With help from Anthony Adragna and Alex Guillén
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— Democratic lawmakers and conservation groups expressed outrage at the U.S. Park Police’s involvement in protests outside of the White House this week.
— The Trump administration’s latest bid to build a long-sought road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska was thrown out by a federal judge this week.
— The House Transportation Committee is slated to unveil its surface transportation bill Thursday, which will include a focus on climate mitigation.
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DEMOCRATS DEMAND BRIEFING ON PARK POLICE: Two Democratic lawmakers are demanding a briefing on the U.S. Park Police’s involvement in this week’s clash with protesters in the wake of the death of George Floyd, the 46-year-old black man who died while in police custody in Minneapolis.
Peaceful protesters, who gathered around Lafayette Square in front of the White House earlier this week, were reportedly sprayed with tear gas ahead of the president’s walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church. The police action has spurred outrage by local and state leaders and tepid criticism from some in the Republican Party.
“Officers are credibly accused of launching flash bangs, tear gas, and shooting rubber pellets at unarmed, nonviolent protesters,” House Natural Resources Chair Raúl Grijalva and National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee Chair Deb Haaland wrote in a letter Tuesday to acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan. “This grossly irresponsible action put bystanders, unarmed protesters, clergy, and other law enforcement agents in danger.”
Monahan denied the agency used tear gas in a statement Tuesday — contrary to reports and eyewitnesses on the scene who said police did spray tear gas. Instead, Monahan said officers used “smoke canisters and pepper balls” after “many of the protestors became more combative.” Media reports of the events described the protest as largely peaceful.
Conservation groups also decried the U.S. Park Police’s role. National Park Service “employees should never be ordered to carry out violent actions against peaceful protestors who are exercising their First Amendment rights protected under the United States Constitution,” said Phil Francis, chairman of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, in a statement.
“The use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and brute military force on a group of people trying to peacefully enact change is unacceptable,” he said. The coalition represents former and retired NPS employees.
For his part, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt thanked the U.S. Park Police for its “unwavering commitment to serve and protect this great Nation and our national memorials — sites of remembrance to our Nation’s heroes.”
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD: A federal court threw out the Trump administration’s latest attempt to build a road through Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, Pro’s Alex Guillén reports. Locals have sought the road to use for emergency medical evacuations from the isolated community of King Cove, but the Obama administration refused to allow it, citing significant ecological harm.
The Interior Department in 2018 moved to allow the road’s construction in exchange for adding new lands to the refuge, but a federal judge last year said Interior failed to explain the policy about-face. The department tried again with a new land swap, but another federal judge on Monday found it suffered from similar problems.
Interior failed to adequately explain its claims regarding how use restrictions on the road would effectively limit its environmental impacts, why the new lands that would be added to the refuge provide enough value to offset the lands given over for the road, why there are no other reasonable transportation alternatives for King Cove residents, or why there is increased urgency to build the road, ruled Judge John Sedwick of the U.S. District Court for Alaska.
EPA SEEKS EXPEDITED REVIEW FOR METHANE ROLLBACK: EPA has sent its final rule revoking methane pollution rules for new oil and gas wells (Reg. 2060-AT90) to the Office of Management and Budget for review, and the agency said in a court filing this week that it has requested an expedited review of just 30 days. That would put it on track to finalize the rollback by the end of July, according to EPA. Pros will recall that by repealing the methane limits for new wells, EPA will short-circuit a legal requirement for it to regulate the many existing oil and gas wells, a major industry goal. The agency says methane is already controlled well enough via regulations limiting volatile organic compounds.
DOE PREPARES TO BRING BACK EMPLOYEES: The Energy Department is preparing to reopen its D.C. headquarters. Secretary Dan Brouillette wrote in an update this week that the building will transition to Phase 1 on June 8. The department’s return-to-work plan says Phase 1 employees, or “mission-critical personnel whose work is best performed onsite,” would “return to the workplace, including those who are needed to support limited facility operations.”
JUDGE ADVANCES ANTI-DISPERSANT LAWSUIT: U.S. District Judge William Orrick on Tuesday advanced environmentalists’ lawsuit seeking to force EPA to restrict the use of dispersants to clean up oil spills, Alex reports. Green groups want EPA to update its National Contingency Plan, arguing that much has been learned about dispersants’ efficacy and ecological effects in the quarter-century since the last version was produced. On Tuesday, Orrick rejected EPA’s argument that updating the NCP is a discretionary choice left to the agency.
INSIDE THE HOUSE’S INFRASTRUCTURE BILL: The House Transportation Committee’s five-year surface transportation bill — expected to be unveiled later this week — will include a hefty focus on climate mitigation, as House leadership had previously promised. The major themes of the $494 billion bill are state of good repair, safety and climate mitigation and resiliency, Pro’s Tanya Snyder reports.
The Transportation Department would be directed to establish a new performance measure on greenhouse gas emissions that states will need to report on. The highest-achieving states would be given added flexibility for how they’ll use funds from a new $8.4 billion carbon reduction apportionment program, while low-performing states would be required to shift additional money into the program. An apportionment program for resiliency would be funded at $6.3 billion.
The bill also includes a $1.8 billion investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure. It will be formally introduced Thursday during a pro forma session.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR: The House Energy and Commerce Committee is slated to hold a virtual subcommittee hearing on June 9 on the impact of Covid-19 on environmental justice communities.
MATH CLASS: Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) said they have been making calls to press more members to commit to backing legislation, S. 3422 (116), to permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Currently, the measure has 59 pledged co-sponsors, Pro’s Anthony Adragna reports. Forty-three of the 47 members of the Democratic caucus are co-sponsors, while 16 Republicans have indicated formal support so far. “59 doesn’t pass,” Manchin said during a Tuesday webinar. “That’s one short. So that’s our work cut out for us between now and when it hits the floor.”
An aide to Manchin said he spoke with Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Tom Carper following the call and received assurances they’d back the package. That should be enough to survive any procedural challenges with the support of all declared co-sponsors.
DEMOCRATS CLAMOR FOR CLEAN ENERGY AID: Democratic lawmakers — led by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and House E&C Environment Subcommittee Chair Paul Tonko — are calling on congressional leadership to help the clean energy sector as part of any new economic recovery legislation, amid reports that the sector already lost nearly 600,000 jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic. The lawmakers are seeking to extend and offer “additional flexibility” for clean energy tax credits and federal investments in various clean energy technologies, Anthony reports for Pros. Twenty-three senators and 33 House members signed onto the letter.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer praised the lawmakers’ call, saying Congress “should be positioning America to be even more resilient to face the next crisis. Investing in clean energy, clean transportation and clean infrastructure should be a major focus of our recovery, and that should start by ensuring that those businesses and workers who have been particularly hard hit by the crisis make it through the economic downturn.”
CALCULATING THE ‘BLUE ECONOMY’: The United States’ so-called blue economy contributed about $373 billion to U.S. GDP in 2018, growing faster than the nation’s economy as a whole, according to statistics out of the Commerce Department. The figures, from both NOAA and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, are a “first-of-its-kind estimate of the U.S. marine economy, a primary driver of jobs, innovation and economic growth,” said retired Navy Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, deputy NOAA administrator, in a statement.
Experts looked at economic performance across 10 sectors representing businesses dependent on the nation’s coasts, oceans and Great Lakes between 2014 and 2018 and found that marine-related GDP grew 5.8 percent from 2017 to 2018, faster than the 5.4 percent growth of the total U.S. GDP. Tourism and recreation made the largest contributions to the nation’s GDP, with $143 billion, while offshore minerals ranked third at $49 billion.
They also found that blue economy products and services were worth $617 billion in sales in 2018. Offshore oil and gas made up $80 billion in sales during 2018, while power generation made up $6.8 billion. Marine economy businesses also supported 2.3 million jobs in the same year, according to the report. “Information like this is especially important as our coasts face threats like sea level rise and increased flooding in the face of the changing planet,” said Nicole LeBoeuf, acting director of NOAA’s National Ocean Service, on a call with reporters.
THE EMISSIONS DROP DOWNSIDE: The pandemic may have slashed greenhouse gas emissions and improved air quality across the U.S., but in California that silver lining comes with a downside, Pro’s Debra Kahn reports. Plummeting climate auctions put the state’s high-speed rail project and energy efficient affordable housing at risk for cuts — and it’s not clear where the money can be found elsewhere.
The effects on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund — California’s cap-and-trade program — became apparent last week when the first post-pandemic auction performed even worse than expected. California raised a mere $25 million, less than 5 percent of what it did in February.
The proceeds from California’s quarterly sale of emissions allowances have become the main avenue for climate spending in California, with $13 billion raised since auctions began in 2012.
“The state has relied heavily and sometimes exclusively on the proceeds from these auctions to fund needed investments in an array of climate programs,” said Alex Jackson, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate and clean energy program. “The volatility alone has made effective program planning near impossible.”
SEE THE DATA FOR THE TREES: The world lost the equivalent of a football field of primary rainforest every six seconds during 2019, according to data from the University of Maryland and released by the World Resources Institute. Of the 11.9 million hectares of tree cover lost in 2019, nearly a third, or 3.8 million hectares of primary forest, occurred within humid tropical primary forests, or areas of mature rainforest crucial for biodiversity and carbon storage.
— Costa Rican Environment and Energy Minister Carlos Manuel Rodriguez will be the next CEO and chairperson of the Global Environment Facility, an international fund supporting environmental action in developing countries.
— “Big Oil wanted changes to worker safety rule. Emails show top Trump official ‘agreed,’” via The Huffington Post.
— “Former Gov. Snyder subject to deposition in Flint water case, federal court rules,” via Mlive.com.
— “6 major financial institutions join alliance to shift away from coal,” via S&P Global Market Intelligence.
— “China says sticking to climate pledges despite coronavirus outbreak,” via Reuters.
— “Responding to protests, green groups reckon with a racist past,” via Grist.
— “Cash flows: How investors are banking on the West’s water scarcity,” via Aspen Journalism, KUNC, KJZZ and The Nevada Independent.
THAT’S ALL FOR ME!
