Daily on Energy: A last ditch effort to unravel EPA’s climate authority

Although the consensus for the last two years has been the EPA will not open, and unravel, the scientific consensus that it has the authority to regulate carbon emissions, known as the “endangerment finding,” Ebell believes there is still a chance, especially with a new climate commission revving up at the White House.

Andrew Wheeler, the EPA’s current administrator, says the agency’s climate finding is settled law, and will not reopen the finding. Even Scott Pruitt, Trump’s first EPA chief, didn’t find the idea that appealing.

“We disagree with that, and I believe the Trump campaign disagreed with that, and certainly the transition team disagreed with that,” Ebell told John in a recent interview.

The future of the endangerment finding is the “one remaining big question mark” hanging over the rest of Trump’s term, and a second term, assuming he gets one, is the way Ebell sees it.

Ebell, who heads the environment program at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, has a petition to reopen the endangerment finding before the EPA, which the agency has not responded to, yet. There are currently three petitions to reopen the endangerment finding, he says.

But it looks to be a long shot: Ebell argues that opening the endangerment finding is a Trump campaign promise that has gone unfulfilled. But he admits that Trump didn’t actually articulate it as a goal.

The Trump campaign had answered a question on the endangerment finding in a policy questionnaire sent to it by the free-market Institute for Energy Research. The questionnaire asked whether Trump would open the endangerment finding, in which the campaign answered, “yes.”

But that was at a time when the Trump campaign, Ebell admits, didn’t have much of a policy staff, and may not have possessed an understanding of the hurdles in front of it.

Nevertheless, Ebell has high hopes for the so-called “Happer Commission” being assembled by physicist William Happer within the White House’s National Security Council. His hope is that the group will challenge the government’s scientific studies that undergird the EPA endangerment finding.

Ebell has been an acquaintance of Happer’s for years, and has been in close contact with the commission as it is being established, although he did not disclose the details of those conversations.

But here is what he hopes to see come from the White House: Ebell hopes the Happer Commission, if launched, will be an “adversarial review of several government reports,” including the most recent Fourth National Climate Assessment, which found that climate change poses a threat to national security and the economy.

He believes if the Happer’s group begins to pick apart at some of the government’s reports underlying the EPA climate analysis, then it becomes more attractive to consider opening the endangerment finding.

“Remember the endangerment finding is based on a bunch of government scientific reports,” Ebell said. He noted that the EPA didn’t conduct the reports itself, but rather relies on climate science conducted by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Asking Trump to support the commission: Ebell led dozens of conservative groups on Monday in sending a letter to Trump, expressing support for the Happer climate panel, which they believe will provide a critical review of government climate reports.

“In our view, an independent review of these reports is long overdue,” the letter read. “Serious problems and shortcomings have been raised repeatedly in the past by highly-qualified scientists only to be ignored or dismissed by the federal agencies in charge of producing the reports.”

The letter included conservative groups like Freedom Works and Americans for Limited Government, but also climate change skeptics like the Heartland Institute.

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CALIFORNIA LEADS 19 STATES IN OPPOSING TRUMP’S ROLL-BACK OF CLIMATE RULES FOR NEW COAL PLANTS: California Attorney General Xavier Becerra led 19 states on Tuesday in opposing the EPA’s roll-back of Obama-era emission rules for new coal plants, referred to as a “defacto ban” on building new coal-fired power plants.

The state AGs asked EPA’s Wheeler to immediately withdraw the administration’s proposed roll-back of the regulation in joint comments, laying out a legal argument for why the administration’s actions are “arbitrary and capricious.”

The Trump administration is re-writing the rules to allow new coal plants to be be built without expensive carbon capture technologies to reduce greenhouse house gases blamed for causing global warming.

The AGs argue that EPA’s proposal would allow a new coal plant to emit 35 percent more carbon than possible under current law, even after EPA determined in 2015 that new plants are able to meet the current standard by using carbon capture technologies.

“The scientific community has given us a clear message to reduce emissions or face dire consequences,” said Becerra in a statement. “Yet, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler buries his head in the sand when confronted with this irrefutable scientific evidence.”

The emissions “backsliding” that the coal rule would cause “threatens progress” on climate change, where states like California can’t afford to reverse course, he added. “We can’t afford to ignore the wildfires, storms, floods, droughts, and suffocating air pollution. EPA must stop ignoring the facts and science and withdraw this reckless proposal,” Becerra said.

BISHOP WILLING TO WORK WITH DEMOCRATS ON CLIMATE ONCE THE ‘FLUFF’ HAS SETTLED: The top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee says he is willing to work with Democrats on climate change legislation, but not before they stop grandstanding and start working within the panel’s jurisdiction.

“When they finally get off the [public relations] fluff road, and start doing something of substance, we will respond with issues of substance,” Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, told John during an exclusive interview at his Capitol Hill office.

It’s not unrealistic that the GOP would work with Democrats on public lands legislation that addresses greenhouse gas emissions. “We did in the past, we’ll do it now, we’ll do it going forward,” Bishop said.

Read more of John’s interview with Bishop in Tuesday’s Washington Examiner magazine.

GM IS MOVING ‘AGGRESSIVELY’ ON EVS AND CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE: As Trump continues to pressure General Motors to keep open a plant in Ohio, the automaker is moving “aggressively” on electric vehicles and addressing one of the biggest shortcomings of the technology: A lack of charging infrastructure.

“We are moving aggressively in the space, and devoting more and more of our resources towards EVs, because we think it’s what consumers are going to want going forward,” Michael Ableson, GM’s vice president for EV charging and infrastructure, told Josh in a recent interview.

GM created the new role for Ableson last year. “It shows the company is thinking about what it takes to make EVs successful in a broad way, not just focusing on what takes to build or manufacture them,” Ableson said.

Charging key to success: Ableson recently attended the CERAWeek by IHS Markit energy industry conference in Houston, where he said that the success of GM’s plans to offer 20 different EV models by 2023 is contingent on the deployment of more charging infrastructure and making the charging experience more convenient.

For example, GM in January reached a preliminary agreement to work with charging networks EVgo, ChargePoint, and Greenlots, which possess data on the location of charging stations and their availability. GM wants to take that data and make it available to drivers of its new Chevy Bolt EV model, to be projected on a screen inside the cars, so that Bolt drivers could access information on chargers across networks, all in one place.

“This will take friction out of the whole charging experience,” Ableson said.

The company, however, does not plan to build its own charging network dedicated specifically for GM’s electric vehicles, because he said it’s too expensive relative to the potential benefit to consumers.

Convenience is key: Ableson said GM’s goal is to make charging a more convenient experience than pumping gas, noting that charging can occur anywhere — even at home or work.

“There a lot of opportunities as we go forward to make the charging experience an even better experience than what people are used to with gas engine vehicles,” he said.

REPUBLICAN SENATORS OPPOSE EPA’S WEAKENING OF COAL PLANT RULES: Republican senators joined with Democrats Monday to press the EPA to withdraw a controversial proposal to re-evaluate Obama-era regulations meant to reduce the amount of air pollution emitted by coal power plants.

Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., co-authored a letter with Democrats to EPA’s Wheeler warning that revisiting the Obama administration’s mercury and air toxics rule, or MATS, would harm public health.

The opposition from Collins and Tillis, who face tough re-election fights in purple states in 2020, is significant because it shows that some Republicans are willing to push back on elements of the EPA’s deregulatory agenda. Alexander is retiring.

Americans are “breathing cleaner air” and their “health is better” because of the Obama rule, which was imposed in 2011, the senators wrote.

“It makes no sense to take any action that could lead to the weakening of mercury emissions standards,” added the senators.

Major coal-burning utilities, such as Duke Energy, based in Tillis’ home state of North Carolina, and American Electric Power, have also pushed back on re-evaluating the MATS rule.

SENATE PANEL TO HOLD CONFIRMATION HEARING FOR INTERIOR’S BERNHARDT: Republicans leading the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee scheduled a confirmation hearing Monday for Interior acting secretary David Bernhardt to stay on and continue leading the agency.

The hearing will occur Thursday, March 28 at 10 a.m.

Bernhardt has been serving as acting secretary since Ryan Zinke resigned from the Cabinet post last year amid an ethics investigation.

Bernhardt, a former lobbyist, has been criticized for his ties to the fossil fuel industry. Environmental groups and Democrats have vowed to fight his nomination, but he will likely be confirmed on the backs of Senate Republicans.

The Rundown

Roll Call Some climate change committee members are literally invested in the issue

Axios Natural gas company backs carbon tax that would cost it millions

Reuters Ship owners worry about clean fuel bill as ports ban ‘scrubbers’

Houston Chronicle California has the most clean energy jobs, while Texas is No. 2

Calendar

TUESDAY | March 19

All day, American University Federal Hall. Microgrid Global Innovation Forum, March 19-20.

WEDNESDAY | March 20

9 a.m., 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler will deliver remarks on improving global water security at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

9 a.m., American Council on Renewable Energy holds its annual policy forum.

THURSDAY | March 21

3 p.m., Webinar. Western Governors Association hosts Conservation Districts and Invasive Species Management webinar.

WEDNESDAY | March 27

2:30 p.m., 366 Dirksen. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Water and Power Subcommittee hearing on “The Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan.”

MONDAY | April 1

All day, The hydro-electric industry holds its annual policy conference Waterpower Week, April 1-3.