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SENATE COMMITTEE ADVANCES TWO CONTROVERSIAL EPA PICKS: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday morning advanced the nominations of two controversial Environmental Protection Agency nominees, teeing up votes on the Senate floor.
Democrats opposed both nominees, saying their ties to industry prevent them from being effective and faithful environmental enforcers.
The highlights: Dourson “is the most troubling nominee I have ever considered in 17 years on this committee,” said Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the committee’s top Democrat, before the vote.
After the vote, Democrats gave lengthy speeches denouncing Dourson and Wehrum.
Carper vowed to “never give up in opposition” to Dourson’s nomination.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., called the committee’s approval of Dourson and Wehrum “one of the low points of my entire career.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill, referred to Dourson as the “absolute worst person I can think of to be in charge of chemical safety in this country.”
Nominees tied to industry: Dourson is a toxicologist and University of Cincinnati professor. Democrats criticized him for his ties to the chemical industry, which he would be expected to regulate. He founded a consulting group that represented companies that produced chemicals now under EPA review for their public health risks.
Wehrum, an energy industry lawyer and former EPA official, would oversee a portfolio dealing with climate change regulations. The post is widely considered the EPA’s second most important job, and Democrats say Wehrum’s industry ties would complicate his ability to re-evaluate carbon emissions regulations that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has tapped for review, such as the Clean Power Plan. Concerns over his industry connections led to Wehrum being rejected by Congress to serve in the same position in the George W. Bush administration.
Pruitt pleased: “I want to thank Chairman John Barrasso and Members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for granting our nominees a fair Hearing and approving their nominations,” said Administrator Scott Pruitt. “These top leaders in their fields will bring positive change to EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. We look forward to a full Senate vote on these highly-qualified leaders.”
What’s next: Dourson and Wehrum will likely face procedural hurdles before being considered by the full Senate. Democrats on Tuesday demanded information from the EPA about why Dourson is already working in advisory role at the agency before being confirmed.
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HOUSE READIES TO CODIFY TRUMP EPA’S ‘SUE AND SETTLE’ POLICY: The House is set to vote Wednesday on a bill that would place strict limits on the number of regulations a president can issue during a presidency, while reining in the EPA’s ability to issue rules through legal settlements with environmentalists.
The Chamber of Commerce, representing U.S. businesses, issued a formal Key Vote Letter on Tuesday morning to House members, explaining that the nation’s biggest business lobby will be watching how members vote on the legislation, called the Sunshine for Regulations and Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act of 2017.
Jack Howard, the group’s senior vice president for congressional affairs, said the bill would “bring more transparency to the ‘sue and settle’ process by requiring agencies to give early notice and take public comment on proposed settlement agreements obligating agencies to initiate a rulemaking or take other action on a specified timetable.”
Chamber wants assurances: “Although the Chamber applauds Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s decision to end the practice of sue and settle at EPA for now, [the bill] would ensure future transparency and accountability regardless of which party occupies the executive branch,” Howard said.
PERRY PROMISES U.S. NATURAL GAS TO AFRICA: Energy Secretary Rick Perry told attendees at a major oil conference in South Africa Tuesday that his agency is approving natural gas exports to the continent as fast as possible.
“Today, the U.S. leads the world in oil and gas production,” Perry said, according to S&P Global Platts. “My department is approving applications for natural gas exports as fast as possible, including to Africa.”
He said the U.S. “energy arsenal” has the power to provide an “energy transformation” in Africa. The U.S. had recently this year became a net natural gas exporter because of the shale energy boom from hydraulic fracturing.
ZINKE STRESSES ENERGY DOMINANCE OVER CLIMATE: A leaked copy of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s strategic plan shows that climate change has been completely removed and replaced by the Trump administration’s energy dominance agenda.
The Nation obtained a leaked copy of the five-year plan on Wednesday, pointing out that the previous five-year plan mentioned climate change 46 times, while Zinke’s plan does not.
According to the Nation, the plan says the Interior Department plans to achieve “American energy dominance” by tapping “vast amounts” of unused energy reserves on public lands.
HOW TO CATCH A WHITEFISH: Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is calling for a federal probe into a $300 million contract given to the Montana-based Whitefish Energy firm to help repair Puerto Rico’s smashed electricity grid.
Zinke in the mix? Cantwell’s committee has direct oversight over the Interior Department. There is some suspicion that Zinke may have had a hand in the company winning the contract because it is based in his hometown.
Zinke said he had nothing to do with the contract being awarded by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
First step: The GAO is a federal watchdog agency that looks into concerns when requested to do so by members of Congress. Cantwell’s request is the first concrete step that lawmakers have said they would take to investigate the contract award after it was reported late Monday.
Murkowski chimes in: “I obviously want to find out more about it because this is quite a substantial contract and one that is really important for the people of Puerto Rico right now,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told reporters.
House wants a look, too: Senior members from both parties on the House Natural Resources Committee said Tuesday that they are looking into the matter, as well.
MAYOR OF SAN JUAN ALARMED BY CONTRACT: Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan, wants the Whitefish contract “voided,” she said in an interview with Yahoo News published Wednesday.
Cruz called the contract award “alarming,” saying the $300 million contract “should be voided right away and a proper process which is clear, transparent, legal, moral and ethical should take place.”
“It seems like what the Puerto Rican people are going to be paying for, or the American people are going to be paying for, is an intermediary that doesn’t know what is at stake here and that really has to subcontract everything,” Cruz said. “What we need is somebody that can get the job done and that has the expertise to get the job done.”
PERRY SAYS COAL AND NUKE ‘DISCRIMINATED AGAINST’ BY OBAMA: Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Wednesday that the Obama administration ‘discriminated against’ coal and nuclear power and unfairly supported renewable energy sources.
“Nuclear and coal … Those two industries were discriminated against over the course of the last administration,” Perry told reporters at an oil conference in Cape Town, South Africa, when asked about his proposal to subsidize coal and nuclear plants. Reuters reported Perry’s overseas comments.
FERC ACTING CHAIRMAN SAYS INDEPENDENCE WON’T CHANGE: Neil Chatterjee, FERC’s acting chairman, said Tuesday he is committed to maintaining the commission’s independence as it considers Perry’s proposal.
“I remain committed to uphold the commission’s independence on this and many other issues that may come before us,” Chatterjee said at the Energy Bar Association’s Mid-Year Energy Forum, in comments reported by Utility Dive. “Over the last four decades, my predecessors and fellow commissioners have zealously guarded that independence. That’s not going to change so long as I and my colleagues sit on the commission.”
“There’s real value in initiating a conversation on whether FERC-jurisdictional organized markets adequately compensate certain generators for their contribution to the reliability and resilience of the nation’s grid,” he said. “This is entirely consistent with FERC’s historic efforts to ensure organized markets provide necessary compensation for reliability-related services.”
ENERGY DEPT. INSISTS THERE’S ‘SIGNIFICANT SUPPORT’ FOR PERRY PLAN: The Energy Department gave a ringing endorsement of its proposal after the public comment period closed.
“We are still reviewing comments, but it is clear that there is a significant amount of support for the secretary’s proposal,” agency spokesman Shaylyn Hynes said Tuesday. “It is worth noting that even some critics of the proposal acknowledge there is a problem and that FERC needs to act to address pricing in the electric markets.”
ZINKE EYES BIG PRICE HIKES FOR NATIONAL PARK VISITORS: The National Park Service wants to more than double visitor fees for 17 popular national parks during the busiest times of the year as a way to pay for its long overdue maintenance backlog at many of America’s parks.
And even higher: Other park areas would see slightly higher increases from $25 to $70 during the busiest months of the year. Zion and Arches in Utah, for example, would impose those fees from May through September, while Maine’s Acadia and Virginia’s Shenandoah national parks would charge the higher prices in June through October.
Public gets a month to comment: The park service opened a 30-day public comment period Tuesday to hear feedback. The Interior Department hopes to raise $70 million per year from the increase.
MOST UTAHNS WANT TO SHRINK SIZE OF BEARS EARS: Most people in Utah support shrinking the size of the contentious Bears Ears National Monument that the Trump administration has targeted as an example of overreach by former President Barack Obama.
The Salt Lake Tribune and the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics conducted a poll, released Tuesday, that shows 51 percent of Utahns say the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears is too big.
37 percent said it is not too large, and 12 percent didn’t know.
Zinke and many Republicans say previous presidents have abused their authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to unilaterally declare national monuments. Trump has not acted on Zinke’s proposal.
Split over Bears Ears: Bears Ears is perhaps the most contentious one Zinke pegs for a reduction. Obama created Bears Ears in December, just before he left office. It is an area that five Native American tribes consider sacred.
Utahns want to keep Grand Staircase: The Salt Lake Tribune poll also showed most Utahns — 53 percent of them — do not support breaking up the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument into smaller monuments. Zinke has proposed reducing the size of the 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase, which President Bill Clinton declared in 1996.
ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE: Murkowski said Tuesday she could begin rolling back a midnight regulation from the Obama administration that sought to limit industrial activity and renewable energy development in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.
The answer she wanted: The GAO confirmed to Murkowski late Monday that the amendment is indeed a rulemaking and subject to the Congressional Review Act.
“While this rule can be improved administratively or legislatively, disapproving it entirely is now another option that we will consider in the days ahead,” Murkowski said Tuesday.
ONE-FIFTH OF US GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM PUBLIC LANDS, REPORT SAYS: Twenty percent of greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to crude oil, natural gas and coal produced on public lands, according to a report Tuesday from the Wilderness Society..
Federal lands accounted for 42 percent of all coal, 22 percent of all crude oil, and 15 percent of all natural gas produced in the U.S. in 2015.
BOOKER INTRODUCES ‘ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE’ BILL: Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced legislation Tuesday intended to protect minority communities from environmental problems.
It would establish requirements for federal agencies to implement and update a strategy annually to address negative environmental health effects. The measure also would make it easier to file lawsuits, and it mentions the Flint water crisis as an example of how victims should have an easier time claiming damages. And it turns a 1994 executive order on environmental justice into law.
RUNDOWN
New York Times Only U.S. and Syria oppose Paris climate change deal as Nicaragua joins
CNBC Tesla starts work on first Puerto Rico energy project to help rebuild island
Reuters Global oil demand to rise 45 percent by 2050 despite drive for renewables
Bloomberg Refiners shrug off Harvey to rake in fat post-storm profits
Bloomberg Nissan unveils an electric car that is its most powerful vehicle
New York Times How climate change is playing havoc with olive oil
Calendar
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 25
8:30 a.m., 14th and F streets NW. The group ecoAmerica holds its American Climate Leadership Summit, Oct. 25-26 at the National Press Club.
8:30 a.m.-noon, 1155 15th St. NW. The Inter-American Dialogue holds its Latin America Energy Conference, where Mexican Deputy Energy Secretary Cesar Emiliano Hernandez Ochoa delivers keynote remarks.
thedialogue.org/event/latin-america-energy-conference/
All day, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The Group of Earth Observations holds its GEO Week conference, Oct. 25-26.
spacepolicyonline.com/events/geo-week-2017-insight-for-a-changing-world-oct-23-27-2017-washington-dc
10 a.m., 1324 Longworth. House Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing on “Empowering State Based Management Solutions for Greater Sage Grouse Recovery.”
10 a.m., 406 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds a hearing on the “Wildfire Prevention and Mitigation Act of 2017.”
10 a.m., 406 Dirksen. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a meeting to vote on the following nominees: Michael Dourson to be EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention; William Wehrum to be EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation; Matthew Leopold to be EPA’s assistant administrator for the Office of General Counsel; David Ross to be EPA’s assistant administrator for the Office of Water; Paul Trombino III to be administrator for the Federal Highway Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation; Jeffery Baran to be a reappointed member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
THURSDAY, OCT. 26
10 a.m., 366 Dirksen. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing on “Examine Cyber Technology and Energy Infrastructure.”
