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Trump promotes pulling U.S. from Paris climate accord in speech touting ‘America First’
President Donald Trump on Wednesday affirmed plans to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, less than two weeks before his administration can formally start the process. At an energy conference in Pittsburgh, Trump touted surging U.S. natural gas and crude oil output, his efforts to roll back regulations on energy industries, and his administration’s intention to pull the United States from the 2015 international climate agreement. [ read more … ]
Trump Administration to Begin Official Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord
The Trump administration is preparing the formal withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, according to three people briefed on the matter, a long expected move that nevertheless remains a powerful signal to the world. The official action sets in motion a withdrawal that still would take a year to complete under the rules of the accord. Abandoning the landmark 2015 agreement in which nearly 200 nations vowed to reduce planet-warming emissions would fulfill one of President Trump’s key campaign promises while placing the world’s largest economy at odds with the rest of the globe on a top international policy priority.
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Wind Energy
BOEM chief: Trump admin committed to offshore wind
ffshore wind remains part of the Trump administration’s energy agenda, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s acting director said yesterday. Addressing a gathering here hosted by the American Wind Energy Association, BOEM chief Walter Cruickshank offered a measure of reassurance to an industry buffeted by uncertainty after federal regulators called for an additional environmental review of the nation’s first offshore wind project earlier this year. [ read more … ]
World’s biggest wind, solar developer bets on gas pipeline
A unit of NextEra Energy Inc. has agreed to build a 50-mile pipeline into Alabama to supply a natural gas plant set to stand where a coal plant once did. NextEra Energy Resources, the world’s biggest wind and solar developer, said it views the Lowman pipeline as a way to secure a 40-year revenue stream and diversify its portfolio. If the project wins regulatory approval, it will supply a new PowerSouth Energy Cooperative natural gas plant being built to replace three decades-old coal units scheduled to retire next year. [ read more … ]
Climate
Fossil Fuels on Trial: New York’s Lawsuit Against Exxon Begins
After four years of legal sparring and finger-pointing, oil-industry giant Exxon Mobil went to court on Tuesday to face charges that the company lied to shareholders and to the public about the costs and consequences of climate change. The case turns on the claim that Exxon kept a secret set of financial books that seriously underestimated the costs of potential climate change regulation while claiming publicly that it was taking such factors into account. It follows a sprawling investigation that included millions of pages of documents and allegations of a chief executive’s secret email account.
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Exxon’s Climate Fraud Trial Opens to a Packed New York Courtroom
ExxonMobil went on trial Tuesday in a packed courtroom in New York, where the oil giant stands accused of defrauding investors by misleading them about the risks it faces from future climate regulations. The civil case is the first major climate change lawsuit to reach trial in the United States, and it is the culmination of four years of investigation by the New York state attorney general’s office. [ read more … ]
Trump to tout natural gas as Paris climate deadline looms
President Trump will travel to a natural gas conference today in western Pennsylvania where he is expected to mention that the United States is entering the final stage of its withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. Trump is scheduled to speak at the Shale Insight conference in Pittsburgh, near one of the nation’s hubs for natural gas drilling. It is Trump’s second visit to the region in two months. In August, he visited an ethane cracker plant, which makes products used to manufacture plastics from natural gas. He pushed the message that his administration was creating new opportunities in the fossil fuel industry to replace lost jobs in the steel and manufacturing industries. [ read more … ]
EVs
Silicon Valley pulls autos into its orbit
What is Silicon Valley’s role in autos? It is expanding so fast that no one can quite define it. The tech hub’s mastery of sensors, geographic data, communications and artificial intelligence is exerting a gravitational pull on the global auto industry. The world’s biggest auto players are growing their outposts here and scrambling for talent. Executives are coming from Detroit and finding a profoundly different culture. Cars bristling with strange sensors prowl the highways, mapping and sensing. [ read more … ]
Can EVs find a home in the Rockies?
This city of nearly 50,000 residents, cradled in mountains and circled by rushing trout streams, has vaulted into national recognition with a new identity as a hot new center of innovation. Between 2015 and 2016, Bozeman had the greatest increase in business startups of any city in the country with a population under 50,000, according to the U.S. census. Statewide, the amount of venture capital funding of new firms per capita has nearly doubled in the past four years, a spurt that exceeds Arizona and rivals Nevada, the Montana-based venture fund New Frontier Capital reported in June. [ read more … ]
Policy & Politics
Wheeler forms panels to carry out Trump executive orders
EPA is creating two working groups to help steer implementation of executive orders signed earlier this month by President Trump, according to a memo from Administrator Andrew Wheeler. Both orders “contain important implications” for EPA processes “that we will need to think critically about to implement,” Wheeler said in yesterday’s memo to top-level staff. “To that end, the EPA will be quickly standing up two working groups to address interpreting and applying the EOs,” he added. [ read more … ]
Note: News clips provided do not necessarily reflect the views of coalition or its member governors.