyist began overseeing last month. One past client is pushing EPA to require oil importers and refiners to use more biofuel. Another opposes certain chemical replacements used in refrigeration.’ [EE News, 8/2/18 (+)]
New EPA Chief Makes Clear: The Easing Of Environmental Rules Will Continue. According to an article in Inside Climate News, ‘In his first Congressional testimony since taking over the Environmental Protection Agency’s leadership in July, Andrew Wheeler tried to reassure lawmakers that the scandal-scarred agency will get a fresh start under his tenure. But during a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee Wednesday, Wheeler clearly signaled that he’ll pursue the course of his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, who resigned amid multiple investigations into his mishandling of the agency.’ [Inside Climate News, 8/2/18 (+)]
EPA Shift To Substance Of Rule Rollbacks Adds To 'Pressure' On Wheeler. According to InsideEPA, “EPA is shifting its focus from the multiple delays of Obama-era rules it has already issued to crafting substantive regulations rolling back those standards, which supporters and critics of the agency alike say will add to the ‘pressure’ acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler faces in quickly crafting rollbacks that can withstand judicial review. The agency is already facing the first major lawsuit over a substantive change to Obama-era regulations, after issuing a rule July 30 that revised the 2014 coal ash disposal standards. But that case is just the first of a long list of final actions that observers expect before the end of the year, in which the agency is expected to make major substantive changes to a host of Obama EPA policies in order to soften them.” [InsideEPA, 8/2/18 (+)]
EPA Faces Push-Back On Bid To Sideline CWA Rule Merits In Litigation. According to InsideEPA, “Environmentalists and states are renewing their attacks on EPA’s refusal to consider the merits of the 2015 Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule in suits that target both the rule itself and the delay on its enforcement, urging courts to reject the administration’s claims that the legality of the Obama-era standard is irrelevant until its final repeal. In newly filed briefs Republican-led states challenging the Obama-era rule as well as environmental groups and Democratic-led states trying to bring it back into force all focus on the merits of the 2015 policy, arguing that EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are wrong to say that their pending repeal proposal justifies sidelining any consideration of the original rule’s merits, whether in litigation or the administrative process that established the enforcement delay.” [InsideEPA, 8/2/18 (+)]
EPA To Leave 2015 Ozone Standard Alone — For Now. According to E&E News, “The Trump administration, ending 16 months of legal uncertainty, signaled yesterday that it will not seek to revise or repeal the 2015 ground-level ozone standard ‘at this time,’ while simultaneously floating the possibility of later raising the 70-parts-per-billion limit through a newly launched review In a court filing late yesterday, agency lawyers cited an array of factors in opting against reconsideration of the Obama-era standard, including the importance of regulatory certainty and the need to focus on the new review. While ‘EPA officials in the current administration may have supported making different judgements about the significance of background concentrations of ozone and how to judge what standards are requisite to protect public health and welfare, the agency at this time does not intend to revisit the 2015 rule,’ the attorneys wrote in the status report with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. But in the course of the new review, set to end in late 2020, the agency could explore whether raising the standard to accommodate background levels of ozone would be permissible under the Clean Air Act, the report added.” [E&E News, 8/2/18 (=)]
The Energy 202: Three Takeaways From Andrew Wheeler's First Hearing Since Leading The EPA. According to the Washington Post, “If there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are ready to put Scott Pruitt in the past. Acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler returned to his roots on Wednesday when he testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, where he was previously a staff director and an aide to former chairman Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) for years before his decade-long career as a lobbyist. And while some lawmakers still pressed the acting head with questions about his lobbying past as well as the administration’s environmental agenda, the panel’s members made it clear they were pleased to see Wheeler before them.” [Washington post, 8/2/18 (+)]
Wheeler: EPA To Create Public 'Dashboard' On RFS Waivers. According to Biodiesel Magazine, “Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler discussed the Renewable Fuel Standard, small refinery hardship waivers, Reid vapor pressure (RVP) relief for E15, and issues related to agency transparency during a Senate hearing Aug. 1. Wheeler testified before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works during its hearing, titled ‘Examining EPA’s Agenda: Protecting the Environment and Allowing America’s Economy to Grow.’” [Biodiesel Magazine, 8/2/18 (=)]
Pruitt Believed To Have Silenced Statistics Showing That Pollution Is More Extensive Than Previously Thought. According to MSNBC, “The day after Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, the new Republican White House got to work targeting regulations and public safeguards. Six weeks later, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration had already halted ‘a measure intended to prevent potentially toxic quantities of Nitrogen from entering the air via harmful pollutants.’ This month, the story grew even more alarming. Politico reported a few weeks ago that the Environmental Protection Agency prepared a report warning that many Americans are at risk of developing leukemia and other ailments by inhaling Nitrogen, but the Trump administration is ‘suppressing’ the EPA’s findings. EPA scientists reportedly completed their draft assessment last fall, and were poised to move forward with a peer-review process, but it’s still under wraps. The concern, of course, is the Trump administration is trying to protect the chemical industry from having to deal with onerous new safeguards. … And what of the former lobbyist who’s now sitting in Pruitt’s chair? Politico also recently reported, ‘Andrew Wheeler, the No. 2 official at EPA who will be the agency’s new acting chief as of Monday, also has a history with Nitrogen pollution. He was staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2004, when his boss, then-Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), sought to delay an earlier iteration of the Nitrogen assessment.’” [MSNBC, 8/1/18 (+)]
Jim Inhofe Backs Sessions In Trump Tiff And Says He Doesn't Know What Scott Pruitt Will Do Next. According to NewsOk, “As for another close friend, Scott Pruitt, Inhofe says he hasn’t spoken recently to the former Oklahoma attorney general and Environmental Protection Agency administrator who resigned last month amid a slew of ethics investigations. ‘I have not talked to Scott Pruitt since I kind of went to his aid,’ Inhofe said, referring to remarks he made in Pruitt’s defense two weeks before Pruitt resigned. ‘The problem with Scott is they were just all after him. He finally decided, you know, life is too short. So, he bailed out and I think he did the right thing. But I haven’t talked to him about what he is going to be doing.’” [NewsOk, 8/2/18 (=)]
DOE To Vet Grid's Ability To Reboot After A Cyberattack. According to EE News, “The Department of Energy is planning an unprecedented, ‘hands-on’ test of the grid’s ability to bounce back from a blackout caused by hackers, E&E News has learned. The ‘Liberty Eclipse’ exercise will simulate the painstaking process of re-energizing the power grid while squaring off against a simultaneous cyberattack on electric, oil and natural gas infrastructure. The weeklong stress test is scheduled to take place this November on Plum Island, a restricted site off the coast of New York that houses a Department of Homeland Security animal disease center.” [EE News, 8/3/18 (=)]
CLIMATE ADVOCACY AND OTHER NEWS |
Opinion: The World Is Burning, And The Trump Administration Wants To Make It Worse. According to the Washington Post, “Look at the non-political news these days: Deadly wildfires burn out of control in parched California. Unusually heavy rains cause devastating floods in parts of Asia. A punishing heat wave kills scores in Japan, South Korea and normally temperate parts of Europe, pushing the mercury into the 90s in Scandinavia. Can anyone fail to see a pattern? With increasing confidence — and growing alarm — some leading climate scientists attribute this summer’s bizarre weather to human-induced global warming. Meanwhile, the Trump administration wants to make it all worse.” [Washington Post, 8/2/18 (+)]
Climate Activists Furious After NYT Debunks #ExxonKnew Narrative. According to The Washington Times, “ExxonMobil received a helping hand Wednesday in its battle to debunk the climate-change movement’s #ExxonKnew narrative from an unexpected source: the New York Times. An exhaustive investigative article in the New York Times Magazine said that Exxon was one of multiple entities that ‘knew’ decades ago about the potential perils of climate change, the others being the federal government, the auto industry, trade groups for the electrical grid and the television-watching public. ‘Everybody knew,’ said the article by Nathaniel Rich, who spent 18 months researching and writing the piece that took up the entire magazine.” [The Washington Times, 8/1/18 (-)]
Climate Change Impacts ‘No Longer Subtle,’ Scientist Says. According to WBUR, ‘More then a dozen large wildfires are burning in California and a heat wave continues to grip much of Europe, where temperatures are expected to reach 118 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of southern Spain by the end of the week. How much of this summer’s extreme weather can be attributed to climate change, and what role do news outlets play in drawing that connection? Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson talks with Michael Mann (@MichaelEMann), distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University.’ [WBUR, 8/2/18 (+)]
STATE AND LOCAL NEWS |
Vt. Must Look Beyond Power Sector To Cut Carbon, Panel Says. According to EE News, “Vermont must tackle pollution from buildings and vehicles if it’s going to restrain its rising carbon emissions, a state-appointed panel said this week. In a report to Gov. Phil Scott (R), the state’s Climate Action Commission said Vermont needs to go beyond the deep decarbonization it’s already achieved in its power sector. To have a shot at meeting its climate goals, Vermont needs that zero-carbon electricity to be running more heaters and cars, the panel said.” [EE News, 8/3/18 (+)]
N.J. ‘Back In Business’ With 6 Lawsuits. According to EE News, “New Jersey has launched six new lawsuits against polluters, officials announced yesterday near the site of a former lighter plant that polluted Newark. The state hasn’t seen a crackdown this big on a single day in at least 10 years. ‘These cases and this tool were all but ignored,’ said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. ‘Today, folks, we are back in business.’ The first new case on natural resources damages in a decade is included in the action. Former Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who spent two terms in office, didn’t pursue new natural resources damages cases, Grewal said, although he did reach a $225 million settlement with Exxon Mobil Corp.” [EE News, 8/2/18 (=)]
Federal Lawsuit Challenges Limited EPA Smog Rules In Wisconsin. According to EE News, “An environmental group is challenging new EPA smog regulations in Wisconsin with a federal lawsuit. After determining late last year that a large area of southeastern Wisconsin was in violation of air standards, EPA reversed course in June and limited areas that will receive tougher smog regulations to small chunks of land along Lake Michigan (Greenwire, June 1). Corporate interests and Republican Gov. Scott Walker pushed back hard against the original ruling, arguing that Illinois and Indiana were responsible for some of the pollution in Milwaukee and other parts of the region. Clean Wisconsin’s suit, filed yesterday in Washington, states that the limited regulations will not cut smog.” [EE News, 8/2/18 (=)]
IG To Assess Post-Hurricane Air Monitoring In South Texas. According to EE News, “EPA’s inspector general announced plans today to scrutinize federal and state regulators’ handling of air monitoring after Hurricane Harvey slammed the Houston area a year ago. Harvey, which hit the Texas coast as a Category 4 storm last August, caused heavy damage to refineries and chemical plants, mostly notably when an Arkema Inc. facility flooded and blew up. EPA came under fire for downplaying air pollution worries even though stationary monitors had been taken out of service during the storm. Later reports showed that South Texas oil and gas facilities had released nearly 1 million pounds of hazardous air pollutants.” [EE News, 8/2/18 (=)]
Climate Change Hits Hard On Minnesota's North Shore. According to MPR News, “Everywhere in Minnesota’s feeling the effects of climate change. And the warming climate affects each of those places a bit differently. Northern Minnesota’s Lake Superior shoreline is no exception. This region of the state is especially threatened by warmer temperatures and more rain and snow. The region’s economy and lifestyle depend on consistent cold and snow in the winter for skiing and snowshoeing; and pleasant summers for camping, swimming or hiking outdoor recreation.” [MPR News, 8/2/18 (+)]
AP | July Was Hottest Month In Reno In 125 Years Of Records. According to San Francisco Chronicle, “July was the hottest month in Reno in 125 years of record-keeping, the National Weather Service said Wednesday. The mean average temperature for July was 81.8 degrees at Reno-Tahoe International Airport — 6.9 degrees above normal and 1.3 degrees higher than the second warmest July on record. That was last summer. Reno also tied the warmest overnight low of 77 degrees for July on Monday, the weather service said. There were 14 days last month when the high reached 100 degrees. That’s four more than any previous month and just three shy of the most 100-degree days in a year, the service said.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 8/1/18 (=)]
Federal Lawsuit Challenges Limited EPA Smog Rules In Wis. According to E&E News, “An environmental group is challenging new EPA smog regulations in Wisconsin with a federal lawsuit. After determining late last year that a large area of southeastern Wisconsin was in violation of air standards, EPA reversed course in June and limited areas that will receive tougher smog regulations to small chunks of land along Lake Michigan. Corporate interests and Republican Gov. Scott Walker pushed back hard against the original ruling, arguing that Illinois and Indiana were responsible for some of the pollution in Milwaukee and other parts of the region. Clean Wisconsin’s suit, filed yesterday in Washington, states that the limited regulations will not cut smog.” [E&E News, 8/2/18 (=)]