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WOTUS RULING: The Supreme Court narrowed the scope of regulatable waters under the Clean Water Act in a ruling that could spell trouble for the Biden administration’s Waters of the United States rule, which was preliminarily enjoined in more than two dozen states by several lower courts.
The limitations: Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the court in Sackett v. EPA provided that waters that can be regulated under WOTUS are limited to:
- Geographical features that are described in ordinary parlance as streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes, and;
- Adjacent wetlands that are ‘indistinguishable’ from those bodies of water due to a continuous surface connection
Left off this list: Waters that have a significant nexus to interstate or traditional navigable waters, a test the Biden administration employed in drafting its WOTUS rule.
The Biden EPA and the Army Corps finalized its rule in December and it took effect in March (It’s on pause in numerous states — more on that later.)
The court was not taking up a direct challenge to the Biden administration’s WOTUS rule, but it came up:
“Under the agencies’ current rule, traditional navigable waters, interstate waters, and the territorial seas, as well as their tributaries and adjacent wetlands, are waters of the United States… So too are any ‘[i]ntrastate lakes and ponds, streams, or wetlands’ that either have a continuous surface connection to categorically included waters or have a significant nexus to interstate or traditional navigable waters,” the majority opinion said.
Why that’s no good: “Finding a significant nexus continues to require consideration of a list of open-ended factors,” it added, continuing, “By the EPA’s own admission, nearly all waters and wetlands are potentially susceptible to regulation under this test, putting a staggering array of landowners at risk of criminal prosecution for such mundane activities as moving dirt.”
Federal district judges in Texas and North Dakota have issued preliminary injunctions blocking the Biden WOTUS rule in 26 states.
The exclusion of the significant nexus test in the high court’s scope gives those lower courts the runway to rule against the Biden regulation when it comes time to decide on merits.
All nine justices concurred in the court’s judgment reversing and remanding the case to the Ninth Circuit, but Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Brett Kavanaugh disagreed on the scope of the test laid out in the Alito opinion.
Other reactions: Administrator Michael Regan said he was “disappointed” by the decision, saying it erodes longstanding clean water protections. The administration sought to establish a durable rule protecting health and landowner interests, he said.
Environment and Public Works Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito said the ruling is a “loud and clear warning shot to the Biden administration about its attempts to overregulate the lives of millions of Americans.”
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BLM HOLDS FIRST LEASE SALE SINCE LAST SUMMER: The Bureau of Land Management held its first onshore oil and gas lease sale in nearly a year this morning, motivated by the Inflation Reduction Act’s new leasing contingencies connecting traditional fossil fuel and renewable energy on federal lands.
The Bureau of Land Management auctioned off parcels totaling 10,123 acres in New Mexico and Kansas, a smaller area compared to several of the lease sales it carried out last June.
Leasing has been irregular during President Joe Biden’s tenure, frustrating fossil fuel interests and many Republicans. But any leasing is too much for environmental advocates, who have implored the administration to stop leasing federal lands to avoid emissions and mitigate climate change.
Biden “continues to turn its back on its legal duty to account for the link between fossil fuel development and the climate crisis,” said Jeremy Nichols, director of the Climate and Energy Program for WildEarth Guardians.
Today’s lease sale marks the beginning of an onshore leasing revival brought on by the IRA and its requirement that acreage for oil and gas be leased regularly in order for BLM to issue rights-of-way for renewable energy federal lands.
BLM has already scheduled lease sales in several other states to be carried out this quarter and begun scoping lands for lease sales through the third quarter.
HOUSE FAILS OVERRIDE BID OF BIDEN’S SOLAR VETO: The House failed yesterday to override Biden’s veto of the bipartisan Congressional Review Act resolution that sought to cancel his moratorium on tariffs on Asian solar imports.
The final vote was 214-205, short of the two-thirds majority needed to overcome the veto. Biden’s moratorium expires next summer, after which the road would be clear for the Commerce Department to implement antidumping/countervailing duties on imports that it found to be circumventing existing duties on Chinese products.
OPEC+ GIVES MIXED SIGNALS ON OIL AHEAD OF JUNE MEETING: Oil prices dropped by nearly 3% today after Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak suggested no production cuts will be made by OPEC+ next week during their meeting in Vienna, appearing to contradict suggestions by Saudi Arabia’s energy minister just two days earlier.
“I don’t think that there will be any new steps, because just a month ago certain decisions were made regarding the voluntary reduction of oil production by some countries…” Novak was quoted as saying by a local newspaper.
His comments are a departure from Saudi Arabian Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, who warned speculators to “watch out” at the Qatar Economic Forum just two days prior. His remarks were considered to be a signal of even more production cuts from the oil cartel, and were echoed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stressed the need for the Russia and other cartel members to “maintain a certain price environment on world markets, in dialogue and contact with our partners in OPEC+.”
IEA REPORT HIGHLIGHTS RENEWABLE ENERGY GROWTH: New global energy investment is slated to reach $2.8 trillion in 2023, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency, including more than $1.7 trillion dedicated to clean energy technologies such as solar, battery manufacturing, and battery storage.
IEA executive director Fatih Birol said solar spending is “set to overtake the amount of investment going into oil production for the first time.” That’s due to a combination of factors, including lower costs for renewable energy production, including for solar and wind technologies. (Solar power, for its part, is expected to see new investments of more than $1 billion per day this year, according to the report.)
Many governments also now view “clean energy sources — renewables, electric cars, nuclear power — as a lasting solution to their energy security problem, in addition to climate change,” Birol said in a separate interview with CNBC’s Arabile Gumede.
He also cited new investments from the U.S., in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as other policy efforts in the EU, Japan, India, and China as helping increase spending on renewables.
HOUSE E&C COMMITTEE CLEARS KEY GAS STOVE AND URANIUM BILLS: Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted yesterday to clear several key bills on banning Russian uranium and protections for gas stove, advancing the legislation to the floor for a full House vote.
Members voted 21 to 21 to approve H.R. 1042, or the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, introduced by the panel’s chairwoman, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, as well as on two bills advancing gas stove protections. H.R. 1640, or the Save Our Gas Stoves Act, proposed by Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko of Arizona was approved 31-18, and members voted 29-19 to pass H.R. 1615, or the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, proposed by Rep. Kelly Armstrong, a North Dakota Republican.
House Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Duncan of South Carolina praised the passage of the stove bills yesterday, saying in a statement: that “Americans should be free to choose what cooking product they use in their homes[.]”
GUAM SEES ONE OF WORST TYPHOONS IN DECADES: Typhoon Mawar tore into Guam yesterday as a Category 4 storm, tearing down roofs, trees, and triggering widespread power outages in what is already considered to be one of the worst storms to hit the Pacific U.S. territory in decades.
The island’s north was hit the worst by Mawar, and a typhoon warning remains in effect through later today. Tropical-storm-force conditions are still expected through much of the day, and Guam Power Authority said nearly all 52,000 of its customers had lost power starting yesterday afternoon.
“It was a very terrifying experience. The winds were extremely powerful. We could hear debris pounding against the walls and windows. Car alarms were going off. Windows felt as if they were going to blow out,” resident Tomy Augero told the Washington Post. “We were all terrified. If felt as if it was never going to end.” Read more on the storm here.
GRANHOLM CUTS RIBBON FOR BIOMASS LAB UPGRADE: Secretary Jennifer Granholm marked completion yesterday of a $15 million upgrade to the department’s Idaho Biomass Feedstock National User Facility by announcing a new Department of Energy initiative to generate 100 and 400 million tons of clean fuels and chemicals per year by 2035 and 2050.
The upgraded facility is “designed to enhance biomass feedstock quality through expanded preprocessing capabilities, intelligent automation, and tools to advance fundamental knowledge of feedstock variability and material handling,” the department said.
ONLY HALF BELIEVE HUMANS CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE, SURVEY SHOWS: Just 49% of Americans believe climate change is caused mostly by human activity, according to a recent Ipsos poll—the lowest share reported in the last several years.
The gap illustrates not only a divide in what voters believe is causing the planet to warm, but also what should be done to solve it. More than one-fourth (27%) of Americans said climate change is natural, and 7% said the climate is not changing at all.
While a 62% majority of Americans who believe climate change is mostly caused by human activity agree that humans should slow or reverse their behavior, less than half of respondents said they are likely to make changes to their own behavior to help limit climate change. Just 21% said they are likely to more regularly use public transportation instead of personal vehicles, and 25% said they plan to trade in their gas-powered car for an electric vehicle.
SAUDI ARABIA RAMPED UP RUSSIAN DIESEL IMPORTS AND INCREASED ITS OWN EXPORTS TO THE EU: Saudi Arabia is buying millions of barrels of Russian diesel that the EU has shunned, while simultaneously exporting a staggering amount of its own diesel back to buyers in Europe, according to new data.
The kingdom ramped up its imports of Russian diesel and gasoil in April to 174,000 barrels per day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. And last month it also became the EU’s top diesel supplier, with imports to the continent rising to the highest point since at least 2017.
Importantly, Saudi Arabia is not selling Russian diesel back to the EU, as that would be a violation of the bloc’s existing sanctions on Russian oil and refined petroleum products. But the re-routed flows are just the latest example of how the oil market has so far reacted to aggressive sanctions packages passed by the West, as well as the G-7-backed Russian oil price cap that took effect beginning late last year.
The Rundown
E&E News Major polluter escapes EPA power plant rule
Bloomberg Opinion What Exxon won’t tell you about climate costs
