Energy industry holds Trump to overturning Obama’s green agenda

The coal industry, oil and gas advocates and a major swath of the utility industry are lining up with their 2017 wish lists for the new Trump presidency.

“We are preparing a long list of regulations that we would like to have the incoming administration take a look at in terms of how they affect our flexibility to serve our members,” said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, representing nearly 1,000 power utilities in 47 states.

“We’ve had concerns with a number of what we think are examples of regulatory overreach,” Matheson told the Washington Examiner. “The Clean Power Plan is, of course, the most significant or prominent example.”

Matheson’s trade group is one of the dozens of industry groups and nearly 30 states opposing the Obama administration’s climate rules, and he wants President-elect Trump to act swiftly to take the power plan out of commission. Those opposing the power plan argue that it oversteps the federal government’s authority to regulate the states and is unconstitutional.

Trump has said he will take action against the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate plan in his first 100 days, but as Inauguration Day approaches, a number of fossil fuel advocates want that action to begin on day one of the administration.

“An executive order on day one is critical,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in a letter to Vice President-elect Mike Pence last month, asking that as soon as Trump is sworn in, a presidential order should block the power plan. “The order should explain that it is the administration’s view that the (Clean Power Plan) is unlawful and that EPA lacks authority to enforce it. The executive order is necessary to send an immediate and strong message to states and regulated entities that the administration will not enforce the rule.” The letter was signed by 24 Republican attorneys general who are fighting the rule in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Beyond the climate rule, business groups want the termination of the EPA’s Waters of the U.S. rule, which has been a major thorn in the GOP’s side over the last year. A court order is preventing the regulation from moving ahead in most states, but groups need Trump to provide them with certainty that it won’t advance again. The water regulation extends the EPA’s enforcement authority over small ponds and ditches on farm and ranch lands, raising uncertainty for land and energy developers alike.

Matheson said the power plant and the water rules are important for Trump to tackle, but scores of smaller-profile regulations also need the new administration’s attention.

“There is a whole host of regulations: applications of Endangered Species Act, Waters of the U.S., it’s a long list, but it’s an important category of where we worry about the overreach that has taken place,” Matheson said. He also thinks there are problems with the EPA’s national air quality rules, including those for controlling “regional haze” that need to be corrected, or done away with, he said.

Others, such as coal magnate Bob Murray, president and CEO of Ohio’s Murray Energy, want Trump to target renewable energy subsidies as issue number one. “Most importantly, eliminate subsidies for windmills and solar panels and all of the pay-to-play billionaires in California who have been living off of the taxpayer,” Murray said in November after Trump won the election.

“This was not only a victory for our coal miners, this was a victory for all Americans,” said Murray, who owns one of the largest coal mining companies in the country. He said there is room for all types of energy, as long as they are treated equally.

But the mining industry’s top trade group is focused first and foremost on eliminating regulations before going after the renewable industry.

The coal industry specifically wants Trump to take on President Obama’s eleventh-hour regulations on miners as soon as he enters office, while keeping his promise of repealing previously enacted climate regulations that target coal plants in favor of renewable energy.

The National Mining Association, which has been meeting with the Trump transition team along with other fossil energy groups, lists its top priority as the repeal of the coal-mining stream protection rule.

The general public may not have heard of the rule, but once it takes effect it will make it nearly impossible to mine in states such as West Virginia and Kentucky. The rule was finalized the week before Christmas, forcing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to make a pledge of passing a resolution in January to repeal the regulation.

“I will continue to do all I can to fight back against the Obama administration’s repeated and gratuitous attacks on our coal miners, whose only crime is working hard to maintain a reliable source of energy and provide for their families,” McConnell said last month after the rule was made final.

Luke Popovich, long-time spokesman for the mining group, said having the Trump administration rescind the stream protection rule is the highest priority in discussions with the president-elect’s transition team.

He said the list of priorities include, first, repealing the stream rule. Second, “rescind” the Clean Power Plan, which is the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate change agenda, directing states to cut greenhouse gas emissions one-third by 2030.

The power plan would close dozens of coal-fired power plants. And along with other regulations imposed under the Obama administration, would further decimate the nation’s fossil power plant fleet in favor of solar and other zero-emission resources. Many scientists blame greenhouse gases emitted from burning fossil fuels for driving manmade climate change.

Third, the coal group wants the Trump White House to “lift the executive order imposing a moratorium on federal coal leases.” The moratorium was established last year, preventing the federal government from issuing any new federal mining permits until the Interior Department calculates the additional cost of coal mining from climate change. The added environmental costs would be added into the lease sales, raising the cost of mining in the United States.

The oil and natural industry is also making its voice heard. Drillers wants Trump to support free markets in moving his energy agenda forward. “Our message to the new administration and Congress is simple: Markets, not government mandates, are the best way to achieve our nation’s energy, economic and environmental goals,” said Jack Gerard, the president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil and natural gas trade group in Washington.

“The good news is that choosing the best way forward isn’t a matter of guesswork,” Gerard said 10 days after Trump won the election Nov. 8. “We know how to lead the world in oil and natural gas production and refining and emissions reduction at a time of economic growth. It’s called today’s reality. And we have a potent ally, the American voter.”

What Gerard wants is what his group and others have criticized the Obama administration for not doing: Recognizing the benefits of the U.S. becoming an energy super power because of oil and gas production from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The drilling process uses a combination of water and sand that is injected deep underground to break up shale rock and release the fossil fuels trapped inside.

Fracking has been demonized by the Democrats and environmental groups who see it as environmentally detrimental, while cheap natural gas from fracking has brought greenhouse gas emissions to a 25-year low, according to the Energy Information Administration, the Energy Department’s analytical arm. Gerard wants to eliminate regulations that prevent the oil and gas revolution from continuing, including regulations that would force drillers to eliminate methane leaks.

The EPA sees the leaks as a major source of potent greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. But the industry says the rules are duplicative and unnecessary, given that it has already applied its own standards for capturing methane without EPA involvement. More regulations would lead to increased cost and uncertainty, according to drillers.

Matheson added that infrastructure also will be a big need and is something he is raising with the Trump transition team.

Upgrading the electric grid and increasing broadband access is a major priority for the co-op utilities, which operate a big chunk of the nation’s electricity distribution power lines. It’s an area ripe for infrastructure investment, as building up the integrity of the grid against cyberattack, for example, needs to be a focus of the Trump agenda, Matheson said.

Trump has pledged to improve the nation’s infrastructure. And given the outpouring of support he received from rural communities to win him the election, the co-ops are looking to play a major role in setting those priorities.

“That’s something we want to have included in this conversation in terms of what we think is important to rural America,” Matheson said.