Even the fossil-fuel industry doesn’t like the EPA’s methane rollback

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to lift limits on potent greenhouse gas emissions from the drilling and transportation of natural gas, a major fuel source for electric power plants, heating systems and industrial processes. Not only would this be bad for the environment, but also it might well do more harm than good for the fossil-fuel industry.

Pumpjacks near Lovington, N.M., in April 2015. 

The United States has enjoyed an energy revolution over the past decade as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal-drilling technologies unlocked huge amounts of domestically produced natural gas. The massive new supply of fuel has driven down gas prices and helped it displace coal, which is the worst environmental villain in the electricity sector. When natural gas is burned in power plants, it emits roughly half the heat-trapping carbon dioxide that burning coal produces and minuscule amounts of the noxious chemicals and particulates that sicken those living nearby.

Read the view of The Washington Post - “Even the fossil-fuel industry doesn’t like the EPA’s methane rollback.”

E.P.A. Plans to Get Thousands of Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its Math

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution, a shift that would make it easier to roll back a key climate change rule because it would result in far fewer predicted deaths from pollution, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans.

The Hunter power plant in Castle Dale, Utah, which
burns an estimated 4.5 million tons of coal a year.

The E.P.A. had originally forecast that eliminating the Obama-era rule, the Clean Power Plan, and replacing it with a new measure would have resulted in an additional 1,400 premature deaths per year. The new analytical model would significantly reduce that number and would most likely be used by the Trump administration to defend further rollbacks of air pollution rules if it is formally adopted.

The proposed shift is the latest example of the Trump administration downgrading the estimates of environmental harm from pollution in regulations. In this case, the proposed methodology would assume there is little or no health benefit to making the air any cleaner than what the law requires. Many experts said that approach was not scientifically sound and that, in the real world, there are no safe levels of the fine particulate pollution associated with the burning of fossil fuels.

Read the story from The New York Times by Lisa Friedman - “E.P.A. Plans to Get Thousands of Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its Math.”

Decade of Climate Evidence Strengthens Case for EPA's Endangerment Finding

Scientific understanding of the risks greenhouse gases pose to public health and welfare has strengthened and broadened in the decade since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made its landmark "endangerment finding," according to a new review of the latest science published Thursday.

A new review by climate scientists and legal scholars
adds to the legal arsenal of those opposing the Trump
 administration’s rollbacks of climate policies. It says
the EPA's endangerment finding, “fully justified in 2009,
 is much more strongly justified in 2018.”

From the worsening of chronic disease to the perils hurricanes and wildfire, the peer-reviewed paper published in the academic journal Science found new evidence of risk in all eight of the areas cited in the EPA finding, which focused on carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases.

The authors also argue that areas that were not even considered by the EPA at the time—ocean acidification, increased threat of violence and risks to national security and economic well-being—should be included in the government's assessment of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the Inside Climate News story by Marianne Lavelle - “Decade of Climate Evidence Strengthens Case for EPA's Endangerment Finding.”

Scott Pruitt resigns as EPA head

WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general who relentlessly pursued President Donald Trump’s promises of deregulation at the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned Thursday after a cascade of controversies over his lavish spending, ethical lapses, and controversial management decisions finally eroded the president’s confidence in one of his most ardent Cabinet members.

Gone! - Scott Pruitt,  who relentlessly pursued
President Donald Trump’s promises of deregulation
 at the Environmental Protection Agency, has resigned.

Pruitt’s reputation as a dogged deregulator and outspoken booster of the president allowed him to weather a litany of ethics scandals in recent months, including questions about taxpayer-funded first-class travel, a discounted condo rental from a Washington lobbyist, and the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office.

Read the story from The Boston Globe - “Scott Pruitt resigns as EPA head.”

(Sometimes good things happen and so now we just hope his replacement is somewhat more sympathetic to the environment and he/she actually demonstrates that through the workings of the EPA - Robert McLean)

The Energy 202: Scott Pruitt's climate message is now official EPA guidance

Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has long insisted it is difficult for scientists to precisely measure the extent to which humans cause climate change.

Chief of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt,
insists it is too difficult for scientists to precisely measure the
extent to which humans cause climate change.

Now EPA's regional staff engaging with local communities and Native American tribes have been instructed to push the same message too.

This week, EPA staffers received an email instructing them to underscore the uncertainties about how human activity contributes to climate change.

Read Dino Grandoni’s story from The Washington Post - “The Energy 202: Scott Pruitt's climate message is now official EPA guidance.”

Scott Pruitt’s dirty politics

How the Environmental Protection Agency
became the fossil fuel industry's best friend.

One afternoon last April, Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, travelled to the Harvey Mine, in Sycamore, Pennsylvania, to declare that the agency had a new direction, which he called “Back to Basics.” It was an unusual place for the nation’s chief steward of clean air, land, and water to set out a policy agenda. Consol Energy, the owner of the Harvey facility, which is part of the largest underground coal-mining complex in North America, has been fined repeatedly by the E.P.A. for violations; in 2016, it had to pay three million dollars for having discharged contaminated wastewater into the Ohio River and its tributaries. Past E.P.A. administrators have spoken of creating jobs as a welcome potential by-product of the agency’s work, especially if they are green jobs, but creating or protecting energy jobs is not supposed to be the mission—protecting human health and the environment is. As the speech that Pruitt gave at the mine demonstrated, he seems to have these priorities reversed.

Pruitt, who is forty-nine, looked cheerful, as he generally does at public appearances. (He declined my requests for an interview.) Unlike many people who have joined the chaotic Trump Administration, he seems unconflicted about his new role, his ideological and career goals fitting together as neatly as Lego blocks. The former attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt ascended politically by fighting one regulation after another. In his first year at the E.P.A., he has proposed repealing or delaying more than thirty significant environmental rules. In February, when the White House announced its intention to reduce the E.P.A.’s budget by twenty-five per cent—one of the largest cuts for any federal agency—Pruitt made no objections. His schedule is dominated by meetings and speaking engagements with representatives of the industries he regulates. He has met only a handful of times with environmental groups.

Read the New Yorker story - “Scott Pruitt’s dirty politics.”

Trump EPA Sued Over Refusal to Release Heartland Institute Communications.

Two environmental groups filed suit Thursday to force the Environmental Protection Agency to disclose its correspondence with the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that has led a years-long campaign to discredit climate science.

The lawsuit suggests that contact between the EPA
under Scott Pruitt and the Heartland Institute is more
extensive than previously known.

The complaint by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) suggests that contact between the EPA and Heartland has been far more extensive than previously known. An EPA Freedom of Information Act official told EDF last year that an agency search had yielded "between 200 to 600 records" of such correspondence, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Virginia.

"EPA's efforts to promote climate change deniers and undermine peer-reviewed science behind closed doors is not only a failure of its mission, it is illegal," said Kym Hunter, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center. "The public has a clear and protected right to know what the EPA is doing and with whom they are communicating, including those pushing a climate-denier agenda.”

Read the Inside Climate News story - “Trump EPA Sued Over Refusal to Release Heartland Institute Communications.”

Donald Trump Hasn’t Faced a Single Climate Change Question Since Hurricanes Hit

On Friday, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, declared that it was not appropriate to discuss the issue of climate change in the midst of a major set of hurricanes hitting the United States.

Hurricane discussions at the Whitehouse,
but no talk of climate change

Environmentalist and some lawmakers scoffed at the logic, equating it to a government official declaring counter-terrorism strategy taboo in the aftermath of a terrorism attack.

But though he has no actual control over what gets discussed, Pruitt’s position seems to be winning out. Few pundits are talking about climate change, and fewer reporters are asking about it, even as parts of Texas remain underwater from Hurricane Harvey and Florida braces for potential devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma.

Since August 23, there have been a dozen opportunities for reporters to question either President Donald Trump, top aides, or top White House spokespeople during on-the-record sessions. 

According to transcripts of those briefings, press conferences, and gaggles, not a single question about climate change or global warming has been asked in those sessions.

Read the Daily Beast story by Sam Stein - “Donald Trump Hasn’t Faced a Single Climate Change Question Since Hurricanes Hit.”

Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question

WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, says it is insensitive to discuss climate change in the midst of deadly storms.

Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental
 Protection Agency, at the White House in
June - he says it is insensitive to discuss
climate change now, but Republican Miami mayor, Tomás Regalado, says if not now, when?

Tomás Regalado, the Republican mayor of Miami whose citizens raced to evacuate before Hurricane Irma, says if not now, when?

“This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the E.P.A. and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change,” Mr. Regalado told the Miami Herald. “If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is. This is a truly, truly poster child for what is to come.”

For scientists, drawing links between warming global temperatures and the ferocity of hurricanes is about as controversial as talking about geology after an earthquake. But in Washington, where science is increasingly political, the fact that oceans and atmosphere are warming and that the heat is propelling storms into superstorms has become as sensitive as talking about gun control in the wake of a mass shooting.

Read Lisa Friedman’s story in The New York Times - “Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very ‘Insensitive’ Question.”

Pruitt slams scientists for talking about ‘cause and effect’ of Harvey, Irma

For Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, the right time to talk about the link between climate change and hurricanes is… never.

President Donald Trump and EPA
Administrator, Scott Pruitt.

In an interview with CNN on Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, Pruitt slammed scientists for discussing “the cause and effect of these storms,” saying that “to use time and effort to address it at this point is very, very insensitive to the people in Florida.”

That statement flies in the face of a growing body of scientific evidence connecting climate change to more intense and destructive hurricanes. As we’ve written, if we can’t talk about what’s to come, and what’s driving it, then how can we plan for it? How can we rebuild wisely?

Pruitt himself apparently never wants to address the issue. Indeed, Politico reported Friday that “EPA’s climate change adaptation staff will be dissolved.” Specifically, this is “the team formerly focused on preparing for sea-level rise and extreme weather.”

Read Joe Romm’s ThinkProgress story - “Pruitt slams scientists for talking about ‘cause and effect’ of Harvey, Irma.”

These 4 Koch-Funded Congressmen Are Behind the Bill to Abolish the EPA

Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz turned heads when he introduced a bill on Feb. 3 to "completely abolish" the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

"Today, the American people are drowning in rules and regulations promulgated by unelected bureaucrats," Gaetz told fellow GOP lawmakers in an email reported by the Huffington Post "and the Environmental Protection Agency has become an extraordinary offender.”

Rep. Gaetz's bill came the day after a Senate committee voted in favor of confirming Scott Pruitt, the fossil fuel-friendly attorney general of Oklahoma who has sued the EPA 14 times, to head the agency.

Read the EcoWatch story - “These 4 Koch-Funded Congressmen Are Behind the Bill to Abolish the EPA.”

Trump begins filling environmental posts with clowns

 American students protest outside the UN
 climate talks during the COP22 international
 climate conference in Marrakesh in
reaction to Donald Trump’s victory in
the US presidential election. 

Come on, you can admit it. I admit it. I admit that after Trump’s election victory, I secretly hoped and even though that his rhetoric was worse than its bite. He only said those crazy things during the campaign to get elected. He wouldn’t really follow through on his plans to completely gut the US commitment to keeping the Earth habitable. Oh how naive we were. Trump’s plan to fill positions in his administration shows things are worse than we could have ever feared.

According to recent reports, Trump has picked long-time climate denier and spokesperson for the fossil fuel industry Myron Ebell to head the Environmental Protection Agency transition. This basically means the EPA will either cease to function or cease to exist. It also appears that the US will pull out of any agreements to limit greenhouse emissions.

It means we have missed our last off-ramp on the road to catastrophic climate change. That may sound hyperbolic, but I study the rate that climate change is happening – the amount of heat accumulating in the Earth’s system. We didn’t have any time to waste in implementing Obama’s aggressive plans, and Trump will result in a decade of time lost.

Read The Guardian story - “Trump begins filling environmental posts with clowns.”

Study: Earth now the warmest it's been in 120,000 years

Carolyn Snyder's doctoral,
dissertation shows earth is
its hottest for two million years.

A new study paints a picture of an Earth that is warmer than it has been in about 120,000 years, and is locked into eventually hitting its hottest mark in more than 2 million years.

As part of her doctoral dissertation at Stanford University, Carolyn Snyder, now a climate policy official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, created a continuous 2 million year temperature record, much longer than a previous 22,000 year record. Snyder’s temperature reconstruction, published Monday in the journal Nature, doesn’t estimate temperature for a single year, but averages 5,000-year time periods going back a couple million years.

Snyder based her reconstruction on 61 different sea surface temperature proxies from across the globe, such as ratios between magnesium and calcium, species makeup and acidity. But the further the study goes back in time, especially after half a million years, the fewer of those proxies are available, making the estimates less certain, she said.

Read the CBSNews story - “Study: Earth now the warmest it's been in 120,000 years.”