EPA’S TOP SPOKESWOMAN LEAVING, BUT CHIEF OF STAFF DOWNPLAYS TURMOIL: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s chief of staff says scandals aren’t causing departures of top aides as the agency’s top spokeswoman announced she is leaving.

Liz Bowman, the top communications staff member at the EPA, has resigned, the Washington Examiner has exclusively learned.

• Playing defense: Bowman, the EPA’s associate administrator of public affairs, has managed a press shop of about 40 people that has been increasingly on the defensive responding to a series of ethics and spending allegations facing Pruitt.

Her departure comes amidst other high-level departures. But chief of staff Ryan Jackson is downplaying perceptions of turmoil among EPA rank-and-file, and political staff, and insisted agency employees are still motivated to work for Pruitt.

• Policy push: “People are principally focused on doing their jobs whether in the press office or program offices,” Jackson told the Washington Examiner Wednesday night. “We respond to a lot, but at the same time we have policies that we are working on and finalizing and that gives career and political staff a lot of gratification.”

He said he doesn’t expect a broader staff shake-up after the resignations of Bowman, Superfund program chief Albert Kelly and security chief Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, while acknowledging that there “might be one other” change to the communications staff.

• Not ‘concerned’: “I am really not [concerned],” Jackson said. “I gotta tell you that it doesn’t bother me at all that for some of these folks who are moving on to other opportunities that their proving ground was at EPA and at our shop.

• Other departures: The EPA earlier this week announced the departures of Kelly and Perrotta, a major figure and witness in federal probes of Pruitt’s spending and ethics.

• Career move: Bowman says she decided to resign for reasons unrelated to the Pruitt scandals and is leaving the EPA on good terms. Bowman, who began working in the EPA in March 2017, is headed to Capitol Hill, where she will be director of communications for Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. She previously directed communications for the American Chemistry Council.

“Liz Bowman is a true professional who really helped me through the confirmation process,” Wheeler said. “She is respected by the staff at the agency and will be sorely missed.”

Bowman’s last day at the EPA is May 11.

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BUSINESSES PUSH TRUMP NOT TO LEAVE KIGALI CLIMATE DEAL: Business groups are using the week-long congressional recess to begin a lobbying push to urge the Trump administration not to withdraw from the important, but lesser-known, Kigali climate change agreement, playing up its economic benefits in a major report.

• It’s all about the AC: The push is being led by groups representing air-conditioning and home-heating giants Honeywell and Carrier, which want President Trump and Congress to support the Kigali Amendment to the three-decade-old Montreal Protocol.

• Climate tweak: The recent agreement reached in Kigali, Rwanda, looks to continue the goals set forth in the Montreal Protocol to protect the atmosphere’s ozone layer, but with a greenhouse-gas/global-warming twist. It looks to combat climate change by slowly reducing the use of certain types of refrigerants used in air conditioners blamed for raising the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere.

• New study: The air conditioning industry, represented by the Air-conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, and others, began the push Thursday with the release of a major report by JMS Consulting that lays out the economic case for Trump to stay in Kigali.

• Brainchild of former Trump adviser: The report is the result of a recommendation made in February by David Banks, a former top White House adviser on climate change.

Banks had warned that the administration would require “really good economic information” before it makes a decision on the agreement.

Read what the report says in the Washington Examiner’s exclusive story.

TRUMP TO MEET WITH AUTOMAKERS ON FUEL-EFFICIENCY RULES: The White House is planning to meet with automakers next week to discuss planned changes to strict fuel-efficiency rules established by former President Barack Obama.

The meeting, planned for May 11, Reuters first reported, comes after the EPA rejected the tough Obama standards, at the urging of automakers but is considering weakening them to an extent that automakers may not like.

“When the White House wants to meet with us about our sector and policy, we welcome the opportunity,” Gloria Bergquist, vice president of public affairs at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, told Josh.

• A freeze: The Trump administration is considering a proposal to freeze fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions targets at 2020 levels through 2025, according to multiple reports.

Obama’s fuel-efficiency and greenhouse gas rules for cars and light trucks had set a 54-mile per gallon standard by 2025, up from the current average of 38.3 mpg.

• Follow our lead: The EPA also is considering challenging California over a waiver it has that allows it to set its own, stricter fuel-efficiency standards. California is leading a coalition of states suing the Trump administration for rejecting the Obama standards.

• Competing priorities: Automakers want changes to the rules to reflect lower gasoline prices and customer preference for larger, less fuel-efficient vehicles, but also want the Trump administration and California to reach an agreement to maintain a single national program.

Automakers worry that if the national rules are significantly weaker than state standards, they would face a patchwork of regulations.

CHAO WRAPS UP COMMENT PERIOD ON AUTO FINES: The deadline for submitting comments came and went at midnight about reducing the fines automakers are charged by the Department of Transportation for not meeting fleet-wide fuel efficiency standards.

The notice of proposed rulemaking’s legal analysis found that imposing the higher fines proposed by the Obama administration would pose significant harm to the economy. So, the Transportation Department will keep the previous fine rate of $5.50 per 0.1 mile in efficiency gains not achieved under the rules.

But with the Trump administration planning to cut the fuel-efficiency standards, the chance of automakers actually being fined are slim to none.

• ‘Negative economic impact’: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing to maintain the current penalty rate “based on a tentative finding that — in light of the factors Congress requires NHTSA to analyze in determining whether an increase in the civil penalty rate will have ‘a substantial deleterious impact on the economy’ — increasing the CAFE civil penalty rate would result in negative economic impact,” according to the proposed rule.  

• Going to court? But the Trump administration is using a legal argument that could be challenged in court.

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s argument for the $5.50 per 0.1 mile is based on her agency’s legal assessment that fines are not subject to being adjusted based on inflation as per the  Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015.

• Chao got it wrong? Even Chao’s agency isn’t sure that its interpretation of the law is right and wants the White House to weigh in before making the changes final.

ZINKE TARGETS SAGE GROUSE: The Bureau of Land Management released its draft plan to roll back parts of the 2015 Obama-era plan to protect the chicken-sized sage grouse, with an eye toward oil development in once-off-limit lands.

Trump administration officials say the proposed revisions to the 2015 plan would increase flexibility in the management of lands where the birds roost and breed.

• Opponents: The Natural Resources Defense Council said the plan ignores 400,000 comments from the public supporting the Obama-era plan.

The proposal from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke also “throws out protections on over 60 million acres” of land, while discarding a “conservation plan that was decades in the making and had the bipartisan support of governors in the region.”

• Idaho’s Otter: Zinke tweeted out a photo Tuesday of a meeting he held with Idaho Republican Gov. Butch Otter to talk about the sage grouse.

Zinke said it is “always good to talk sage grouse” with the governor. Otter had gone to court over having the flexibility to manage the sage grouse through a state plan, rather than abiding by the federal plan instituted under former President Barack Obama.

ANOTHER ETHANOL MEETING AT THE WHITE HOUSE? The White House is scheduling a meeting on the Renewable Fuel Standard next week, according to several reports.

• Refiner exemptions: The focus of the talks likely will be on the dozens of waivers the EPA has been issuing to exempt oil refiners from blending ethanol under the RFS program.

• Farm states fuming: The waivers have farm state senators fuming and demanding the EPA be transparent about how many waivers it has given and which refiners they have gone to, which it has not. They also want the EPA to stop granting the waivers, which it has not.

Uncertain about meeting: But sources close to the biofuel industry tell John the• meeting is tentative. Some have confirmed it, while others say it is still up in the air.

• The Grassley factor: Argus reported that Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, confirmed through a spokesman an invitation to discuss the Renewable Fuel Standard with the White House and other senators at the session. But the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

PRUITT LOOKS TO HELP OIL FRACKERS WASTE LESS WATER: It’s dry out West, but drillers using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to produce oil and natural gas rely on life-giving H2O to keep producing.

The process also creates a lot of wastewater that the drillers have to reuse somehow or dispose of in pits through a process known as underground injection, which has been found to cause earthquakes.

• New study: Pruitt is stepping in with the start of a new study to help the drillers. Or, so it would appear.

“I am pleased that this study will take into consideration the expertise of states and stakeholders in developing effective options and alternatives to better manage wastewater from the oil and gas sector,” Pruitt said in announcing the study Wednesday.

“It’s important the agency works cooperatively with local officials and energy providers to protect the environment and provide affordable, reliable energy to the American people.”

• A new opportunity? The EPA said the oil and gas industry is generating large volumes of wastewater, which are expected to increase.

• Study could lead to new policy of reuse: Some states are asking “whether it makes sense to continue to waste this water, particularly in water scarce areas of the country, and what steps would be necessary to treat and renew it for other purposes,” Pruitt said.

FORMER LOBBYIST TO FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS HELPED PLAN PRUITT’S CANCELED AUSTRALIA TRIP: A Washington consultant who has lobbied for foreign governments helped plan an aborted trip to Australia by Pruitt.

Matthew C. Freedman, the chief executive of the Global Impact consulting firm, worked with a top EPA aide to facilitate a trip last year to Australia that Pruitt later scrapped after Hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf Coast.

• International man: Freedman previously was an international political consultant and lobbyist and was an employee of Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, in the 1980s when they worked to help former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

• Email evidence: Freedman’s role is spelled out in email exchanges he had with Millan Hupp, who was the EPA’s deputy director of scheduling and advance, and other Pruitt aides obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Sierra Club and shared first with the New York Times .

Even though the EPA canceled the Australia trip, the agency spent $45,000 to send a five-member advance team to the country to prepare, Reuters previously reported.

FORMER BOEHNER AIDE NAMED CEO FOR TOP OIL AND GAS GROUP: The American Petroleum Institute on Wednesday named its next CEO: Mike Sommers, who was a top aide to former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

• Broad experience: Sommers has been president and CEO of the American Investment Council, which represents private equity investors, since February 2016. Before that, he was chief of staff to Boehner. He was also special assistant to former President George W. Bush at the National Economic Council in 2005, where he advised the president on agriculture, trade, and food policy.

• Shoes to fill: Sommers replaces Jack Gerard, who is retiring this summer as the oil industry’s top lobbyist in Washington. API is the the main trade group representing the oil and natural gas industry.

GETTING TO KNOW ARPA-E BEFORE TRUMP KILLS IT: Clean energy proponents, the Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions Forum, launched a web series Thursday to highlight the benefits of an advanced energy program that Trump has on the chopping block, the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

• The benefits: The series of Internet videos highlights “innovative clean energy companies across America that have benefited from ARPA-E funding and are making a difference in their communities and the clean energy economy,” the group said.

• Hearing from the CEO: The first video features Rita Hansen, CEO of the Oregon-based company Onboard Dynamics, which focused on refueling hardware for vehicles powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling.

• Other videos coming: The group will continue to roll out the videos to highlight ARPA-E successes in the weeks to come. The next few videos will feature businesses that focus on carbon capture storage, energy efficiency and connecting renewable sources to the electric grid.

MUSK ON THE MOVE: Bolstered by quarterly revenue growth, electric-car manufacturer Tesla sought to ease investor concerns Wednesday over production delays of its mass-market Model 3.

Production of the lower-cost vehicle reached 2,020 a week at the end of March, still short of its target of 2,500, but Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said he’s confident the Palo Alto, Calif., company will meet a target of 5,000 per week in the next two months.

“Our understanding of the production is improving,” he said on an earnings call. “With some work at the Fremont vehicle plant, primarily in the general assembly area, I’m confident that we will soon exceed the 3,000 mark.”

CAMPAIGN TO SAVE COAL PLANT MOVES INTO HIGH GEAR: Proponents of the Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal plant in the West, are upping their campaign to save the 40-year-old power giant.

The “Yes to NGS Coalition” will deliver remarks on Thursday to the board that Congress created decades to emphasize the importance of its commitment to buy power from the Arizona power plant.

• Customers needed: The coalition is pleased that new owners are being lined up to take over the plant and continue to burn coal over the next 20 years. But the board that Congress created in the 1970s to bring water to Arizona using the plant’s electricity needs to make sure there is a market for the power.

• Saving jobs: “By continuing to buy its power from NGS long-term, the CAP board will save more than 3,000 direct and indirect jobs held by Native Americans; as well as millions of dollars in additional support for those communities,” said Craig Stevens, Yes to NGS spokesman.

ROB BISHOP OFF TO PUERTO RICO: House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, is jetting off to Puerto Rico this week to survey progress made in restoring electricity and other areas after last year’s devastating hurricane season.

He announced the trip Wednesday. “This trip will help me better understand the continuing challenges and what disaster relief is still needed,” Bishop said.

RUNDOWN

Wall Street Journal Now available in the oil patch: wind and solar college degrees

Reuters In U.S. Gulf, robots, drones take on dangerous offshore oil work

Bloomberg Oil’s lifeline turns into $7 billion drag

The Globe and Mail First Nations leaders claim Ottawa did not properly consult B.C. communities on Trans Mountain project

Quartz India added more energy capacity from renewables than coal last year

Washington Post The people who’ll be most hurt by climate swings did the least to cause them, study says