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SENATE LOSES CLIMATE BILL ADVOCATE IN JOHN MCCAIN’S PASSING: The death of John McCain means Congress is losing one of the few Republicans with a history of trying to move bipartisan climate legislation.

He pushed for cap-and-trade: McCain worked with Democrats on cap-and-trade bills that failed to pass in 2003 and 2005. They would have capped emissions and allowed companies to buy and sell credits, which gave them the right to emit certain amounts.

The first bill was the first economy-wide climate legislation in the U.S., which McCain authored with with close friend Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat turned Independent.

When McCain battled President Barack Obama in 2008 for the White House, it was the first time in U.S. history both candidates supported legislation to cap U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, according to Bloomberg BNA.

And subscribed to climate science: As early as 2001, he gave a speech to fellow senators warning, “that there is new and stronger evidence that most of the observed warming over the 50 years is attributable to human activities.”

But McCain was quieter on the issue after 2009, and became a critic of what Republicans viewed as EPA overreach in trying to regulate carbon from power plants with the Clean Power Plan.

A last hurrah: McCain made one last splash in 2017, however, when he voted with Democrats to oppose a Republican measure that would have repealed a 2016 Obama-era rule intended to cut emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from natural gas drilling on public land.

FORMER EPA CHIEF SAYS TRUMP ‘PETTY’ FOR RETURNING WHITE HOUSE FLAGS TO FULL STAFF: Former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman criticized President Trump Monday for raising the American flag over the White House to full staff, less than two days after McCain died.

Whitman, a Republican who led the EPA in the George W. Bush administration, has been a persistent critic of Trump, and his former EPA chief Scott Pruitt. She argues Trump’s EPA has acted overly partisan in rolling back regulations while disregarding climate change.

“. @realDonaldTrump is being petty by putting the #whitehouse flags at full staff, not offering a fulsome recognition of @SenJohnMcCain at his bill signing & refusing to offer even standard praise at his death,” Whitman said in a Twitter post. “It’s appalling & demonstrates what a small man he is in so many ways.”

The current U.S. code calls for the American flag to be lowered on the day of a congressman’s death and a full day after. But past practice has seen the flag lowered for several more days, and flags often remain at half-staff for lawmakers until they are buried.

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NASA: SPACE FORCE NEEDED TO PROTECT ENERGY GRID FROM ‘EXISTENTIAL THREAT’: Trump’s “Space Force” proposal would help prevent the U.S. energy grid from going dark in an emergency or an attack, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in an exclusive interview with John.

Bridenstine argued that a disruption of America’s satellite assets would pose an “existential threat” to the grid, meaning that a Space Force is needed more than ever.

Wall Street and the grid face a similar threat: He compared the threat to those facing the banking system. Both Wall Street and the electricity sector are dependent on the same Global Positioning System, or GPS, signals from space to operate, he explained.

It is the beginnings of a very real threat: “Every banking transaction requires a timing signal from GPS,” he says. “In other words, if there is no GPS, there is no banking in the United States. Everything shuts down.”

“It becomes an existential threat,” Bridenstine added.

Likewise, the situation would be similar for the electric grid, if a foreign adversary targeted U.S. assets in space, he said.

“Electricity flows on the power grid are regulated by a GPS timing signal as well,” said Bridenstine.

GPS runs the economy and the grid: The Commerce Department explains that GPS is being used more than ever to time transactions and run systems more efficiently. Utilities and power companies have employed GPS to pinpoint disruptions and make the grid more reliable.

Experts say knocking out GPS, or having an enemy broadcast a phony GPS signal, would mean grid operators would be blind to their operations, resulting in an out-of-sync system and potential calamity.

“We are dependent as a nation…on space to the point where our potential adversaries have called it the ‘American Achilles heel,’” noted Bridenstine.

EMP GRID ATTACK WOULD RESULT IN DEATHS AND HIGH COSTS: An attack on the nation’s electric grid, from a solar storm, terrorist or enemy like North Korea, would have a devastating impact even if it lasted just one day, Congress and the Pentagon have been warned.

A one-day blackout would cost the lives of 574, due to a lack of emergency medical equipment powered by electricity, and result in a “societal cost” of $35.7 billion.

And, according to a new compilation of official EMP reports, the probability that an electromagnetic pulse attack would last much longer, possibly resulting in lights-out for a year, would result in over 200 million deaths.

AUTHORITY TO REGULATE CARBON AT STAKE IN LEGAL FIGHT OVER TRUMP’S COAL RULE: The Trump administration’s move to gut Obama’s signature coal pollution rule could clarify an unresolved legal dispute about the federal government’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide, the chief contributor to climate change.

“It’s going to be so interesting to watch if are we going to see the Clean Air Act moving forward be about addressing carbon pollution in a broad power sector sense, or more plant-to-plant and fuel specific standards,” Devin Hartman, electricity policy manager of the free market R Street Institute, told Josh.

Courts never judged Clean Power Plan: The courts never ruled on the legality of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan — even though the Supreme Court stayed the rule — and likely never will, following President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency proposal to replace it. But now, the courts will have to answer the question of whether Trump’s narrower interpretation goes far enough.

“The Clean Power Plan pushed the limits of what you could do under the law, and I don’t think we will ever find out whether it goes beyond those limits,” Nathan Richardson, an environmental law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, told Josh.

The Clean Power Plan required states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, to be achieved by forcing a shift in the electricity sector away from coal plants to natural gas and renewable energy.

Conservatives viewed the broad approach as illegal: So, the Trump administration chose to not set a specific target to reduce carbon emissions, and gave states the authority to write rules encouraging coal plants to run more efficiently.

Environmentalists and Democrats plan to sue the Trump administration for acting weakly, arguing its replacement rule does not satisfy the bare-bones requirement of the law since its proposal would not significantly cut carbon emissions by keeping alive coal plants that would otherwise retire.

“I view this rule not so much as an attempt to reduce carbon emissions, but as a legal strategy to say what is the minimum we can do and not lose in court for doing nothing under the law,” Richardson said.

What the law says — or doesn’t say: This unsettled legal quagmire results from uncertainty about the tools the Clean Air Act gives regulators to combat climate change.

The 1963 Clean Air Act, designed to control air pollution and last amended in 1990, was created before climate change entered the public consciousness to the extent it does today.

The relevant section of the law, section 111(D), says carbon pollution rules must reflect “the best system of emission reduction” — without defining what that means.

Seeking a narrow victory: Some experts agree with the Trump administration that its more limited approach falls squarely into what the Clean Air Act permits.

“With the direction we are seeing with courts, it would not at all surprise me if they accept the more narrow definition the current administration is putting forward,” David Konisky, an associate professor at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, told Josh.

GREENS WANT TO MAKE SURE THE CONCORDE DOESN’T RISE AGAIN: Environmentalist pressed lawmakers Monday morning to kill off a bill that would make it legal for commercial supersonic airline flights to traverse the U.S.

“Resurrecting these flying gas-guzzlers would cause the aviation industry’s already massive climate damage to skyrocket,” said Bill Snape, the Center for Biological Diversity’s senior counsel. “Supersonic planes are a gratuitous luxury for the super-rich and a dirty burden for everyone else. This bill would clear the runway for their comeback.”

The comeback could mean calamity: Supersonic transport, the dream of the 1960s that was realized by the Concorde airliner’s fabled trans-Atlantic flights, had been banned from the United States by the 1970s.

The Concorde airliner was permitted to break the sound barrier while over the Atlantic Ocean, but was banned from traversing over the U.S. mainland at or above the speed of sound because of the damaging shockwaves it would create. Later, supersonic airliners like the Concorde were disbanded because of their high cost and limited customer base.

But section 5017 of the 2018 Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act would repeal the ban, opening supersonic flights at or above the speed of sound over the United States.

A number of green groups signed onto a letter sent to lawmakers on Monday, urging them to drop the measure.

FORMER NAVY CHIEF SLAMS TRUMP’S COAL BAILOUT AS ‘DANGEROUS’: Former Navy Secretary Ray Mabus slammed Trump on Friday over the president’s “military plan” to bail out coal and nuclear plants, calling it a “dangerous and unwarranted” plan motivated by politics and geared toward corporate interests.

Mabus was the civilian head of the Navy for eight years under Obama before stepping down last year. In that time, he was acutely aware of the need for military installations to have access to reliable energy resources.

Spending billions and billions: “But rather than advancing that objective, President Donald Trump appears poised to spend tens of billions of dollars on a corporate bailout that would do nothing to improve grid resilience,” Mabus wrote in an op-ed published Friday by the Houston Chronicle.

Is the bailout really needed? “Worse, his proposal would represent an unprecedented federal intervention into power markets, masking blatantly political objectives with a dangerous and unwarranted use of national security authorities,” Mabus continued.

The former Navy head believes transmission lines and better distribution networks for electricity are what is required, not subsidies for coal plants.

US AND MEXICO REACH DEAL TO UPDATE NAFTA: The U.S. and Mexico have reached a deal to revamp the key North America trade agreement between the two countries, with Canada left out for the time being, President Trump announced Monday morning.

“It’s a big day for trade,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “It’s a big day for our country.”

The deal with Mexico would up the percentage of parts required to be produced in the North America for automobiles to be sold in the U.S. and Mexico. Read more about it here.

Trump also said that he would be changing the name of the North American Free Trade Agreement, to The United States-México trade agreement. Trump said he wanted to get rid of the name NAFTA, because  it had bad connotations associated with it, according to pool reports.

Negotiations on an update to the North American Free Trade Agreement have stalled in recent months amid disagreements over, among other things, provisions related to the automotive and energy industries. U.S. and Mexican negotiators, however, had made breakthroughs on those issues ahead of Monday’s announcement.

‘Ironed out’ energy issues: Jesus Seade, the incoming Mexican government’s chief NAFTA negotiator, said Sunday the energy issues have been “ironed out”, without going into detail, Reuters reported.

Trump did not mention an energy component to the deal in making the announcement Monday morning. That could be announced once Canada is on board in a separate agreement.

Any deal between the two countries would require approval from Canada, which has stayed out of negotiations over the past few weeks. Congress also would need to approve it.

The incoming government of Mexico’s leftist president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador does not want energy to be part of the deal, but the current administration, along with the U.S. and Canada, want it to be.

The original 1994 NAFTA did not have an energy component because Mexico at the time had a nationalized energy system. But in 2013, the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto opened the energy system to foreign investment. The U.S. wants to enshrine those changes into the new NAFTA.

Why it matters: It’s unclear if López Obrador will look to roll back the constitutional reforms, but he may prevent new auctions to foreigners.

A deal including energy is important because it would continue momentum that has seen Mexico import more U.S. natural gas by pipeline than any other country.

TESLA WON’T GO PRIVATE AFTER ALL: In an about-face, Elon Musk announced this weekend he will not take electric carmaker Tesla private.

His Aug. 7 announcement via Twitter that he would make Tesla private had drawn widespread scrutiny of the proposed move, including from regulators.

The Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly subpoenaed the electric carmaker following the founder’s announcement over whether, as Musk’s initial tweet indicated, the company did have private funding. Neither Tesla nor the SEC commented at the time.

Getting make to making green cars: In staying public, Tesla will put its energy into ramping up production of its Model 3, its mass-market model that has faced delays amid production issues, and becoming profitable.

“We will not achieve our mission of advancing sustainable energy unless we are also financially sustainable,” Musk wrote in a blog post Friday.

SENATORS INTRODUCE BILL TO SPEED RESPONSE TO CONTAMINATED WATER: A group of senators introduced two bills Friday to speed the federal government’s response to the contamination of chemicals in water supply across the U.S.

One bill would help the government detect the extent of pollution caused by perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

The second would improve cooperation between state regulators and the Pentagon to address PFAS contamination near military installations.

Who is on the bills: Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., introduced both bills with Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Gary Peters, D-Mich.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is among the sponsors of the second military-related measure.

The problem of PFAS: PFAS have been linked with thyroid defects, problems in pregnancy, and certain cancers. They have been used since the 1940s in Teflon, nonstick pans, electronics, water-repellent clothes, food packaging and firefighting foam.

The problem of PFAS tainting drinking water came into public attention earlier this summer after the EPA and the White House tried to block publication of a study of PFAS.

The Trump administration eventually released the study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found PFAS are harmful to human health at lower levels than the EPA previously deemed safe.

An analysis published in May by the Environmental Working Group found that up to 110 million U.S. residents may be exposed to drinking water contaminated with PFAS, including communities in Michigan, New York, West Virginia, and North Carolina.

What EPA is doing: EPA acting administrator Andrew Wheeler has been visiting affected communities over recent weeks as the agency seeks to develop a management plan for the chemicals later this year.

RUNDOWN

New York Times The nuclear plant of the future may be floating near Russia

Wall Street Journal The race to build a wind behemoth

Bloomberg Big Oil’s exit turns into revival for Norway’s aging North Sea

New York Times Pesticide studies won EPA’s trust, until Trump’s team scorned ‘secret science’

The Wichita Eagle Kansans drank contaminated water for years. The state didn’t tell them.