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CONGESTION PRICING PUSHBACK: New York City gained final federal approval for its congestion pricing plan, clearing the way for the contentious effort to take effect as early as April. The plan, which will charge drivers up to $23 to enter central Manhattan during peak hours, has been hailed as a victory by New Yorkers, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, who say it will reduce congestion for drivers downtown and improve the city’s air quality.
Importantly, it will also help upgrade the city’s metro system, and will “deliver the modern, reliable, accessible subway” that New Yorkers, commuters, and visitors to the city “need and deserve,” Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for the New York-based Riders’ Alliance, told Breanne.
But the plan has drawn sharp opposition from its Garden State neighbors, who say the effort disregards state interests, discounts environmental harms, and comes at the expense of New Jersey’s own air quality.
Complaints: Opponents say they have been spurned in their fight for more representation in the pricing plan process, and in their repeated requests for the government to conduct a fuller environmental review— rather than the comparatively more expedited approval it ultimately received. (Still, the effort has been a long time coming: an earlier version of the plan was introduced in 2008 by then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and New York lawmakers voted in 2019 to approve the final version of the plan.)
Gov. Phil Murphy (D), a staunch critic of the plan, said he is exploring legal options in response to the effort, noting his request for a more thorough Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was ignored by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.
An EIS is called for under the National Environmental Policy Act if it is determined that a project will have “significant” environmental effects. For the NYC congestion pricing plan, a shorter (but still nearly 1,000-page) Environmental Assessment was performed, and it included a finding of no significant impact.
And Reps. Bill Pascrell, Josh Gottheimer and Sen. Bob Menendez derided the plan in a joint statement as a “cash grab” to fund the MTA at the expense of air quality and pollution considerations. “By the MTA’s own admission in their report, the Congestion Tax plan would increase air pollution in New Jersey this year and until 2045,” the trio said.
But proponents sharply dismissed such criticisms. “Gov. Murphy and his fellow critics [of the congestion plan] are flat wrong,” Pearlstein told Breanne.
“The environmental impacts of congestion pricing will be overwhelmingly positive— not just in the core of Manhattan, but throughout the region— as traffic, congestion, pollution, and deadly collisions are reduced as a result of the policy,” he said.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner Energy and Environment Writer Breanne Deppisch (@breanne_dep). Email [email protected] for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
CANADIAN WILDFIRES RESPONSIBLE FOR RECORD AMOUNTS OF CARBON EMISSIONS: Carbon emissions from the wildfires in Canada have reached record levels, with smoke plumes growing so large and intense they have crossed the Atlantic Ocean to cover parts of Europe, according to a new report from the European Union’s climate monitoring service.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said that, since they began burning in late May, Canada’s wildfires have released roughly 160 megatons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere— the highest recorded by the group, which began collecting such data more than two decades ago.
Recorded emissions from the fires have also had a major effect on air quality beyond Canada, including in the U.S., which saw more than 75 million people under air quality alerts earlier this month as a result of the wildfires. Earlier this week, Montreal was ranked as the worst in the world for air quality, and many northeastern Canadian provinces remain under air quality and smog warnings.
Though the smoke has drifted to parts of Western Europe, C3S said, it remains high enough in the atmosphere that air quality has not yet been affected. Read the full report here.
TREASURY ISSUES REPORT ON INSURANCE AND CLIMATE CHANGE: The Treasury Department today released a 73-page report on insurance and climate risk, concluding that it presents new and increased risks for both property and casualty insurers and life insurers.
The report calls on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and state regulators to further incorporate climate risk into insurance regulatory frameworks. The report makes 20 specific recommendations for doing so.
The report comes after State Farm and other major insurers pulled out of insuring new homes in California in response to worsening wildfires and a challenging reinsurance market.
SAUDI ARAMCO SAYS CHINA AND INDIA WILL PROP UP OIL DEMAND IN 2023: The head of Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company said he remains bullish on oil demand projections for the rest of 2023, noting an expected uptick in demand from China and India in the second half of the year.
“We believe that oil market fundamentals remain generally sound for the rest of the year,” Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said in Malaysia today, according to CNBC. The assessment comes even as demand growth in China has remained below expectations, prompting several cuts to its key lending rates.
“Despite the recession risks in several OECD countries, the economies of developing countries, especially China and India, are driving oil demand growth of more than 2 million barrels per day this year,” Nasser added.
His assessments appear to bolster IEA projections that global oil demand will rise by 2.4 million bpd in 2023, outpacing 2022’s growth of 2.3 million bpd. In its report earlier this month, IEA cited Chinese demand as accounting for 60% of the gains.
NEW YORK OFFSHORE WIND COMPANY TO RETRAIN POWER PLANT UNION WORKERS FOR NEW FACILITY: The offshore wind company Attentive Energy One said yesterday it will retrain and keep on 100 union workers from a natural gas-fired power plant in Queens after it converts the Ravenswood facility to an offshore wind project as planned.
Attentive Energy One, which is awaiting final approval from the state, first announced the agreement yesterday with Utility Workers Union of America, the union representing workers at the plant in Queens. If approved, the plant is expected to produce up to 1.4 GW of wind energy.
“Attentive Energy One is the model for how to advance a transformational clean energy project that incorporates the community and embraces the principles of environmental justice and a just transition,” said Clint Plummer, the CEO of Rise Light & Power, which will operate the facility alongside French energy giant TotalEnergies. Plummer said he sees the effort to keep on current employees as an important part of the project’s current effort to win a power contract from the state of New York.
“But we’re not doing it because of that,” he told Reuters. “We see it as a key part of our stewardship of this asset and the responsibility that we hold to do right by that workforce.”
LORDSTOWN MOTORS FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY: The electric truck manufacturer Lordstown Motors announced today that it has filed for bankruptcy and sued Foxconn for failing to follow through on a strategy for bringing products to market.
The company is looking to restructure through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sell off its assets, including the Endurance truck.
Reminder: Then-President Donald Trump posed with an Endurance truck in 2020. He had previously pressured GM not to close its plant in Lordstown, Ohio, which later became Lordstown Motors’ facility.
The Rundown
Wall Street Journal China’s ‘Tesla Killer’ stumbles as EV price war takes toll
Los Angeles Times California congress members call for expansion of San Gabriel Mountains National Monument
