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GOP WITNESS: Republicans of the House’s special climate change committee have invited Michael Shellenberger, a Democrat and co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute who is critical of mainstream environmentalism, as its witness for a hearing next week, Josh has exclusively learned.
Shellenberger has drawn attention in recent weeks for publishing a book that seeks to apologize for his role in perpetuating a “climate scare.”
“The conversation about climate change and the environment has, in the last few years, spiraled out of control,” Shellenberger writes in Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, published last month.
Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, led by Rep. Garret Graves, are inviting Shellenberger to a hearing next Tuesday convened by the panel’s Democrats, who released a report last month that looks to tackle emissions in every sector of the economy, with a goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. The hearing will focus on environmental justice and renewable energy jobs components of the report.
Republicans, who did not participate in the plan, have criticized it for being overly dependent on regulations and mandates, but they are under pressure to find common ground on concepts such as promoting pre-disaster mitigation, spending and tax credits for clean energy technologies, and modernizing the electricity grid.
GOP committee members are responding to that conflict by inviting Shellenberger, formerly recognized by Time Magazine as a “Hero of the Environment” who more recently was invited by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to review its next “assessment report.”
Shellenberger wrote an op-ed attacking the plan, claiming birds would be killed from its proposal to expand transmission lines and “industrial wind farms.”
Shellenberger is a skeptic of renewable electricity mandates who has argued the grid could eventually be entirely nuclear power. Shellenberger left Breakthrough in 2015 to found Environmental Progress, an organization dedicated exclusively to promoting nuclear.
Most recently, he got into a spat with Forbes, accusing the outlet of censoring his views after it took down an op-ed promoting his book. Forbes said Shellenberger’s piece “violated our editorial guidelines around self-promotion.”
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BIDEN AND DEMOCRATS EYE ‘CASH FOR CLUNKERS’-STYLE PROGRAM FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Democrats eyeing full control of the government in 2021 are rallying around the idea of providing consumers rebates to swap old gas guzzlers with zero-emission vehicles, seeking to improve upon the Obama “Cash for Clunkers” program, Josh reports in a story posted this morning.
In recent weeks, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, along with the select climate committee created by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has endorsed a plan by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to take more than 63 million gas vehicles off the road over a decade, replacing them with cleaner ones.
“Each new vehicle being purchased today will still be on the road in the 2030s,” said Alison Cassady, the deputy staff director for climate committee Democrats. “So if we want to dramatically reduce greenhouse gases from passenger vehicles by 2050, we need to quicken the turnover of gasoline-powered vehicles.”
Different than Cash for Clunkers: Democrats are wary of their plans being linked to the Obama administration’s 2009 Cash for Clunkers, a trade-in vehicle program with mixed reviews that some analysts say did not boost new vehicle sales or reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as supporters hoped.
The climate-focused initiative promoted today by Democrats would specifically prioritize deploying zero-emission cars.
Democrats are also positioning the program as broader than Cash for Clunkers, promoting a “made in America” manufacturing element and investing in EV charging. Schumer told Josh the plan “is an essential part of Democrats’ bold, far-reaching clean energy and infrastructure” climate legislation primed for release in 2021.
OHIO’S GOVERNOR STICKS BY NUCLEAR SUBSIDIES LAW DESPITE SCANDAL: That was quick. Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, said Wednesday he does not support repealing a law providing subsidies to coal and nuclear plants despite a bribery scandal involving the state’s GOP House Speaker Larry Householder, a chief backer of the legislation.
DeWine said he’s concerned about potential job losses if the two nuclear plants aided by the law were to close, according to the Associated Press.
“The policy is good policy,” DeWine said. “Because people did bad things does not mean the policy is not a good policy.”
DeWine said he first learned of the scandal Tuesday and denied his office was involved with it.
Federal officers arrested Householder and his associates that day, allegeding they received $60 million in bribes to champion the legislation from the utility that owns the nuclear and coal plants subsidized by the bill, FirstEnergy Solutions.
Some Ohio legislators in the state House and Senate are calling for the law’s repeal, the AP reported, but that’s complicated by the fact the law passed by comfortable, bipartisan margins.
EPA OVERHAULS INTERNAL REVIEW OF PERMITTING DISPUTES: The EPA finalized major changes to how it reviews permitting disputes, in an effort to speed decisions that environmentalists say will jeopardize the public’s ability to challenge projects.
The regulations make changes to how the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board, staffed by career appointees, hears disputes over air, water, waste, and other pollution permits issued by the agency’s regional offices or by states. The revisions are the first major update to the board’s administrative appeals process since it was created in 1992 under George H.W. Bush.
“A permit that’s unreasonably delayed can really affect the defendant’s critical business decisions and allocations of capital,” Matt Leopold, the EPA’s general counsel, told Abby in an interview. He added the EPA wanted to “right-size review” with its changes, which include setting a 60-day deadline for the EAB to decide on a permit and 12-year term limits for EAB judges.
The EPA did back off some elements from its proposal in November, ultimately deciding not to make changes to who can petition for an appeal and under what circumstances that appeal can move forward.
INDUSTRIAL GIANTS AND STATE OFFICIALS TEAM UP ON CLIMATE: The industrial sector’s carbon footprint doesn’t get as much attention or investment as the electricity and transportation sectors. Some of the world’s biggest industrial companies are joining forces with officials from states with big manufacturing industries to change that.
The group, known as the Industrial Innovation Initiative, launched Thursday and includes steel giant ArcelorMittal, major chemical manufacturer Dow, and cement giant LafargeHolcim, as well as biofuels producers and power companies. Energy officials from Louisiana and Wisconsin are also members, in addition to environmental advocacy groups such as the Nature Conservancy and Clean Air Task Force.
The initiative’s first focus, of course, is coronavirus recovery: Alongside the launch, the group unveiled recommendations for Congress about how to facilitate emissions reductions within the industrial sector, where there are few solutions to date, as part of an economic recovery.
The recommendations include boosting carbon capture and storage, a critical technology for cutting industrial emissions, by extending federal tax credits, offering direct pay, and eliminating a threshold for how much carbon a project has to capture to qualify. The group also seeks to unlock more funding for research and development, including revisions to Energy Department loan programs and advanced manufacturing tax credits.
“The timing of these recommendations is not accidental,” said Brad Crabtree, vice president of carbon management for the Great Plains Institute, which is helping coordinate the group. He noted Congress is just gearing up for another round of coronavirus negotiations.
“The idea of federal policy that drives economic activity and job creation in the near term, but helps put these industrial sectors on a path toward emissions reductions and greater competitiveness in the future is very attractive,” he told Abby.
FRACKING PICKING BACK UP: The level of fracking activity in the U.S. is set for its first monthly increase this year, research group Rystad Energy projected Thursday.
New fracking operations will rise above 400 wells in July compared to 325 wells in June, with recovery especially apparent in the Permian Basin, where activity has nearly tripled.
The U.S. has not reached that level of fracking activity since April, before the worst of the pandemic-driven price crash.
CONGRESS SENDS ‘HISTORIC’ PUBLIC LANDS BILL TO TRUMP: The House on Wednesday in a bipartisan 310-to-107 vote approved the Great American Outdoors Act, a sweeping public lands package passed by the Senate last month, sending it to the desk of President Trump, who will sign it into law.
Environmental groups and the bill’s congressional backers hailed the law as a historic conservation achievement, but it was hard to ignore the election-year political incentives that made it possible.
The bill provides $900 million annually in full and permanent federal funding to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which provides money to federal, state, and local governments for buying land and waters to improve national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and other public areas.
It marks only the second time the LWCF has received full federal funding since its creation in 1964.
The legislation also creates a fund of billions of dollars to pay for a massive maintenance backlog in national parks and other federal lands.
Together, supporters say it will provide tens of thousands of jobs in tourism-dependent outdoor communities, expanding access to public lands during the pandemic.
NEW CAMPAIGN TARGETS TRUMP AND GOP LAWMAKERS AS ‘DENIERS’: Generation Progress, a youth advocacy and education arm of the Center for American Progress, is criticizing more than 150 Republicans, including top members of the Trump administration, for dismissing climate change science, in a new push to motivate young people on the issue.
Climate change is a top issue for 75% of people between the ages of 18 and 24, said Brent Cohen, Generation Progress’ executive director. The “Get the Facts Out” campaign, a relaunch of an effort from 2018, seeks to arm young people with climate change information and encourage them to ramp up pressure on members of Congress and the Trump administration who deny climate science, he told Abby.
PUSH FOR CLEAN ENERGY RECOVERY PACKAGE: Two dozen governors and more than 450 mayors are asking Congress to direct significant investments to clean energy infrastructure, including electric vehicle charging stations, energy efficiency retrofits for buildings, and nature-based solutions to increase resilience to climate change effects.
So far, coronavirus relief bills have been “incomplete” because they lack a focus on climate change and equity, Climate Mayors wrote in a Wednesday letter to congressional leadership. The U.S. Climate Alliance, too, a group of two dozen bipartisan governors, is asking lawmakers to approve additional funding for decarbonizing infrastructure and to support clean energy investments, including by extending tax credits for wind, solar, and carbon capture.
Their push follows similar pressure from major corporations earlier in the week, but it’s unclear whether the advocacy will get results. Any clean energy provisions aren’t likely to appear in the initial draft bill Senate Republicans are poised to soon introduce, but would be negotiated after the bill is dropped, if at all.
The Rundown
Reuters Bounceback in US shale output is unlikely to last the summer
Wall Street Journal Energy’s winning wagers: Against natural gas prices, for natural gas producers
Bloomberg Law Republicans seek to help clean energy in next virus aid package
Wall Street Journal Tesla posts fourth-consecutive quarterly profit, defying pandemic shutdown
New York Times In electric car market, it’s Tesla and a jumbled field of also-rans
Calendar
TUESDAY | JULY 28
10 a.m. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing examine the development and deployment of large-scale carbon dioxide management technologies in the United States, including technological and natural carbon removal, carbon utilization, and carbon storage.
11 a.m. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change holds a remote hearing entitled, “There’s Something in the Water: Reforming Our Nation’s Drinking Water Standards.”
