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TWO MAJOR ACTIONS WORTH UNPACKING: The Biden administration has made a pair of big moves in the last 24 hours between its docketing new oil and gas lease sales and announcing a rewrite of National Environmental Policy Act regulations, both of which have in them something to please and disappoint just about every kind of player in the energy and environment world.
More on the news and analysis below…
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WHITE HOUSE REWORKS NEPA REGULATIONS: The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality finalized a rule today that rolls back Trump era changes governing how agencies perform environmental assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act.
CEQ’s rule gives agencies broader discretion to “consider a variety of factors” when evaluating an infrastructure project, including how it might contribute to climate change.
It requires consideration of “direct,” “indirect,” and “cumulative” impacts of agencies’ actions in approving a project, including the approval’s potential for contributing to climate change or additional local pollution, and tasks agencies with working more closely with communities local to the proposed project and the project’s backers “to mitigate or avoid environmental harms by analyzing common sense alternatives.”
The rule fits into the Biden team’s larger strategy of utilizing the regulatory regime to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions as a means to mitigate climate change.
The Trump rewrite: The Trump White House’s CEQ revised regulations in an effort to make NEPA less inhibitive to projects under review. The changes put new limits on the amount of time agencies could take in developing an environmental impact statement and required agencies to begin taking public comment on a project earlier on during the process, among other things.
All of it was designed to “make the NEPA process more efficient and effective” and “result in more timely decisions that support the development of modern, resilient infrastructure,” then-CEQ Chair Mary Neumayr said when the rule was finalized in 2020.
Notably, there was a case actively being made at the time, including by some Democrats and policy wonks backing a more aggressive transition away from fossil fuels, that NEPA reform was necessary to get green projects through.
Christy Goldfuss, former CEQ head under Obama, said at the time “we have to get better at building big projects,” although she objected to the Trump administration’s approach.
Reaction to Biden’s rule: Other environmental groups opposed the Trump era changes and are praising the switch President Joe Biden‘s CEQ has undertaken.
“NEPA plays a critical role in keeping our communities and our environment healthy and safe, and Donald Trump’s attempts to weaken NEPA were clearly nothing more than a handout to corporate polluters,” Sierra Club National Director of Policy Leslie Fields said today.
Top oil trade group American Petroleum Institute took exception to the NEPA reforms and said in a statement they rule “undermines global energy security.”
BLM ISSUES FIRST NOTICES FOR OIL AND GAS SALES: The Bureau of Land Management also issued environmental assessments and notices of sale yesterday for federal acreage in seven western states in conjunction with its revamp of the onshore oil and gas leasing program.
The sales cover Utah, Colorado, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, and Nevada, and will be held in June.
BLM made clear in its announcements that it was motivated to carry on with the sales by the federal court injunction stopping Biden’s leasing pause, and has said it will appeal the ruling.
Still, officials have sought to frame the lease sales largely as a chance to help reform what it described as “deficiencies” in the federal oil and gas leasing program.
“How we manage our public lands and waters says everything about what we value as a nation,” Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement last week.
Interior officials also sought to emphasize changes it has made to the program, including whittling down the amount of available land to just 144,000 acres—an 80% reduction from the originally proposed acreage. It will also begin charging companies royalties of 18.75%, up from 12.5%, officials said.
For example: The agency said in its announcement last night that will offer just one 160-acre parcel for auction in Utah, down from its original plan of six parcels on more than 6,000 acres, Reuters noted.
FRANCE PRESSES AGAINST RUSSIAN OIL: French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire called on the EU to pass a ban on Russian oil supplies instead of on natural gas, acknowledging in an interview this morning that a gas embargo could be disproportionately harmful to some EU member countries such as Germany, which remains deeply dependent on Russian supplies.
“We are trying to convince our European partners to stop importing oil from Russia,” Le Maire said in an interview with French radio Europe 1. “What has been the primary source of currency for Vladimir Putin for several years? It is not gas. It is oil.”
“We know very well that if we are not there today, it is not because France does not want it, it is because some European partners are still hesitant,” Le Maire said, referring to the potential oil embargo. He declined to say which members remained in opposition, though Germany has not been shy in voicing its deep discomfort on such a ban.
Western leaders are facing renewed pressure to act after Russia yesterday launched a renewed assault on eastern Ukraine—upping their ground presence in many cities, and unleashing some of the most intense rounds of shelling since the start of the war. The number of troops has also grown significantly, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said last night that “a very large part of the entire Russian army is now focused on this offensive.”
Russian forces “have started the battle for the Donbas that they have been getting ready for a long time,” he added.
Meanwhile, Biden spoke by phone to Western leaders this morning to discuss the latest in Ukraine, as well as “efforts to hold Russia accountable,” according to the White House.
Attendees included European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council chief Charles Michel, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, as well as the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the U.K., Poland, Romania, and Canada.
‘EVERY DAY IS EARTH DAY’: The White House is promoting its environmental bonafides ahead of Earth Day this Friday after facing numerous setbacks to its green energy agenda, the Washington Examiner’s Haisten Willis reports.
“In the Biden-Harris administration, every day is Earth Day,” a senior administration official told reporters yesterday on a call, where another boasted that the “United States is back on climate” for setting concrete emissions reduction goals and passing the recent infrastructure law.
The administration wants to see U.S. emissions at least halved in the year 2030, and Biden has ordered federal agencies to get more green by acquiring EVs and purchasing green electricity.
At the same time, the failure of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda has forestalled, and maybe precluded altogether, what could have been his signature green victory, while the war in Ukraine and the Louisiana court ruling have forced his administration’s hand to support and enable additional oil and gas production.
The lot has left environmental groups, who are at Biden’s heels demanding no more federal lands be leased for oil and gas exploration, disappointed.
In ocean news: EPA rang in earth week yesterday by saying it will spend $542 million in funding authorized by the infrastructure law to reduce pollution and plastic waste in oceans.
Psaki’s commentary: Press Secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday Interior’s moving forward with the lease sales is “not in line with the president’s policy” and emphasized that the department was complying with the Louisiana district court’s order by making new lands available for oil and gas development, the Washington Examiner’s Christian Datoc reports.
Psaki said the administration would keep pressure on Congress to pass green energy legislation and keep up the fight against new leasing in court, where it’s appealing the decision enjoining Biden’s leasing pause.
STUDY CHARTS SOLAR DOMINANCE IN WESTERN US: A new study tracking the ever-advancing solar industry establishes that the top nine U.S. cities for solar power capacity together have more installed capacity than the entire country did 10 years ago.
The U.S. now has 121.4 gigawatts of solar PV capacity, or enough to power more than 23 million homes, according to the assessment from Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group released today.
Honolulu leads the country in per capita solar PV wattage, followed by Las Vegas and San Diego. Los Angeles has the most installed capacity.
“Each of these ‘shining cities’ has helped to clean up our air and water and protect our climate – and that’s something to celebrate and build on, on Earth Day and every day,” said Susan Rakov, chair of Environment America Research & Policy Center’s clean energy program.
BUSINESS EXECUTIVES OUTLINE ENERGY POLICY HOPES: Executives in charge of some of the country’s largest corporations are offering their two cents on where Washington should take U.S. energy policy now that consumers face some of the highest energy prices on record.
The long and short of the Business Roundtable’s new policy recommendations released today is, we need the old stuff and the new stuff.
The group, which includes the heads of GM, Honeywell, and Apple, calls for more LNG exports, as well as more fossil fuel production paired with spending on carbon management technologies.
More spending to incentivize renewables via production and investment tax credits is necessary, they say, and a carbon price, too.
GREEN LAW GROUPS THANKS SENATORS FOR JACKSON ‘AYE’ VOTES: Earthjustice, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Sierra Club launched a digital ad campaign yesterday to say “thanks” to a slate of Democratic senators — and Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins — for voting in favor of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
“If you care about the environment, you have to care about the courts and the judges who enforce environmental laws,” said Earthjustice’s Coby Dolan, who said Jackson “demonstrates a commitment to facts and science” and that it’s “time to rebalance the federal judiciary.”
The Senate confirmed Jackson’s nomination to the court on April 7, with support from all the chamber’s Democrats and three Republicans: Murkowski, Collins, and Mitt Romney of Utah.
The Rundown
Euractiv Macron talks up green credentials ahead of French election
Associated Press California gives rivers more room to flow to stem flood risk
Wall Street Journal Mexican congress rejects more state control over energy industry
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | APRIL 20
9:30 a.m. The Center for Global Development will host a virtual event titled “Financing Green Development: A Fireside Chat on US Climate Finance with Secretary John Kerry,” featuring climate envoy John Kerry. He and PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff will also engage in a one-on-one discussion about the Biden administration’s climate goals.
THURSDAY | APRIL 21
10:00 a.m. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold its monthly open meeting.
11:00 a.m. Woodridge, Ill. The House House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight will hold a field hearing in Illinois on electric vehicle batteries and U.S. critical minerals supply.
THURSDAY | APRIL 28
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on the findings of an intergovernmental panel report, titled, “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change.” Location and time TBA.
