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CLIMATE CHANGE, SAUDI TENSIONS TO GREET TRUMP AT G20: The Group of 20 nations meeting in Argentina appear to want to appease President Trump when it comes to the issue of climate change to be discussed this week among the countries’ leaders, according to a leaked draft communique.

The draft statement omits any reference to the 2015 Paris climate accord, and it steers clear of any mention of the recent United Nations report on the need for a rapid switch to renewable energy in the next 10-20 years to limit the devastating consequences of climate change.

Trump’s previous refusals: Trump had tried to gut any mention of climate change from last year’s G20 communique in Hamburg, Germany. Later, he refused to sign onto the G7 communique in 2018 at a meeting in Canada because it mentioned the Paris accord.

The Trump administration most recently pushed back against a congressionally-mandated national climate report released last Friday.

Pressure piling up on Trump: Trump is also facing pressure in Buenos Aires to resolve the trade war with China, while also seeking to hold Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of oil-rich Saudi Arabia accountable for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump has refrained from criticizing the crown prince despite evidence that shows the order to murder Khashoggi likely came from Salman.

Trump wants to secure a major arms deal with the Saudis, but Congress stands poised to take action to put the deal on pause in the 116th Congress.

The White House did not include the crown prince in the list of meetings Trump is expected to have while in Argentina.  

Welcome to Daily on Energy, compiled by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writers John Siciliano (@JohnDSiciliano) and Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe). Email [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.  

PENCE APPEARS TO PATCH THINGS UP WITH FINLAND AFTER TRUMP’S WILDFIRE FAUX PAS: After Trump mischaracterized talks with Finland about forest management and wildfires earlier this month, Vice President Mike Pence appears to be the point man to patch things up with the Nordic country.

Pence met with Prime Minister Juha Sipila of Finland on Wednesday afternoon to reaffirm the “strong” ties between the two countries, according to an evening statement from the White House. Trump did not attend.

Clean the forest floors: Trump had created a bit of awkwardness while visiting the devastated town of Paradise in California by suggesting that Finnish President Sauli Niinisto Finland told him that Finland rakes its forests to prevent wildfires. Niinisto said that he did not recall discussing California’s wildfire problems as Trump had claimed.

Trump left it up to Pence to hold the bilateral meeting Wednesday.  

“The Vice President reaffirmed the importance of our strong bilateral relationship, and both agreed on the importance of transatlantic and regional cooperation in facing global challenges,” the White House said.  

Did climate change come up? Climate change may have come up in the talks, as they did discuss regional security matters and the Arctic. Finland currently chairs the international Arctic Council that the U.S. is a member of and used to chair up until last year. Finland has made dealing with climate change a top focus under its chairmanship.

Finnish media outlets reported that Sipila met with Republican and Democratic lawmakers to discuss climate change while in Washington.

PERRY TOUTS US AS EXAMPLE TO THE WORLD FOR CO2 REDUCTIONS: Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday morning that the U.S. is the model to the world for how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions despite Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord.

Perry explained that although “America got criticized for backing away” from the climate deal, it should not be taken as the U.S. not having an interest in dealing with the problem of global warming.

“We have great interest in it, but we just don’t talk about it,” Perry said in giving the keynote speech at a Consumer Energy Alliance forum on the power grid.

Bragging rights: Perry added that the U.S. has cut overall emissions 14 percent over the last 13 years, while his home state of Texas was able to cut emissions while increasing oil and natural gas production and adding more cars on the road.

The U.S. story “isn’t just rhetoric,” because “it’s not bragging if you can do it,” he added, while not mentioning the recent national climate assessment released last week that talked about economic losses in the nation if climate change is not addressed.

Buy natural gas: His big pitch to the world is to buy more U.S. natural gas to help other nations reduce their carbon footprints, he said.

“My job is to sell a lot of [liquefied natural gas] around the world” to help others reduce emissions, he said. “I think there is a great story to be told here.”

Tackling climate change Texas style: Texas reduced its emissions by nearly 20 percent while growing its economy, which was primarily the result of fuel switching to natural gas and building more state-of-the-art power plants to burn the fuel, he explained.

“I shared that with people around the world,” Perry said. “Here’s a model that works.”

PERRY TO ANNOUNCE RED TEAM/BLUE TEAM WAR GAMES ON DEFENDING THE GRID: Perry also discussed an upcoming announcement on Thursday that the Energy Department and an outside institution will be launching cyber war games focused on defending the grid and infrastructure from hackers.

The Cyber Defense Competition will work with national labs on setting up a red team versus blue team scenario where “one group will be attacking infrastructure and the other will be defending against it,” Perry said Thursday at a forum hosted by the Consumer Energy Alliance.  

The red team/blue team competition “breeds excellence” at a time when real threats face the U.S. on the cybersecurity front.

He said he just got done shooting a video with the outside participants in the exercise, and that the competition will be announced soon.

Cyber defense is bipartisan: Perry said the issuing of defending infrastructure from attack extends across both aisles. “Efforts in this area is truly bipartisan,” he said. It is “tantamount to the future of this country” that all sides come together, he continued.

“These are changing time in a very challenging moment,” Perry said.

TRUMP’S OPPONENTS HOPE HIS CLIMATE REPORT WILL UNDERMINE HIM IN COURT: Opponents of Trump’s deregulatory agenda are salivating over the possibility of using the administration’s own National Climate Assessment, which concluded that global warming will significantly hurt the economy, as a tool to defeat him in the courts.

The findings conflict with Trump’s policies, which discount the cost of climate change in favor of the view that a lighter touch on industry will inspire investment and economic growth.

“We’ll use every piece of that report that we can [in court],” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who has sued Trump’s government more than a dozen times, said Wednesday in an interview with the Washington Post.

Making the case: Climate hawks will try to use the government assessment to bolster their claims that the administration has reached decisions arbitrarily, underestimating the costs caused by carbon pollution and global warming and discounting the benefits of limiting it.

The pitfall: But legal experts interviewed by Josh say that judges will mostly make decisions based on how they interpret an unresolved legal dispute about the federal government’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide — and not on the administration’s statements on climate change.

“Opponents may have to do some very creative lawyering to persuade the court about the relevance of the National Climate Assessment,” said Joseph Goffman, an environmental law professor at Harvard University and former EPA attorney in the Obama administration. “The court is ultimately going to focus on questions of statutory interpretation.”

Read Josh’s full report here.

DEMOCRATS EXPRESS CONFIDENCE IN TRUMP’S CHEMICALS OFFICE NOMINEE: Senate Democrats on Thursday expressed confidence in Trump’s nominee to lead EPA’s chemicals office, after opposition forced the president was to withdraw his original choice.

“I am pleased to say to you are clearly no Michael Dourson,” Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told the nominee, Alexandra Dunn, during her confirmation hearing.

Carper was referring derogatorily to Dourson, Trump’s first nominee for the chemicals office, who even Republicans opposed because of his ties to the chemical industry, forcing him to withdraw.

Carper said in contrast to Dourson, Dunn provides “objectivity and credibility.” She was introduced to the committee by another Democrat, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who wryly said, “your eyes and ears do not deceive you…a Democratic senator is introducing a Trump environmental nominee.”

Promises change in direction: Dunn, tabbed to lead EPA’s Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Office, seemed to sufficiently assure senators that she would properly implement a bipartisan law approved during the last year of the Obama administration, known as the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), that set rules for how the agency determines health and safety risks of chemicals.

Democrats say the Trump administration is not faithfully implementing the law, favoring industry and not following science when deciding on whether to ban chemicals.

Independent from political pressure: Carper said his vote on whether to support Dunn would depend on whether she could assure a “change in direction” at the chemicals office, not just a “change in personnel.”

He sought assurances that political leaders at EPA would give Dunn the freedom to to implement the chemicals law faithfully.

Dunn promised to hold “open door hours” with career staff EPA staff to “let them know their opinions are valued.”

Known as a centrist, Dunn has most recently been administrator of EPA Region 1, the local office covering the New England area. Prior to that, Dunn served as executive director and general counsel for the Environmental Council of States, a nonpartisan nonprofit that helps states improve their environments.

BRAZIL PULLS OUT OF HOSTING UN CLIMATE CONFERENCE: Brazil on Wednesday pulled out of hosting next year’s United Nations global summit meeting on climate change, a major statement as Latin America’s largest country backs away from leadership on the issue after the election of a far-right president.

The decision comes a week before the inauguration of Jair Bolsonaro, who has called for a pro-business approach that favors deforestation in the Amazon, and weakens enforcement of environmental laws.

In a statement, Brazil’s foreign ministry said it decided not to host the conference, scheduled to occur next November, in order to save money.

PATAGONIA GIVES $10 MILLION FROM GOP TAX CUT TO CLIMATE GROUPS: Sustainable outdoor clothing company Patagonia Inc. is donating $10 million to conservation and climate groups from money it saved due to Trump administration’s tax cut package — but the firm’s CEO isn’t particularly happy about it.

“Based on last year’s irresponsible tax cut, Patagonia will owe less in taxes this year — $10 million less, in fact,” Rose Marcario said in a LinkedIn post Wednesday. “Instead of putting the money back into our business, we’re responding by putting $10 million back into the planet. Our home planet needs it more than we do.”

“Taxes protect the most vulnerable in our society, our public lands and other life-giving resources,” she added. “In spite of this, the Trump administration initiated a corporate tax cut, threatening these services at the expense of our planet.”

Patagonia’s $10 million donation will supplement the standard 1 percent of sales the company has given to environmental and preservation groups since 1985.

RUNDOWN

Reuters Pressure mounts to bury carbon emissions, but who will pay?

Politico Bernie Sanders not stepping into Senate Energy void as liberals fear Manchin

Wall Street Journal Falling crude prices test Big Oil’s new financial discipline

New York Times Study warns of cascading health risks from the changing climate

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