The Trump administration has told federal agencies they should no longer take climate change into account when measuring infrastructure projects, according to two senior administration officials.
The proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) are aimed at speeding approvals for pipelines, oil and gas leases, highway construction and other kinds of development.
The Nepa law, last updated in 1978, has proved to be one of the most potent stumbling blocks to Mr Trump’s push to accelerate oil, gas, and coal extraction across the country.
Under the Nepa, agencies are required to analyse the extent to which proposed federal actions affect everything from endangered species to water quality to greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change.
Under the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency raised objections during a Nepa review of the massive Keystone XL pipeline in Montana which resulted in it being delayed.
More recently, federal judges halted oil and gas leasing in Wyoming as well as the Trump administration’s push to restart coal leasing on public land on the grounds that the Interior Department did not properly assess the climate impacts of these decisions.
Two administration officials, speaking anonymously because the proposed changes will not be announced until next week, said the plan would shorten the timeframe for the environmental reviews. The reviews will also no longer consider the cumulative impacts of a project, they said.
Details are emerging for what this ‘moon shot’ federal program merging climate, jobs and economic security might look like. It’s a powerful force already.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced legislation in November to transform public housing. It’s one part of a Green New Deal proposal that, after a year of promotion by activists, is now starting to take shape. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
To appreciate the power of the Green New Deal—the mobilization effort for clean energy and jobs that burst into the national conversation last year—look at how forcefully the opponents of climate action moved to quash it.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky arranged a byzantine floor vote aimed at killing the concept soon after the non-binding Green New Deal resolution was introduced.
Fox News anchors aired more than twice as many prime-time segments on the Green New Deal as rivals MSNBC and CNN combined last spring. And in California, the state’s most powerful blue-collar union (which has a policy alliance with the oil industry) staged anti-Green New Deal protests at the state’s Democratic Party convention last summer.
But the Green New Deal survived the battering to become an animating force in climate politics, with its advocates determined to make it the most important touchstone of the 2020 election.
For Democrats, support for the Green New Deal has become a central tenet. Nearly every major Democratic presidential candidate has endorsed it in some form—even moderates like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar who are reluctant to give a fulsome embrace to the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels. All Democratic presidential contenders now have goals aligned with the science to bring fossil fuel emissions to net-zero by mid-century, far beyond the ambition of the Obama administration.
Our top priority for [2020] is building the multiracial, cross-class youth movement that we need to elect leaders who will champion the Green New Deal,” Stephen O’Hanlon, spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement, said in an email. The youth-led advocacy group helped catapult the Green New Deal into the national discussion on climate with a sit-in outside the office of then-House Speaker-in-Waiting Nancy Pelosi right after the 2018 midterm election.
Public opinion on the Green New Deal has become politically polarized, with Democrats overwhelmingly in favor and Republicans opposed. But O’Hanlon said it is significant that polling shows it is popular among swing voters in pivotal states.
“Any candidate for office who wants to win the youth vote in 2020 should back it,” O’Hanlon said.
Easier to Get Excited About than Carbon Taxes
The Green New Deal, at its core, is a marriage of two policy goals: getting greenhouse gas emissions to net- zero and creating jobs and economic security for all. In a sense, it is an extension of the idea, dating back to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, that climate action must be bound up in the drive for poverty reduction and economic justice.
But charismatic leaders like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have helped supercharge the concept for American appeal—calling for a 10-year mobilization akin to the moon shot, the industrial buildup for World War II, and of course, FDR’s New Deal.
What has it meant to the climate movement? “In one word, ‘hope,'” said RL Miller, founder of Climate Hawks Vote. It has allowed the discussion to move beyond “the only solution that had been on the horizon”— taxing carbon—which Miller said has divided climate activists “into ‘Team Have To’ and ‘Team Don’t Want To.'”
“Frankly, nobody has ever been excited about waking up in the morning and thinking, ‘I’m going to be taxed for carbon!’ What the Green New Deal has done is broken through that, with something you can genuinely get excited about,” Miller said.
If you liked this post you’ll love our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed with the latest news, commentary and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.If you liked this post you’ll love our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed with the latest news, commentary and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.
** Updated at 2:05 p.m. to provide contact link for NJ State Senators**
By Frank Brill, EnviroPolitics Editor
The New Jersey Composting Council is urging Garden State residents to contact the state Senator representing their district and request a yes vote to accept Gov. Phil Murphy’s recommended amendments to A3726/S1206.
The legislation would require major generators of food waste (i.e., casinos, universities, restaurants, sports stadiums, etc.) to recycle unused food for compost, energy capture, and other environmentally beneficial uses.
Please note that the bill number (S-1206) used in the Composting Council’s message below is not accurate. It applies to an earlier version of the bill. The version that the governor conditionally vetoed is A3726/S4039. Use those numbers if you call or email your state senator.
You can find the contact information for your NJ state senator here.
If you like this post you’ll love our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed with the latest news, opinion, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.
The New Jersey Assembly’s Environment and Solid Waste Committee will meet–likely for the last time in this two-year session–on Monday, Dec. 6, to take up A4819.
The bill would establish goals, initiatives, and programs to encourage the use of plug-in electric vehicles.
The committee will convene at 10 a.m. in Room 12 of the State House Annex.
Pittsburgh-based Burns White has acquired 13-lawyer Center City defense litigation boutique Christie & Young.
The deal, which became effective Jan. 1, expands Burns White’s presence to almost 70 lawyers in the Philadelphia region, spread over offices in Philadelphia, Conshohocken, Cherry Hill and Wilmington. It also enhances its healthcare and professional liability defense litigation practices.
The firm has a 15-attorney Energy Law practice chaired by Matthew G. Brouse as well as an eight-member Environmental Compliance practice. Its chairman is T.H. Lyda.
Christie & Young Managing Partner Jim Young said the genesis of the deal was in early 2019, when both firms were representing co-defendants in cases in Scranton and developed a rapport. That led to merger talks, which gained traction through the course of the year.
“We simply saw this as a good opportunity to work with great lawyers and broaden the services we could offer our clients,” Young said.
Burns White CEO David White said the firm had been looking to open a Center City office for quite some time, as it often has cases there as a result of representing railroad companies in Federal Employer Liability Act matters. He hopes to expand this work now that the firm has a Philadelphia location.
David White at Burns White’s Pittsburgh headquarters. LEN TUCCI
The former Christie & Young lawyers will maintain their offices at 1880 John F. Kennedy Blvd. while Burns White will keep its existing locations at 100 Four Falls Corporate Center in Conshohocken, 457 Haddonfield Road in Cherry Hill and 1 Righter Parkway in Wilmington. Christie & Young closed satellite offices in New York and Boston the day before the merger was completed.
“We had an interest in those two markets, just not at this time,” White said.
Founded in 1987, Burns White now has more than 150 lawyers spread over seven offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Ohio and West Virginia. It is ranked No. 8 on the Pittsburgh Business Times list of the largest law firms in that city.
TD Bank and the Arbor Day Foundation Grants Available
TD Bank and the Arbor Day Foundation have teamed up to offer municipalities $20,000-$25,000 grants for local forestry projects. These TD Green Space Grants will offer North American municipalities support for creative programs and projects that use green infrastructure development, tree planting, forestry stewardship, and community green space expansion as a way to advance environmental and economic benefits toward a low-carbon economy.
The 2020 theme for the program is, “Beat the Heat: Using Green Infrastructure to Cool Down Urban Heat Islands.”
