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TRUMP FACES GREEN BACKLASH OVER HIS WALL: President Trump’s planned address Tuesday night and visit to the southern border later this week to hype his proposed wall will highlight the opposition to the project from conservationists and environmental groups.

“The wall is a terrible idea that tears at the fabric of our American values and endangers our natural heritage, and the victims of the President’s obsession will be all around him at the border,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of the conservationist group Defenders of Wildlife, in a statement ahead of tonight’s address.

Fears about the wall’s effects on the environment and wildlife: Remember, the first lawsuit filed against Trump’s border wall was from environmental and conservation groups.

The issue they have with the Trump wall is that it cuts off natural migratory routes for species making a comeback on the Mexico-U.S. border, like the jaguar and the ocelot cat.

Clark points out that human communities will also be divided and the natural areas, like the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, will be destroyed by his “unnecessary and reckless border wall.”

103 lawsuits and counting: The Center for Biological Diversity, which has led litigation against the wall, recently touted that it has sued the Trump administration 103 times, including several attempts to block Homeland Security’ attempt to waive environmental and species protections to construct portions of the wall.

Kieran Suckling, the president of the group, tweeted last month that there legal campaign has managed to sue the administration more than once a week to protect endangered species, wild places, clean air and water, and the climate.

Latest wall suits: Defenders and the Center joined forces in suing Homeland Security in October in their latest legal volley opposing the wall, asking the District Court in Washington, D.C. to block the administration’s latest use of waivers of endangered species protections to build a 6-mile segment in Cameron, Texas.

It is unclear if they plan to use the segment to bolster their legal claims against the wall. So far, their lawsuits against the construction of the border wall have not been successful in convincing a federal judge, although oral arguments have been heard in California last summer.

A Defenders spokeswoman said the Texas case has not been heard, but is likely to be consolidated with a separate lawsuit in New Mexico, which heard oral arguments in December.

No decision has been made yet on the injunction against the wall in Texas.  

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OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY GROUP URGES END TO GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: The oil and gas industry is urging the Trump administration and Congress Tuesday to resolve the government shutdown before the energy industry is harmed.

“A longer shutdown is certainly not good for this industry,” said Mike Sommers, the president and CEO of API, the main trade group representing the oil and natural gas industry, in comments to reporters ahead of its 2018 State of American Energy event in Washington on Tuesday afternoon.

Sommers said the industry has not experienced any setbacks so far. Bloomberg reported Tuesday that the Trump administration is still processing oil and gas permits for drilling on federal land and water during the government shutdown.

But the industry fears a prolonged shutdown could slow progress at the EPA and Interior Department to rollback environmental regulations

TRUMP’S TRADE WAR IS ‘NOT GOOD FOR BUSINESS’ OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY SAYS: Sommers also encouraged the Trump administration on Tuesday to resolve its trade dispute with China, and to soften its broader approach to imposing barriers on markets for goods.

The oil and gas group’s CEO said he is “encouraged” by reports that U.S-China trade talks are making progress.

But, he said: “We want this dispute to end quickly.”

“We need to do it in way that doesn’t affect American economic leadership that is really driven by American energy leadership,” Sommers added.

LNG and infrastructure are affected: Sommers specifically expressed concern about China’s 10 percent tariff on American liquified natural gas, which it imposed in October in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs.

Industry officials have warned that Trump’s trade war with Beijing is threatening to discourage China, the world’s fastest growing LNG market, from signing long-term contracts with American developers.

“We need to make sure retaliatory tariffs on LNG don’t continue and certainly don’t expand,” Sommers said.

Sommers added that Trump’s 25 percent steel tariffs are raising costs for energy infrastructure that API says is needed to transport record U.S. production of oil and natural gas.

US CARBON EMISSIONS ROSE IN 2018, EVEN AS COAL PLANTS RETIRE: U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide rose sharply last year after three years of decline, even as a record number of coal plants retired.

Emissions increased by 3.4 percent in 2018 — the second largest annual gain in more than two decades — according to a preliminary estimate of data released Tuesday morning by the Rhodium Group. The report found U.S. emissions’ increases in all major sectors: electricity, transportation, buildings, and industrial.

Transportation continues to be the largest source of U.S. carbon emissions.

Natural gas gains are not enough: In the power sector, growing electricity demand was met mostly by natural gas, and not renewables. Natural gas emits half the amount of carbon as coal.

Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, said the report’s findings showcase the limitations of the climate change benefits from natural gas replacing coal in power markets.

“Cheap shale gas has benefits by displacing coal,” he wrote in a Twitter post. “But that does NOT make it a climate policy.”

Paris targets look tougher to reach: The Rhodium report projects that absent a major new policy, the U.S. this year will move farther away from meeting its emissions reductions target under the Paris Agreement of a 26 to 28 percent cut below 2005 levels by 2025.

“To meet the Paris Agreement target, the U.S. will need to reduce energy-related CO2  emissions by 2.6 percent on average over the next seven years,” the report said. “It is certainly feasible, but will likely require a fairly significant change in policy in the very near future and/or extremely favorable market and technological conditions.”

Gas industry fights back: API’s Sommers said the Rhodium report does not capture the full picture of natural gas’ environmental benefits, citing progress he said the industry is making in preventing leaks of methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide that is the main component of natural gas.

“We believe this industry is meeting the climate challenge head-on,” Sommers told reporters Tuesday in response to a question about rising U.S. emissions last year.

FRESH OUT OF CONGRESS, REPUBLICAN RYAN COSTELLO TO PROMOTE CARBON TAX: Recently retired Republican Rep. Ryan Costello on Tuesday will become managing director of Americans for Carbon Dividends, an advocacy organization established in June to lobby Congress to support a carbon tax plan proposed by the Climate Leadership Council, a group led by two former Republican secretaries of state, James Baker III and George Shultz.

“Climate change should be a top priority of Republicans in Congress, and that is why I am leaning in on this,” Costello told Josh in an interview. “The Republican Party needs to have a plan and lead on this issue.”

During his four years in Congress, Costello, who retired last year, was a rarity among House Republicans in that he led efforts to pass legislation to mitigate climate change.

What’s in the carbon tax plan: Americans for Carbon Dividends, the advocacy group Costello is joining, is promoting a carbon tax plan proposed by the Climate Leadership Council that is more politically palatable to some Republicans, because it is revenue-neutral and has the support of oil and gas companies.

The Climate Leadership Council proposal would impose a carbon tax beginning at $40 per ton and give the proceeds to the public through rebates, while scrapping carbon regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Oil and gas industry likes it: It would also protect oil and gas companies from state and municipal lawsuits blaming them for climate change.

Houston-based oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips last month donated $2 million over two years to Americans for Carbon Dividends, joining Exxon Mobil in supporting the group.

CEI WARNS LAWMAKERS THAT A ‘GREEN NEW DEAL’ WOULD RISK A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS: A prominent libertarian think tank is warning Congress that a real humanitarian crisis, in the U.S. and abroad, would follow if lawmakers move forward with proposals like the progressive-backed “Green New Deal” that would restrict access to fossil fuels and thus raise the cost of living.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute on Tuesday released its wish list of recommendations for the new 116th Congress, calling on the leadership in the House and Senate to apply a “do no harm” principle before moving forward with climate legislation.

The group challenges the renewable energy mandate of the Green New Deal, which is being pushed in the House by left-leaning freshmen such as Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

“It is fair to say that everything CEI recommends on energy and climate policies is the opposite of what is being proposed for the ‘Green New Deal,'” Myron Ebell, director of the group’s Center for Energy and Environment and Trump’s former EPA transition chief, told the Washington Examiner.

UTILITY GROUP TAKES NUCLEAR SUBSIDY CHALLENGE TO THE SUPREME COURT: The Electric Power Supply Association took its campaign to block state subsidies for nuclear power plants to the Supreme Court on Monday.

The group, which represents merchant power plant owners, is appealing a lower court’s decision upholding subsidy programs in New York and Illinois, which it argues are picking winners and losers, undermining the free markets overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

EPSA is also part of a coalition that opposed the Trump administration’s attempts to do something similar to support economically-ailing coal and nuclear plants.

EPSA filed the attached petitions for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the lower court decisions upholding the nuclear subsidy schemes in New York and Illinois notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in the Hughes case.

“EPSA strongly believes that such State subsidy schemes pose an existential threat to the proper functioning of the wholesale power markets on which millions depend for their electricity,” said John Shelk, the group’s president and CEO. “Only a few years ago, the Supreme Court found that a similar Maryland program was preempted by the Federal Power Act. The same result should obtain here.”

TRUMP REVERSES OBAMA DECISION BY RESTARTING URANIUM ENRICHMENT IN OHIO: Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman announced Monday that the Trump administration has committed to restarting projects to produce fuel for advanced nuclear power plants in Piketon, Ohio.

Electricity to bombs: The plan is to build 16 centrifuges to produce a form of nuclear fuel to be used in advanced nuclear reactors that can produce both plutonium for bombs and energy.

Research purposes: The Energy Department says the fuel will used be primarily for research at its test reactor in Idaho, while noting that many companies have expressed interest in building these advanced breeder reactors.  

“Getting Piketon back to its full potential benefits the skilled workforce here, the surrounding local economy, and strengthens national energy and defense security,” said Portman.

The Department of Energy’s initial commitment to the Piketon project is $115 million.  

RUNDOWN

Bloomberg Trump is giving oil industry a bye in shutdown, critics allege

New York Times For Wales, nuclear plant would mean new jobs. For the U.K., it may mean more

Washington Post Court orders EPA to release Andrew Wheeler’s contacts with outside groups within 10 months

Vox The best place in America to ramp up renewable energy could be Texas

Greentech Media US electric vehicle sales increased by 81% in 2018