Climate Politics/Capitol Light© is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion.com
 
 
Volume 1                                                                   May 31, 2019                                                                    Issue 4
 
Can’t be too particulate in this business. The White House's regulatory shop has wrapped up an unusually prolonged review of draft EPA technical advice pertaining to states with areas that are flunking National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulates.

The agency is working on a final version of the 2016 draft guidance designed to help regulators who want to make a case that individual power plants or other specific sources of precursor pollutants do not "contribute significantly" to fine particulate levels that exceed the national standards and could thus be exempted from added pollution control requirements.

EPA's current annual exposure standard for fine particulates is 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air; the 24-hour limit is 35 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

It is unclear what changes, if any, EPA has made in response to public comments or when the final version will be released. Once the final draft rule is signed off on it will be posted on the internet.
 
Not the most efficient bulb in the pack. Several states are taking steps to enact stricter lightbulb efficiency standards, despite the Trump administration's efforts to roll back Obama-era regulations.

Nevada became the fourth state to bolster lightbulb standards. The new Nevada law is in line with the federal standards proposed by the Department of Energy under President Obama and set to be enacted by the same date.

Those standards were projected to save American households $180 a year on electric bills and reduce carbon emissions by 60 million metric tons, according to a study by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project.

                                           Climate Politics/Capitol Light© is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion.com

Volume 1                                                                          May 28, 2019                                                             Issue 3
 
Both the House and Senate are out on scheduled district workdays and will not return until June 4, 2019.

Who’ll sweep the forest floors now? The Trump administration announced on May 24th it will be killing 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 announced killing of the program shows once again that Trump and his administration seem at times to have nothing in common with each other. Wasn’t it Trump who has vowed to help rural residents find new well-paying job opportunities? Moreover, wasn’t it the same Donald who trumped up a story about the cleanliness of Finland’s forest floors being the reason forest fires are not a problem there?

                    Climate Politics/Capitol Light© is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
                                                                                                                         

Volume 1                                                               May 20, 2019                                                                         Issue 1                                                                                                       
An introductory note to readers--

I have long wanted to create additional outlets for the information I regularly gather in my work as a senior policy and politics advisor to clients and in support of my various writings and presentations. Climate Politics/Capitol Light is the result.

Although basically a “clipping service,” I’ve taken Climate Politics/Capitol Light a step further by introducing a sentence or two into each of the write-ups about why I think the actions reported on are important and where they might fit in the political scheme of things.
Undercurrents and context are the two words I think that best describe these asides. Both words also account for much of the added value that I bring to clients and readers over what they might otherwise hear from someone else.

Development and execution of a successful strategy requires an ability to see into, around and through the events of the day. Years of experience, a naturally curiosity, an appreciation of the political dance, and a suspicious mind have allowed me to ply my trade with a modicum of success over decades of working in and around the nation’s capital on most energy and environment matters.

My current plan is to post Climate Politics twice a week on my blog Civil Notion and to supplement the podcasts I do with my colleague Jennifer Delony over on Zero Net Fifty once a week. Recordings of both will be available on Civil Notion—all subject to change of course.
Climate Politics/Capitol Light will be a free service for at least the next several months. At some point, I may come hat and hand to ask readers for their support. Truth be told, I like eating as much as the next person.

Finally, I encourage readers to contact me when the mood strikes. I value reader responses and recommendations of topics to cover.

Movin’ on up. Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL), Chair of the Select House Committee on the Climate Crisis, is seen as a rising star in the House and a potential bridge between progressive and moderate elements of the Democratic caucus. Castor’s appointment as chair of the Select Committee by Speaker Pelosi was originally viewed with suspicion by progressives.

Castor was the lead sponsor of H.R. 9, the first major climate legislation passed by the House in nearly a decade. The bill is an attempt to keep the Trump administration from using any resources to leave the Paris Accord or not to meet the carbon reduction targets Obama pledged before leaving office. (see below)