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UNDOING TRUMP ROLLBACKS WOULD TAKE YEARS: Joe Biden has proposed a sweeping climate plan. But if elected, his administration would likely have to spend years undoing President Trump’s environmental rollbacks before he could implement it.
In fact, much of a “climate reregulation” blueprint proposed Wednesday by Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law focuses on revoking Trump administration rulemakings that peeled back Obama-era climate mandates or sought to close the door on stricter emissions requirements.
It’s not all that surprising: Federal agencies can’t just wipe out their predecessors’ regulations on a whim.
Trump has had to go through the same, multi-step rulemaking process to undo regulations that the Obama administration had to complete to put those mandates in place — a reality that has often frustrated the president and some of his officials, who want to see quick results.
It’s taken nearly four years for the Trump administration to roll back the big Obama climate rules. The EPA finished one of those, undoing methane requirements for oil and gas operators, just earlier this month.
There are things Biden could do on Day One: The Columbia report drafts a climate change executive order Biden could issue first thing to rescind several Trump executive orders that, for example, allowed energy infrastructure projects to bypass environmental reviews and encouraged fossil fuel development.
Biden could also start the process to rejoin the Paris climate agreement on Day One, which he has said he would do. And a climate executive order would set a new tone for the government, by demanding federal agencies prioritize efforts to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But it could be a while before Biden put forward stronger climate mandates: The former vice president has, for example, said he would strengthen fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas limits for passenger cars. Before he could do that, however, his EPA and Transportation Department would have to rescind Trump administration’s weaker rules and restore the ability of California and other states to set their own stricter standards.
The same is true for power plants. A Biden EPA would have to eliminate the Affordable Clean Energy rule, the Trump administration’s narrower carbon emissions limits for the sector, before replacing it with something stronger.
A couple caveats: If Congress were to act and give federal agencies new authority to deal with climate change, it’s possible a Biden administration could skip some of these steps and immediately begin crafting stronger climate mandates. But it’s difficult to predict whether Democrats will take both chambers, how quickly they would act, and what policies they would ultimately land on.
Federal judges could also give a Biden administration an easier way out. Most of Trump’s climate rollbacks are facing legal challenges now. If a federal court invalidated any of those or sent them back to the agencies for a rewrite, it could shorten Biden’s timeline for setting stronger rules.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) and Abby Smith (@AbbySmithDC). Email [email protected] or [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
HURRICANE MAKES LANDFALL AND THREATENS US FUEL-MAKING HUB: Hurricane Laura made landfall over Cameron, Louisiana Thursday morning as America’s fuel-making and petrochemical hub along the Gulf Coast braced itself for damage.
As of Thursday mid-morning, Laura has weakened from a Category 4 hurricane but remains a threat as it is making its way further inland.
“Hurricane Laura remains a deadly hurricane with devastating coastal storm surges, destructive winds, and flash flooding,” the White House said in a statement. Trump is visiting FEMA headquarters to receive a briefing on the hurricane.
A 14-year-old girl is the first known fatality from the storm, but Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said he expects there will be other fatalities.
Over 600,000 customers are without power, with more than 520,000 outages in Louisiana and more than 139,000 outages in Texas.
Energy in the eye of the storm: The area of coastline in the path of destruction accounts for about a quarter of U.S. oil refining capacity and half of North America’s production of ethylene, a material used in plastics, according to Bloomberg.
Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG terminal, the country’s largest, and Sempra Energy’s Cameron LNG facility are also nearby. Both have shut down operations and evacuated staff. The LNG plants are newly built and designed to withstand Category 5 storms, but dozens of refineries and some petrochemical facilities in the area are older. Motiva, Valero, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and others have shut down refineries in Texas and Louisiana.
About 84% of oil and 61% of gas produced offshore in the Gulf of Mexico has been shut-in, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
Deputy Energy Secretary Mark Menezes said the agency “stands ready” to authorize the release of oil from its emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which it has done before to respond to shortages caused by storms.
Pollution risks: Bel Edwards confirmed a chemical plant caught fire in the wake of the hurricane, and urged residents to shelter in place, the Associated Press reported.
The group Climate Power 2020 warns there are 109 Superfund sites in Laura’s path potentially vulnerable to flooding, which could leak toxic chemicals.
FACT-CHECKING REPUBLICANS’ ENERGY STATEMENTS AT CONVENTION: Republicans exaggerated Biden’s energy and climate change agenda in making the case during the third night of their convention that Democrats would impose costly regulations and mandates.
“Where this President achieved energy independence for the United States, Joe Biden would abolish fossil fuels, end fracking, and impose a regime of climate change regulations that would drastically increase the cost of living for working families,” said Vice President Mike Pence in his keynote address.
Point one: The U.S. imported 9.1 million barrels per day of petroleum from 90 countries last year, according to the Energy Information Administration. That was the lowest total level of imports since 1996. But as we saw during the price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia that worsened the pandemic-fueled oil price crash, the U.S. is still vulnerable to the whims of the global market.
Point two: Biden has not proposed to end fracking. His formal climate plan says he would ban new oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters, but not on private land, where most shale fracking occurs. About 8% of U.S. oil and 9% of natural gas were produced on federal land as of fiscal year 2018, according to the Bureau of Land Management.
Point three: Although Biden has proposed a strict target of eliminating carbon emissions from electricity by 2035, some liberals have criticized him for not doing enough to restrict production.
His zero-carbon target for the power sector would still allow for generation from coal or gas plants with carbon capture technology.
Bumper cars bonus: Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa also overstated Biden’s agenda, warning during a short address that Democrats with control of Washington would “essentially ban animal agriculture and eliminate gas-powered cars.”
Biden’s most recent climate plan calls for “accelerating the deployment of electric vehicles,” proposing the buildout of 500,000 new charging outlets, enhanced tax credits, and stricter fuel-efficiency standards.
Mandy Gunasekara, the chief of staff to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, directed Josh to a fact sheet associated with Biden’s plan, writing in a tweet, “it’s convoluted but there is nothing clearer than Biden’s plan to eliminate the internal combustion engine and all the fuels policies that go along with it.”
The fact sheet, however, states Biden would seek to ensure “100% of new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be zero emissions,” but it does not contain an overt restriction on existing internal combustion vehicles.
Gunasekara countered, “Banning ‘new’ sales of anything is the first step towards elimination.”
MORE NUCLEAR SETBACKS: America’s existing nuclear power fleet, the largest in the world, is continuing to succumb to economic challenges as the development of new small reactors to supplement them faces more setbacks.
Chicago-based Utility Exelon announced Thursday it is retiring two nuclear plants in Illinois in the fall of 2021: Byron Generating Station and Dresden Generating Station.
Dresden is licensed to operate for another decade and Byron for another 20 years. Together, they employ more than 1,500 full-time employees and 2,000 additional workers during refueling outages. Exelon also warned its LaSalle and Braidwood nuclear plants, also in Illinois, are at risk of early closure.
The utility says the early retirements are a result of “poorly conceived energy policies” and “market rules that favor polluting power plants over carbon-free nuclear energy.” Exelon says the two plants supply 30% of Illinois’ carbon-free electricity. Alex Gilbert, project manager of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, said closing the two plants would reduce the U.S.’ carbon-free generation by about 2%.
Exelon said the plants face revenue shortfalls in the “hundreds of millions of dollars” because of declining energy prices and market rules that allow fossil fuel plants to underbid zero-carbon sources in the PJM market. Those problems are “exacerbated” by a recent FERC ruling designed to combat state-level subsidy programs for nuclear and renewables by raising payments to non-subsidized sources of energy — primarily coal and gas plants.
Rita Baranwal, the Energy Department’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy, described the planned closures as “heartbreaking.
“This loss is a devastating blow to the state’s thriving nuclear power hub and significantly impacts surrounding communities by reducing jobs and economic support from nuclear,” Baranwal tweeted.
RELATED…NUSCALE PROJECT LOSES ANOTHER CUSTOMER: Another city, Lehi in Utah, has withdrawn from a coalition of small community-owned utilities planning to buy power from small nuclear reactors being developed by NuScale.
According to local news reports, Lehi City Councilman Mike Southwick motioned to withdraw the city from the project, saying, “There are too many variables and unknowns to stay in.”
Josh reported this week that NuScale recently learned its first customer, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, needed to push back the timeline for when it plans to operate the first reactor from 2026 to 2029. UAMPS, as the coalition is known, could still abandon the project altogether if costs don’t check out. One of UAMPS’ largest members, the city of Logan, Utah, has already withdrawn from the project, citing an increasing price tag.
US GETS STARTED ON ‘TRILLION TREES’: More than two dozen companies, cities, and organizations are embracing a pledge to help plant 1 trillion trees, a tactic to curb climate change that has even Trump’s blessing, Abby reports in a story this morning.
Altogether, the participants will plant, restore, and conserve more than 855 million trees in the United States by 2030. Their pledges form the basis of the U.S. chapter of the “1 Trillion Trees” initiative, or 1t.org, the first nationwide effort to make the goal a reality.
‘Trillion trees’ has broken through climate politics: Regrowing forests and planting trees generally has the backing of both Republicans and Democrats. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell are advising the U.S. chapter, along with officials from the Department of Agriculture and the United States Agency for International Development.
Trees can pack a big punch climate-wise: Currently, U.S. forests remove roughly 15% of the country’s carbon emissions each year. Jad Daley, CEO of American Forests, which is helping lead the U.S. chapter of 1t.org, said there’s potential to nearly double that rate of removal, to 27%.
“The single biggest pathway to do that is reforestation,” Daley told Abby. “If you think about it, it’s kind of simple math: The more trees that we have, the more carbon sucking devices that we have out there.”
DAINES PICKS FIGHT WITH BULLOCK OVER CARBON PRICING: Sen. Steve Daines called on Gov. Steve Bullock, his Democratic rival in Montana’s hotly contested Senate race, to reject carbon pricing plans recently proposed by the state’s Climate Solutions Council.
“Carbon pricing proposals undermine the free-market principles our nation was built upon, expand the reach of the federal government into Montanans’ daily lives, and disproportionately affect low-income households and energy-dependent, rural communities,” Daines wrote Bullock in a letter Wednesday. He called the climate council’s proposal a “gut punch” to Montana’s more than 35,000 oil, gas, and coal workers.
Some context: Daines is clearly trying to associate Bullock with climate policies the Republican senator considers “punitive.” Bullock established the state’s Climate Solutions Council last year and tasked it with proposing a climate plan that would, in part, bring the state to carbon-neutral electricity by 2035.
The council is recommending Montana explore state-level carbon pricing in the absence of a federal price, including whether it should join a regional carbon market (like the Northeast’s cap-and-trade program) or put a direct fee on carbon emissions in the state, according to a June draft of the proposal.
The Rundown
New York Times US flood strategy shifts to ‘unavoidable’ relocation of entire neighborhoods
Wall Street Journal Oil market’s wild swings subdued by options trading
Politico Turmoil consumes Chamber of Commerce as it backs Democrats
Reuters Honda goes small with first all-electric car
Bloomberg Walmart cut 230 million tons of emissions, with supplier help
Calendar
THURSDAY | AUG 27
The House and Senate are out.
