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EPA’S FIRST SCIENCE MEETING OPEN TO PRESS AND PUBLIC: The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday afternoon is hosting the first meeting of its Science Advisory Board, a top group of federal advisers on science policy, under Administrator Scott Pruitt.

“EPA’s Science Advisory Board provides valuable independent expertise that informs and improves EPA’s actions,” Pruitt said before the meeting, which continues Friday. “We look forward to the board’s feedback and insight that develop from this meeting.”  

• Pruitt’s new science advisers: It’s the first meeting of the board since Pruitt appointed new members, many with energy industry ties, with the goal of “ensuring independence, geographic diversity, and integrity,” according to the agency.

Last year, Pruitt barred scientists from serving on the committee if they receive EPA grants.

• Attempting to avoid a repeat of last week: And, yes, the meeting is open to the public and the media, which the EPA made certain to point out Wednesday, after last week’s drinking water summit, which became more about which news outlet and congressional office was barred from the meeting than the policy discussed.

• Big agenda: The board is expected to review several planned regulatory actions, including Pruitt’s proposed rule to block the agency from using scientific studies that do not make public the raw data used in the research, its planned repeal of the Clean Power Plan, its decision to scrap Obama administration fuel-efficiency rules, and repealing a rule regulating emissions from so-called “glider trucks.”

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MEANWHILE, ACTIVISTS PILE PRESSURE ON PRUITT OVER LAST WEEK’S MEETING: A petition began circulating this week to get the EPA inspector general to open a full investigation into the barring of reporters from last week’s drinking water summit in Washington.

The petition was posted on Credo, an online portal for liberal news and activism. The petition reads: “Investigate Scott Pruitt’s systematic actions to withhold information from the public about water contamination by not releasing research and banning journalists.”

• Signers growing: The number of people signing the petition rose above 73,000 Thursday morning, with the goal set at 100,000 signatures before it is sent to Inspector General Arthur Elkins. That goal was pumped up from 75,000 earlier this week.

• Lawmaker’s ask: Rep. Dan Kildee, who represents Flint, Mich., the site of the 2014 lead water crisis, asked Elkins exactly one week ago to conduct an investigation into the agency’s decision to limit public access to a summit last week on dangerous chemicals that have contaminated water supplies.

STATES COMMITTED TO CLIMATE DEAL ONE YEAR AFTER TRUMP EXIT: A group of 16 states and Puerto Rico are marking the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s June 1 exit from the Paris climate change agreement by re-upping their commitment to the nonbinding deal signed by former President Barack Obama.

• A country unto itself: The U.S. Climate Alliance, including governors from the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and California, announced Thursday that they are reducing greenhouse gas emissions faster than the rest of the country, while raising economic output at double the rate of the nation.

• Meeting Paris goals: “The U.S. Climate Alliance now represents 40 percent of the U.S. population and a $9 trillion economy, greater than the third-largest country in the world, and U.S. Climate Alliance states are on track to meet their share of the Paris Agreement emissions target by 2025,” the states reported.

• Setting up green banks: The states announced new financing tools and other programs to push toward meeting the U.S. commitment under the Paris deal, including the creation of their own “green bank” initiative to finance sustainable infrastructure and help advance more green banks.

STERN WARNING: DON’T UNDERESTIMATE TRUMP’S DAMAGE TO PARIS AGREEMENT: No one should underestimate the “damaging” effects of President Trump’s decision to exit from the Paris climate change deal, said Todd Stern, former President Obama’s top climate negotiator.

• Damage done: “It’s really damaging for the U.S. to be on the way out,” Stern said Wednesday. He warned proponents of the Paris Agreement not to “underestimate the negative side” of the U.S. decision to leave the agreement.

Stern spoke at a forum marking the one-year anniversary of Trump’s decision, put on by the World Resources Institute think tank on Wednesday. Stern is considered a key architect of the agreement that was hashed out among nearly 200 countries in 2015.

NATURAL GAS PRICES EXPECTED TO STAY LOW: Demand for energy is expected to reach “record-setting” levels this summer, but natural gas prices are projected not to budge much, according to a report released Thursday morning in Washington.

• Summer outlook: The Natural Gas Supply Association released its 2018 SummerOutlook assessment of the natural gas market, showing that production is set to experience “huge summer-over-summer growth, resulting in an all-time production record and ample supplies of natural gas available to meet the record demand.”

• Prices soften: The supply will soften any spike in natural gas prices that might occur from a surge in demand for electricity for air conditioning and manufacturing. Natural gas now provides the majority of the U.S.’s electric power, placing coal and nuclear power plants at the number two and three spots, respectively.   

• Many factors: The energy group said its report is based on independent analyses of the combined impact of several factors, including weather, economic growth, customer demand, natural gas storage inventories, and production-drilling activity.

• Wild about Henry: Last summer, benchmark Henry Hub prices averaged $2.97 per unit of natural gas. Henry Hub refers to the supply distribution pipeline in Louisiana that is used as the basis for the price of natural gas in the U.S.

• Lower prices going into summer: The spot price at Henry Hub as of May 21 hovered at $2.77 per unit, but futures prices for natural gas were climbing past $2.90, according to the government’s Energy Information Administration.

However, at this time last year, prices were already well above $3.

• Remember when: But that’s nothing compared to December 2005, before the shale gas boom, when prices spiked at $14.

COMPANIES APPLY TO DO SEISMIC WORK IN ANWR: Two Alaska Native corporations and an oil services firm have applied to do seismic testing next winter in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the first step toward oil and gas drilling there, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

• ‘Not adequate’: The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service is concerned the applications fail to address the potential risk of seismic studies, which determine oil and gas drilling potential, on wildlife in ANWR, which has been protected from energy exploration for more than three decades.

The agency said the application showed “a lack of applicable details for proper agency review” and “impinges on the beginning of the calving and nesting season of wildlife using this area.”

• The plan: The seismic permit application was filed by Kuukpik Corp., a joint group consisting of SAExploration, the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and the Kaktovik Inupiat Corp.

• Long protected: ANWR was created under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960. In 1980, Congress provided additional protections to the 19 million-acre refuge but set aside a 1.5 million-acre section known as the “1002 area,” where billions of barrels of crude oil are believed to lie beneath the coastal plain, for study and future drilling if lawmakers approved it.

• Broken promise: The seismic application proposes to study all of the 1.5 million acres, not the smaller portion that the GOP tax law allows drilling in.

“This is the polar opposite of what was promised by drilling proponents,” said Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League. “Instead of a small footprint and a careful process, they want to deploy a small army of industrial vehicles and equipment with a mandate to crisscross every square inch of the refuge’s biological heart.”

TRUMP IMPOSES TARIFFS ON EUROPE, MEXICO, CANADA: The Trump administration announced Thursday it will impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union, Mexico and Canada after last-minute talks to avoid the tariffs made little progress this week.

The tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum are set to take effect at the end of Thursday on imports from the three U.S. trading allies.

• Oil and gas tie: The announcement will upset the oil and natural industry.

The American Petroleum Institute, the main trade group for the crude oil and natural gas industries, had urged Trump to allow countries to be permanently exempted from steel and aluminum tariffs.

• Why they care: Oil and gas companies rely on imported specialty steel for many of its products, including pipelines, refineries, and LNG export facilities.

KOREAN SOLAR PANEL MANUFACTURER TO BUILD PLANT IN GEORGIA: Solar panel maker Hanwha Q Cells Korea announced Wednesday it will build a factory in Georgia, in the latest sign of increased solar manufacturing in the U.S. since Trump imposed tariffs on imported solar panels in January.

• Game theory: The company said the plant is a strategic move to deal with Trump’s protectionist trade policies.

“The new manufacturing fab is testament to Hanwha Q Cells Korea’s commitment to the U.S. market, in spite of the recently imposed trade barriers,” the company said.

The U.S. was the second-largest solar market in 2017, and “one of the most important markets for Hanwha Q Cells Korea,” the company said. Construction will begin this year, and the facility is scheduled to be completed in 2019.

• Trend set: Other solar panel makers have made similar moves. JinkoSolar, a Chinese company, announced this year that it would open a manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Fla., and create about 200 jobs.

SunPower, America’s No. 2 commercial solar power company, intends to buy SolarWorld, one of two financially ailing U.S. solar manufacturers that petitioned the Trump administration to put tariffs on imported solar panels. The combined companies plan to boost solar panel production in Oregon.

TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT SENDS FUEL-EFFICIENCY PROPOSAL TO WHITE HOUSE: The Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent its plans to revise fuel-efficiency standards to the White House for review Wednesday, according to a posting in the Federal Register.

NHTSA is working with the EPA on fuel economy rules for model year 2022-2025 cars.

• Get out of here: The EPA last month rejected strict Obama administration fuel efficiency standards, ruling them “not appropriate” because the agency says automakers can’t achieve them.

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

The EPA and NHTSA must harmonize new standards, which are expected to be weaker.

CHEVRON SHAREHOLDERS REJECT CLIMATE CHANGE RESOLUTIONS: Chevron shareholders rejected two climate change resolutions at the oil giant’s annual meeting Wednesday, upsetting activists who are pressuring fossil fuel companies to curb crude oil production and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• What they wanted: One of the proposals asked for the company to “better monitor, mitigate, and reduce its methane emissions in light of the significant climate change impact of methane and Chevron’s failure to disclose action to reduce methane in comparison to its peers.”

The second resolution requested that Chevron disclose a plan to its shareholders on how it will transition to more renewable energy in line with the Paris climate deal.

TRUMP’S FORMER ENERGY CHIEF ‘BEEFS UP’ POLICY STAFF: Tom Pyle’s conservative Institute for Energy Research announced Wednesday that it is beefing up its policy staff to play a bigger role in the energy policy debate.

• Becoming a ‘leading’ voice: “It is an exciting time at IER with staff growth that will propel us forward and set us up for success in the coming years,” said Pyle, Trump’s former head of transition at the Department of Energy.

• Policy punchers: The new additions include Dan Kish, former energy adviser to House Speaker Paul Ryan; Kenny Stein, previously with ALEC, who will be director of policy; and Jordan McGillis and Alexander Stevens joining as analysts.

• Communications: Erin Amsberry is joining as communications manager.Amsberry comes from the American Enterprise Institute.

ZINKE’S HAPPY TRAILS: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke designated 19 national recreational trails in 17 states on Wednesday. That adds almost 400 miles to the national recreation trails system, which includes 1,000 trails in all 50 states.

RUNDOWN

Associated Press Puerto Rico grid ‘teetering’ despite $3.8 billion repair job

New York Times Tesla fixes Model 3 breaking flaw, getting Consumer Reports to change review

Reuters Late to teapot party, ExxonMobil breaks with tradition in wooing China’s oil market

New York Times Your recycling gets recycled, right? Maybe or maybe not

Reuters Exxon CEO urges New York prosecutor to rethink climate change probe