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Climate Change Poses Major Risks to Financial Markets, Regulator Warns
A top financial regulator is opening a public effort to highlight the risk that climate change poses to the nation’s financial markets, setting up a clash with a president who has mocked global warming and whose administration has sought to suppress climate science. Rostin Behnam, who sits on the federal government’s five-member Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a powerful agency overseeing major financial markets including grain futures, oil trading and complex derivatives, said in an interview on Monday that the financial risks from climate change were comparable to those posed by the mortgage meltdown that triggered the 2008 financial crisis. [ read more … ]
U.S. House committee to hold hearing on proposed fuel efficiency freeze
The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee said on Tuesday it planned a June 20 hearing on the Trump administration’s proposal to freeze fuel efficiency standards at 2020 levels through 2026. Two subcommittees will jointly hold the hearing, committee Chairman Frank Pallone and other Democrats said in a statement, saying they “look forward to questioning both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.” Heidi King, the deputy NHTSA administrator, and Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board, are both likely to testify at the hearing, officials said. [ read more … ]
Policy & Politics
‘Just do your jobs’: Ex-EPA chiefs go off on Trump administration
Four former EPA chiefs — three Republicans and one Democrat — spent Tuesday criticizing the EPA’s shrinking size and ambition in testimony on Capitol Hill, saying the agency has moved away from its core duties under Trump, The Post’s Brady Dennis and I reported. “I’m deeply concerned that five decades of environmental progress are at risk because of the attitude and approach of the current administration” Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who led the agency during the George W. Bush administration, told lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. [ read more … ]
Facebook builds huge solar project in West Texas
Facebook is building a massive solar farm in West Texas that’s believed to be one of the largest solar projects in the nation and the social media giant’s first direct investment in renewable energy. Boston-based renewable energy developer Longroad Energy recently announced it was partnering with Facebook on the $416 million project, just as Facebook is finishing construction of a data center near Albuquerque, N.M. [ read more … ]
Trump administration sees energy storage as a national security tool
The Trump administration is pushing energy storage technology not just for boosting renewable energy, but also for protecting national security, because of its ability to provide backup power enabling the grid to recover faster after power outages. “It’s more strategic than that [being just about renewables],” Bruce Walker, the Energy Department’s assistant secretary for the Office of Electricity, told Josh. [ read more … ]
DOE has no ‘regulatory or statutory ability’ to create coal, nuclear bailout, says Perry
The Department of Energy (DOE) does not have the “regulatory or statutory ability” to create economic incentives for coal and nuclear plants, DOE Secretary Rick Perry told reporters on Tuesday at the 2019 Edison Electric Institute conference in Philadelphia. “FERC would be where I would direct your attention,” he said, adding that he was also not aware of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or the White House making any progress on plans to bail out the fuels. “We’re pretty much at the same place we were 12 months ago,” he said, though the administration “continue[s] to talk … very openly” about “an all of the above strategy.” [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.