The Energy 202: Potential 2020 Candidates Test Climate Messages on Trump's EPA Pick

by Gino Grandoni (Washington Post) ... Nominally, the hearing was convened to consider the nomination of former coal lobbyist and ex-Senate aide Andrew Wheeler to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. ... In the past six months alone the EPA under Wheeler has proposed relaxing emission limits on power plants and freezing them for automobiles.

Referring to the agency's plan to freeze fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles for six years, Wheeler said: “What my career staff have told me is that it's a slight, incremental increase from what the Obama administration's proposal was.”

Booker (Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.)) took exception to that characterization. “You may call it 'slight,' " the senator said in disagreement.

In the past, climate change and other environmental issues have not figured prominently into presidential races where dinner-table issues such as wages or the cost of health care have ruled the day.

But under Trump, polling data shows Democrats increasingly viewclimate change as a top priority, one whose effects they already see in their communities.

The results is that some Democrats in Congress are gravitating toward aggressive policy proposals such as the “Green New Deal” that would expand renewable energy to meet 100 percent of the nation’s electricity needs while creating a federal job-guarantee program.

Among those who have already signaled their support for it are Booker, Merkley (Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)) and Sanders (Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)).

— Wheeler described how the shutdown was hampering agency rulemaking, including an effort to allow the sale of higher-ethanol gasoline blends year-round. Several Republicans from farming states asked him about the issue Wednesday. “Originally we were planning on issuing the rule in February,” he said. “We haven’t been shut down as long as the other departments but we may be slightly delayed at this point.”

— Automakers getting antsy about fuel efficiency standards: U.S. auto executives want the Trump administration to come to an agreement with California on fuel efficiency and carbon emission standards through 2025 as a deadline for such rules approaches. “Automakers are already entering the time frame when decisions should be made about what engines and fuel-saving technology, such as hybrids or fully electric cars, will be in use in 2021 and beyond,” Reuters reports. The Trump administration in August proposed freezing fuel efficiency rules at 2020 levels through 2025. But Sen. Carper said at a Wednesday hearing he “heard that the Trump Administration now plans to finalize a 0.5 percent annual increase in the stringency of the standards — a rate that is 10 times weaker than the current rules," per the report.

— Major environmental groups withhold signature from Green New Deal letter: There are some notably absent groups in a letter sent by hundreds of environmental groups last week that called on lawmakers to support a Green New Deal, the New Republic reports. Missing from that list of 626 were eight major environmental advocacy organizations — the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, Moms Clean Air Force, Environment America, and the Audubon Society, as well as the Climate Reality Project, founded by former vice president Al Gore, and NextGen America, founded by billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer. Some groups told the publication that some of the details and language in the letter were cause for concern. READ MORE

Excerpt from Energy.AgWired.com: American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) CEO Brian Jennings commended Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA), Mike Rounds (R-SD), and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) for pressing Wheeler about the E15 rule, as well as demand destruction created by the large number small refinery exemptions.

“We appreciate that Acting Administrator Wheeler assured the senators that EPA is ‘still on schedule’ for issuing a final rule allowing year-round E15 sales in time for this summer’s driving season, but his caveat of if the government is back up and running in a “reasonable length of time’ is no excuse for a delay,” said Jennings. “It’s been more than three months since President Trump directed EPA to lift Reid vapor pressure (RVP) restrictions on E15, so why didn’t EPA set rulemaking wheels in motion in November, December, or January?” READ MORE