Psst. Yah, that’s right, I’m talkin’ to you. Rickie P. tells me you might wanna buy an energy laboratory. Just so happens…….cheap too.    (https://www.pinterest.com/vivaveneta/film-noir)

The Trump administration released its recommended 2018 federal budget the other day. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say clean energy and environmental advocates broke out in cold sweats and hot tears. Given the breadth and depth of the proposed cuts, these shivers are being shared with many millions of other people from at-risk seniors, women, infants and children reliant on federal food programs to rural communities in 13 states sure to feel the loss of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC).

How flipping Big Bird off federal support in favor of a border wall will make  America Great Again—or, why a single mom in Detroit would want Sesame  Street  to lose funding—is something of a mystery to me. Perhaps, it will become clearer as Congress debates and the President defends his proposals  over the next few months.

It is unlikely, in any event, that Trump’s 2018 budget will make it through the legislative gauntlet unscathed. History tells us that writing budget proposals  with the blunt end of a meat-ax doesn’t go over all that well on Capitol Hill or  with the tens of millions of folks back home, whose lives are touched positively by the expenditure of their own tax dollars and whose futures are threatened  by reforms.

Trump’s victory and Sanders’ popularity evidenced the desire of voters to break the hold established politicians have on the federal government. For the generalities and gimmicks of the campaign trail to become the road forward for government, measured action and a certain amount of restraint will be required.

It is well within reason to think the President and his pals are overestimating the readiness of most Americans to accept a rapid and widespread loss of domestic programs to pay for walls and weapons. Trump and company would not be the first administration to make the rookie mistake of underestimating the difficulty of turning so large a ship of state into the winds of reform.
 
Today’s healthcare debate is but a glimpse of the difficulties populist politicians will be facing in their efforts to convert campaign slogans into consensus reforms. What The Donald himself has admitted about healthcare-- it's an unbelievably complex subject--applies equally to other targets the administration and the Republican majorities in Congress have set their sights on, e.g. foreign aid.

Many turned to Trump in 2016 based on his assumed business acumen and success. The much-right of center folks are not the only ones thinking that government could be better managed. It is one of the few places that consensus can be found.

There is a not so subtle difference, however, between better managed and gutted. Trump’s budget proposals reflect the latter, when it might have been hoped to have begun with the former.

Not to put too fine a point on it--equating the business of government to that of private enterprise is just plain wrong. The President has justifiably earned kudos for having negotiated a lower price for the ninety F-35 strike jets yet to be delivered. A savings of $700M will buy gold-plated faucets for the White House, with enough left over to cover the cost of Trump’s travels to Florida for a working round or two of golf.
 
There is a difference between using the skills of business in managing the federal government and, running it as a business. Do welfare payments to the Detroit mother OMB Director Mulvaney speaks of improve the bottom line? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to lease mercenaries and equipment than to spend the proposed $824B on defense in FY 2018 ?

The obverse of these questions should also be considered: why isn’t investment in the development of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) a good business decision? It might improve the economics of the vast deposits Trump and coal-state politicians are so fond of promoting.

Why shouldn’t the federal government continue to invest in the development of clean energy systems like wind, solar and battery storage? After all, these technologies are known generators of new jobs. Renewable energy and  storage significantly increase the resiliency of communities—protecting them from costly outages. Tech giants have redundant power systems, why not cities?

The proposed 2018 budget is much less about fiscal restraint and much more about political philosophy. Dan Balz of the Washington Post makes an important distinction between The Donald and his predecessors in the Oval Office:

          Trump has emerged in his early weeks in office as a president with an agenda to tear down parts of                                                        
​          the federal government that he sees as superfluous or hostile to his views.

Trump’s vision is not his alone. What The Donald sees has much to do with what his chief strategist and senior counselor wants him to see. Bannon has made no secret of his desire to deconstruct the administrative state; and, the President seems anything but reluctant to oblige.

Trump’s disdain of government and disregard of the rules politicians generally play by truly distinguishes him and his administration from those who went before. Purely as matters of strategic importance, these characteristics make it much harder for clean energy and environmental advocates to succeed in the political arena, at least at the federal level.

Trump’s indifference to normal political pressures will continue to prompt the move of policy advocates from congressional hearing rooms to federal court rooms. His continued indifference should prompt consideration of alternatives to federal research, development and deployment programs as well.

This is hardly the first-time clean energy and environmental protections have encountered political resistance from a president and Congress. In the past, conventional counter-campaigns have been successfully undertaken. Supporters were encouraged to write or otherwise communicate with their Congressional delegations, connections were made between state and federal officials and efforts to jamb or slow the progress of an opponent’s favored piece of legislation, either in committee or on the floor, resulted in a bit of horse trading.

Yes, that was the business-as-usual scenario of establishment politicians. It is what it was and to a certain degree it worked. I make no apologies for those      past practices.

I’ve been around the barns long enough to remember when the Reagan administration decided to lighten its opposition to renewables, including the weatherization program and other efficiency measures.

That was then and this is now. Then was a different time; among the differences was a much higher level of cordiality—at the least civility--between opponents. Compromise was not then a dirty word but an accepted political practice.

Now civility seems a wisp of what it was and compromise can kill a political career faster than a taped conversation with Billy Bush. Intransigence can kill a good mood; and, it certainly makes governance much more difficult. This too is what it is. Survival in so contentious and antagonistic an environment requires a different set of solutions.

Now, for example, making the case for compromise is orders of magnitude more difficult. A member of Congress considering support for even minimum environmental protections must not only consider what her constituents will think but whether it is worth being tweeted about by the President in the morning of a slow news day.

I have nothing but respect for any member of Congress from either side of the aisle currently willing to come out of the closet as a compromiser.

I would imagine that anyone still reading this article has stuck with it this long waiting to see what I might offer as the solution. Let me apologize. I don’t have a solution. However, I do have some suggestions.

I don’t really see the politics of contention softening anytime soon. Therefore, I think it is time to begin thinking of how to achieve greater stability in the effort to bear both the hard and soft sciences necessary for the U.S. and the world to make a timely transition to a sustainable and just future?

Would it be possible, for example, to privatize the national energy laboratories—at least the non-defense, pro-clean energy/environment portions of them?  It is doubtful that Trump’s Make America Great Again budget, coupled with its willingness to dismiss all things scientific, will fulfill the promise of its title.
It will, for certain, kick thousands of good minds to the curb and surely squander a wealth of experience. Experience and knowledge needed to solve the problem.

What if the U.S. offered to give China, India, Britain, France, Germany and other nations a good price on a used lab in Golden, Colorado as part of its foreign aid program?  Would Silicon Valley be up to investing in part of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory for a bit of forgiveness come tax time?

The truth of the matter—inconvenient or otherwise—is time remains of the essence in the global quest for sustainability. Whether you choose to define sustainable in terms of slowing climate change or dealing with human congestion, something needs to be done on a regular basis.

Enlightened selfishness is no more likely than strident partisanship to achieve the desired endpoint. That the U.S. is as far along the sustainability curve as it is, given forty or more years of political whiplash, is something of a miracle.

For order to come out of chaos, the dialogue must change. Quadrennial combat between opposing political philosophies and years of litigation may keep us in the game, they will not result in our winning it.

OK, THESE TWO AREN’T REALLY CANARIES—I just liked the picture ….  (Picture credit: People's Daily, China on Facebook and Twitter).
This article is latest in the Canary in the Coal Mine series.

The “canary in a coal mine” is a metaphor originating from the time when caged birds were carried into the mines as an early warning system; the canary would die before methane and carbon gases reached levels hazardous to humans.

Partisan pressures are causing energy and climate defenders to offset legislated policies with judicial precedents. Climate challengers had thought to do the same throughout the Obama administration.

It is notable that states, clean energy and environmental advocates and others are so obviously casting glances to the courts this early in Trump’s presidency. If looks could tell, these would:

• Portend a pattern that will continue for at least the next four years; and
• Belie a lack of confidence on the part of climate defenders that the momentum--built over the past 8 years--towards a low-carbon                             economy cannot be maintained through political discourse.

It is almost as if the world were staring at itself through Alice’s looking glass. Everything is as it was just months ago—except in reverse.

Trump has now signed 16 executive orders in less than 60 days; one short of President Obama’s 17 at the same time in his first term.

Although the number is neither newsworthy nor troubling, what it signifies is. The gaping divide between Republicans and Democrats encourages               unilateral presidential actions and casts the courts in the role of policymaker.

Literally tens of thousands of executive orders have been issued since George Washington occupied the presidency. In all that time, only a small percentage have ever been challenged in court and an even smaller number were found to violate the U.S. Constitution. Trump is on track to exceed the total number of challenges and violations of all those before him.
 
It is not that prior executive directives were less impactful than Trump’s recent travel order or Obama’s directive to EPA that led to the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Lincoln emancipated Southern slaves with a presidential proclamation. FDR used the power of the office to intern 120,000 Japanese Americans.

The orders of both President Obama and DJT differ from their predecessors in the higher proportion of major actions they represent. They differ from each other’s in the polarity of ideas they reflect.

Obama issued many of his climate related directives out of frustration with Congress. Democrats held control of the executive and legislative branches only for the two-years the 111th Congress was in session. For the remainder of the Obama presidency, Republicans held sway over one or both chambers.

Republican refusal--to credit scientific evidence in support of climate change and allegiance to the fossil fuel industry--prompted President Obama to invoke the power of the presidency in defense of the environment.

President Trump and the Republican congressional majorities are taking advantage of their current position to rollback policies they never supported. Given the stark differences between the parties and the nearly even division of the electorate, the political pendulum is unlikely to stop swinging between the extremes any time soon.

In the presence of such opposing philosophies, inconsistency emerges as the  arch enemy of policy. No market works well in the absence of certainty. The  more extreme and erratic the executive and legislative branches, the more federal courts will be looked to for defacto policymaking.

Courts of law are hardly ideal policy venues. It is not as if the judiciary offers the same latitude for the pursuit of desired policies as the political arena. Consider that judges are meant to interpret—not make—law. Add to this the:

• Relatively narrow rules of engagement/practice, e.g. standing.
• Time required to reach final resolution, i.e. years not months; and,
• Expense of litigation, e.g. lawyers, expert witnesses and court fees.

Ordinarily these considerations would dampen desires to settle things in court,  as compared to the more free-wheeling atmosphere of the political arena. In this time of hyper-partisanship, however, the third branch appears a welcoming place.

Consider:

• The doctrine of stare decisis means judges will look to established case law, i.e. precedents, when rendering an opinion.
• Case law already recognizes the occurrence of climate change, accepts  the preponderance of scientific evidence linking                                                     climate change to human activities, acknowledges government’s obligation to protect citizens and considers the failure to protect                                         an actionable offense.
• The power of judges to stay regulation is also the power to stop deregulation.
• The difficulty of overturning judicial decisions through the legislative process and the near impossibility of doing so through executive power.

States like Massachusetts, California and Washington, as well as environmental and clean energy organizations, will now stand at the bar where once stood the states of Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, North Dakota and coal mine owners.

Connecticut’s governor and attorney general have made no secret that the state is likely to sue EPA over its rumored relaxation of clean air regulations in nine Rust Belt states. Understandably, Governor Malloy has suggested the state would prefer not to be the nation’s tailpipe.
 
Who Stands Where?*

When Governor Malloy, the NRDC, the Murray Energy Corporation and others speak of suing the EPA, they will be filing their claims in a federal court.

The right to sue is far from unfettered. Before being allowed in to the courtroom as anything other than a spectator, plaintiffs are required to answer three basic questions:

1. Have you suffered an actual injury?
2. Was the injury caused by the defendant’s conduct?
3. Will what you’re asking of the court really remedy anything?

These threshold questions are mostly a matter of fact. A coal company’s negligence, for example, is usually determined by reference to the industry’s standard practice.

Plaintiffs answering the threshold questions in the affirmative will be allowed to approach the bench. Whether the case goes forward, however, will depend upon the court’s own answers to another series of questions:

• Does it have jurisdiction over the subject matter?
• Does it have the authority to direct an agency to do what is required to redress the grievance?
• Is the harm suffered specific to the plaintiff(s) or does it broadly affect the entire planet?

Taking the court questions in reverse order, harm is personal. A plaintiff who’s only claim is, global warming is bad for the planet, will not be allowed either to pass go or to collect $200.

A direct link between the plaintiff’s asthma and the coal-fired generating unit down the street must be established. Similarly, a plaintiff like Murray Energy Company must make the connection between their bankruptcy and an overly aggressive regulation or regulator.

The questions of court authority and jurisdiction are a bit trickier to answer.  They involve the Constitution and can be changed by an act of Congress.
The kind of cases a federal court can rule on, i.e. jurisdiction, is defined by Article III Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. For the purpose of this discussion,               it is important to know:

1.     Federal district courts have original jurisdiction in all actions arising     under the Constitution and laws of the United States.
2.     Congress has the authority to effectively eliminate any judicial review of certain federal legislative or executive actions.
3.     Congress’ authority to limit judicial review does not apply to state challenges of federal actions. The right of a state to challenge the  federal government   
​        in federal court was established by SCOTUS in the case of U.S. v Texas (1893).

The court’s authority over an agency also goes to the threshold question of remediation. If the court can’t fix it, it is unlikely to want to hear about it.

The moral of the standing/authority story is: the right of a plaintiff to sue the federal government is contingent upon meeting certain Constitutional and  case law requirements; and, it can be limited by acts of Congress.

Be On The Lookout

The best evidence of rising reliance on the courts by clean energy and environmental advocates is what climate doubters and deniers are doing.

Beyond the reign of executive orders, anti-regulatory climate skeptics have already begun introducing legislation to constrain judicial review of regulatory rollbacks and federal clean energy and climate programs.

Congressional Reforms

Legislation designed to destabilize the plaintiff pool was recently introduced by Rep. Goodlatte, Bob [R-VA-6]. and passed by the House.
​
The Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2017, H.R. 985, places onerous burdens on the formation of any class of plaintiffs. Among its provisions is the requirement that each member of the class has suffered the same type and  scope of injury. It is an almost impossible requirement to meet.

I’ve written before about Congressman Goodlatte. He is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and lead sponsor of H.R.5, the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017.  If enacted, the legislation would effectively overturn the Chevron Doctrine. Chevron played a pivotal role in the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision leading to EPA’s endangerment finding.

Sue and Settle

Despite the accusations of climate change deniers against environmental advocates in the Obama years, sue and settle could as easily be engaged in by the National Mining Association and the EPA under the leadership of Mr. Pruitt. 

The alleged practice is fairly simple to understand. It is a staged law suit whereby the defendant agency basically accepts the plaintiff’s statement of the facts and accedes to the requested remedy.

Because the facts are no longer at issue and the parties agree, the proceedings are stopped and a court-ordered consent decree is issued. The agency then amends its actions in accordance with the agreement.

A simple example is: the plaintiff sues the EPA alleging it has suffered a demonstrable harm, e.g. respiratory problems, caused by the local coal burning power plant. Plaintiff contends that EPA has failed to regulate the pollutant consistent with the authority granted it by the Clean Air Act.

The EPA, says: yup, we failed in our responsibility, agree that the plaintiff has   been harmed and, if ordered by the court, will rectify the situation. As there is no longer a dispute between the parties, including whether the agency has the authority as stated by the plaintiff, the court decrees case closed and orders the Agency to regulate the pollutant.

Sue and settle is illegal because it belies collusion between plaintiffs and defendants. It is also a standing accusation of Pruitt as Oklahoma’s attorney general, the Heritage Foundation and others.

I know of no successful prosecution of such collusion. If, however, the practice exists, it is omni-directional. It could be as easily employed by the current administration as it has been alleged of the previous.

Broken Branches

A rise in legal challenges to federal actions is likely in the coming months. The trend is a warning of something being wrong with the system. Today the federal government is long on checks and short on balances.

The aftershocks of the November elections continue to roil the landscape. I am concerned that the imbalance of the political arena will spill into the judiciary.
There are currently over 120 vacancies on the federal bench. Tomorrow’s canaries will be watching for any concerning signs in how those positions are being filled.
 
 
*Legal standing is complex. It is impossible  to do justice to it in 2K words or less. My goal is simply to give readers a better understanding of events as the will be unfolding over the course of the Trump presidency.
 

The “canary in a coal mine” is a metaphor originating from the time when caged birds were carried into the mines as an early warning system; the canary would die before methane and carbon gases reached levels hazardous to humans.
 
A Note About the Series: Life in Purge-atory

The task of the Canary series is to hone in on emerging political and legal trends impacting the clean energy and environment sectors. The first of the series discussed Governor Walker’s ordering the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to purge any references to climate change and its possible link to human activity.

Wisconsin’s governor is not the only censor of anthropogenic climate change   and global warming information these days. Other states, e.g. Florida, and the Trump administration have also been exercising their erasers. The President’s people even went so far as to purge, from the Energy Kids/Energy Ant pages of the Energy Information Administration website, statements about coal’s contribution to climate change.

I am opposed to such editing in principle. When the censor’s scepter is waved by governments deliberately to limit—rather than to promote—understanding, I am inclined to consider it a crime against the citizenry. People have a right to know.

This second installment of the Canary series focuses on replacing the role of Congress with the rule of judges. Specifically, how executive orders and legal challenges are becoming the most sought after vehicles of policymaking.

Executive orders are inherently unstable, as they technically exist only as  long as the president who signed them is in office, or by the sufferance of his successor. The litigiousness of today’s federal policymaking process corrupts the judiciary by assigning it a task for which it is ill-suited. It as well opens it to attack. Both procedures belie the inability of Congress to function as the deliberative body the nation’s founders had envisioned.

Two Piece Suits

I have been writing for months about the myriad environmental law suits filed  in state and federal courts within the last decade. Some have charged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of having a boarding house reach—grabbing at authorities beyond those they are entitled to, as spelled out in the Constitution and/or granted by Congress in legislation.

Other plaintiffs have accused this same government of timidity--failing to be as aggressive as the laws and Constitution will allow. Plaintiffs in the first category of cases contend overreaching by EPA and other federal agencies, e.g. Department of the Interior/Bureau of Land Management, abrogates the rights of states and drags on private sector profitability.

Those in the second group argue passivity exposes the population to undue health risks and devalues the inheritance of future generations. In some              cases, establishing the right of the plaintiff to stand before the bar has proven as important as judicial validation of anthropogenic global warming                     and the harms caused.

Part of Trump’s inauguration day activities included putting pen to presidential paper. Since his inauguration, there has been a steady flow of executive orders directing federal agencies to: review; repeal; rescind and re-write various regulations and government practices. 

Clean energy and environmental regulations are prominent targets of both the Trump administration and the 115th Congress in its efforts to invoke the Congressional Review Act. According to the Daily Caller: lawmakers have introduced at least 37 CRA resolutions to repeal Obama-era rules. As many as 150 regulations are eligible for repeal under the CRA....

The Caller’s count doesn’t include the soon to be released Executive Orders to EPA commanding rollback actions of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) or account for what Pruitt might do as EPA administrator on his own, e.g. rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding. (see sensiblesafeguards.org for regulatory updates)
 
Charles Krauthammer recently wrote:
           Among the many unintended legacies of President Obama, one
          has gone largely unnoticed: the emergence of a novel form of
          resistance to executive overreach, a check-and-balance improvised
          in reaction to his various presidential power grabs.
 
          It's the revolt of the state attorneys general, banding together to sue
          and curb the executive. And it has outlived Obama.

Krauthammer is right—at least about the trend outliving the eight years of the Obama presidency.

He fails to see the brewing onslaught of legal challenges to the Trump administration just over his horizon.  Plaintiffs in these cases will be claiming an under-reach of presidential authorities that leaves them and the nation open to actionable harms.

With Trump in the White House and Republicans in command of Congress,    these tug of war lawsuits will continue to escalate. All that has changed is relative position of the parties. Clean energy and environmental advocates are now the challengers and deniers the defenders.
 
The courts will continue to be well-trod battlefields for as long as politicians fail to arrive at some reasonable accord as to the nature of the threat posed by climate change and the defenses needed to combat it.
 
Divided We Stall

Once upon a time Congress came to understand the difficulty of enacting laws that were too specific. The federal legislature sought to solve the problem by writing loose and generic directives to federal agencies—leaving them to figure out how best to implement them.

There are practical and political reasons to keep language in legislation, like the Clean Air Act, vague. The more detailed a bill, for example, the more likely potential opponents will find something upon which to base their opposition. Even for supporters, the more detail the more likely some exception will be taken.
There are similarly valid substantive reasons for keeping proposed legislative   passages a bit loose. Regulation, like knowledge, is a dynamic process for which the Congress is ill-suited to manage on a day-to-day basis.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Congress’ painting with a broad brush and requiring the requisite expert agencies to fill in the details. The cause of dysfunction is the disagreement between the parties. No longer perceived as partners but as adversaries, collaboration and compromise remains elusive.
Congressional opponents of the CPP would have the public believe they are being victimized by their own creation, i.e. the Clean Air Act (CAA). This isn’t a science fiction movie where a demented creator of some creature is overpowered by his own invention.

Congress never really loses control of the regulatory process. Even without the CRA or any of the recently proposed regulatory reforms, members can exert their influence over the regulatory process through: oversight hearings; agency budgets; legislative amendments; and, [my personal favorite] civil discourse.
The system is not at fault; the players are.
 
I’ll See You in Court

A clear consequence of Congressional dysfunction is the use of the courts to define, defend and/or dismiss inartful and vague legislation. Although I can’t      prove it beyond a doubt, it is reasonable to suspect that litigation plays  a deliberate role in the legislative and regulatory strategies of both proponents            and opponents.

Courts once considered last resorts are now preferred venues for policy debates. Saber rattling headlines are common place:

• Environmentalists warned on Tuesday they’re likely to sue the Trump administration over its anticipated efforts to roll back ​                                              several key environmental regulations.

• Texas is girding for another legal showdown with the federal government.

           Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday that he plans to sue the Obama administration over the proposed  
          “Clean Power Plan,”  its plan to combat climate change by slashing carbon emissions from power plants.

• The largest independent producer of coal in the U.S. insists that climate change is a lie, and he's threatening to sue the ​                                    ​   Environmental Protection Agency to make it shut up.

 
Tactical lawsuits are certainly not new. Their prevalence, however, is both troubling and symptomatic of the larger partisanship problem.

With the passage of time, the partisan divide(s) gets wider and more pronounced. No longer is there just an aisle to cross, nor even a moat to swim.

I am talking about a wall here in Capital City. A divider that can be described only in Trumpian terms: an impenetrable, [meta]physical, tall, powerful, beautiful…wall. Only this wall is nowhere near the U.S. and Mexican border, it is between political parties; it is a barrier in need of destruction not construction. (addition of meta is mine)
 
Intransigent partisans keep kicking the can down the road. It is a damn poor way to run a railroad.

Washington gridlock has been responsible for the persistent practice of wedging the doors of government open with continuing resolutions and the failure to enact substantive energy and environmental legislation for over a decade.

Is it any wonder that alternative policy venues are sought? There are significant problems associated with such default policymaking, including:

• Litigation can take years to settle, losing any opportunity to provide solutions to current problems;
• Today’s policy requirements may be quite different, as circumstances change over time;
• Politicizing the courts; and,
• Threatening constitutional checks and balances.

The next installment of this article will describe how the option to sue is put into play. It will also highlight how even executive orders have become targets of litigation; a circumstance itself that can be called a canary in the coal mine. 
 

                                                                      England and America are two countries separated by the same language!
                                                                                                                                                      -M. Browne? GB Shaw? RG Swing?
On a Right -Wing and a Prayer

I had occasion a few weeks back to lunch on Capitol Hill with friends from the UK. We’d met a number of years ago, at an environmental advocacy workshop, and have managed to stay in touch. 

Not surprisingly, the conversation turned quickly to politics and to comparing notes on what our respective June and November national elections might ultimately mean for our clean energy and environmental communities.

It was a toss-up as to which of the votes had the most unanticipated outcome.  In the end, we all agreed the Brexit vote edged Trump’s November showing.
Had it occurred first, it is possible Trump’s move from a Manhattan penthouse to the White House would have been the more shocking. In the aftermath of Brexit, nothing seemed surprising anymore.

The elections have changed the political and policy maps of both countries. The aftershocks of the outcomes are creating a flux in the societal continuum of both nations. Judging from all that can be gleaned, the vibrations are not likely to settle for many more months.

There are a fair number of similarities in how the UK and US minority parties and their supporters are reacting; and, how the majorities are responding. For example, both executives are having to defend their administrations in the courts of law and public opinion. 

Each countries’ electorate seems to be exhibiting a degree of voters’ remorse. Anger and frustration with establishment politicians motivated many to cast their ballots against something rather than for anything.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I get the distinct impression the voters and victors in both countries are like my neighbor’s basset hound, Bigley. The poor pooch not only chased the mail truck the other day—he caught it. Having captured it, he had no earthly idea what to do with it.

Other similarities of circumstance and character are shared by the Trump and May governments and their supporters including:

• Outlier status in relation to other nations, e.g. UK vs EU and US vs Mexico, EU, et. al.;
• Hardening of party positions at the macro level and visible conflicts at the micro, e.g. progressives/populists vs. centrists;
• Opposition parties searching for a clear identity and message;
• Relatively unknown/untried national leaders, e.g. Trump never having held political office and May not being well-known on the international stage;
• Nativist/anti-immigrant sentiments;
• Pro-business/smaller government/market oriented beliefs; and
• Strong, often impolitic, personalities, e.g. D. J. Trump, N. Farage, E. Warren, B. Johnson and J. Corbyn.

Shades of Climate Conservatism

As the conversation continued, I was heartened to hear Prime Minister May and the Tories didn’t appear intent on wiping clean the environmental slates of their liberal Labour opponents.

The May government, I was told, recently released Building Our Industrial Strategy. It proposes a pathway to prosperity.

Prime Minister May states in the preface:

          …our Plan for Britain is not just a plan to leave the EU, but a plan  to shape a new future for the kind of country we will                                                                       be when we have left. It is a plan to build a stronger, fairer Britain that works for everyone, not just the privileged few.
 
Are these not the sentiments of President Trump—to build a stronger, fairer future for all Americans? The report identifies 10 pillars the May government believes will underpin UK prosperity.  Among these are:

•  Investing in science, research and innovation – we must become a more innovative economy and do more to commercialise our world leading science base to drive growth across the UK.
• Upgrading infrastructure – we must upgrade our standards of performance on digital, energy, transport, water and flood defence infrastructure, and better align central government infrastructure investment with local growth priorities.
• Delivering affordable energy and clean growth – we need to keep costs down for businesses, and secure the economic benefits of the transition to a low-carbon economy.
• Cultivating world-leading sectors – we must build on our areas of competitive advantage, and help new sectors to flourish, in many cases challenging existing institutions and incumbents.

Are these pillars not similar to the posts underpinning President Trump’s promise of US prosperity?

There are, of course, significant differences between the clean energy and environmental outlooks of the May and Trump administrations. To-date the Prime Minister has given no indication of renouncing either the Paris accords or the UK’s pledged emission targets.

The US commitment to the accords and willingness to fulfill the promised GHG reductions of the Obama administration remain unclear. Trump has said, on more than one occasion, he would consider disavowing the promises of his predecessor.

The Paris agreement played a prominent part in the cabinet nominees’ confirmation process in the Senate. Secretary of State Tillerson, Secretary of Energy Perry and Scott Pruitt, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, were all questioned at some length about their views on climate change. Although the hearings produced evasive answers, Tillerson has since been rumored to favor keeping the US’s signature on the accord.

The Secretary of State’s support of the promised emission reductions has not been openly discussed. Secretary Perry has followed the line of other nominees. He believes human activity does impact the global climate; he is simply unsure to what degree and whether anything should be done about it. While governor of Texas, Perry did support wind development projects.

Both Secretaries appear more moderate and measured in their opposition to continued federal support of clean energy technologies, than other of their cabinet colleagues. Administrator Pruitt’s position appears the most extreme, based on his many challenges, as the Oklahoma Attorney General, to Obama’s environmental regulations and willing leadership of an agency clearly on the Congressional chopping block.

A forthcoming presidential order to the Agency, directing it to review and to revise the pending Clean Power Plan, will certainly make the President’s position clear. Suspension or significant reduction of the Plan bodes badly for the prospect of honoring the pledged emission targets.

Not surprisingly at this point in our visit, my guests were giving me that: oh you poor dear—don’t worry—things can’t be that bad—there’s always a better tomorrow--look. It was at this point we began discussing the Prime Minister’s recent visit to the White House.

We Are-- After All-- Allies

President Trump appeared genuinely enthusiastic about meeting with the PM and comfortable with the prospect of a close alliance with the UK. Whether because of his business interests, a feeling of anti-establishment affinity and friendship with Farage and other Brexit supporters or, respect for the historic relationship of the two countries, Trump has remained relatively calm even in the shade of opposition to his formal visit to the UK. The absence of tweets suggests the possibility for an on-going constructive dialogue.
 
I am not so naïve as to take the words of politicians literally. Neither am I so jaded as to think them all insincere. As is customary, the PM and the President held a joint news conference at the end of their day. Both expressed what appears genuine commitment to forging a working alliance:

Trump: Madam Prime Minister, we look forward to working closely with you as we strengthen our mutual ties in commerce, business and foreign affairs.

May: And as you say, the invitation is an indication of the strength and importance of the special relationship that exists between our two countries, a relationship based on the bonds of history, of family, kinship and common interests.
 
May: I think the president and I are ambitious to build on this relationship...to grow our respective economies, provide the high skilled, high paid jobs of the future…we are discussing how we can establish a trade negotiation agreement, take forward immediate high-level talks… identify the practical steps we can take now in order to enable companies in both countries to trade and do business…

The UK and the US share similar problems and possibilities in the clean energy and environmental fields. For example, both nations are engaged in research   and demonstration of carbon capture and storage/sequestration technologies (CCS).

I’ve written before about the issues facing the US woody biomass sector  Much of what I had expressed concerning the domestic market equally applies to those in the UK and other EU members. Cooperation could reduce the costs and the time to deploy economically viable commercial-scale systems. Viable project will in turn prove of significant value in efforts to reduce harmful emissions.

The UK is increasingly converting coal plants to wood pellets. Pellets coming mostly from the US and Canada. There is significant and heated concern that this energy source is not as carbon neutral as claimed. Opposition to wood pellets is growing both in the US and the UK.

Joint research documenting carbon cycles and improvements to forest management practices, supported by the US, UK and, possibly Canada, would lead to greater certainty of claimed neutrality, decreasing opposition and allowing for increased utilization and improved forest management practices.

When I look at the Trump administration and the May government I see opportunities in addition to CCS, including in the areas of:

• Basic and applied research;
• Agricultural practices and sciences;
• Innovative building designs, incorporating efficiency and resiliency features;
• Expanded green bond markets attracting needed private capital to finance various energy and efficiency projects, including distributed systems and landfill gases;
• Energy and energy efficient infrastructure;
• Cooperative development of bio-based fuels and chemicals; and
• The free flow of talent.

Towards the end of lunch, we began to focus on what would be necessary to test the partnership theory. Jennifer, in particular, questioned whether the President or anyone in his administration would actually consider a low-carbon dialogue—let alone collaboration.

The Messenger is as Important as the Message

Honesty and friendship required me to say I didn’t really know. I did, however, think it was possible and, therefore, worth the effort.  The key to such a collaboration--I thought--would be the messenger.

There is real hostility and mistrust between the Trump administration and many of the clean energy and environmental organizations—both NGOs and private companies. It is the result of the increased adamancy of political environment. Although it may mellow over time, it is--at the moment-- quite raw.

I thought, however, there would be a distinct possibility of a constructive discussion, if Jenn and Niles could convince a ranking government leader on their side of the pond to open the dialogue. A member of the May government would certainly be better received than the lobbyist for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Though unfortunate, it is what it is.

A bi-lateral partnership with the UK could certainly result in economic benefits for both.  More than that, collaboration could offer important secondary (political) benefits.

As an example, a low-carbon partnership offers both the Trump administration and the PM an opportunity to earn political points, without regulation or the appearance of having lost a fight with opponents. Advocacy 101 says: like water, take the path of least resistance when beginning any new political relationship.

We left lunch, our appetites sated and our souls pleased for the comradery and their promise to pay  for lunch the next time. Meanwhile, I'll search for a more expensive restaurant and await a call from a member of May's government.
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Check back periodically for updates.