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EPA CLAIMS REPLACEMENT FOR OBAMA COAL RULE WILL SAVE MONEY, REDUCE POLLUTION: The Trump administration officially rolled out its replacement for the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature initiative to combat climate change, with claims that the revision would save money while also slightly reducing carbon dioxide pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday morning released its plan, renamed the “Affordable Clean Energy Rule,” saying that it would provide $400 million in annual benefits while reducing carbon emission levels by up to 1.5 percent by 2030. President Trump is expected to tout the new rule at a rally in coal-friendly West Virginia Tuesday night.

“The ACE Rule would restore the rule of law and empower states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide modern, reliable, and affordable energy for all Americans,” said EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “Today’s proposal provides the states and regulated community the certainty they need to continue environmental progress while fulfilling President Trump’s goal of energy dominance.”

What’s being replaced: The more ambitious 2015 Clean Power Plan, which was never implemented because of a Supreme Court stay, required states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, by shifting away from coal plants to natural gas and renewable energy.

It was the pledge that underpinned the U.S.’ commitment to the Paris climate change agreement before Trump rejected the deal. The Trump administration argues that Obama based the Clean Power Plan on an overbroad interpretation of the Clean Air Act, and its new rule fits more squarely into what the law allows for.

Under Trump’s plan, states come first: The Trump EPA replacement plan gives more power to states to regulate their coal plants.

The rewritten rule will achieve more modest carbon reduction impacts because it regulates power plants individually, instead of pushing for broad changes to the U.S. electricity mix, which is already naturally shifting away from coal to cheaper and cleaner alternatives.

The EPA would mandate heat rate improvements in power plants, enabling them to run more efficiently by burning less coal to produce the same amount of electricity.

And it would ease regulations that force power plants to undergo new pollution reviews when they upgrade facilities.

The reality: Critics say the proposal would not significantly cut carbon emissions because it would help keep alive coal plants that would otherwise retire. Even coal supporters, however, admit the more limited regulation won’t entice new coal development, although it may delay some retirements.

The Trump EPA’s proposal still faces a 60-day public comment period before being finalized.

NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA VOW LEGAL FIGHT OVER COAL REPLACEMENT RULE: Democratic state officials quickly vowed Tuesday to sue the Trump administration for proposing a less-stringent replacement to Barack Obama’s signature initiative to combat climate change.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, whose state is a national leader on combating climate change, said the Trump EPA’s proposal amounts to a “declaration of war.”

“This is a declaration of war against America and all of humanity – it will not stand,” Brown said in a Twitter post. “Truth and common sense will triumph over Trump’s insanity.”

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood pledged to file suit if the proposal is adopted, she said, “in order to protect New Yorkers, and all Americans, from the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change.”

In addition to slowing the pace of carbon pollution reduction, the EPA acknowledged the weaker rule would lead to a potential rise in soot and other particulate matter that contribute to health issues such as asthma, although the agency has other means to regulate those.

The environmental community is backing the governors’ initiative: The Trump plan “will not stop American cities, states, and companies from charting their own course with science, rather than politics, as their guide,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund.

“Nearly 500 companies have committed to set science-based climate targets,” Roberts said. “Leaders of states, cities and companies representing over half of our citizens and one third of our economy are firmly committed to the goals of the Paris Agreement. These engines of the American economy aren’t waiting for Washington.”

Republicans are ‘grateful’: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, long a foe of Obama-era environmental regulations, praised Trump Tuesday for rolling back one of the biggest rules governing carbon emissions.

McConnell, R-Ky., said Obama’s Clean Power Plan and “intrusive regulatory regime” were aimed at ending America’s coal industry that’s concentrated in Appalachian states, including Kentucky.

“That’s why I am so grateful that, today, the Trump administration is unveiling its plan to pare back this unfair, unworkable, and likely illegal policy,” McConnell said in a Senate floor speech.

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WILL CRYPTOCURRENCY DRIVE UP ENERGY COSTS? As the new Trump energy plan was being dropped at EPA, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was probing something further afield — the potential bitcoin threat to the energy grid.

Energy chairwoman Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, raised the issue of whether or not an increase in the “mining” used to generate bitcoins could raise the cost of electricity around the nation.

“This is part of the complication,” said Murkowski. She said it is important to understand what the long-term prognosis is for bitcoin mining increasing energy demand and causing spikes in electricity use.

Bitcoin mining: Mining is an electricity-intensive process in which computer drives and servers are linked together to create cryptocurrency by solving algorithmic puzzles.

Utilities are on the hook: If utilities are forced to build out new infrastructure to support the server farms required to develop cryptocurrency, it could lead energy firms to raise rates for all consumers, Murkowski said.

“What is the long-term future here?” she asked. “Do the utilities plan for this?”

Murkowski said “some of the fears” involve how the grid addresses energy demand right now, without knowing the impacts in the future.

Cost recovery: Since utilities recover the cost of investments over time, sometimes decades, they could be left with stranded costs if their investments are not needed after a few years.

The experts who testified at the Tuesday hearing were of the mind that more study was required to answer Murkowski’s questions. It is not for certain what the final technology could look like in a few years, and whether mining could become less of an energy drain.

But the energy demand is enormous: Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, pointed out that one of the experts on the panel had written a study that the total energy demand for bitcoin mining in the country was greater than the entire state of Ohio. Portman said that fact was alarming.

ENDANGERED SPECIES LAW COSTING THE ECONOMY HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, SAYS CEI: Protecting endangered species could be costing the economy hundreds of billions of dollars more than the federal government’s official estimates suggest, according to a new study released Tuesday.

The costs of listing species as endangered are way too low: The libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates that the cost of protecting animals on the endangered species list skyrockets from tens of billions to hundreds of billions of dollars annually when factoring in broader economic cost, such as lost investment opportunities for energy development.

“Whatever the [Endangered Species Act’s] cost is, it is much larger than generally acknowledged, and likely measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars,” the report concludes. “Unfortunately, the ESA’s poor record of recovering species does not indicate that we are getting what we pay for.”

Federal estimates leave out too much: Federal estimates of costs are limited to only the bureaucratic costs of placing species on the list of threatened or endangered animals.

“They do not account for revisions such as changing a species from endangered to threatened or vice versa, expanding critical habitat designations, or the dollar costs associated with the regulations necessary to throw the process into reverse and remove the species from the list when and if it is ever recovered,” the report continues.

INDUSTRY AIMS TO TAKE CALIFORNIA TO THE SUPREME COURT OVER LEAD RULING:

Manufacturers called on the Supreme Court Monday to reverse a California court’s landmark decision ordering companies to pay for lead-paint removal in the state.

The National Association of Manufacturers filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Monday to review and overturn the 2017 California appeals court ruling, which the group argues is an abuse of the legal system that sets a bad precedent for all industry and the broader economy.

The high court should shut down baseless litigation: “The court should hear the case and help shut the door on this baseless litigation,” said Lindsey de la Torre, executive director of the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, launched last year by the larger manufacturers’ trade association to push back against public nuisance litigation in the states.

What the California court decided: The billion-dollar California ruling applied to companies that sold lead paint prior to 1978, while it was still legal to do so in the United States. The California court ordered lead paint manufacturers ConAgra, NL Industries, and Sherwin-Williams to pay $1.15 billion into a state fund to remove the paint from homes in 10 counties and cities.

PRUITT ONLY MADE ONE CALL TO WHITE HOUSE FROM SECURE PHONE BOOTH: Former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt didn’t make much use of his $43,000 secure phone booth the agency installed in his office.

He only placed one five-minute phone call to the White House from the phone, according to newly released emails from the EPA obtained by the Washington Post. It’s unclear how many calls he received on the phone.

This story isn’t a joke: The secure phone booth was one of the enduring misuses of taxpayer money during Pruitt’s scandal-plagued tenure. The Government Accountability Office determined the EPA broke appropriations law by buying the phone booth without notifying Congress. Pruitt defended his use of the phone booth by saying he needed to discuss classified information and conduct private conversations with the White House.

He testified to Congress in April that he was unaware of the phone booth’s expensive price tag, and would have canceled the purchase had he known.

VENEZUELA AGREES TO PAYMENT OVER SEIZED OIL PROJECTS: Venezuela’s state oil company on Monday agreed to pay $2 billion to American oil company ConocoPhillips for seizing of its properties, Reuters reported.

More than a decade ago, Petróleos de Venezuela, or Pdvsa, seized several oil projects from ConocoPhillips without providing compensation.

That move resulted in a tit-for-tat: A tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce in April ruled in an arbitration case that Pdvsa owed the money to ConocoPhillips.

To enforce the claim, the American company retaliated and seized most of Pdvsa’s oil assets in the Caribbean.

Which harmed global oil supply: Now that Pdvsa agreed to pay, Venezuela can export oil from its facilities that were seized, which could help restore some of its lost exports that have contributed to global supply concerns that could raise prices.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, but its production has plummeted in recent months due to a political and economic crisis.

AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER ABANDONS CLIMATE CHANGE PLAN: Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull abandoned his push for a climate change plan Monday after being pressured by conservatives who threatened to topple his government over the plan.

“We are not going to propose legislation purely for the purpose of it being defeated,” Turnbull told journalists, in comments reported by the New York Times.

Another setback for Paris agreement: Turnbull’s about-face is another example of countries, like the U.S., backing away from their unbinding carbon emission reduction pledges under the Paris climate change agreement.

His plan would have aimed to reduce emission levels in 2030 to 26 percent below 2005 levels. Opposition parties criticized Turnbull for rejecting the plan at a time when Australia has been suffering from rising ocean temperatures and record drought. Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter.

RUNDOWN

New York Times Behind most wildfires, a person and a spark

Washington Post Sea level rise is already costing property owners on the coast

NPR Activists have a new strategy to block gas pipelines: state’s rights

Reuters U.S. tariffs cast a cloud over solar electronics launch

Wall Street Journal Some Tesla suppliers fret about getting paid

The Guardian Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record