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White House Panel Will Study Whether Climate Change Is a National Security Threat. It Includes a Climate Denialist.
President Trump is preparing to establish a panel to examine whether climate change affects national security, despite existing reports from his own government showing that global warming is a growing threat. According to a White House memo dated Feb. 14, Mr. Trump’s staff members have drafted an executive order to create a 12-member committee, which will include a White House adviser, William Happer, whose views are sharply at odds with the established scientific consensus that carbon dioxide pollution is dangerous for the planet. [ read more … ]
Policy & Politics
Power plant CO2 emissions rise for first time since 2013
For the first time in five years, power plant emissions of carbon dioxide crept up in 2018, while releases of two other key pollutants continued to drop, according to preliminary data released today by EPA. Releases of sulfur dioxide fell 4 percent to 1.26 million tons in comparison with 2017 totals, while emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) dropped 6 percent to 1.02 million tons. [ read more … ]
Judge tosses Pa. climate case
A federal judge in Pennsylvania threw out a lawsuit from environmentalists and two children concerned about the effect of regulatory rollbacks on climate change. Judge Paul Diamond of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania yesterday dismissed the complaint from the Clean Air Council and two children from the Philadelphia area, saying he had “neither the authority nor the inclination” to force the federal government’s hand on the issue. [ read more … ]
Talks Break Down Between California, U.S. on Car Mileage, Sources Say
Talks between California and federal officials on vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards have broken down without a deal, three people familiar with the matter said. The Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had been meeting with California’s Air Resources Board in pursuit of a compromise as the federal agencies aim to finalize by late March or early April a replacement for Obama-era fuel efficiency regulations that automakers are seeking to modify. [ read more … ]
Offshore wind bill reignites revenue sharing debate
The long-standing debate over the sharing of offshore energy revenues is getting underway again in the 116th Congress. A bipartisan pair of senators is proposing that U.S. territories and coral reefs benefit from offshore wind development. S. 499, floated last week by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), would amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to allow the Interior Department to lease the offshore areas adjacent to American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands for renewable energy. [ read more … ]
Tesla batteries in short supply for many U.S. installers
There’s plenty of demand for Tesla Inc.’s Powerwall home-battery systems. The trick is finding installers that have them. Twelve percent of U.S. companies that install solar panels and residential batteries carry the Powerwall, a study yesterday from Boston-based EnergySage and the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners found. Meanwhile, about 55 percent of customers shopping for home-storage systems want them, according to the 871 installers surveyed in the report.
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Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.