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TRUMP PLANS ENERGY TALKS WITH EU ‘FOE’ A WEEK AFTER HELSINKI: The White House announced Tuesday morning that President Trump will meet with the president of the European Commission on energy security next week after a contentious week during which he called the European Union a “foe” and Russia a respected “competitor.”

July 25: “President Donald J. Trump will welcome President Jean-Claude Juncker of the European Commission to the White House on July 25, 2018,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement Tuesday.

Topping the list: “Energy security” will top the list of subjects the two leaders with discuss among others like economic growth and counterterrorism.

Wide discussions: “The two leaders will discuss a wide range of priorities, including foreign and security policy, counterterrorism, energy security, and economic growth,” said Sanders. ‘Improving’ partnership: “President Trump and President Juncker will focus on improving transatlantic trade and forging a stronger economic partnership.”

From Helsinki with love: Based on his remarks in Helsinki on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump’s focus when it comes to energy will be on getting Europe to consider taking more natural gas from the United States.

Pipeline pouting: The Trump administration is opposed to a deal the European Union has worked out with Russia on building a pipeline through Germany to supply a big chunk of the continent’s natural gas needs.

‘Competitor’ in chief: But Trump appeared to soften his stance on the pipeline, calling Putin a “competitor” that U.S. energy exports will be competing with for the European market.

“I called him a competitor,” Trump said Monday. “And a good competitor he is. The word competitor is a compliment,” he added.

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NEW EPA CHIEF ANDREW WHEELER IS A ‘DIFFERENT PERSON’ THAN SCANDAL-PLAGUED SCOTT PRUITT: Andrew Wheeler wants you to know he’s a different person than the man he has just replaced as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. He hopes that his attention for detail and appreciation for transparency will allow him to more successfully pursue President Trump’s deregulatory agenda.

“I am not faulting anything my predecessor did,” Wheeler, the acting administrator of the EPA, told the Washington Examiner last week in an interview on his first day in the spacious, wood-paneled office that Scott Pruitt used to occupy.

“I am a different person. I approach my job differently, and we both came at this from different backgrounds. I’ve always believed the more information we put out to the public on the decisions, and what constitutes the decisions at the agency, it makes for better rules and better policy. So I have always been a transparent person, and that’s just the way I approach things.”

Read the full interview here with Wheeler.  

ANDREW WHEELER AIMS TO COMPLETE TRUMP’S DEREGULATORY AGENDA AT EPA:

Andrew Wheeler, acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has a lot of work ahead of him to complete the deregulatory agenda that Pruitt started.

Lasting impact: Wheeler says he’s ready to make a lasting impact, whether or not he is confirmed as EPA’s permanent leader.

Implementing Trump’s agenda: “Of course we are absolutely implementing Presidents Trump’s agenda,” Wheeler told the Washington Examiner in an interview at EPA headquarters on his third day in the top job.

Air, water, and deregulate: “We can protect the air, we can protect the water, and still deregulate at the same time. I don’t expect to change everything in the brief tenure that I will have here, but I hope to put the agency on the glide path to looking at things differently.”

Disciplined and professional: Conservative legal and environmental experts say Wheeler, EPA’s No. 2 official until Pruitt resigned this month due to various ethics scandals, could serve as a more disciplined, understated, professional, and effective leader of EPA.

If true, that would help the agency overcome critics who say the EPA under Pruitt had little to show for his campaign to rewrite rules combating climate change, and little hard evidence of its necessity.

A long way to go: “On the regulatory front, they haven’t accomplished nearly as much as they could have by this point,” said Jeff Holmstead, a former deputy administrator of the EPA in the George W. Bush administration.

‘Hard regulatory work’: “They did a good job of getting started on these issues, but even a lot of Pruitt supporters would say Andy may be the right person to do all the hard regulatory work still in front of the agency. This is the role Andy has always looked forward to having, and I think he is going to be able to get an awful lot done in the next few years.”

HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE CRUSHES MEASURE TO HOLD UP PRUITT’S CHANGES: The House Rules Committee struck down an amendment to the Interior Department and EPA spending bill Monday night that would have held the rulemakings initiated under Scott Pruitt’s in abeyance until the inspector general’s investigation into his scandals were completed.

Outrage: Green groups were outraged by the decision after sending a letter to the committee asking that it place the temporary hold on Pruitt’s regulatory agenda.  

‘Free pass’: “Congressional Republicans yesterday gave Scott Pruitt a free pass, failing to hold him accountable for his unprecedented list of scandals,” said Lukas Ross, senior policy analyst at Friends of the Earth. “Congress should root out Pruitt’s corruption, not bury it.”

What the letter said: “To ensure that the EPA is truly listening to the American people we ask you to vote for this amendment to suspend these rulemakings while the remaining investigations continue,” Friends of the Earth, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and others asked in their letter on Monday.

The amendment was offered by Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia.

GREEN GROUPS SUE EPA OVER TRUCK RULE: Environmental groups on Tuesday sued the EPA over its decision to block a regulation limiting the number of tractor trailers trucks with older, rebuilt engines because they don’t meet new pollution standards.

Pruitt’s parting gift: It was one of former EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s final actions before departing the agency to stop enforcing the truck rules.  

Obama-era rules: The Obama-era regulation, known as the “glider rule,” would limit the number of glider trucks — those with older engines and new bodies — to 300 per manufacturer annually.

EPA HEARS FROM ALL SIDES ON PRUITT’S SCIENCE RULE: The EPA is holding an all-day public hearing on the agency’s “science rule,” which aims to make the scientific studies the agency uses to formulate its regulations more transparent.

On the left, EPA will hear from those who say the rule will erode confidence in the scientific basis for regulation, while pushing out studies that are not politically expedient.

On the right, the hope is the rule will offer more balance in regulations by applying closer scrutiny to the scientific studies used to develop them.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian free-market think tank, presented a report at the hearing on Tuesday, stating the reasons why more transparency on science should be included in EPA rulemakings.

CEI Senior Fellow Angela Logomasini, author of the report, argues that the rule, “if adopted, will help ensure the underlying science is valid,” which will increase the probability that EPA regulations are generating public health benefits.

“This is a government accountability issue,” said Logomasini. “Transparency in regulatory science is valuable, achievable, and necessary for making sure important regulations work and provide the benefits they claim.”

‘Modest and flexible’: “The EPA’s proposed rule will improve science and is far more modest and flexible than critics assert,” she said.

Tonko chimes in: Democratic Rep. Paul Tonko of New York was one of the first to make public remarks against the science rule at the public hearing.

He refers to the proposed rule as a “ban on credible public health research” in developing public health regulations at EPA.

‘Gains for polluters’: “A prohibition of this kind would likely result in significant gains for polluters and severe restrictions on the ability of pollution victims and experts to make the case for stronger common-sense protections,” his office said ahead of his remarks summarizing his position.

FREE-MARKET GROUP TAKES TREASURY TO COURT OVER CLIMATE CHANGE: The conservative think tank Institute for Energy Research filed an open records lawsuit on Tuesday against the Department of the Treasury to block Washington from “quietly advanc[ing] the ‘climate’ industry.”

FOIA: The Freedom of Information Act suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking “certain, specific records relating to the ‘climate risk disclosure’ campaign begun in 2012 by various activist groups including Ceres and Rockefeller Financial Asset Management and led by disgraced former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.”

Pyle in charge: The group, headed by Tom Pyle, former energy transition chief for Trump, said the climate agenda, if implemented, “would have immense economic and legal consequences.”

What the lawsuit wants: Pyle’s group requested all correspondence by Treasury’s Energy and Environment Director Peter Wisner that mention these terms: “Bloomberg task force,” “G20,” “Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosure,” “climate risk disclosure,” and/or “climate financial disclosure.”

INDUSTRY MARKS ONE YEAR OF CLIMATE LAWSUITS WITH PRINCIPLES ON HOW TO TO STOP THEM: An industry group aimed at stopping the growing trend of “baseless” climate change lawsuits marked the anniversary of the first climate lawsuits by listing “principles of reform” to strengthen the nation’s legal system against such litigation.

The National Association of Manufacturers’ Accountability Project on Tuesday marked the anniversary of cities in California filing the first wave of climate lawsuits against energy companies. Since then, similar public nuisance lawsuits have been filed in New York, Colorado, Washington state and Rhode Island.

Courts already ruling in industry’s favor: “The courts have already ruled against this strain of frivolous litigation, most recently when a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by San Francisco and Oakland,” said NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons. “Judge William Alsup’s decision in that case should be required reading for other jurisdictions contemplating similar lawsuits.”

‘Jackpot justice’: “This form of jackpot justice isn’t the answer, and it diverts time and resources that could be better spent working towards real solutions, as manufacturers do every day,” Timmons said.

The principles the group issued Tuesday call for legislation to stop the frivolous lawsuits from gaining traction in the first place.

Pre-empt lawsuits: “Pre-emption legislation…would protect manufacturers and consumers from frivolous lawsuits, which unfairly seek to charge them with liability for global climate change,” according to the group.

Lawyers for hire: It also calls on “public officials to be fully transparent regarding the terms of their arrangements with contingency-fee plaintiffs’ lawyers to whom they have outsourced government legal authority and police power.” This would make the lawyers that municipalities hire more accountable to the public, rather than winning a case based on any financial benefit they would receive.

‘Immediate withdrawal’: The third, and final, principle calls for an “immediate withdrawal of all climate change-related lawsuits against manufacturers in America.”

ENERGY DEPARTMENT ROLLS OUT $2B IN LOAN GUARANTEES FOR TRIBES: The Department of Energy issued the first loan guarantee solicitation under the agency tribal energy program to bolster energy development projects.

‘Benefit Indian Country’: “The Department has heard from tribes that they can have difficulty accessing the debt capital necessary to finance energy development projects that will benefit Indian country,” said Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

The solicitation provides as much as $2 billion in partial loan guarantees to support economic opportunities for Native American and Alaska Native communities through energy development projects and activities.

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