Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
January 11, 2020 Talk about cooking the book(s) As anticipated, Trump announced his administration’s proposed changes to the National Envi-ronmental Policy Act (NEPA). The proposed changes would reduce the number of infra-structure projects requiring an environmental review and releasing agencies from having to account for cumulative environmental impacts. Under the proposed rules, projects paid for with private investment funds, e.g., the Keystone XL pipeline, would not require an environ-mental impact statement. Absent the NEPA requirement privately funded projects would not be required to disclose plans to discharge waste into nearby rivers, clear cut forests or otherwise increase greenhouse gas emissions. The administration has virtually eliminated federal consideration of climate change by freeing agencies from having to account for cumulative environmental impacts. The courts have generally required agencies to account for cumulative climate impact of projects like the federal government's leasing public lands for oil and gas exploration and extraction. The proposed changes are here. The changes won’t become permanent before the conclusion of a 60-day comment period and conduct of two public hearings.
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Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
October 27, 2019 Trump appears to have changed his mind about bringing all the troops home from Syria. It’s now anticipated that a contingent of US forces and heavy armor will be tasked with protecting Syrian oil fields. An aide close to Trump told reporters Trump’s a businessman and is even suggesting he like to make Syria’s oil a business opportunity, proposing for a U.S. oil company to partner with America’s Syrian Kurdish allies to develop the oil for export. Trump has been quoted saying in a recent cabinet meeting that if you’re going in, keep the oil, Trump said at a cabinet meeting. We’ll work something out with the Kurds so that they have some money so that they have some cash flow. Maybe we’ll get one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly. The statements highlight just how little “the leader of the free world” understands the world. If nations around the world were using available supplies of clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, and efficiency, foreign oil fields would need far less protection. Climate policy is another thing Trump seems not to understand. Addressing an energy industry audience focused on fracking, Trump miscast the Paris climate agreement and the timing of the US’s pulling out of it. The US cannot officially withdraw from the accord until November 4, 2020—a day after the election. Trump also ran through his usual series of lies about Obama’s Clean Power Plan—calling it a disaster having a price tag of $40 billion per year. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in 2018 calculated that repeated analyses by the EPA showed that the benefits of the clean power plan usually outweighed the costs, at times by a lot. For instance, fewer illnesses and deaths turned into dollar amounts based on a formula on the value of each life.
Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
Volume 1 October 4, 2019 Issue 31 The impeachment inquiry is doing a great job of sucking up all the available oxygen on Capitol Hill. Although Speaker Pelosi wants the investigation to move expeditiously through the House, these things generally take on a life of their own. As exciting as this latest Trumpian drama, maybe Congress does have other work to do--not the least of the tasks in need of tending is funding the federal government after November 21, 2019 when the current continuing resolution (CR) lapses. As I'd written previously, Trump is so tightly wound over the prospect of impeachment that anything is possible at this point--including closing down the government. Diversion is a tried and true Trump maneuver, and I would imagine he's not feeling warm and fuzzy when it comes to the Washington bureaucracy. Congressional Republicans, however, will put a lot of pressure on him not to go nuclear on the budget so close to the holidays and the 2020 elections. A shutdown now could last a long time. The cast of characters in the impeachment drama seems to keep growing. Although it seems a stretch, Secretary of Energy Perry is being dragged into the impeachment investigations because of his having spent considerable time in discussions with Ukraine and other Eastern European countries peddling US coal and natural gas. The Trump administration has made breaking the energy hold that Russia and the Middle East have on these countries, as well as Germany and other EU nations. Ordinarily, these types of diplomatic overtures would bear little suspicion of their having dark undercurrents; these are not ordinary times, however. The possibility that Vice President Pence was used by Trump in ways that the Pence didn’t understand certainly contributes to the suspicions over Perry’s activities.  Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
Volume 1 September 27, 2019 Issue 30 It’s been an exciting week—starting with the UN’s climate summit and ending more or less with the both the House and Senate passing a continuing resolution to keep the doors of government open—at least until midnight on November 21st. The big political news of the week, of course, was the House taking the first step in the impeachment process. The impeachment investigation will have an impact on energy and environmental legislation, as it will in other areas. The otherwise caustic relations between Democrats and Republicans and Democrats and Trump have just been made even more so—meaning any initiative requiring the legislative and executive branches to cooperate is at risk—including the 2020 federal budget. Notwithstanding the Continuing Resolution, I see trouble ahead. Trump is not a happy man. I believe he will at least consider diverting attention from the impeachment investigation by again forcing a shutdown of the federal government. I would imagine that Trump hates the government he rules over and is likely feeling paranoid. I’ve served as a special counsel to several high-level political appointees and seen how confidence in one’s ability to boss the system can turn to fear and loathing. Those I served started with a better sense of political reality than Donald Trump. Trump appears to be wound so tight that should he begin to unwind, he’ll take no prisoners. If I were Rudy Giuliani, I would stay off the streets. I imagine he’ll be the first one thrown under a bus by the president. It’s hard to conceive of anyone on the Trump team better suited to be made into a speed bump than Hiz Hona’ the former mayor of New York. It’s always someone else’s fault in Trumpville.  Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion September 19, 2019 Coal countries need not apply. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres drew praise Wednesday for taking what supporters called a "powerful stand" to address the climate crisis. Guterres will reportedly exclude major economies, including the United States, from talking at the upcoming U.N. Climate Action Summit because of their failure to produce appropriately ambitious climate plans and their ongoing support for coal. (Common Dreams) Leslie Hook reported at the Financial Times Tuesday on the exclusions, citing a draft schedule of the summit, set take place Monday. Australia, Japan, South Korea, and South Africa will be snubbed over their continued support for coal. Brazil and Saudi Arabia, both of whom have criticized the Paris climate accord, will also be blocked. The Trump White House, which announced its plans to ditch the deal, will also not be afforded a speaking slot, Hook reported. (CBS News)
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Volume 1 September 16, 2019 Issue 27 Show us the money. Congress will move spending legislation on multiple fronts this week, possibly including the Energy and Water Development bill in the Senate and a stopgap measure in the House. Lawmakers are pressing to pass fiscal 2020 spending bills before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1 amid partisan splits over funding levels and policy riders. Leaders in both chambers say they want to avert a shutdown in the fiscal new year by moving a temporary funding measure. The House is set to act on one this week. The Senate is tentatively set for a procedural vote that would allow it to consider its first fiscal 2020 bills — the Energy-Water and Defense measures — in one package. Sixty votes would be needed to advance the bill, meaning Democrats could filibuster it. Senate appropriators approved both measures last week, but only the Energy-Water bill had bipartisan support. Democrats opposed the Defense measure because it would help fund President Trump's $5 billion border wall. If the Senate passes Energy-Water, it would be one of the most significant measures related to climate change to pass the chamber this Congress. The bill includes substantial increases in the budgets of DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and ARPA-E. The Senate version includes more funds than the House version. (E&E News)
Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
Volume 1 September 9, 2019 Issue 26 The month ahead: Congress is back from its August recess. It appears the break did nothing to cool tensions—either between Congressional Republicans and Democrats or between Hill Democrats and Trump. If anything, inter-party relations are more acrimonious than before. It doesn’t bode well for the rest of the legislative year. Hanging fire on the Senate’s September agenda are appropriations bills. The House has already passed ten of 12 spending bills, while the Senate has yet to introduce even one. The Senate chose to wait until after Trump and Congressional leaders settled on a budget number and agreed to raising the nation’s debt ceiling. Agreements were reached just before the summer’s recess. Senate appropriators, however, are expecting to pick up the pace release three spending bills in the next few days—Energy-Water, Labor-Health-Human Services, and Defense. The appetite for a government shutdown is small. A failure to make the September 30th deadline will likely result in a continuing resolution (CR). House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has already written the Democratic caucus telling members to expect a CR through November 22nd. There’s been no sign-off by Senate Republicans on a Plan “B” CR, however, so a shutdown is not yet off the table. Several extensions of expiring programs could become part of a CR, including a short-term reauthorization for the National Flood Insurance Program. The program is set to expire at the end of the month. It’s hard to imagine that either Trump or Congress would dare cut the program during hurricane season—especially in what is already a record year of flooding. The House will be directing the bulk of its September attentions to conducting committee hearings on issues Trump and company would like to ignore, e.g., gun control, immigration, and climate. Mass shootings, an extraordinary emergency declaration by Trump, and CNN’s seven hours of climate-related townhall meetings have kept these issues in the spotlight. House Democrats are keen to continue their oversight investigations of Trump and his administration. The list of investigations is likely to grow given events like #Sharpiegate, in which Trump refused to admit he made a mistake about the path of Hurricane Dorian. Vice President Pence’s stay at Trump’s Irish golf resort requiring him to commute the 180 miles by car and his Air Force 2 jetliner to his two days of meetings with Irish leaders in Dublin served-up another opportunity for the Democrats to cry “emoluments.” 
Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
Volume 1 September 4, 2019 Issue 25 Get a move on. Government lawyers today urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to expedite consideration of legal challenges to the EPA regulation, which replaces the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The move could mean the Trump administration defends the ACE rule in the Supreme Court before the end of the president's term.
For an additional discussion of what a Democratic administration will be facing after four years of Trump check here for my series on Erasing Trump’s Climate Legacy. 
Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
Volume 1 August 27, 2019 Issue 24 I'm an environmentalist. I think I know more about the environment than most people. Donald Trump on why he could afford to miss the G-7 session on climate. There goes the neighborhood. Construction crews broke ground on a small portion of the $664 million border fence project in the Arizona desert that is funded through President Trump's national emergency declaration. Crews plan to install 30-foot steel fencing to replace older barriers on 2 miles in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, next to the official border crossing known as the Lukeville Port of Entry. The project is funded through the Defense Department. Use of the department's money was previously frozen by lower courts while a lawsuit proceeded. However, the Supreme Court last month cleared the way for the use of about $2.5 billion (E&E News)
Do the hustle. The Trump administration has been scrambling to stem the tide of rising anger in Farm Belt states after its decision this month to allow numerous oil refiners to mix less ethanol into their gasoline. Seeking to tamp down political fallout in U.S. farm states essential to his re-election, Trump has ordered federal agencies to shift course on relieving some oil refineries of requirements to use biofuel such as corn-based ethanol. Trump and top cabinet leaders decided they wouldn’t make changes to just-issued waivers that allow small refineries to ignore the mandates but agreed to start boosting biofuel-blending quotas to make up for expected exemptions beginning in 2021. The outcome was described by four people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named before a formal announcement could be made. (Reuters and Bloomberg)  Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
Volume 1 August 19, 2019 Issue 23 AK’s dominatrix. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) released her “discussion” draft of legislation that would assist the U.S. to achieve “energy dominance” in its efforts to compete with countries like China and Russia. The legislation, the Strategic Energy for America Act, would enable the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to provide foreign aid for nuclear energy projects in developing countries, aiming to compete with Russian and Chinese companies that are seeking to build reactors overseas. It would also direct the Treasury Department to oppose policies at multilateral development banks — such as the World Bank — seeking to impose restrictions on assistance to fossil fuel projects in developing countries. Murkowski’s bill would also promote U.S. exports of natural gas and advanced nuclear energy through the Export-Import Bank by forcing it to establish a “strategic energy portfolio” focused on providing financial assistance for gas and nuclear infrastructure projects overseas. For a healthy mid-America. Maintaining renewable portfolio standards in ‘Rust Belt’ states would bring health benefits of at least $4.7 billion in 2030, says a new peer-reviewed study. The research, conducted by MIT, looked at the impacts of energy policies that reduce unhealthy air particulates by displacing coal-fired power in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and seven other states. Ramping up renewable energy requirements in the region from 13 to 20 percent of generation would bring health benefits of $13.5 billion in 2030 compared to $5.8 billion in cost. The findings come shortly after Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine signed a new bill weakening the state’s RPS. (Axios) |
AuthorJoel Stronberg, MA, JD., of The JBS Group is a veteran clean energy policy analyst with over 30 years’ experience, based in Washington, DC. Archives
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