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CLIMATE HAWKS GROUSE ABOUT DEBATE MODERATION: Climate activists’ fears of a dud Democratic debate proved prescient Tuesday night, and impeachment wasn’t the only reason why.
The CNN and New York Times asked no questions about climate change over three hours, neglecting the topic even as hawks say it intersects with nearly every other issue asked about: foreign policy, the economy, health care.
“It’s time to see the centrality of the climate crisis get reflected in the debates, rather than treated as an afterthought or a side issue,” Nat Keohane, senior vice president of climate at Environmental Defense Action Fund, told Josh. “The idea that the debate moderators don’t have time to discuss one of the biggest challenges the world faces, simply because there are a lot of other things going on, is a cop-out and an abdication of their responsibility.”
Keohane argued moderators missed opportunities to raise news-of-the-day issues related to climate change, such as the California blackouts or the intensity of recent storms like Dorian, and renewed flooding in Houston.
Republican climate hawks, however, said advocates should absorb a lesson from moderators’ choice of topics.
“This is telling us that highly-informed political elites are not fully onboard with the idea that climate change is the most serious threat this country faces in the long term, bar none,” tweeted Jerry Taylor, president of the Niskanen Center. “If they felt that way, they’d be asking a lot more questions about it.”
Candidates did not ignore climate change: Some tried to weave climate change into answers unsolicited, most prominently Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer, the climate activist and hedge fund manager participating in his first debate.
“We’re forgetting about the existential threat of climate change,” Sanders said in a response to a question about impeachment. Sanders also said climate change is a key motivator of his vow for a federal government jobs guarantee, which is a component of the Green New Deal.
Sanders’ campaign said this push was deliberate, as candidates wrestle to succeed Jay Inslee as the “climate candidate.”
Steyer, meanwhile, mentioned climate in the context of criticizing President Trump’s discounting of international alliances, which he said kills the U.S’ leverage over global efforts to reduce emissions.
“We can’t solve the climate crisis in the United States by ourselves. It’s an international crisis,” Steyer said, before dropping the phrase “frenemies” into his statement.
Complaints after the debate: Other candidates who did not mention climate change complained after the debate about moderators’ ignoring the issue, including Kamala Harris and Julian Castro.
Inslee also signaled he would not stay quiet, as climate activists face the challenge of sustaining the issue’s early prominence in the primary.
“This is the existential crisis of our time,” Inslee tweeted. “Not one single question, and that’s completely inexcusable.”
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NO ONE IS HAPPY WITH EPA’S RFS PROPOSAL: The Environmental Protection Agency released its latest iteration of the Renewable Fuels Standard on Wednesday to a whole lot of angst and little praise, a familiar story for the controversial biofuels program.
The supplemental proposal is the EPA’s attempt to thread the needle between ethanol producers and the oil industry on a difficult issue: when to exempt small oil refiners from having to blend biofuels into their supply and how those exemptions affect the overall volume of mandated biofuels. But it may have just further escalated the fight over the program’s future.
Why ethanol producers are mad: The new EPA proposal doesn’t change the numbers, despite promises from Trump that his administration would seek a stronger biofuel mandate to balance out exemptions small refiners have received in the past.
Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor called the EPA’s move an “unconscionable” proposal that turns “a real fix into little more than a Band-Aid.” The ethanol industry and agriculture state senators are already asking Trump to intervene.
Why oil interests and unions are mad: The EPA proposes to “project” the volume of exemptions it would grant under the program in 2020 and suggests the agency would be open to granting partial exemptions for refineries, a step EPA leaders had previously questioned the legality of. Both of these steps would undercut relief oil industry groups say small refiners desperately need.
“[T]here is simply no logic in forcing complying refineries to bear the burden of decisions outside of their control,” Frank Macchiarola, vice president of downstream and industry operations for the American Petroleum Institute.
EPA may have known it would piss people off: The agency’s own press release announcing the supplemental proposal didn’t bear any new praise from either side on the issue. Instead, it cribbed quotes from agriculture leaders praising an Oct. 4 agreement reached by the White House, the EPA, and the Department of Agriculture — a deal most ethanol producers and their supporters say the EPA has now ripped apart.
SPEAKING OF RFS, REFINING GROUP LAUNCHES AD CAMPAIGN AGAINST TRUMP’S PROPOSAL: The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers launched a six-figure advertising campaign Tuesday calling on Trump not to finalize his proposed changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard.
The first 30-second ad ran in the second hour of the Democratic debate in the Washington D.C. market.
Entitled “Refiners vote, protect our jobs,” the ad shows AFPM CEO Chet Thompson addressing refinery employees as well as union and labor representatives from Ohio and Michigan.
“Increasing these mandates is going to hurt the women and men standing here listening,” Thompson says, adding that is “not an America first energy policy.”
LIBERTARIAN GROUP RUNNING ADS AGAINST GREEN NEW DEAL: The energy-related messaging wars continued into the third hour of the debate, when the Competitive Enterprise Institute ran a 30-second spot in the D.C. market questioning the cost of the Green New Deal proposed by congressional Democrats.
CEI, a libertarian think tank with ties to fossil fuel companies, will spend more than a quarter million dollars on the campaign, which will escalate over the next 30 days.
The group is calling the ad, “The Green New Deal: can you afford it?”
RICK PERRY TO TOUT SMALL NUCLEAR REACTORS IN EUROPE: Energy Secretary Rick Perry is traveling to Europe this weekend to tout the Trump administration’s work to encourage the development of small modular nuclear reactors.
Perry will visit Brussels for the first ever U.S.-E.U. High Level Forum on SMRs to boost cooperation on the emerging but still in-development technology, which the energy secretary told reporters on a press call Wednesday is “key to ensure clean, reliable, secure baseload power for years to come.”
Poland, the Czech Republic, and Romania are among European countries that have signed memos with various private companies in the U.S. on developing advanced reactor technologies, said Sam Buchan, DOE’s advisor for international affairs.
The agency is optimistic that other countries, including in Europe, will look to import a technology being developed by Oregon-based NuScale that is on track to be the first company to obtain a license to operate a small reactor design in the U.S. for commercial use, with deployment planned for 2026.
TRUMP MOVES TO ALLOW LOGGING IN MASSIVE ALASKA RAINFOREST: The Interior Department’s National Forest Service issued a proposed rule Tuesday that would allow logging on more than half of the 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
Alaska’s Republican-controlled government had petitioned the Trump administration to allow logging — or tree-cutting — in the huge forest to boost the local economy. The proposal would exempt the rainforest from the 2001 Roadless Rule, a conservation policy set in the Clinton administration which established prohibitions on road construction and timber harvesting on National Forest System lands.
But Democrats and environmentalists say the move would threaten clean water and wildlife habitats in the largest intact temperate rainforest in North America. Taking down trees in the forest would weaken its ability to absorb carbon dioxide, which helps combat climate change.
The Forest Service also proposed five other alternatives that keep more protections against logging in the rainforest, but it highlighted its “preferred” option that would remove 9.2 million acres currently exempted by the Roadless Rule to allow development.
US RETALIATED AGAINST IRAN WITH CYBERATTACK AFTER SAUDI OIL STRIKE: American officials say the U.S. attacked Iran in a cyber operation after Tehran allegedly hit two Saudi oil facilities in a September strike.
The officials said Wednesday that the U.S. attack happened in September and looked to hurt Iran’s ability to disseminate “propaganda,” according to Reuters.
The Pentagon would not comment on the cyberattack, saying that “as a matter of policy” they “do not discuss cyberspace operations, intelligence, or planning.”
Iran denied the cyberattack happened.
The Sept. 14 strikes on Saudi oil plants disrupted oil markets, prompting the U.S. to move additional troops and missiles to Saudi Arabia in response.
RENEWABLES GROUP LOOKS TO SHAPE TALK ON NATIONAL CLEAN ELECTRICITY STANDARD: The American Council on Renewable Energy is outlining its vision for a national renewable electricity standard that could require at least 50% of electricity sales be zero-emitting power. Their white paper, released Wednesday, is a first step to add policy detail to a concept already being floated by some on Capitol Hill.
Most important for any renewable electricity standard, ACORE says, is that it requires at least 50% renewables, allows a broad range of renewable technologies to qualify, includes alternative ways to get credit, and doesn’t preempt state-level programs.
One thing to watch: How discussion evolves on dealing with stranded fossil fuel energy assets under any renewables standard.
ACORE has a few suggestions — including restricting utilities from buying power from any carbon-emitting facilities built more than two years after any policy’s enactment. Such a restriction, however, would likely anger fossil fuel developers, particularly as utilities announce new natural gas builds.
The Rundown
New York Times EPA bypassed its West Coast team as a feud with California escalated
Reuters US ‘deeply concerned’ about untrackable China ships carrying Iran oil
Bloomberg A fortune lies in Canada’s oil sands. Many voters want to leave it there
NPR: As the climate warms, companies are scrambling to calculate the risk to their profits
Houston Chronicle: Formosa Plastics settles Lavaca Bay pollution case for $50 Million
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 16
Noon to 5:30 p.m. Rayburn Foyer. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Nuclear Science and History will be hosting an interactive exhibit as part of Nuclear Science Week. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., will be giving remarks 2:15 p.m. and Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C. will speak at 4:30.
THURSDAY | OCTOBER 17
9 a.m. 2020 Rayburn. The House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis holds a hearing on “Solving the Climate Crisis: Cleaner, Stronger Buildings.”
10 a.m., 1324 Longworth. The House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy Mineral Resources holds a hearing on “The Case for Climate Optimism: Realistic Pathways to Achieving Net Zero Emissions.”
10 a.m. 406 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety holds a hearing on “Reducing Emissions While Driving Economic Growth: Industry-led Initiatives.”
10:30 am. 366 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to “examine the status of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and related energy security issues.”
