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WHEELER SET TO GO EVEN FURTHER THAN PRUITT IN RESTRICTING USE OF SCIENCE: Environmental groups didn’t think it could get much worse than a Scott Pruitt-era proposal to make wholesale changes to what types of science the Environmental Protection Agency can use in policymaking.
That was until they learned EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler plans to expand that proposal, applying the restrictions to nearly all science the agency uses.
The EPA’s plans, as first reported Monday night by the New York Times, build on Pruitt’s so-called “science transparency” rule. That proposal — which Pruitt rushed through White House review during the height of his ethical controversies — would have barred the EPA from using certain types of science in policymaking if the data isn’t made publicly available.
The proposal would be a victory for Republicans and many in industry, however, who have long complained that the science the EPA relies on to set pollution limits isn’t available to be replicated or reanalyzed.
The EPA is pushing back on the Times report, defending its proposal. In a press release Tuesday, the agency confirmed it has sent a supplemental proposal to the White House for review, but said increased transparency will only strengthen the EPA’s science and policy.
“By requiring transparency, scientists will be required to publish hypothesis and experimental data for other scientists to review and discuss, requiring the science to withstand skepticism and peer review,” the EPA release said.
Environmentalists, though, say the proposal’s expanded reach would be detrimental to the EPA’s science.
“If this rule is finalized, it would be one of the most damaging and far-reaching policy changes enacted by the administration,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy. “It would put the entire enterprise of developing science-based public health standards at risk.”
If you remember: The EPA’s initial proposal sparked uproar in the scientific community. That’s because scientists say it would undermine the agency’s ability to use epidemiology studies, or scientific research that is based on the study of human health.
For much of that research, scientists say, the data can’t be made public because the studies are rooted in subjects’ personal health information that they don’t want made public or can’t be revealed publicly because of healthcare laws.
And those types of studies — which analyze how pollution impacts human health — are often the ones that underpin the EPA’s most significant regulations, including air pollution limits from power plant smokestacks and restrictions on toxic chemicals.
That same reason is also why some Republican lawmakers and other conservatives have pushed so strongly for the changes the EPA is now proposing.
Steve Milloy, a member of the Trump EPA transition team, called news of the EPA’s new plans “yuge winning,” adding he and his allies have worked for more than 20 years to bring about the effort.
The EPA’s plans would ban “the science fraud used to destroy the US coal industry,” Milloy said in a tweet.
But the EPA proposal is far from the finish line: Environmentalists are already saying the EPA’s new plans are even flimsier legally than Pruitt’s rushed proposal.
The EPA’s draft plans are rooted entirely in the 1960s “Federal Housekeeping Statute,” a law that environmental attorneys say the agency doesn’t have any expertise in and might not even be able to use.
“Looks like this dumpster fire of a Trump EPA rulemaking is even worse than it looked,” tweeted Sean Hecht, co-director of UCLA Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. The housekeeping statute “applies only to ‘executive departments’—which doesn’t include EPA…”
Avi Zevin, an attorney with the New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, argued the EPA shouldn’t get any leeway from the courts for its science proposal. Though he did note that the EPA’s plans cite the same authority that underlies the Mueller investigation.
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2020 WATCH…INSIDE THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN’S PLANNED SHIFT ON CLIMATE: President Trump’s reelection campaign is feeling pressure on the issue of climate change. It plans to adopt pro-environment messaging to win key states such as Florida and appease important voter demographics that are moving toward Democrats, Josh learned in a series of conversations from sources inside and outside the campaign, as reported in our latest magazine.
What is the campaign responding to? “Republicans may not be able to grow their base in 2020, but they can’t afford to lose any voters,” said Dan Eberhart, CEO of the oil services firm Canary and a Trump donor. “The voting block that’s at biggest risk is educated suburban women who have been turned off by Trump. GOP polling shows that they care about climate.”
The campaign is also reacting to pressure from Republicans in Congress who have sought to propose their own agenda to counter the Green New Deal, which could be overshadowed by Trump’s rhetoric expressing skepticism of climate change.
“The campaign definitely needs to recognize that people are concerned about climate change and develop reasonable, effective ways to address the issue,” said a Trump campaign adviser.
Let’s be real: Trump, a vocal climate skeptic, won’t be changing policies. This is more about emphasis and rhetoric.
“There is no question, once you have a nominee on the Left, we will draw a contrast,” said a person familiar with the campaign’s thinking. “It clearly is an issue that motivates a lot of Democrats, and we have seen it with some Republicans and independents. We want to showcase the cost of Democratic policies and contrast that with jobs created by the president’s policies.”
The bottom line: Polling shows worrying signs for Trump to win back suburban voters in districts that flipped from Republican in 2016 to Democrat in the 2018 midterm elections. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a close Trump ally who has seen the polling, has ordered the Republican conference to develop a political strategy on how to address climate to help win back control of the chamber.
GOP leaders foresee the strategy being a blueprint for Trump to follow. The goal is to “help build a consensus on climate change which would include the most conservative wing of the party,” said a person familiar with GOP thinking, to rebut the accusation that “we aren’t doing anything.”
‘PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING’ ON EPA ENFORCEMENT INITIATIVES: Beveridge & Diamond attorney John Cruden, who ran the Justice Department’s environment division during the Obama administration, isn’t too concerned the EPA, under Wheeler’s leadership, shifted some of its national enforcement priorities. But he urged agency enforcement officials to offer periodic updates on progress, so the public can judge whether the EPA is following through.
At the end of the day, the EPA’s enforcement report card is “whether the environment is improving,” Cruden said.
And one way to quickly grade the agency is to see whether its leadership is directing dollars and staff to its stated enforcement priorities, Cruden told an enforcement conference Tuesday.
In general, critics have accused the Trump administration of pulling back on environmental enforcement. That’s in part because EPA leadership has shifted focus to “compliance assistance” for industry, a strategy environmentalists see as a cop-out to avoid punishing polluting companies.
The EPA as a whole, though, has fewer resources: That automatically affects the work agency enforcement officials are able to do.
“We are a much smaller agency. There’s no doubt about that,” said Rosemarie Kelley, the EPA’s civil enforcement director. Over the last several years, the agency has shrunk from 18,000 employees to fewer than 14,000. During the Trump administration alone, more than 1,000 staff have left the EPA.
“There’s no way to say that doesn’t impact what we do,” Kelley said of staff cuts.
But she also said Wheeler has emphasized raising the public profile of the EPA’s enforcement work, to let people know “the enforcement cop is on the beat, and we are taking cases and there are significant problems we are still finding.”
WE DID SPARK THE CALIFORNIA FIRES: PG&E, California’s largest utility, is setting aside $13.5 billion in a fund for victims of wildfires sparked by its electric lines and equipment.
The San Francisco-based utility is creating the fund as part of a massive restructuring plan as it navigates bankruptcy proceedings, according to Bloomberg.
State investigators have found PG&E responsible for numerous fires in the past three years, including the 2018 Camp fire that killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has threatened a government takeover of the company if it fails to put forward a workable reorganization plan. Newsom has alleged that it failed to conduct routine maintenance and upgrades on its power lines out of “corporate greed.”
‘2050 IS TOO LATE’…BIDEN TAKES HEAT AT TOWN HALL: Climate change protesters interrupted former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday night.
While explaining his plan to combat climate change, protesters at a CNN Veterans Day town hall broke in to interrupt Biden, apparently because they considered his plan weak.
“We have to get to net-zero emissions by 2050,” Biden said.
Protesters jumped in immediately after to chant, “2050 is too late, climate change will seal our fate!” The chant continued for a short time before the room regained order.
Biden’s net-zero by 2050 goal is shared by the majority of the Democratic field, and follows the advice of the U.N. climate panel. But the protests show Biden is struggling to overcome the perception that he would follow the Obama administration’s path to combat climate change, which many activists thought was too weak.
HEAR ME OUT ON CARBON TAX: More than 800 volunteers from the Citizens Climate Lobby are on Capitol Hill Tuesday to lobby for legislation that follows its carbon tax and dividend plan.
The volunteers from across the country plan to have nearly 500 meetings to make the case for for the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, the straightforward bipartisan carbon tax proposal that has 69 co-sponsors in the House, the most of the seven carbon tax bills that have been introduced in Congress. However, don’t expect new Republican endorsements to come out this week, keeping retiring Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida as the only GOP co-sponsor.
Check out our write-up of a recent Columbia University study on the emissions-reduction potential of the plan.
The Rundown
New York Times EPA to tighten limits on science used to write public health rules
Associated Press At least 1,680 dams across the US pose potential risk
Wall Street Journal Frackers prepare to pull back, exacerbating a slowdown in US oil growth
Bloomberg Another big mining company hints at a coal-free future
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | NOVEMBER 13
10 a.m. 406 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing entitled “Preserving and Expanding Clean, Reliable Nuclear Power: U.S. Commercial Nuclear Reactor Performance Trends and Safety Initiatives.”
10 a.m. 2318 Rayburn. The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will hold a hearing entitled “Strengthening Transparency or Silencing Science? The Future of Science in EPA Rulemaking.”
2 p.m. 1324 Longworth. The House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands holds an oversight hearing entitled “Roads to Ruin: Examining the Impacts of Removing National Forest Roadless Protections.”
THURSDAY | NOVEMBER 14
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. 1601 K Street, NW. K&L Gates, the Energy Storage Association, and the Edison Electric Institute host this year’s third annual Energy Storage Conference.
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to consider the nomination of Dan Brouillette to be Secretary of Energy.
12:30 p.m. 1333 H Street, NW. The Center for American Progress, Environmental Defense Fund, League of Conservation Voters, and Sierra Club host a discussion on “How to Build a 100 Percent Clean Future,” featuring Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, Colorado Congressman Joe Neguse, and New York Congressman Paul Tonko.
