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EXCLUSIVE: The House Oversight Committee is probing into the Environmental Protection Agency’s “sue-and-settle” practices, adding to the committee’s efforts to investigate the processes following the agency revoking a Trump-era edict aimed at tamping them down.
In a letter exclusively obtained by the Washington Examiner, Committee Chairman James Comer and Energy Policy Subcommittee Chairman Pat Fallon claimed the agency’s “sue-and-settle” practices allow for special interest groups to achieve regulatory goals through litigation, bypassing rulemaking procedures. During the Trump administration, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt issued a directive aimed at cracking down on these practices – an order that current EPA chief Michael Regan revoked in March 2022.
“Because of your action, sue-and-settle abuses appear to have proliferated at the Biden Administration EPA,” the Republicans write. “We request documents and information to examine how the Biden Administration is using sue-and-settle practices to skirt congressional oversight and promulgate burdensome regulations at the bidding of special interests.”
What is it? Sue-and-settle is when a federal agency is sued by a party, declines to defend itself in court, and instead negotiates a settlement with the plaintiff in a non-adversarial process.
The lawmakers raised concerns over how many sue-and-settle agreements have been negotiated by the agency, including their costs. The letter cited a report by the Washington Examiner, which found that the number of EPA settlements related to the Clean Air, Clean Water, and the Endangered Species Acts in the first two years of the Biden administration was 58 – the same number the EPA reached during the Trump administration over the span of four years.
This isn’t the first time House Republicans have probed into the issue. In July 2022, GOP members sent a letter to Regan raising questions about his decision to revoke the Trump administration’s memo cracking down on the practices.
What Comer and Fallon are asking for: Along with asking for documents and communications relating to the EPA’s decision-making on sue-and-settle practices, the lawmakers are also requesting a list of all lawsuits the EPA has entered as the defendant into a consent decree or settlement agreement, along with documents related to these lawsuits.
It should be noted, the EPA already publishes the civil cases and settlements they’ve involved in online.
Green groups have decried Pruitt’s memo as an effort to concoct problems in order to score political points, arguing that the majority of negotiated settlements in environmental law come from decision-forcing settlements – which compels the government to adhere to mandatory deadlines already required by law. Substantive settlements, on the other hand, would compel the government to make a specific kind of decision, such as creating a new rule or regulation.
In a 2017 article, for example, Pat Gallagher – legal director of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program – called Pruitt’s efforts an “abuse of the law.”
A spokesperson for the EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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U.S. WARMING FASTER THAN THE GLOBAL AVERAGE, NEW REPORT WARNS: The U.S. is facing fast-growing climate threats, with temperatures warming at a faster pace than the global average and threatening nearly every aspect of everyday life, according to a sobering new government report.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment is a sprawling, 2,000 page report published every five years at the direction of Congress and authored by hundreds of authors from inside and outside the administration.
This year’s report is the first to be published since the COVID-19 pandemic, and includes 32 chapters on topics ranging from renewable energy growth to the economic harm from climate disasters, and the effects of policies like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
The report shows that the U.S. needs “a transformation of the global economy on a size and scale that’s never occurred in human history,” in order to “create a livable future for ourselves and our children,” White House senior climate adviser John Podesta told reporters. Some takeaways:
Climate-linked disasters are increasing in frequency, severity, and cost: This year alone, the U.S. has seen at least 23 billion-dollar disasters—the most billion-dollar disasters ever recorded in a calendar year. In 1980, in comparison, the U.S. saw just three billion-dollar storms.
Climate change has a substantial economic toll: Climate change is “expected to impose new types of costs or higher costs to the U.S. economy,” Delavane Diaz, who co-authored the report’s economic chapter, told Breanne in an interview. This includes soaring home insurance costs, as well as the loss of certain types of jobs due to extreme-heat conditions. “Climate impacts on the economy are no longer confined to the future,” Diaz said.
Mitigation strategies are helping (to an extent): Recent policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act have proved to be “positive policy tailwinds” that could help the U.S. reverse course, said EPRI’s climate analysis director John Bistline, who co-authored the report’s chapter on mitigation. Bristlane estimates that by 2035, IRA incentives can reduce economy-wide emissions by roughly 50%—while also lowering household energy costs up to roughly $370 per year. There’s also a lot of action happening at the state and local level that can help enact change in this space, he added.
“Since 2005, we’ve reduced emissions by 12% across the economy,” Bistline told Breanne. “And that’s come with almost a third reduction from the power sector relative to 2005 levels.”
“All of these actions taken together give us hope because they tell us that we can do big things at the scale that’s required,” Arati Prabhakar, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told reporters. Still, she added, “much work is needed.” Read the full report here.
…MEANWHILE, IEA RAISES ITS OIL DEMAND FORECAST FOR 2024: The International Energy Agency raised its oil demand growth forecasts through 2024, citing a potential surplus in 2024 after Russia and Saudi Arabia lift their voluntary production cuts at the end of the year.
The IEA raised its growth forecast to 2.4 million barrels per day through the end of 2023, up from its previous estimate of 2.3 million bpd, and changed its 2024 forecast to 930,000 bpd from its earlier projection of 800,000 bpd.
“For now, with demand still exceeding available supplies heading into the Northern Hemisphere winter, market balances will remain vulnerable to heightened economic and geopolitical risks – and further volatility ahead,” the Paris-based agency said today in announcing the change.
Still, the IEA’s projections are much less bullish than OPEC, which bumped up its forecast last night to 2.46 million bpd through 2024.
Looking ahead: All eyes will be on the OPEC+ meeting at the end of the month, when producers will decide whether to extend supply cuts—including the voluntary cuts imposed by Saudi Arabia and Russia—or to increase production.
FRANCE AND EDF REACH POWER PRICE DEAL AFTER MONTHS-LONG STANDOFF: The French government finalized an agreement today with state-owned utility EDF on future prices for nuclear power, sending it to the European Commission for full approval.
As we noted yesterday, the French government and EDF had been embroiled in tense, months-long negotiations over power costs, which soared to a record 1,200 euros per MWH following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The two sides finally settled on a reference point of 70 euros per megawatt-hour (MWH) for nuclear power. The agreement also includes a windfall levy provision stipulating that if energy prices rise above 110 euros per MWH, EDF profits will be taxed at 90% in a bid to offset the impact to consumers.
“This deal was indispensable to guarantee the competitiveness of our industry, the visibility and stability of prices for our households and the development of EDF,” France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, told reporters today.
The Rundown
New York Times Start-ups with laser beams: The companies trying to ignite nuclear fusion energy
The Guardian Wolves have returned to California after nearly 150 years. Not everyone is happy
Bloomberg Japan’s green switch falls short of global goals, climate researchers say
