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.

• The administration consistently fails to account for the benefits, e.g., health, when establishing net cost estimates.

                   Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
                                                                      October 10, 2019                                                           
 
Trump’s Ego Is Getting in the Way of America’s Environmental Progress

Impeachment has been the big dog on the political porch this week. It promises to be there for quite some time--possibly through the end of the year. Stonewalling by the White House and the arrest of two colleagues of the president’s lawyer, Rudi Giuliani, suggests there’s a lot of information around that needs to be gathered and gone through.

Despite all the attention on the impeachment inquiry and Congress being in recess, energy and environment issues still managed to make headlines.

Trump issued two executive orders during the week that will make it easier for the administration to deregulate the environment.

The White House also came out with a plan raising the minimum amount of ethanol blended into fuel to 15 billion gallons. The proposal was hailed by corn farmers and condemned by the oil industry. Prior to the announcement, Trump had promised both groups they would come out winners in the deal.

Trump chose to side with the farmers. I believe the choice was well calculated in that the oil industry is unlikely to abandon Trump come November 2020—at least not solely for this decision. Oil interests can’t afford to have their loyalty questioned especially given that the administration has served them well by promising to freeze auto and light truck fuel efficiency standards at the 2020 level. Moreover, it is in the industry’s interest to keep the administration from supporting any extension of the electric vehicle tax credit.

                      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
 
 
Volume 1                                                                  August 5, 2019                                                             Issue 21
 
Budget update. Both the House and Senate are out on their August recess. They are not scheduled to return until September 6th. Before leaving town, both chambers passed a two-year budget deal that was quickly signed by Trump. The legislation raises discretionary spending by more than $320 billion over the next two years and includes a nonbinding side agreement banning policy riders on appropriations bills.

Should the deal of no riders on appropriations bills be kept, it could be a major roadblock for the climate and clean energy communities. Riders are an often used means to attach measures the administration might otherwise oppose, e.g., anything climate related, onto measures it supports or can't afford to veto, e.g., immigration and defense.

The bill also raised the nation's debt ceiling through July 2021, averting a potential debt default until after the 2020 election. The attention of Capitol Hill lawmakers now turns to appropriations.

It’s been reported by E&E News that Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, volunteered to be "at the head of the line" when the chamber begins marking up and moving spending bills. He said his staff would be working throughout August recess to draft the measure.

Upon returning in September Congress will have less than two months to finish all 12 appropriations bills before the new fiscal year begins on October 1st. The House has passed 10 of its 12 bills, including the Energy-Water and Interior-EPA titles. The Senate has yet to introduce their first bill having waited until a budget deal was signed for their committee budget allocations. (Multiple sources)

                     Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
 
 
Volume 1                                                                    July 25, 2019                                                                 Issue 19

This Week’s Notion: There auto be a law.

From the Washington Post:

Four automakers from three continents have struck a deal with California to produce more fuel-efficient cars for their U.S. fleets in coming years, undercutting one of the Trump administration’s most aggressive climate policy rollbacks.
The compromise between the California Air Resources Board and Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and BMW of North America came after weeks of secret negotiations and could shape future U.S. vehicle production, even as White House officials aim to relax gas mileage standards for the nation’s cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs.

The deal reached between California and the four auto companies is truly extraordinary both in terms of why the deal came about and the position in which it puts the Trump administration. Since Day 1 of the Trump presidency, the auto industry had been hoping to re-negotiate the deal it struck with the Obama administration on auto and light truck fuel efficiency standards (CAFE) for the period 2021 through 2026.

Over the past two and a half years of the Trump administration, the auto industry has learned the meaning of the phrase be careful what you wish for; as it just might come true. The bad news came to industry representatives in late February on a conference call with the White House. They were told that the administration had cut-off any further conversations with California officials and was going ahead with its proposed Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule freezing the standards at 2020 levels.

The freeze has been called the Trump administration’s most environmentally significant regulatory rollback yet" by the Rhodium Group following its penetrating analysis of the rule’s impact on the environment. The call is not surprising. The transportation sector has surpassed electricity as the major contributor of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the atmosphere; and, Trump’s efficiency 36.9 mpg is standard is 14.5 mpg more lenient than Obama’s 51.4 mpg.

                       Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion
 
 
Volume 1                                                                   July 18, 2019                                                                 Issue 17

This Week’s Notion:

Presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden released his “Plan for rural America.” He joins other Democratic candidates, e.g., Warren, Klobuchar, and Sanders in reaching out to a constituency that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016.

Whatever else one might think the meaning of the 2020 national election to be, it represents a line in the sand for the fight against rising global temperatures. While the nation’s politicians fiddle, Earth continues to burn, and the rate of species extinction accelerates, with grave impacts on people around the world.

According to the Pew Research Center Trump won comfortable majorities of both rural white men and women, according to the exit poll. While Trump held a 10-percentage-point advantage over Clinton among white women nationally (53% to 43%), his victory margin nearly triples to 28 points among rural white women (62% to 34%). Trump led Clinton by 32 points among all white men nationally (63% to 31%), but he beat the Democrat by 48 points among white men living in rural areas (72% to 24%).

Although rural America is only 20 percent of the nation’s population, it presents an outsized opportunity for the 2020 Democratic contender for the presidency in terms of the Senate and the electoral college. Big or small, every state has the same number of Senators.

In terms of electoral votes, rural voters have proportionally more weight than large urban population centers. It’s the way the founders designed the system—until its changed presidential candidates can lose the election while garnering millions of votes more than their competition.

                  Climate, Politics/Capitol Light©, is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion.com
 
 
Volume 1                                                                   July 8, 2019                                                                    Issue 14
 
The House and Senate are back in session this week after taking time off for Independence Day.

The clock starts ticking. The Environmental Protection Agency's final rule replacing the Obama-era Clean Power Plan was published this morning, kicking off a 60-day window to bring lawsuits over the regulation - something multiple state attorneys general have said they will do. The Trump EPA seeks to justify its interpretation of the Clean Air Act as the only legal interpretation - a harder argument to win in court but one that, if successful, could prevent future administrations from implementing stricter regulations on power plants' greenhouse gas emissions. (Daily Journal Federal Register)

• Legal challenges to the Affordable Clean Energy Plan, Trump’s answer to the Clean Power Plan are some of the few things that can be counted on these days.
• As important as the outcome of the challenges is, what judges and justices have to say about the legality of EPA regulating power plant emissions both inside and outside the fence line is perhaps more important.
• It’s possible the courts could maintain the precedence of the landmark Massachusetts v EPA case in which the High Court said EPA would be obligated to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if it found them harmful to health, while at the same time ruling that the Clean Air Act doesn’t permit the Agency to regulate beyond the fence line.

The public is entitled. Senators, including Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), are considering writing legislation to make federal records more accessible in response to the EPA and Interior Department's recent changes to their Freedom of Information Act policies. Environmental groups oppose the agencies' policy changes, which give the agencies more control over the fulfillment of records requests. (The Hill)

                       Climate Politics/Capitol Light© is a service of The JBS Group and Civil Notion.com
 
 
Volume 1                                                                     June 5, 2019                                                                   Issue 6 
 
It’s benighted not be knighted. Donald Trump tells Prince Charles the US has 'clean climate' and blames other countries for the environmental crisis, in a long talk with the prince. China, India, Russia, many other nations, they have not very good air, not very good water, and the sense of pollution. If you go to certain cities … you can’t even breathe, and now that air is going up…They don’t do the responsibility. (The Guardian)

Make mine a mini. This week, Joe Biden released a lengthy climate plan on his website. Though Reuters teased his policy last month as a "middle ground" approach more moderate than the Green New Deal, the proposal looks pretty aggressive and sounds almost Sanders-esque in its ambition. (The Atlantic)

He’s free to ‘steal’ my stuff.  Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden released a comprehensive proposal to combat global climate change, adding to the mix of candidates who have made rolling back dangerous emissions a central tenet of their campaigns.

However, multiple sentences in Biden's proposal appear to lift passages from letters and websites of different organizations. The copied sentences are particularly notable due to Biden's history of plagiarism, which played a major role in tanking his 1988 presidential campaign.

The potential instances of plagiarism were first flagged by Josh Nelson, the vice president of CREDO Mobile, a telecommunications company that also aims to raise money for liberal activist groups and causes. (Business Insider)

• It should be noted that there’s a warning in this and it’s not about plagiarism. The fact that some of the loudest cries are being raised by progressives plays to the idea that they are nervous about Biden’s becoming the Democratic nominee—as opposed to one of the more liberal/progressive members of the pack.