Obama Methane Rule Remains Law Of Land
In a surprise 51-49 defeat, the U.S. Senate rejects a measure that would have repealed Obama-era regulations on methane emissions. That regulation, which the House of Representatives voted to rescind on February 3, limits the venting and flaring of natural gas from oil and gas facilities on U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands. The Obama administration had argued that the practices wasted tens of billions of cubic feet of natural gas annuallyand also posed a climate threat. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with 25 times the warming capacity of carbon dioxide.
What Has Supreme Court Done To The Epa
The Environmental Protection Agency exists for one reason protect the environment . In other words it is all about the creation of a far better world.
Who could possibly object to clean air, and clean drinkable water?
The Gov of Michigan in 2014 perhaps. Just ask the folks in Flint, they just love him.
Those motivated by greed tend to be those that lean away from clean air and water. The desire to sacrifice all that for the sake of a few more bucks is not exactly the high moral ground, hence such opposition will cloak itself with political terms such as federal overreach or similar.
Translation How dare a federal agency raise an objection to my power plant belching out tons of poisonous fumes.
Speaking of overreach and intrusion into an area where they have no expertise, lets now cover what SCOTUS has just done to the EPA.
So what is the story, what has happened?
Former Georgia Governor Becomes Secretary Of Agriculture
The U.S. Senate confirmed former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue as head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on April 24 with a strong bipartisan vote: 87 to 11.
Along with overseeing farming and food programs, the Department of Agriculture is responsible for the countrys forestry and is the parent agency of the United States Forest Service.
Perdue found success in the agriculture business before entering politics. To avoid potential conflicts of interest, he stepped down from several businesses before he was confirmed as agriculture secretary.
Brune released a statement denouncing what he called Perdues history of crony capitalism, indebtedness to big agribusiness and denial of climate science.
We will be closely watching Secretary Perdues actions on land conservation, forest management, and funding for forest fire fighting, Brune said. We stand ready to resist attacks on our food, our forests, and our families.
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The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules Heres The Full List
Over four years, the Trump administration dismantled major climate policies and rolled back many more rules governing clean air, water, wildlife and toxic chemicals.
In all, a New York Times analysis, based on research from Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and other sources, counts nearly 100 environmental rules officially reversed, revoked or otherwise rolled back under Mr. Trump. More than a dozen other potential rollbacks remained in progress by the end but were not finalized by the end of the administrations term.
This is a very aggressive attempt to rewrite our laws and reinterpret the meaning of environmental protections, said Hana V. Vizcarra, a staff attorney at Harvards Environmental and Energy Law Program who has tracked the policy changes since 2018. This administration is leaving a truly unprecedented legacy.
Rule reversals
The bulk of the rollbacks identified by the Times were carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency, which weakened Obama-era limits on planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and from cars and trucks removed protections from more than half the nations wetlands and withdrew the legal justification for restricting mercury emissions from power plants.
In justifying many of the rollbacks, the agencies said that previous administrations had overstepped their legal authority, imposing unnecessary and burdensome regulations that hurt business.
Keystone Xl And Dakota Access Pipelines Advanced
On Jan. 24, Trump signed two executive actions advancing the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Earlier that day, during a meeting with CEOs for three automobile manufacturers, Trump said, I am to a large extent an environmentalist. I believe in it, but its out of control.
The Dakota Access pipeline is a 1,172-mile underground crude-oil pipeline that will stretch from northwest North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to Illinois. A number of Native American tribal nations are protesting the pipeline, which will pass within a half-mile of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The protesters argue that it could pollute the tribes only water source, Lake Oahe, and damage sacred and cultural sites.
The Keystone XL pipeline would be an expansion of the existing TransCanada infrastructure that transports oil from tar sands in the energy-rich province of Alberta to refineries in the United States. The Obama administration had blocked a proposed 1,179-mile pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska.
Environmentalists have raised concerns about both pipelines necessity and their potential impact on the surrounding areas.
On March 24, the under secretary of state for political affairs granted a permit to construct and maintain the Keystone XL pipeline.
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Trump Budget Proposes Steep Cuts For The Environment
President Trumps 2018 budget, sent to Congress Tuesday, calls for massive cuts in scientific research and in a slew of environmental programs that protect air and water. The proposed budget, titled A New Foundation for American Greatness, slashes the Environmental Protection Agencys budget by 31 percent a steeper cut than any other agency. Those cuts could translate into a $2.7 billion spending reduction and the loss of 3,200 jobs, according to an analysis by the World Resources Institute. The proposed budget eliminates major programs to restore the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and Puget Sound. It ends the EPAs lead-risk reduction and radon detection programs and cuts funding for the Superfund cleanup program.
The budget proposal does, however, retain funding for grants and financing to states and cities for drinking water and wastewater programs. S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, told the Washington Post that he was amazed that the final EPA budget is nearly identical to the preliminary budget released in March, despite strong opposition at the time from many members of Congress. In addition, the Interior Department would undergo a 12 percent funding cut, and the Energy Department a six percent cut.
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Emissions Standards For Vehicles Reconsidered
Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and Pruitt announced March 15 that the Obama administrations standards for emissions from cars and light-duty trucks manufactured between 2022 and 2025 would be reconsidered.
Todays decision by the EPA is a win for the American economy, Chao said in a statement. The Department of Transportation will re-open the Mid-Term evaluation process and work with the EPA to complete the review in a transparent, data-driven manner.
The Midterm Evaluation process was established in 2012 to set standards for vehicle models from 2017 until 2025.
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Public Lands And Wildlife Protections
Selling out our public lands and waters to fossil fuel interests
Fossil fuel industry loophole. On April 3, 2017, the Interior Department announced it would reopen a rule that closed a loophole that had allowed coal, oil, and gas companies to dodge royalty payments owed to U.S. taxpayers. On August 7, 2017, Secretary Zinke repealed the rule and allowed the loophole to remain open. The Department of the Interior estimates the loophole will cost taxpayers $75 million per year. Following Zinkes announcement, on August 30, 2017, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that the Interior Department had violated the law by postponing the rule.
Hydraulic fracturing on public lands. On March 28, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order directing the BLM to reviewand potentially revise or rescinda 2015 rule to set well integrity and other safety standards for oil and gas wells using hydraulic fracturing on public lands. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit delayed oral arguments in a legal challenge to the hydraulic fracturing rule. On July 25, 2017, the BLM proposed rescinding the 2015 rule. On December 28, 2017, it announced a final rule to rescind the 2015 rule, which would have updated decades-old well-drilling regulations that predated the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies.
Drilling and mining Americas special places
Excluding the public from public lands
Scott Pruitt Versus The Environmental Protection Agency
Michael Goldhaber, IBA US Correspondent
President Trumps environmental chief appears to be battling his own agency. Global Insight assesses an internal struggle at the EPA that could have dire consequences for the fight against climate change.
On 28 March 2017, the United States President Donald Trump paid a surprise visit to the Environmental Protection Agencys neoclassical headquarters in Washington DCs Federal Triangle. Formally, he was there to declare an end to the war on coal. Informally, agency staffers say he was launching a war on the EPA.
Coal miners in khakis and carbon executives in suits had front row seats as the President ordered a review of every rule that covers the exploitation of energy. Lest any doubt his top target, the President mused that no rule threatens our miners, energy companies and economy more than the Clean Power Plan, linchpin of the Obama EPAs policy to slow global warming.
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Clean Energy And Energy Efficiency
Repealing federal clean energy and efficiency targets. On May 17, 2018, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to review and subsequently replace, modify, or rescind targets for renewable energy use, including installations or purchases of renewable electricity from third parties energy efficiency water efficiency recycling and waste reduction and other sustainability initiatives. The order slows progress toward reducing carbon pollution from federal buildings, which roughly equaled the amount produced by 8.1 million cars in 2016.
Ceiling fans. On January 31, 2017, the DOE delayed the effective date of energy efficiency standards for ceiling fans. The Obama administration had finalized those standards just two weeks earlier. On March 21, 2017, the DOE delayed the effective date again to September 30, 2017. On March 31, 2017, eight states, New York City, and consumer and environmental groups sued the DOE regarding its delay of the ceiling fan standards. The DOE reversed course, naming an effective date and compliance date for the rule.
And If He Actually Tried To Do It What Would Happen
Donald Trumps presidential campaign has been notably light on policy specifics. Yet one of his very few clear proposals is to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. He has called for doing so repeatedly, although he sometimes the Department of Environmental or DEP. And hes not the only Republican presidential contender to call for puting EPA on the chopping block. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich also called for eliminating the agency, and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio called for drastically limiting its authority.
As Trump gears up to give a big energy policy speech at a conference hosted by the North Dakota Petroleum Council next Thursday, its worth examining what his signature environmental policy proposal would mean. And why does someone with so few specific policy goals have it in for EPA in the first place?
Its hard to know what goes on under Trumps combover. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment, nor did his new energy policy advisor, Rep. Kevin Cramer .
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As The Guardian explained in a February article:
But its hardly inspiring to say, As president, I will direct EPA to set more modest regulations. Hence, abolish EPA becomes a shorthand for favoring business interests over environmental protection.
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Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a 1,090,000-acre wilderness area in the state of Minnesota. In 2018, the Trump administration cleared the way for renewed mineral leasing within the watershed of the BWCA. The Obama administration had proposed a 20-year mining ban and asked for an environmental study based on concerns that mining in the Boundary Waters watershed could lead to irreversible harm to the BWCA. Environmentalists challenged the reversal of the decisions in federal court.In January 2022, the Biden administration cancelled the mining leases granted by Trump saying that the department’s Office of Solicitor ruled that they had been improperly renewed.
I Cant Sleep At Night
While the office works through that backlog, the people who have filed the outstanding complaints can be under extraordinary pressures.
I cant sleep at night, said the EPA staffer who filed the scientific integrity allegation now pending with Grifos office. I am under so much mental strain, I couldnt get out of bed for a while. The scientist, who works on an issue of significance to public health, described witnessing their superior altering their work in a way that they believe could result in widespread health consequences. I lie awake at night thinking about the impact this is going to have on the American public.
I lie awake at night thinking about the impact this is going to have on the American public.
That unnamed scientist isnt suffering alone, according to Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at PEER, an organization that supports environmental whistleblowers. Some of my clients who are involved in the scientific integrity process regularly call me sobbing on the phone because theyre so afraid that their inability to stop the agency from doing what its doing will harm the American public, she said.
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Planned Inaction On Particulates
Even more alarming, public-health experts say, was a decision on fine-particle pollution that EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler announced in mid-April. In that case, the EPA went against the advice of its own staff and many academic scientists by leaving the current standards in place in spite of evidence that reducing such pollution could save thousands of lives each year.
In a report issued last September, EPA staff charged with reviewing the literature cited epidemiological and other evidence that would support cutting the maximum allowed average level of fine particulate matter from 12 micrograms per cubic metre of air to between 8 and 10.
The regulatory process that prevented that change was tipped toward the interests of polluters from the outset, with little to no independent scientific oversight, says Christopher Frey, an environmental engineer at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Frey formerly chaired the EPAs scientific advisory committee on clean air, and was a member of a review panel for the issue that was disbanded in October 2018.
Rather than focusing on protecting public health, EPA is on a misguided mission to protect the profits of regulated industries, Frey says. But its all based on a lot of misconceptions and assumptions rather than facts or evidence.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has been shown to have a higher death toll in communities affected by air pollution.
Toxic Air Pollution And Smog
Undermining the process for setting health-based air quality standards. The Trump administration has issued several new policies to change the process for setting and implementing the NAAQS.
Toxic air pollution from power plants. On April 18, 2017, the EPA asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to delay oral arguments in a case challenging an EPA rulefinalized in 2012 and already largely implementedthat limits the amount of mercury and other toxic air pollution that power plants can release. This suggests that the EPA may reconsider the mercury and air toxics rule. On April 27, 2017, the court granted the EPAs request to delay the case. As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt sued the EPA to block this rule.
Air pollution from new and modified industrial facilities. Administrator Pruitt has taken several actions to modify the New Source Review program, which requires owners of new industrial facilities to install modern pollution control equipment during construction or when modifying an existing facility in a way that significantly increases emissions.
Haze in Utah. On July 18, 2017, Pruitt informed the state of Utah that the EPA plans to reconsider a 2016 order requiring two coal-fired power plants in Utah to install new pollution controls in order to reduce haze at nearby national parks.
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Trump Epa Poised To Scrap Clean Power Plan
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is poised to withdraw the Clean Power Plan, the lynchpin of the Obama Administrations effort to combat climate change, the New York Times reported Monday.
In a speech delivered in Hazard, Kentucky, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt declared that he will sign a proposal on Tuesday that would eliminate the Clean Power Plan , claiming that the war on coal is over.Unveiled in 2015, the Clean Power Plan mandated that the U.S. power sectors carbon emissions be cut by 32 percent from 2005 by 2030 , slashing the single biggest contributor to the countrys overall carbon footprint.
Utility companies and 27 states sued the EPA over the rule, arguing that because the CPP encouraged a broader shift away from coal-fired power plants, the EPA had overstepped its authority under the Clean Air Act. The rule remained in legal limbo as a result.
The EPA under Trump has taken a different tack. In a leaked draft obtained by POLITICO, the cost-benefit analysis for repealing the CPP at times assumes that fine particulate matter levels below the National Ambient Air Quality Standards pose no health hazard. There is little scientific evidence to support this claim, says George Thurston, an expert on air pollutants health risks at the New York University School of Medicine.
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