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EPA WALKING BACK TWO OBAMA RULES ON COAL PLANT TOXIC WASTE: Just a week after coal mining giant Murray Energy filed for bankruptcy protections, the Environmental Protection Agency is granting one of the company’s biggest remaining wishes.
The EPA, in separate proposals Monday, is walking back two Obama-era regulations that required coal-fired power plants to manage disposal and treatment of coal ash and other toxic waste so they don’t contaminate water.
Both 2015 rules — known as the coal combustion residuals rule and the steam electric effluent guidelines — were listed high on Bob Murray’s “action plan” given to the EPA near the beginning of the Trump administration.
Coal producers and coal-heavy utilities have long complained the 2015 rules were a thorn in their side. That’s because the rules placed entirely new requirements on the facilities, following some large leaks and spills of toxic waste.
Coal ash is the waste that results from burning coal for electricity. Power producers have typically stored that waste in large containment ponds.
The Trump EPA’s new proposals would relax Obama-era requirements for how companies treat their toxic waste — by extending deadlines, narrowing requirements, and introducing several exemptions for facilities that would further relax the limits.
“I think we’re implementing the program in a way that is protective of public health and the environment but also is reasonable in light of the continuing need for some facilities to generate power from the standpoint of reliability as well as being supportive of measures to support the beneficial reuse of coal ash,” Peter Wright, head of the EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management, told S&P Global Market Intelligence of the proposals.
The coal industry seems happy: The Obama-era rules would have forced coal plants to shut down or to idle, said Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.
The EPA proposals “appear to include enough flexibility to avoid these adverse consequences while, at the same time, protecting public health and the environment,” she told Abby in a statement.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement the proposed revisions to the 2015 rules will relieve the “heavy burdens” placed on electricity producers and “provide more certainty to the American public.”
But not so fast: There are already signs the Trump administration’s proposals could face an uphill battle in the courts.
The EPA already suffered one blow in court over the coal combustion rule, which required power plants to close leaking coal ash containment ponds within six months. A federal appeals court last summer ordered the EPA require power plants to address any unlined coal ash ponds, and judges cited in part the environmental hazards those ponds could create.
The EPA is also using some fuzzy math in the effluent guidelines proposal to obscure the fact that its plans would lead to additional pounds of pollutants discharged into water bodies, said Betsy Southerland, the former director of science and technology in the EPA’s Office of Water who helped write the 2015 rule.
The regulatory impact analysis for the effluent guidelines assumes that more than a dozen power plants would go above-and-beyond the EPA’s proposed requirements, diluting the amount of pollutants that would result from the proposal, Southerland told Abby.
“They’re really not doing an honest apples-to-apples comparison with the 2015 rule,” Southerland said. She added the EPA messed with the math because they know the proposal “saved money, but oh my god, look at the additional pounds of pollutants that are going out with these fabulous cost savings.”
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
PARIS WITHDRAWAL GETTING REALER: Breaking up is never easy. The Trump administration beginning today can start the formal process of leaving the Paris climate change agreement by filing a notice of its intention to the U.N. secretary general. It’s unclear if the administration is prepared to jump on day one.
Filing the paperwork would start a one-year countdown for the actual withdrawal that can become official one day after the November 2020 presidential election, assuming Trump wins re-election. A Democratic president could return to the deal in just 30 days.
That one-year lag time could serve as an opportunity for other countries to persuade Trump to change his mind, but that’s unlikely, given his long-standing opposition. Still, the U.S. State Department will continue to send a delegation to international climate talks in the meantime, including this December’s technical negotiations held by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
SHIMKUS TO STAY RETIRED: Illinois congressman John Shimkus is retiring after all, after teasing he might reconsider.
The Republican, after “weighing the pros and cons,” decided to reaffirm his plan to retire at the end of the current Congress despite being “honored” by outreach from colleagues and constituents, he said in a statement Monday.
Shimkus told reporters last week he was rethinking things with the opportunity to take over the top GOP spot on the Energy and Commerce Committee after his friend Greg Walden announced his decision to retire. He would have been the frontrunner to replace Walden, given his seniority on the committee and status as ranking member of the Climate Change Subcommittee.
TRUMP MEETS FIRE WITH FIRE: Trump commented on California’s recent stretch of wildfires for the first time this weekend, saying that the state needs to do a better job managing its forests to prevent fires.
“The Governor of California, @GavinNewsom, has done a terrible job of forest management,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “I told him from the first day we met that he must “clean” his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him.”
The president also vaguely threatened to block federal aid to California in responding to the fires, even as Newsom has credited the Trump administration for routinely granting his state’s requests for assistance.
“Every year, as the fire’s rage & California burns, it is the same thing-and then he comes to the Federal Government for $$$ help,” Trump tweeted. “No more. Get your act together Governor. You don’t see close to the level of burn in other states.”
Newsom and Democratic presidential candidates fired back at Trump, saying he has no credibility for neglecting the role of climate change in creating drier conditions that fuel fires.
“You don’t believe in climate change,” Newsom tweeted to Trump. “You are excused from this conversation.”
Kamala Harris, the California senator and presidential candidate, piled on.
“Raking leaves is as effective at combating the climate crisis as your phone’s spellcheck is at fixing your tweets,” she tweeted “@GavinNewsom is doing his job. Maybe you should try it.”
NEWSOM THREATENS PG&E TAKEOVER: Newsom, meanwhile, threatened a state takeover of beleaguered utility PG&E, whose transmission lines have been found to cause some of California’s worst wildfires in recent years, and is facing criticism for preemptively cutting power to millions of people to stop its equipment from sparking fires.
Newsom said he is convening a meeting this week of PG&E executives and shareholders, wildfire victims, and creditors to reach a deal for the utility to exit bankruptcy by a state imposed deadline of June 30.
“It is my hope that the stakeholders in PG&E will put parochial interests aside and reach a negotiated resolution so that we can create this new company and forever put the old PG&E behind us,” Newsom said in a Medium post Friday. “If the parties fail to reach an agreement quickly to begin this process of transformation, the state will not hesitate to step in and restructure the utility.”
THE WORLD IS NOT DOING THAT GREAT ON ENERGY EFFICIENCY: Improvements in global primary energy intensity — an indicator of how much and how efficiently the world is using energy — declined for the third year in a row, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency.
The decline isn’t a good sign for global climate change goals. The IEA has said energy efficiency gains are a critical piece of cutting emissions, and has encouraged countries to improve energy intensity at least 3% per year to stay on track. Global primary energy intensity improved by just 1.2% in 2018, the report finds.
“There’s no excuse for inaction: ambitious policies need to be put in place to spur investment and put the necessary technologies to work on a global scale,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said in a statement.
WHOSE OIL IS IT ANYWAY? Trump is insisting that Syria’s oil now belongs to the U.S. to do with as it sees fit.
“We don’t have to defend the borders between Turkey and Syria,” Trump said at a rally in Tupelo, Mississippi Friday. “They’ve been fighting for a thousand years, but what we do is we did keep the oil if you don’t mind, we kept the oil.”
“And we’ll distribute that oil. We’ll help out the Kurds and we’ll help out other people. We’ll also help out ourselves if that’s OK,” he told the crowd.
Asked by reporters about Trump’s claim, Defense Secretary Mark Esper described the mission differently — not as plundering, but as protecting the oil on behalf of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
“We will secure oil fields to deny their access to ISIS and other actors in the region, and to ensure that the SDF has continued access, because those resources are important so that the SDF can do its mission,” Esper said.
FRACKING BAN FEVER HITS UK: Britain’s Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson is temporarily banning fracking in the lead-up to a general election in which the drilling technique was emerging as a flashpoint.
British leaders cited safety risks from earthquakes near the only active fracking site in the country, near the town of Blackpool. The government acted in response to a report by the Oil and Gas Authority that found that it is not possible to accurately predict the probability or magnitude of earthquakes linked to fracking.
“Whilst acknowledging the huge potential of U.K. shale gas to provide a bridge to a zero carbon future, I’ve also always been clear that shale gas exploration in the U.K. must be carried out safely,” U.K. Energy Secretary Andrea Leadsom said in a statement.
This looks familiar, kind of: Britain’s characterization of the fracking ban is different than the debate happening in the U.S., where Democratic presidential candidates have threatened to limit fracking as a way to reduce fossil fuel use causing climate change. Britain’s government has already signed legislation committing the U.K. to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the same timeline and target proposed by many U.S. Democrats. The U.K. government says natural gas will play a role in the net-zero target, including for the production of hydrogen, but that gas will have to come from sources other than domestic fracking.
The Rundown
New York Times Flood of oil is coming, complicating efforts to fight global warming
Axios Climate change confessions of an energy reporter
Wall Street Journal The key to electric cars is batteries. One Chinese firm dominates the industry
Bloomberg Aramco starts IPO with prince’s economic vision at stake
Reuters On vulnerable NYC island, climate – and Trump – make for difficult conversation
Vice A ‘Big Short’ investor’s new bet: Climate change will bust the housing market
Calendar
TUESDAY | NOVEMBER 5
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a confirmation hearing for James Danly to be a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Katharine MacGregor to be deputy secretary of the Interior
WEDNESDAY | NOVEMBER 6
10 a.m. 406 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a legislative hearing on S. 2662, the Growing American Innovation Now (GAIN) Act.
THURSDAY | NOVEMBER 7
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing on issues and legislation related to energy development on federal land
