Trump’s Path to Weaker Fuel Efficiency Rules May Lead to a Dead End

Last April, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, proclaimed at an auto show here that he would soon roll back President Barack Obama’s stringent fuel efficiency standards. Nearly a year later, the rollback is nowhere near complete and may not be ready until this summer — if ever. In January, administration staff members appointed by President Trump sent a draft of the scaled-back fuel economy standards to the White House, but six people familiar with the documents described them as “Swiss cheese,” sprinkled with glaring numerical and spelling errors (such as “Massachusettes”), with 111 sections marked “text forthcoming.”
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Virginia Assembly advances legislation to require 100 percent clean energy by 2050

The Virginia House and Senate advanced on Feb. 11 versions of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA), which would create a clean energy standard in Virginia and require 100 percent clean energy by 2050. The bill would require that 30 percent of Virginia’s electricity comes from clean energy sources by 2030 and that 73 percent comes from clean sources by 2035. By 2050, the bill requires 100 percent of the Commonwealth’s energy to come from clean sources. [ read more … ]

Virginia Emerges as South’s Progressive Leader Under Dems

Lawmakers in the House and Senate have voted to end a state holiday honoring Lee and Jackson and instead are making Election Day an official holiday. They spent Tuesday — the deadline for each chamber to pass its own version of legislation — passing dozens of other bills, including a measure to incrementally raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and legislation to allow local governments to remove Confederate statues. That bill comes in the wake of a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, sparked in part by the city’s attempt to remove a Lee statue, that turned violent. Lawmakers also have advanced this year a renewable energy measure that will likely raise electric rates but, environmentalists say, make the state among the greenest in the country.

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Feds launch probe of Mass. renewables plan

The U.S. International Trade Commission launched an investigation this week into how Massachusetts’ goals for sourcing renewable power would affect consumers and climate goals across New England. The analysis of the “economic effects” of the state’s renewable goals puts the Trump administration in the middle of a contentious policy debate over whether increased imports of Canadian hydroelectricity would help Northeast states meet their climate targets. [ read more … ]

Gasoline car bans: EV savior or ‘stupid’ idea?

The Washington state Legislature this week considered a proposal that would make a motorhead choke on his energy drink: refusing to register any new car that runs on gasoline, within a decade from now. The bill failed to advance, but the idea behind it has more momentum than it might seem. Outright bans of gas-powered cars have been proposed not just in Washington and California, but in some form by most Democratic presidential hopefuls as integral to their strategies on climate change. Thirteen countries are in various stages of making it law, including Canada, France and the United Kingdom. [ read more … ]

Pressure is on Exxon and Chevron after BP makes major climate pledge

The biggest British petroleum producer just set one of the most ambitious climate goals of any major multinational oil-and-gas company. Now the pressure is on its American counterparts to do the same.  On Wednesday, BP said it will try to slash its own greenhouse gas emissions from the production and use of its gasoline, jet fuel and other products. Its goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century follows similar pledges from other European oil majors, including Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol. [ read more … ]