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GRAHAM-MCCAIN CLIMATE CLUB: It has become clear that Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona are teaming up with Democrats to address climate change this fall.
What that effort will look like as a policy proposal is still to be determined as Congress moves to October and tax reform.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated the two senators’ commitment to fighting climate change on Wednesday in joining with 15 state governors to announce they are on track to meet the obligations of the Paris climate change agreement.
The next steps after Graham’s endorsement of placing a price on greenhouse gas emissions are expected next week. He said he will be working with Democrats such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island on climate legislation in the coming weeks.
U.S. AND SYRIA TOGETHER AT LAST: With Nicaragua deciding Wednesday to join the Paris climate agreement, Syria and the U.S. are the only two outliers left.
Syria has not signed onto the agreement, while President Trump has decided to exit the 2015 deal, which will take until the next presidential election to unravel.
“When the only country left in the world that hasn’t signed the Paris Agreement is Syria, President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the accord stands out like a sore thumb. The Trump administration’s reputation as a climate loner deepens even farther,” David Waskow, the World Resources Institute’s International climate director, said Thursday.
BRANSON JUMPS ON THE CLIMATE SHAMING BUS: Virgin’s Richard Branson also struck out at Trump Thursday for failing to acknowledge climate change in the wake of Hurricane Irma, which obliterated the airline mogul’s home on a private island in the Virgin Islands.
“Look, climate change is real. Ninety-nine per cent of scientists know it’s real,” Branson told CNN. “The whole world knows it’s real except for maybe one person in the White House.”
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PUERTO RICO WAKES UP TO DARKNESS: As Hurricane Maria rampages through the Caribbean, the U.S. territory has been left in ruins after the storm finished what Hurricane Irma started earlier this month.
The island’s government is predicting that widespread electricity outages will last for months before the grid can be fully repaired.
Trump to visit: Trump said Thursday that he would soon visit to take stock of the damage inflicted by Maria, which he said had “absolutely obliterated” the island.
“Puerto Rico got hit with winds, they say they’ve never seen winds like this anywhere,” Trump said before a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in New York. “Their electrical grid was totally destroyed, and so many other things.”
Green energy opportunity seen in devastation: The energy and environmental think tank Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis put out a release eyeing a way to use the power outage as a clean energy staging point.
“The blackout caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, coming on the heels of damage from Hurricane Irma, highlights a long-festering need to reinvent and replace the island’s rickety and mismanaged electricity grid.
ZINKE DECLARES OCTOBER HUNTING AND FISHING MONTH: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke declared October Hunting and Fishing Month in an official declaration signed in Missouri Wednesday night.
He tweeted the declaration while visiting a Missouri aquarium.
The declaration falls in step with an order he signed last week to expand hunting and fishing on all public lands, including national parks and monuments.
The declaration followed the leak of draft recommendations about shrinking national monuments from Zinke to Trump this week. The draft looks to scale back or significantly change size and-or activities allowed at 10 presidentially designated national monuments.
Conservation groups threatened to sue the administration over the draft if the president adopts Zinke’s recommendations.
It is not clear if there will be similar pushback for hunting and fishing month. After all, there is already a national hunting day.
STATES GANG UP ON CLIMATE CHANGE: A coalition of states backing the Paris climate change agreement said it is the third-largest economy in the world after North Carolina joined the group Wednesday in defiance of President Trump’s decision to exit the United Nations pact.
“We represent 40 percent of the [U.S.’s] entire economic opportunity,” Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state said to emphasize the seriousness of the coalition’s commitment to the Paris deal. “If we were a country, we would be the third-largest economy of any nation in the world.”
“We just don’t have our own flag,” Inslee quipped.
Big influence: The alliance, which includes the economic behemoth of California — which by itself is the sixth largest economy in the world — represent at least $7 trillion of economic activity and more than 36 percent of the nation’s population.
‘IGNORANT’ TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that the Trump administration is the most ignorant in history about the environment and climate change.
This administration “is the most ignorant we have ever seen when it comes to the environment,” Cuomo said in holding a press conference about the U.S. Climate Alliance.
Cuomo, who is one of the leaders of the alliance, said Trump is in “a state of denial” about climate change amid the number of major hurricanes hitting the United States.
He said the administration’s stance on climate change is if you don’t acknowledge a problem, there is no problem to solve. “It’s like having a great party on the eve of destruction.”
JOHN KERRY PILES ON: The former secretary of state said Wednesday that Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement means he “forfeited American leadership” on climate change.
“The president didn’t have to pull out,” Kerry told the 15 members of the Climate Alliance. “That was political. All he had to do was say: ‘I want to change the targets a little bit.’ Instead, he forfeited American leadership, he put at risk the momentum has been created and he said to the American people, ‘I’m buying into the denial hoax.'”
The climate deal is “not a real estate deal that transpired in a matter of days or weeks or even months,” he said.
SAN FRANCISCO, OAKLAND SUE OIL COMPANIES: The California filed a pair of lawsuits Wednesday against the world’s five biggest oil companies, saying the industry knew their products contributed to climate change and should have to pay states for the costs of preventing flooding from rising sea levels.
The targets: The defendants are Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell
Fighting back: Chevron dismissed the rationale of the lawsuit: “Should this litigation proceed, it will only serve special interests at the expense of broader policy, regulatory and economic priorities,” said Chevron spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie.
California’s crusade: The lawsuit is the latest attempt by California and its cities to contest the Trump administration’s energy and environmental regulatory rollback. This past weekend, the California legislature extended the state’s cap-and-trade program from 2020 to 2030. And the state is part of the U.S. Climate Alliance pushing to meet the Paris Agreement targets without Trump. But the state’s efforts have been stymied in other ways. On Saturday, the state legislature defeated a pair of bills to create a regional electrical grid and a measure that would have required all electricity in the state to come from non-carbon sources by 2045.
MILITARY LEADERS LOBBY AGAINST SOLAR TARIFFS: Former U.S. military officials wrote the International Trade Commission Wednesday urging it to reject a petition asking it to rule that the solar industry has been harmed by cheap solar imports.
Military matters: Their perspective matters because the military is the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. The former military officials, including veterans of the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines, say solar is increasingly used to power military bases.
Renewable reliance: “Federal law calls on the [Defense Department] to produce or procure 25 percent of its facility energy from renewable sources by 2025,” and higher costs for solar could harm that effort, they write.
ANTI-PIPELINE PROTESTERS DISRUPT FERC COMEBACK MEETING: Demonstrators on Wednesday interrupted the first meeting that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has held since January.
Organized campaign: The demonstrations were expected, and reflective of a campaign by environmental groups to target FERC for approving pipelines in a way critics say doesn’t account for the effects of climate change. More than 100 organizations planned and endorsed the protest, mostly local and national environmental groups.
Plodding on policy: FERC accomplished little on the policy front, but the meeting was Neil Chatterjee’s first as chairman.
His leadership will be shortlived, because Kevin McIntyre, Trump’s chairman-in-waiting, will replace Chatterjee after the former is confirmed by the Senate.
Chatterjee made sure to leave his mark, describing his vision for FERC. He will remain a member when McIntyre becomes chairman.
Working with Trump, to a point: Chatterjee said FERC will “work diligently” to try to help achieve the Trump administration’s “laudable” energy goals, without ceding the commission’s independence.
RUNDOWN
Washington Post Hurricane Maria further damages Puerto Rico’s bankrupt electric grid
Reuters Norway, the country with the most electric cars per capita, gives out generous handouts to industry
Wall Street Journal Energy policy alliance prompts foreign policy cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world’s two largest crude oil producers
Bloomberg How German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s green energy push has fueled demand for coal
Washington Post EPA has pulled special investigators from their jobs to provide security detail for administrator Scott Pruitt
Reuters Chinese automaker predicts country’s complete shift to electric vehicles will take a decade
Calendar
THURSDAY, SEPT. 21
3:30 p.m., Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The GAIN Coalition holds a conference called “Energy for All: Examining America’s Diverse Infrastructure. Moderated by former Rep. Albert R. Wynn of Maryland. Panelists include Paula Glover, president and CEO of American Association of Blacks in Energy; P. Anthony Thomas, director of Government Affairs at California Independent Petroleum Association; Ryan Boyer, Business manager of the Laborers’ District Council of Philadelphia. Gainnow.org
6 p.m., 1619 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) holds a lecture on “Nuclear Policy and Politics.”
FRIDAY, SEPT. 22
International Trade Commission to make Solar Trade Petition Injury Determination.
10 a.m.,1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. The Center for Strategic and International Studies hosts Bjorn Otto Sverdrup, senior vice president for Sustainability at Statoil, to present Statoil’s Climate Roadmap. csis.org/events/statoils-climate-roadmap
TUESDAY, SEPT. 26
10 a.m., 366 Dirksen. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing to consider the following nominations: Bruce J. Walker to be assistant secretary of energy for electricity delivery and energy reliability, and Steven E. Winberg to be an assistant secretary of energy for fossil energy.
2 p.m., 1334 Longworth. House Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing on three bills on tribal recognition.
naturalresources.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=402853
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 27
10 a.m., 406 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a full committee hearing called “Hearing on Forest Management to Mitigate Wildfires: Legislative Solutions.”
epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings?ID=8D56D171-7DFF-4BF7-B83A-87BEC1D91A42
2 p.m., 366 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s subcommittee on national parks will hold an oversight hearing on “Encouraging the Next Generation to Visit National Parks.”
