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EPA, ENERGY DEPARTMENT OPEN FOR BUSINESS DESPITE SHUTDOWN: It’s business as usual at the Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Department Monday. Well, as normal as can be during a partial government shutdown.
Administration sources say the plan is for those agencies to remain open, but things get dicey if the shutdown goes on for longer.
However, the agency’s Office of the Inspector General said Monday it is closed, except for its hotline and some law enforcement functions.
Pruitt appears to be betting on a short-term shutdown, saying he doesn’t see the need to commit to longer-term plans unless it extends beyond Friday.
Most of the agency’s nearly 14,500 employees will be furloughed after that money runs out, EPA said.
Energy focuses on guards and guns: Energy Secretary Rick Perry has enough money to keep to doors open at the Energy Department, too, but his priorities will be “guns, guards, and gates.”
Physical protection: “Under the protection of property exception, DOE will be physically protecting the sites,” prioritizing “guns, guards, and gates” while “maintaining government equipment and property,” according to the shutdown plan issued Friday.
Lab animals and reactors: The plan also will include caring for lab animals and ensuring that nuclear test reactors operate as normal and don’t melt down if the government goes on an indefinite hiatus.
Everything goes dark in a half day: The agency said it can shut down all “non-excepted” federal functions within a half day after funds run out. Some exceptions also involve the movement of nuclear materials.
Bombs are a priority: Nearly half of the functions of the Energy Department are related to maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Under a shutdown scenario, the Office of Secure Transportation, which is part of the agency that makes and maintains bombs, will “ensure that the stockpile is in secure locations and will recall employees as needed in the event that nuclear weapons must be transported during the [funding] lapse.”
ZINKE KEEPS SOME NATIONAL PARKS OPEN: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke kept some national parks open during the opening days of the government shutdown this weekend, but they were unsupervised by staff, many of whom were furloughed.
The Washington Post reported the Park Service will furlough 21,383 of its 24,681 employees, while the Interior Department will send home more than three-quarters of its 70,000 workers.
But the National Parks Conservation Association estimated that about one-third of the 417 National Park Service sites were completely closed Saturday, including the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.
States step in: State and local governments are stepping in to try to keep the parks open as much as possible.
Zinke on Sunday said he reached a deal with New York officials to reopen the State of Liberty and Ellis Island, which are operated by the National Park Service. They were reopening Monday morning.
“States and private partners are helping keep our parks accessible through #SchumersShutdown – Happy to announce Statue of Liberty will reopen soon,” he said in a tweet.
Under the deal, New York State will pay about $65,000 a day out of its tourism budget to cover the sites’ operating costs.
In Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the city would pick up trash at the city’s National Park Service sites, more than 120 of them.
National parks were closed during shutdowns in 1995 and 2013, prompting a huge public outcry. In both of those cases, Republicans controlled Congress and a Democratic president sat in the White House.
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SUPREME COURT SAYS DISTRICT COURTS SHOULD HEAR FIGHTS OVER OBAMA WATER RULE: The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that challenges to the Obama-era “Waters of the United States” rule should be heard in a lower federal district court, as opposed to federal appeals courts.
The justices issued their unanimous ruling Monday. Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion, which was filled with water puns, though she was not on the bench Monday.
The court heard oral arguments in the case, National Association of Manufacturers v. Department of Defense, in October. The high court met then not to decide the merits of the 2015 water rule, but rather to weigh which courts had jurisdiction to hear lawsuits challenging WOTUS.
The definition of a waterway under the rule includes everything from a simple drainage ditch to streams and rivers. That means many more areas would fall under EPA’s enforcement jurisdiction and control, from farmers to individual homeowners to oil companies, critics of the rule say.
The National Association of Manufacturers filed a lawsuit challenging WOTUS in federal district courts after agencies promulgated the rule, and the cases were then consolidated and transferred to the U.S. District Court for the 6th Circuit.
The 6th Circuit previously held the appeals courts have jurisdiction over challenges to the water rule.
ZINKE ANNOUNCES LAND SWAP DEAL FOR ROAD THROUGH ALASKA WILDLIFE REFUGE: Zinke on Monday morning signed a land swap deal to allow a tiny Alaska village to build a long-sought road through the federally protected Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, which residents say will provide a route for medical evacuations to the closest regional airport.
Zinke, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker and members of the state’s congressional delegation plan to announce the deal in a ceremony Monday morning in the office of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee.
King Cove is in the Aleutian Islands between two massive volcanoes on the edge of a bay off the Pacific Ocean. There are no roads connecting King Cove to any other Alaskan city, and the nearest medical facilities are in Anchorage, about 625 miles northeast.
That means King Cove residents with medical emergencies must fly to Cold Bay and then to Anchorage for treatment. Flights can be delayed hours or even days by bad weather.
Protecting wildlife: In 2013, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that the road would harm the birds and animals in the refuge. She rejected a land-swap deal that would have sent 61,000 acres of state and native lands to the federal government in exchange for 207 acres of the refuge be made available for the road.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, and all but 15,000 of its 315,000 acres have been designated as wilderness since 1980, prohibiting motorized vehicle access.
PRUITT SCRAPS JAPAN VISIT, PUSHES BACK ON TRIP TO ISRAEL: Pruitt has postponed his planned trip this week to Japan, the agency told the Washington Examiner, as the government curtails its operations during the shutdown.
Pruitt had planned to go to Japan to discuss “general environmental cooperation.”
Japan is the leading importer of U.S. liquefied natural gas and has increasingly relied on coal imports following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. It was the third largest importer of coal for electricity in the world in 2014.
“Our scheduled trip to Japan has been postponed and reports from Politico that we were traveling to Israel this month was always inaccurate,” said spokesman Jahan Wilcox.
EPA’s inspector general is investigating a trip Pruitt took to Morocco last year to promote imports of U.S. natural gas to the North African country.
SENATE PROBES THE EFFECTS OF THE ‘BOMB CYCLONE’: The deep freeze that tested the nation’s electric grid this month will take center stage in the Senate this week as the energy committee probes how the grid performed during single-digit temperatures.
First visit after rejecting Rick Perry’s plan: It is also the first time McIntyre will be testifying before the Senate since he and his fellow four commissioners voted unanimously to reject Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s plan to provide incentives for coal and nuclear power plants for their reliability during extreme weather events.
Perry and his deputies, rather than express disappointment with FERC, have said they are encouraged that the commission, while rejecting the grid plan, has initiated a review of grid resilience.
Bomb cyclone: The Energy Department has said the need to address grid reliability and resilience was punctuated by the two-week cold snap, which ended with the “bomb cyclone” snowstorm in the Northeast.
CLIMATE CHANGE WILL GET PLAY AT THE HEARING: The committee also will get the environmentalist perspective at the hearing. Alison Clements, the head of the consulting firm Goodgrid, will be testifying.
Clements told the Washington Examiner she wants to address what is causing the Energy Department and FERC to focus on grid resilience, which she said is climate change and the threat of a cyber or physical attack on the power system.
“I’m planning to talk about the importance of the issues causing the current focus on resilience – i.e., climate change and the threat of attack,” Clements said in an email.
Clements had been a top FERC expert among environmental groups when she worked at the Natural Resources Defense Council and its offshoot, the Sustainable FERC Project. Her consulting firm now focuses on how to advance clean energy through grid policy.
PARTIES FIGHT OVER URANIUM MINING IN SMALLER BEARS EARS MONUMENTS: Republican lawmakers are trying to counter accusations that the Trump administration drastically shrank the boundaries of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah to benefit the uranium mining industry.
Former President Barack Obama, who created the 1.35-million acre Bears Ears National Monument just before he left office, had banned mining and drilling there. Trump on Dec. 4 signed a proclamation cutting Bears Ears by more than 1.1 million acres, or 85 percent, and creating two smaller monuments instead.
Mining firm involvement: Energy Fuels, a Canadian uranium producer with mining claims in the area, has endorsed Curtis’ bill. The New York Times and Washington Post have reported Energy Fuels lobbied the Trump administration for the Bears Ears rollback, saying it would give easier access to the area’s uranium deposits and help it operate a nearby processing mill.
An Energy Fuels representative told the Washington Examiner it has no plans to file mining claims in the original, or revised, Bears Ears area, and has “actually been dropping claims over the past few years.”
‘False choice’: Democrats have roundly opposed Curtis’ bill, arguing the ban on mining is disingenuous. They say Trump should have explicitly banned mining and drilling in his executive order if he was serious about not wanting it there.
“If the Utah delegation wanted a mining withdrawal, they would have urged Trump to issue a withdrawal simultaneous to his executive order,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee. “They are doing this weird hostage game. Democrats still believe the entire monument should be restored. The idea we have to support the bill because it’s the only way to protect Bears Ears is a false choice.”
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WANTS FRIENDLIER COURT TO HEAR BEARS EARS CASE: The Trump administration on Friday moved to transfer legal challenges to the president’s rollback of the Bears Ears national monument to a more friendly court.
The federal government filed a motion with the District Court for Washington, D.C., to transfer the cases to the District Court of Utah.
The challengers argue the Antiquities Act does not explicitly give authority to presidents to reduce the size of national monuments, although some have done so on a limited scale. The concept has not been tested in court.
Court crux: A potential switch of court venues would allow the administration to avoid the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has a left-leaning reputation.
In its official reasoning filed with the D.C. District Court, the Trump administration said it wants to switch the cases to the District Court of Utah because Bears Ears is more closely connected to that state, since it is located there.
FERC APPROVES PENNEAST NATURAL GAS PIPELINE: FERC approved the controversial PennEast Pipeline late Friday, a major milestone in a long review process that started with the announcement of the proposal in 2014.
“While we are mindful that PennEast has been unable to reach easement agreements with a number of landowners, for purposes of our consideration under the Certificate Policy Statement, we find that PennEast has generally taken sufficient steps to minimize adverse impacts on landowners and surrounding communities,” FERC said in its order.
“Approval of the PennEast pipeline is a major victory for New Jersey and Pennsylvania families and businesses,” said Anthony Cox, chair of the PennEast Pipeline Co. LLC board of managers. “They will reap the benefits of accessing one of the most affordable and abundant supplies of natural gas in all of North America.”
Fighting words: The New Jersey Sierra Club vowed to continue to fight the pipeline, and said the project must clear hurdles in the permitting process before construction can begin.
Jeff Tittel, the New Jersey director of the Sierra Club, said PennEast’s environmental impact statement “has missing and even false information” and that it still requires permitting from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Delaware River Basin Commission.
“Now the fight begins,” he continued. “We will organize to stop this pipeline that people vigorously approve. PennEast has a long way to go and many permits to get. We also have a new governor who opposes the project. We won’t stop until we stop this dangerous and unneeded pipeline.”
Politics at play: Former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, backed the expansion of natural-gas infrastructure in New Jersey, but new Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, has said he opposes PennEast.
RUNDOWN
Axios Trump turns on his Interior secretary
Wall Street Journal In the heart of Virginia coal country, Trump is still their man
New York Times There is nothing virtual about Bitcoin’s energy appetite
Reuters Philadelphia refiner’s woes pose test for U.S. biofuel policy
Wall Street Journal Frackers could make more money than ever in 2018, if they don’t blow it
CNBC Saudi energy minister urges oil producers to extend cooperation beyond 2018
Calendar
MONDAY, JAN. 22
10 a.m., 1225 I St. St. NW. Bipartisan Policy Center holds the first conference in the Infrastructure Lab and “3I” Series — Infrastructure Ideas and Innovations. The effort is aimed at providing policymakers with fact-based evidence that can shape strategies for restoring America’s infrastructure. The first lab will focus on sustainability efforts in Detroit, which includes taking into account energy and environmental concerns.
TUESDAY, JAN. 23
9 a.m., 11555 Rockville Pike. Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds a hearing on a construction permit for a northwest medical isotopes production facility.
10 a.m., 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to examine the performance of the electric power system in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic during recent winter weather events.
1 p.m., EPA holds a meeting by teleconference of the Human Studies Review Board to advise the agency on the ethical and scientific review of research involving human subjects, Jan. 23-24.
epa.gov/osa/human-studies-review-board
1 p.m., 11545 Rockville Pike. Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds a meeting of the NuScale Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to review draft proposed acceptance criteria for reviewing an exemption request from GDC 27 as part of the NuScale design certification application, Jan. 23-24.
1 p.m., EPA holds a meeting by teleconference of the Human Studies Review Board to advise the agency on the ethical and scientific review of research involving human subjects, Jan. 23-24.
epa.gov/osa/human-studies-review-board
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 24
8 a.m., 2121 P St. NW. Energy Department holds the Wind Industry Partnership Summit to share innovative technologies that may be beneficial to your firm and engage industry leaders in a dialogue about the future of public research and development laboratory R&D investments, Jan. 24-25.
THURSDAY, JAN. 25
10 a.m., 801 Mt. Vernon Place NW. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a field hearing, called “The Road to Tomorrow: Energy Innovation in Automotive Technologies,” to examine the opportunities and challenges facing vehicle technologies, especially energy-relevant technologies.
TUESDAY, JAN. 30
10 a.m., 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds votes on Trump Energy and Interior nominees, including Melissa Burnison to be assistant secretary of Energy for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs; Susan Combs to be assistant secretary of the Interior for Policy, Management, and Budget; Ryan Nelson to be solicitor for the Department of the Interior; and Anne White to be assistant secretary of Energy for Environmental Management.
senate.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings-and-business-meetings?ID=05B5DB7D-B596-4B49-9A22-B1FB7CAE9A72
All day, Altoona, Iowa. Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit kicks off at the Meadows Conference Center.
2 p.m., 1324 Longworth. House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Lands holds a legislative hearing on a bill to create the first tribally managed national monument — the Shash Jáa National Monument and Indian Creek National Monument, formerly part of Bears Ears National Monument.
